Just because you say something racist once doesn't make you a racist. I was in a situation with a friend where he shouted the N word when he got frustrated with a video game, while he was sitting beside a black person. The friend who shouted it isn't remotely racist but he just shouted it as a word that came to him in a fit of anger.
People can say something wrong and bad and as long as they grow from it and improve then they should be able to. I like modern PewDiePie, I think he can express his thoughts very well and speak on these situations in a rational way. If he was a straight up racist then it would be different and I wouldn't enjoy him, but as somebody who watches him, I think that the media is blowing this way out of proportion.
This entire post is a series of contradictions, but I'm going to focus on this part.
You acknowledge your friend made a mistake, that he needed to grow and improve, but deny he ever had a shred of racism within him. Do you think getting angry and saying the n-word is something people routinely do? Do you think someone who does that is likely to be one of those rare individuals who hasn't internalized any racist attitudes, who somehow has no meaningful blindspots on the subject of race?
Or do you think that was a serious mistake, that it was very much a racist thing he did, and it was revealing of a serious need to grow specifically
because it was an overtly racist thing to do? I would go with this one.
And even then, I would agree your friend probably deserved room to grow and improve. But that process isn't helped by covering your eyes as to the nature of his mistake. Same with Pewdiepie: it so happens that he was
also broadcasting to a massive audience, but I would like for him to become better, too, keeping in mind the starting point that shouting the n-word over a video game stream reveals.
I would hope your friend has showcased more evidence of getting better. I'm not sure you've ever really wrapped your head around just how loud Pewdiepie's voice is among young people, but think about it for a moment. You'd think saying the n-word the way he did would really,
really spark some introspection. But it hasn't. Look at this most recent example: after signal boosting a Nazi, giving him something like 20,000+ more subscribers, he has actually
defended said Nazi. Where is the evidence of growth, the evidence that he has become more conscious of his influence? Where is the introspection, the warning people away from such channels, the plan to do better in the future? Nowhere to be found.
Think to your friend again. Sometimes we live well enough with our blindspots that we feel perfectly comfortable not really addressing them. It seems to me fans of Pewdiepie are basically living within that comfortable place. Pewdiepie, though, doesn't or at least shouldn't have that luxury; he's privileged with immense power. His blindspots manifest in the form of directing his massive, suggestible audience to a racist channel, and then thinking it's not a particularly big deal. You need to call that out.
