(I apologize in advance if talking about the podcast is discouraged. I don't know if that's a joke or if most hexbears feel that way). But anyway, next month marks the two-year anniversary of George Floyd's awful murder. Listening to the show in the summer of 2020, and later reading some stray commentary on this site, it seemed like the podcast kind of whiffed it on the protests. But idk, is that fair to say? I believe they participated in some marches in NYC, but I also remember Matt saying that "defund the police" was dead-on-arrival as a slogan, because cops will always be around as long as capitalism exists. I also remember there being a pretty rancid take about "working class" cops in a Taibbi episode, as well as an episode that dunked on a racial sensitivity/workplace training book. Fair enough about the capitalism opinion, and the book, which was no doubt written by a rich neolib that lacked any material analysis. I understand that CTH is a news commentary/comedy/dirtbag show co-hosted by white people, so it's not going to be the best resource on racial theory. I also understand that a big part of CTH is entertainment. But I'm curious if you have thoughts about Chapo's reaction to the 2020 protests. And thanks for sharing them.
Yeah I definitely think most people recognize they're just a source of entertainment for some. I've got about 9 podcasts that get auto downloaded and sometimes I'll listen to an episode but I feel like I rarely finish it. They get some cool interviews sometimes. I mainly stay to hear Matt unleash some shit cause he cracks me up and honestly says a lot of true shit.
I have the worse memory so it's hard for me to recall most of their coverage of the protests but I don't think there was anything flagrant about them. There is a lot of throw away comments on those pods that I don't really think too much about. I've kinda accepted pretty much everyone in media is gonna end up saying some shit I don't like or agree with and unless it's a constant thing that becomes annoying I just let it go. They do commonly link and/or interview mutual aid groups which is cool. I know they did that a few times with bail relief during the protests
thanks for this balanced take. This approach sounds healthy. It's true that if you're in the media glare long enough you'll say something wack; and even short of that, there's plenty of leftist infighting, unfortunately, so you can't please everyone