JAZZ HANDS

Video Transcript:

We got to mention this because this is kind of interesting. A university in the UK is saying, hold the applause. And in replace of the applause, we're going to adopt the jazz hands. They want the jazz hands instead of the applause. And the reason being? The student's union thinks the applause is kind of rude. It's kind of alarming for the presenter. So at debates, during speeches, they want the audience to break out and jazz hands. Okay, hold on. How is that alarming for the presenter? Because normally when you hear a applause, I would think, you know what, I'm making a good point. People are with me. They're supporting me. They're behind me and you get like a surge of confidence from them, don't you? I know. I love. I'm an enthusiastic clapper. And I'm one of those people that will really put everything into an applause. Kind of like Nicole Kidman at the It Was At The Grammys. And when she said she didn't want to damage her brain. I don't clap like that. But I really, I to show my support. So that would be really tough for me. Although, you know, I don't mind a good jazz hand either, but I just find for a presenter. It would just be really strange to see a full auditorium of people doing jazz hands. Oh, yeah, that would be weird. I mean, that to me would be a little more disconcerting than getting applause. But were they getting complaints or something from people? They must have been, I guess. I don't know. I think the students union, I just, this is maybe one issue that should be left alone. If you've been complaining about applause, we say, boo, boo, boo, boo. We would love applause. Yeah. It can trigger issues for students who have autism, sensory issues and deafness. And it can discourage them from being present at those events. Which visually looks like this. People have more informally heard it referred to as jazz hands, but that is the official British Sign Language version of topic. Do you know other people who have got here in difficult as to who it would bother? I don't personally, so I don't know very other many students who have the same issues. So you kind of wonder who this is for them? Well, a little bit, yeah, I suppose, yeah. But, yeah, I mean, if there are those who do experience those problems, I would like that. I think we find to be implemented as a whole. I think that that is a very important issue that you raise. I think that where we are at the moment in this conversation, this is the solution that we currently have. So how should you show your approval? British Sign Language Coffee, which visually looks like this. People have more informally heard it referred to as jazz hands, but that is the official British Sign Language version of topic. The Democratic Socialists of America held their annual convention in Atlanta over the weekend, as you might expect from a socialist event. There were hints of totalitarianism from the very beginning. Upon arrival, socialists were given the rules. No clapping, no talking to cops, and no aggressive sense. First of all, in this room, I see that no one is clapping for me. It could be because I'm not engaging, but it also is because everyone is doing this. And that's really important because those loud bursts of noise, even though this is a noisy space, when we can do something like reducing that, that's really important. So please don't clap, shoot up these. You have to have your credentials at all time. We're not trying to be jerks, but there are right-wing infiltrators who are trying to get in here. Don't really talk to anybody who doesn't have a credential. Don't talk to cops. Don't talk to maggot. We're almost there. There's also, when Piedmont 8, a completely quiet room, one thing to note there, please don't go into that space with anything that's like an aggressive scent, for instance, right? Try to be chill, right? Take a deep breath. And feel better before you say anything. So at a traditional socialist convention, comrades would applaud Stalin, for example, for half an hour. But at the DSA convention, they were obediently silent. Could you all give one more round of ASL applause for our fantastic speakers? We are so lucky to have you in the socialist movement. But for some, the silence wasn't enough when the floor was open for comments, the complaints began to roll in. Watch this. Good point of privilege. Good point of personal privilege. Yes. Guys, first of all, James Jackson Sacramento, he, him, I just want to say, can we please keep the chatter to a minimum? I'm one of the people who's very, very prone to sensory overload. There's a lot of whispering and chatter going on. It's making it very difficult for me to focus. Please, can we just, I know it's all fresh and ready to go, but can we please just keep the chatter to a minimum? It's affecting my ability to focus. Thank you. Thank you, Comrade. Okay, is there a speaker against name, chapter from now? Mr. McBride, point of personal privilege. Yes. Please do not use gendered language to address everyone. No gendered language. The guy or person, we should say, complaining about sensory overload was a guy called James Jackson, he's self-described socialist from Sacramento. Jackson was complaining about the noise with something of a theme for the weekend. I have already asked people to be mindful of the chatter of their comrades who are sensitive to sensory overload and that goes double for the heckling and the hissing. It is also triggering to my anxiety. The P-com hardly doesn't just, isn't just for like, you know, let's keep things civil or whatever. It's so that people aren't going to get triggered and so that it doesn't affect their performance as a delegate. So it used to be when the proletariat gathered for a convention, they talked about how to liberate the proletariat. But now they talk about triggering James's anxiety. Things have changed a lot. We'll have more of that video in just a moment. But first tonight, Angela Nagle is the author of the book Kill All Normies, online culture wars with Fort Chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Rite. She is a keen observer of the political left and member of it, in fact, and she joins us tonight. Angela, thanks very much for coming on. Hi, thanks for having me. So I want to be fair and I, you know, obviously there are freaks at every kind of political event and I don't think that James Jackson from Sacramento was every Democratic Socialist. But I'm wondering how influential is this group on the left right now? Is it worth paying attention to what they say at their convention? Definitely. I mean, cranks have always been around on the left and it all well-wrote about this long time ago. But the difference here, I suppose, is that the DSA was a relatively small organization. This original founding had Michael Harrington was one of the founders, had roots in actually the Catholic Workers Movement. So it's changed a lot just in the last two years. And there was a huge influx of people kind of after the 2016 elections. And part of the DSA is the kind of idea of the DSA, I guess, is that they do want to influence the Democratic Party. They want to be a kind of an external left wing, if you like, of the Democratic Party. You can see how they have influenced its ideas. Now many of their economic ideas are ones that I totally support and are actually very popular, Medicare for all, a wealth tax and so on. And actually, if they would just stick to those economic issues, they would kind of have this in the bag because they have a whole set now of issues that the public has moved to the left on, on economics. The problem is that they have to wrap it in this stuff that you've just seen to the point where, for example, if I tried to join the DSA, I'm sure they would just screech me out of the place. I wouldn't be able to. And I know so many people who have left who were members before this influx happened. They have this culture of purging everyone. But this is something that seems to happen to every campaign on the left and every organization on the left. I would think what's so baffling is so they're socialists, democratic socialists, so they couldn't are non-sertalitarian. So you would think that their main concern would be the plight of working people who really are in trouble in America. Look at the suicide rate. We talked about it in the open. And yet when they get up there, it seems like a bunch of rich kids almost in therapy whining about their triggers and their anxieties and their gender like who cares. These don't seem like people who are concerned about America's working class to me. Yeah. And I watched some of the full clip and they were talking a lot about their invisible disabilities, which is very convenient because of course you can't say that they don't have one. You just have to allow them to shout at you. And the only invisible disability they have is like bourgeois narcissism. bourgeois narcissism is a weird, I mean I don't think if I spent a year trying to think of a better description, I could come up with anything more precise than that. Can you just savor for 20 seconds the irony of a group of democratic socialists besought with bourgeois narcissism? I know. But I'm sure for people on the right this is hilarious and it's probably gold. But for me, I just find it just unbearably sad because I've seen this happen over and over again with countless political parties, campaigns, it seems to be almost impossible for good people within the organization to stand up to these people and stop it happening. And now it's too late. I mean could you honestly, could any normal person sit in that room? I don't think so. No, no, could any normal person sit in that room now? Angelina, great to see you tonight. Thank you. Thanks. So if Lenin or Trotsky had showed up to rally the proletariat at the DSA convention, they probably would not have been allowed to take the stage as one person explained. The right to speak of the DSA convention is determined based on sex and skin color. Second, we'll be using progressive stack. Marshalls will be at each mic to kind of negotiate progressive stack. We know that not every oppression is visible. So we will have people at each mic to think about who's already spoken before. Gender, race, ability, orientation and more.