Counter-protesting with Deafening Silence

Apparently the Beyoncé backlash is not over. There is a big anti-Beyoncé protest scheduled next week at NFL headquarters. There is also an anti-anti-Beyoncé protest in the works. There’s no sign yet of an anti-anti-anti-Beyoncé protest, but give it time.

I generally believe that any protest should include concrete demands, otherwise it’s very difficult to figure out when the protest has achieved its goals and is “over.” Some protests, like those that are part of the Black Lives Matter movement, have demands that include massive paradigm shifts and social change, so there isn’t really an “over” and the demands can be less concrete.

Apparently, the Beyoncé protesters want to “tell the NFL we don’t want hate speech and racism at the Super Bowl ever again!” Let’s assume for a minute that Beyoncé’s performance indeed constitutes hate speech and racism (I do not believe it does). I can only guess that the protesters want the NFL to pre-approve all halftime shows henceforth? And reject anything that is the slightest bit controversial, whether it’s presented by a group of elderly British men, a middle-aged white woman from Michigan, or a young Texan black woman?

And what do the counter-protesters want? Presumably they watched and enjoyed the halftime show, as did I, and are perfectly OK if the selection continues as usual, that is, a committee identifies which performers are hot and reaches out to them. While I get the concept of showing numbers in support of a thing that a group is protesting, I wonder if the plans to counter-protest give the protesters more legitimacy than they deserve.

And that is really the question. When idiots like Westboro Baptist Church, Roosh V, or Donald Trump squawk and screech and pout, are we better off yelling back, or giving them exactly as much attention as they deserve?

Several months ago I suggested that the best way to deal with the Trump candidacy is to stop paying attention to it. The man is an attention-hog who is likely to stay around as long as he’s in headlines. If the media takes him out of their coverage, the candidacy loses its point.

Some friends told me that it was dangerous not to take him seriously. I’m not sure that was the case back then; now that he’s become the frontrunner, it might be impossible to stop the train, and indeed, the prospect of his election is terrifying. But in the initial stages, I wonder if ignoring him would have prevented him from getting the support he now has, and if that lack of support, or even just the lack of attention itself, would have nipped that disaster in the bud.

Last week, Roosh V, self-proclaimed pick-up artist and leader of the laughable “neomasculinity” movement, cancelled a set of secret meet-ups once the plan got out and the likely backlash became apparent. I guess it’s probably a good thing for those meet-ups to not take place, but if they had, would they have been more than a handful of grumpy dudes I wouldn’t associate with anyway complaining about the yucky wimmins who won’t go out with them? Can that group of outliers really be said to be dangerous?

Instead of helping, I fear that backlash gives validity to an invalid position. It creates attention for the position, and in many ways validates their distorted worldview. They think everyone is out to get them; the backlash just proves it.

I think a strategy of non-acknowledgement of such positions is something that at least ought to be tried. The NFL Beyoncé backlash is the perfect time to give it a go, because there will likely be no real consequences. The NFL is unlikely to promise not to feature the hottest artists if they’re too controversial, and even if the protesters manage to turn the protest into a boycott, the NFL isn’t going anywhere. And even if they get everything they want, big deal. Super Bowl halftime shows will become a little less interesting. That’s a small price to pay for shutting down fools.