FEBRUARY 13 — Last week national hockey player Hanis Nadiah Onn was indefinitely suspended from the national team after making a racist remark over social media relating to a recent AR Rahman concert.
Expectedly, she got so much heat from netizens that she deleted her post and apologised but not in time to stop the National Sports Council and Malaysian Hockey Federation deciding on the penalty.
Hanis’ case fits the formula we see replicated dozens of times each year: Individuals make controversial, racist or rude comments online. Thousands of netizens rage. They blast and shame the culprits online, sharing and making viral their offence a million times (mea culpa too, in case you’re wondering). Apologies fall on deaf ears. Punishment or cancellation of some sort follows.
Rinse, repeat.
Let me be clear: Hanis’ remark was entirely uncalled for. It was racist, rude, disrespectful and no self-respecting person should be saying these kinds of things.
The misconduct is real.
My question, though, is how much this kind of “social justice warfare” actually transforms society or is even good for us?
I’ll come right out and say that, as someone who has often (proudly) called out users for their bigoted remarks, my life wasn’t made much better by the fact that I did it.
My relationships with people haven’t improved as a result, I didn’t emerge a more caring person towards my immediate community and, in fact, almost the only outcome of me being an armchair social justice warrior is the sense of elation, smugness and combativeness I get from those short Twitter or Reddit exchanges.
So I managed to shame someone who has made a racist remark online.
Has there been a net increase in the overall good in society? When people are shamed via Instagram or Twitter (and they subsequently get cancelled or fired or whatever), are we nurturing truly respectful ethnic relations or fighting elitism or bigotry in an effective way?
Moralistic shaming may have benefits (eg, holding people accountable for their words and actions) but there is also a dark side which I believe is exacerbated by social media: The tendency to dehumanise culprits and spur bloodlust among participants.
Are we all becoming generally more sensitive and caring towards others, OR are we just being more hyper-sensitive and hyper-hating towards people who aren’t?
The “social justice warrior” mindset, unfortunately, tempts us to lord over and mock people in moral judgment, conviction and sentencing which is hardly the way forward for a society.
As if we ourselves have never made dubious or rude remarks before.
As if we have never had “brain farts” and said what we “really” thought about a certain individual or group.
As if we’re saint-like, writing only stuff which is glowingly positive and inspiring.
Finally, in netizen outrage there is no service involved helping either the victim or the perpetrator.
Truly engaging with a situation or helping a person change usually involves time, sacrifice, listening, working with all parties and so on. But with social media “justice” there is only that self-righteous post or tweet which took all of 30 seconds to produce.
Let me repeat again that I unequivocally believe that what Hanis posted about the AR Rahman concert was wrong. That is not the issue here. Neither am I, like PAS, suggesting that her suspension is overly harsh. I have no opinion about that.
My sole concern is with our online culture of judgment and punishment which, in my view, doesn’t help much in actually making our society more accepting of different ethnicities.
No matter how severe the crime, online shaming and blaming is hardly an ideal approach towards making things right (see note 1).
Netizen outrage is likely not making our country more harmonious, more open, more tolerant, more caring etc. It could, in fact, be the exact opposite.
* Note 1: Journalist Jon Ronson would agree. Check out his book documenting how online shaming multiplies problems instead of solving them. Ronson, J. (2016). So you’ve been publicly shamed. Riverhead Books.
** This is the personal opinion of he columnist.
