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Post by Ishmeal Loves BBL Bayley on Jan 1, 2022 11:14:12 GMT -5
Legit question, and apologies if this sounds...idk...stupid or wrong. What do they do to fix it? I know it's not an easy answer, or as precise as "hire X" or "push X" but, where do they start? I mean at least you asked and it's not stupid at all.
Right now TK needs to do this.
- Apologize in public, apologize in private, put out a statement and say they'll do better - Hire more black talent. Put black talent like Keith Lee, Ricochet, New Day when they sign years down the line, heavy hitters, put them in the ME similar to a others who debuted there like Bryan and Moxley
- Elevate the black talent you have up a level from lower card to midcard to midcard to utility main event. It's about elevating. Don't make it seem like they're lesser because from an optics standpoint they do appear to be lesser since they're not getting the same opportunities
- Keep them consistent, you can't give them a match with Punk and then throw them back in that same spot prior like people criticize other companies when they do it. QT Marshall was giving CM Punk the business waaaaaayyyyyyy after that Hobbs match
- Make them great characters
Like...
If you ask a black kid who he wants to be in AEW who would he say? Ricky Starks and Hobbs got a boss in Tazz and even Hook's outshining them from a presentation standpoint now. Dante and Lio are dope but they are below guys like the Pillars and other midcarders. Scorpio Sky's character's turned into a guy whining after his "chance" that he failed in. Jay Lethal sucks. We got nobody.
Like, and I keep stressing this, but we said in that AEW diversity ME thread years ago that they started late and until they fix it more talk would happen. And what happened? More stuff. All they gotta do now is act as quick as possible because they started late. All those excuses used in that other thread doesn't mean much when you've got talent like Swole and Lockhart saying they could have been way better. Thank you for the reassurance and a great answer. I can see where, 3 years ago, there were no ready-made black main event talents, at least for the males, for AEW to scoop up. Unless I'm overlooking or just don't remember. But I'm thinking, had you put Hobbs in the Wardlow role, he'd be in the same spot and just as ready.
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Post by gentlemengreg1 on Jan 1, 2022 11:17:13 GMT -5
Almost everyone is coming off bad in this situation. Tony Khan has been in danger of doing something stupid like this for quite awhile now as he is much too sensitive with public criticism.
Big Swole has every right to say what she said and Tony should have been professional enough to leave it alone. It was obvious to most people Big Swole was not “Elite” as a wrestler. TK has to learn to let his work do the talking instead of his mouth.
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Jan 1, 2022 11:17:26 GMT -5
To be fair Swole herself said her Crohn got worse after All Out 2020, you just cant push someone to main event status if the person cant stay healthy. Which, again, is fair, but the trouble is, not much happened when she came back which didn’t really make much sense. And if she wasn’t healthy for that, well, there were other things she could be doing. Yeah this. Feargus McReddit is right here. Big Swole had 29 matches after that Britt Baker match in the timespan of 1 entire year. Yeah, you cannot push someone to main event status if they can't stay healthy but with that said if you're consistently giving this person matches (when you later on said they weren't good at wrestling), when they're wrestling 2-3 times a month, that doesn't add up. If she's wrestling that much then you use her well because she was at least healthy enough to be getting matches. She wasn't really sitting out, she was still working more than most people.
Yeah, like we all acknowledge that Britt was bad when she started and she was able to flip a switch in a persona and they ran with it We also acknowledge Swole was green and not good in the ring but she had a ton of potential and someone worth putting time in However, through hell or high water they were going to make sure Britt gets over somehow. She was destined to win the title at some point, just a matter of when she was ready. Swole did not have that. Despite her potential, she was going to get good showings and busy work but the ceiling was on her. Without the disease, could she have forced their hand if she improved at such a rate like Britt? Maybe. However, if we are looking at things for what they are, they have shut down everyone for Britt. Even Thunder Rosa who deserves the title and will beat Britt at some point for it is just buying time until then I am interested to see what level of attention will Britt still command even when she drops the title. If they do Rosa like they did Shida, that's going to be a big slap in the face Yeah, same with that Dark Order mess that was just that, a pure mess. It took them a while but they kept pushing and they got it. For some reason these others they just kept pushing regardless. Didn't work out quite the same way here and hell, even talent where they can go (Scorpio Sky for example) they didn't do anything afterwards with him.
AEW has shown when they want something to get over, they will keep trying until it gets over or they scrap it Black talent really haven't been in that position to succeed yet. Brandi Rhodes got multiple chances to get her shit over despite it not working at all but look at her position in the company Speaking of which, has she even said anything about this TK mess?
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lucas_lee
Hank Scorpio
Heel turn is finished, now stripping away my personality
Posts: 6,972
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Post by lucas_lee on Jan 1, 2022 11:18:05 GMT -5
I mean at least you asked and it's not stupid at all.
Right now TK needs to do this.
- Apologize in public, apologize in private, put out a statement and say they'll do better - Hire more black talent. Put black talent like Keith Lee, Ricochet, New Day when they sign years down the line, heavy hitters, put them in the ME similar to a others who debuted there like Bryan and Moxley
- Elevate the black talent you have up a level from lower card to midcard to midcard to utility main event. It's about elevating. Don't make it seem like they're lesser because from an optics standpoint they do appear to be lesser since they're not getting the same opportunities
- Keep them consistent, you can't give them a match with Punk and then throw them back in that same spot prior like people criticize other companies when they do it. QT Marshall was giving CM Punk the business waaaaaayyyyyyy after that Hobbs match
- Make them great characters
Like...
If you ask a black kid who he wants to be in AEW who would he say? Ricky Starks and Hobbs got a boss in Tazz and even Hook's outshining them from a presentation standpoint now. Dante and Lio are dope but they are below guys like the Pillars and other midcarders. Scorpio Sky's character's turned into a guy whining after his "chance" that he failed in. Jay Lethal sucks. We got nobody.
Like, and I keep stressing this, but we said in that AEW diversity ME thread years ago that they started late and until they fix it more talk would happen. And what happened? More stuff. All they gotta do now is act as quick as possible because they started late. All those excuses used in that other thread doesn't mean much when you've got talent like Swole and Lockhart saying they could have been way better. Thank you for the reassurance and a great answer. I can see where, 3 years ago, there were no ready-made black main event talents, at least for the males, for AEW to scoop up. Unless I'm overlooking or just don't remember. But I'm thinking, had you put Hobbs in the Wardlow role, he'd be in the same spot and just as ready. I mentioned it before but these guys weren't given any opportunities. They're given a small little grasp of main event matches then put in the back. It says a lot when the Gunns have better records than Shawn Deen and other minority wrestlers they could elevate
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markymark
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Posts: 19,822
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Post by markymark on Jan 1, 2022 11:20:44 GMT -5
Now the rumors pops up that Swole was jealous that Jade took her spot and thats why she was throwing shade at her on twitter months ago.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jan 1, 2022 11:20:56 GMT -5
In all seriousness, the biggest takeaway here is that Khan needs to talk to his locker room and make clear that he knows someone in a position of authority like he is has no place responding to criticism like that for the entire world to see.
There's loads of discussions and good faith disagreements that could be had concerning various issues pertaining to diversity, the women's division, or any number of other topics we talk about here fairly routinely. One could take issue with what Swole is saying, could feel she's spot on or completely off the mark, but at the end of the day she's not in a position of authority, Khan is.
Power, responsibility, we know the drill on that. Own up, admit your emotions got the best of you, vow to make a change on that (hey, what about, I dunno, running a tweet past a PR person when discussing any talent there might be even a whiff of controversy around? Just a thought), make clear the door is open if anyone has concerns about representation on the show or in the locker room and wants to discuss it, there's an array of things that could be done including bringing in people to help with booking some areas where, as Swole put it, Khan or others might be "spread too thin" to really focus on.
Because, again, a boss cannot be tweeting like that, you just can't. Even if you believe Swole is wrong or saying things in poor faith for whatever reason, the person in charge has to avoid getting into it; think back to AJ Lee calling out Stephanie McMahon on twitter about pay in the women's division, and even if it might've been through metaphorically gritted teeth Stephanie, to her credit, only answered with something like "thank you for your input" or something along those lines. If she wanted to rant and rave in behind an office door about it or even confront AJ on the phone over the matter, fine, but the public, and by extension your talent who are observing the proceedings, don't need to see all that.
As for the rest, seeing colorism come up is deeply disheartening, the usual talk about what "counts" as diversity is dispiriting much of the time, the people who just want to watch drama always make things worse, and people acting like Khan has nothing to apologize for are out to lunch, too. What a way to kick off 2022. This wouldn't have happened if you were still here, Betty White.
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The Ichi
Patti Mayonnaise
AGGRESSIVE Executive Janitor of the Third Floor Manager's Bathroom
Posts: 37,650
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Post by The Ichi on Jan 1, 2022 11:21:24 GMT -5
Kind of tired of people saying there's no-one they can find to give a push to. We're talking about a company that got CM Punk loving wrestling again. They just haven't tried hard enough here
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2022 11:29:46 GMT -5
AEW has shown when they want something to get over, they will keep trying until it gets over or they scrap it Black talent really haven't been in that position to succeed yet. Brandi Rhodes got multiple chances to get her shit over despite it not working at all but look at her position in the company Speaking of which, has she even said anything about this TK mess? Nah, not this. She's talked about it in the past but not this. Guess we'll wait because if she's who she says she is she'll say something. Still, she could be shutting up because hey, all her stuff goes through.
Thank you for the reassurance and a great answer. I can see where, 3 years ago, there were no ready-made black main event talents, at least for the males, for AEW to scoop up. Unless I'm overlooking or just don't remember. But I'm thinking, had you put Hobbs in the Wardlow role, he'd be in the same spot and just as ready. I mentioned it before but these guys weren't given any opportunities. They're given a small little grasp of main event matches then put in the back. It says a lot when the Gunns have better records than Shawn Deen and other minority wrestlers they could elevate
That's such a true but painful statement. Too true.
Thank you for the reassurance and a great answer. I can see where, 3 years ago, there were no ready-made black main event talents, at least for the males, for AEW to scoop up. Unless I'm overlooking or just don't remember. But I'm thinking, had you put Hobbs in the Wardlow role, he'd be in the same spot and just as ready. I say back then they could have found some dudes, worked with them and then they'd be at a higher level than now. They just started mad late. Could have been brand new trainees or something but needless to say if Swole and others like Darius felt something could have been done then there had to have been reasons as to why.
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lucas_lee
Hank Scorpio
Heel turn is finished, now stripping away my personality
Posts: 6,972
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Post by lucas_lee on Jan 1, 2022 11:31:54 GMT -5
In all seriousness, the biggest takeaway here is that Khan needs to talk to his locker room and make clear that he knows someone in a position of authority like he is has no place responding to criticism like that for the entire world to see. There's loads of discussions and good faith disagreements that could be had concerning various issues pertaining to diversity, the women's division, or any number of other topics we talk about here fairly routinely. One could take issue with what Swole is saying, could feel she's spot on or completely off the mark, but at the end of the day she's not in a position of authority, Khan is. Power, responsibility, we know the drill on that. Own up, admit your emotions got the best of you, vow to make a change on that (hey, what about, I dunno, running a tweet past a PR person when discussing any talent there might be even a whiff of controversy around? Just a thought), make clear the door is open if anyone has concerns about representation on the show or in the locker room and wants to discuss it, there's an array of things that could be done including bringing in people to help with booking some areas where, as Swole put it, Khan or others might be "spread too thin" to really focus on. Because, again, a boss cannot be tweeting like that, you just can't. Even if you believe Swole is wrong or saying things in poor faith for whatever reason, the person in charge has to avoid getting into it; think back to AJ Lee calling out Stephanie McMahon on twitter about pay in the women's division, and even if it might've been through metaphorically gritted teeth Stephanie, to her credit, only answered with something like "thank you for your input" or something along those lines. If she wanted to rant and rave in behind an office door about it or even confront AJ on the phone over the matter, fine, but the public, and by extension your talent who are observing the proceedings, don't need to see all that. As for the rest, seeing colorism come up is deeply disheartening, the usual talk about what "counts" as diversity is dispiriting much of the time, the people who just want to watch drama always make things worse, and people acting like Khan has nothing to apologize for are out to lunch, too. What a way to kick off 2022. This wouldn't have happened if you were still here, Betty White. I've been saying it before and again TK was always like this. Hes really thin skinned with his players and fans on Fulham and the Jags. Its a personality quirk that he needs to fix because he's gonna get eaten alive if he doesn't
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Post by kingoftheindies on Jan 1, 2022 11:32:51 GMT -5
Kind of tired of people saying there's no-one they can find to give a push to. We're talking about a company that got CM Punk loving wrestling again. They just haven't tried hard enough here I think there's people they clearly see talent in but they need to pull a trigger.
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lucas_lee
Hank Scorpio
Heel turn is finished, now stripping away my personality
Posts: 6,972
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Post by lucas_lee on Jan 1, 2022 11:36:29 GMT -5
Kind of tired of people saying there's no-one they can find to give a push to. We're talking about a company that got CM Punk loving wrestling again. They just haven't tried hard enough here I think there's people they clearly see talent in but they need to pull a trigger. Theyre really frightened of offending their base fans and accused of going "woke" if a black talent is suddenly elevated to the ME scene. Also the diversity issue is mostly a men's single title scene thing. Which is also the most important division of AEW.
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y4j1981
Dennis Stamp
Rowsdower
Posts: 4,715
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Post by y4j1981 on Jan 1, 2022 11:40:31 GMT -5
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Post by HMARK Center on Jan 1, 2022 11:41:43 GMT -5
In all seriousness, the biggest takeaway here is that Khan needs to talk to his locker room and make clear that he knows someone in a position of authority like he is has no place responding to criticism like that for the entire world to see. There's loads of discussions and good faith disagreements that could be had concerning various issues pertaining to diversity, the women's division, or any number of other topics we talk about here fairly routinely. One could take issue with what Swole is saying, could feel she's spot on or completely off the mark, but at the end of the day she's not in a position of authority, Khan is. Power, responsibility, we know the drill on that. Own up, admit your emotions got the best of you, vow to make a change on that (hey, what about, I dunno, running a tweet past a PR person when discussing any talent there might be even a whiff of controversy around? Just a thought), make clear the door is open if anyone has concerns about representation on the show or in the locker room and wants to discuss it, there's an array of things that could be done including bringing in people to help with booking some areas where, as Swole put it, Khan or others might be "spread too thin" to really focus on. Because, again, a boss cannot be tweeting like that, you just can't. Even if you believe Swole is wrong or saying things in poor faith for whatever reason, the person in charge has to avoid getting into it; think back to AJ Lee calling out Stephanie McMahon on twitter about pay in the women's division, and even if it might've been through metaphorically gritted teeth Stephanie, to her credit, only answered with something like "thank you for your input" or something along those lines. If she wanted to rant and rave in behind an office door about it or even confront AJ on the phone over the matter, fine, but the public, and by extension your talent who are observing the proceedings, don't need to see all that. As for the rest, seeing colorism come up is deeply disheartening, the usual talk about what "counts" as diversity is dispiriting much of the time, the people who just want to watch drama always make things worse, and people acting like Khan has nothing to apologize for are out to lunch, too. What a way to kick off 2022. This wouldn't have happened if you were still here, Betty White. I've been saying it before and again TK was always like this. Hes really thin skinned with his players and fans on Fulham and the Jags. Its a personality quirk that he needs to fix because he's gonna get eaten alive if he doesn't Yeah, and I'm sure it's easier to deal with when you're the son of the owner than when you are the head honcho for a team/promotion/company. Jaguar or Fulham stuff could be kind of shuffled away with "well, that's the owner's son, not Shad Khan himself" (not saying that's right or wrong, just a perception thing), but Tony is the guy at the top of AEW, so his words and actions will reflect much stronger on it than whatever he says about football or US football. He's certainly pushed a few lines before now, nothing that ever seemed too serious, but this should be his wakeup call: there's a reason lots of CEOs and bosses resort to bland, corporate speak when doing tweets or whatever, and giving yourself some distance from your emotions before putting something out into the digital aether is one of them. I don't mind him defending the company if he feels it's more diverse than it's given credit for, I'm sure he's read tons of criticisms that he feels are incorrect or even sometimes outright made in bad faith against him and the promotion, but as the boss you still respond to that in a professional sounding manner (e.g. "We are a company that embraces our diversity and always interested in expanding it and providing the kind of representation that matches our audience" or whatever), and again, even if he has a justifiable reason to be pissed at Swole there's no place for him dropping that last line in there, it's just not for public consumption, period. Seeing the responses some of the talent is getting for how they do or don't talk about this is just excruciating, but that's just twitter, isn't it? Ricky Starks had the right idea, close the window blinds and peace out on the whole social media frenzy that's underway. EDIT: That said, I disagree with the idea that they "need to pull the trigger" on anyone. You push people to where you think they'll be best served, and if that means taking time to let people develop more before you put them in a major spot, that's far, far better than pushing someone before they're ready, having them be exposed, and then potentially derailing a promising young career. It shouldn't need to take a decade or something, of course, but this is the start of year three for the promotion, which really isn't much time especially for a promotion that's meant to serve as a "destination" long term landing spot, not a smaller promotion a lot of wrestlers might just be coming through for a short burst before aiming for bigger things; these are wrestlers you're looking to have around for actual decades on international TV, not for a few years before they bounce someplace else. Like, I'm stunned at the number of people I'm seeing who think the TBS tournament was explicitly set up to get Jade over by making her the inaugural champion. She hasn't been bad, but the longer match with Rosa showed she's not ready for that spot yet, and the obvious story has been Ruby as the one person who's had to go through every round to get to this point. Strapping Jade up and then trotting her out to have longer, marquee title matches on the regular would be doing her a disservice and hurt her chances of being over for the long term, and feels like a kind of "WWE move" ("go out there and do something that's out of your comfort zone, and get over or else! Sink or swim, damnit!"). Granted I see you're mostly focusing on the guy's division, but we've kind of been over this before; the promotion started with nearly no pre-established black main eventers around to be signed, so the work has largely been done trying to build some younger guys up or give them space to get their reps in or work with mentors. That doesn't mean their booking can't be better; there's always legitimate criticisms that could be made, especially if it feels like someone's not getting enough chances to really get over...though now things might have shifted a bit with an experienced guy like Lethal being signed, and I fully assume that it'll be a pretty different story if guys like Keith Lee or Swerve get signed, they can be pushed high right away. Stuff's changing in the landscape a lot quicker than anyone would've guessed late 2019, given the pandemic, WWE's firings, ROH's hiatus, etc.
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markymark
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Posts: 19,822
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Post by markymark on Jan 1, 2022 11:42:50 GMT -5
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Post by Feargus McReddit on Jan 1, 2022 11:43:52 GMT -5
I feel like things are going well where it’s not spreading around the section but I think it’s best to say it that this is where the issue should stay for the time being, like with the Cody stuff.
Like, if people want to make fun jabs or whatever, no problem but there’s no reason for right now for the topic to go beyond this thread.
Again, all going smoothly right now, just keeping that in mind for people.
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Post by Texas Tornado on Jan 1, 2022 11:58:17 GMT -5
I haven't read this whole thread, so excuse me if I repeat anything, but as a black wrestling fan this shit upset me quite a bit. The microaggression of "well, I didn't re-sign her because she wasn't a good wrestler" followed by an earnest advertisement for the show really just puts the whole thing over the top. Such a throwaway line that proves how gotten to he is about all this.
My biggest problem is that it really paints Swole as not being good enough to have a job. When has he said stuff like that before? Especially after a talent went out of their way to say that there were no hard feelings and the exit interview ended on solid terms. Khan and the office presumably heard all of this from Swole directly already, so him responding in this way makes it seem like all he cares about is the public perception of the company, and not about the mission statement the company laid out from the beginning.
That's a terrible thing to hear from an audience's perspective. The fact that he can't see that is so absurd. Now any of the black fans that are concerned about this won't be able to watch the show in the same way. I liked seeing the community have Swole's back, and DLock & Lio be very vocal about their distaste for the comment, but everyone in the company making Britt think her shit doesn't stink is also a part of the problem (I saw her RTing what Tony said...wtf). I'm not gonna get too far into that, but I don't want to act like that doesn't bother me either.
I don't know, this sucks. Wrestling and Twitter are the two worst things for each other and these idiots keep running to the bird app to flaunt their thin skin. I got more to say, but I'm too tired to even say it. And I'm probably repeating stuff that's been said 100 times in here anyway. Basically, Tony should've just sat there and ate his food. Change needs to happen and it needs to happen quickly.
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SAJ Forth
Wade Wilson
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Half Man-Half Amazing
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Post by SAJ Forth on Jan 1, 2022 12:03:05 GMT -5
This mess is one Khan can ill-afford heading into 2022.
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Post by kingoftheindies on Jan 1, 2022 12:04:51 GMT -5
He liked Tony's tweet and got attacked for it cause he didn't support Swole. Jade, Shawn Dean, and Hobbs have also supported what Tony said supposedly
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pinja
Unicron
Posts: 3,129
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Post by pinja on Jan 1, 2022 12:08:20 GMT -5
I look at Hobbs and think of Mark Henry. I don't wanne wait 15 years until I get one of the best runs I can think of. When a promotion wants to be real and get by without gimmicks, then pushing only refined milk toast athletes is like pushing ten Big Boss Men because the one King Mabel you have isn't ready yet. Diversity leads to representation and diversity is a key way to create a roster full of different characters. Beyond any social aspects it makes a better product.
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Post by Fake Jesus on Jan 1, 2022 12:09:35 GMT -5
An overlooked part of this, if you ignore all the unprofessionalism, is that Khan probably thinks it's f***ing absurd to be told his show isn't diverse when AEW is a minority-owned company. Perhaps it's an emotive issue. It's also probably why he doesn't see having no minority main event talent as a major pressing issue to be solved right now. Blinkers. You know "Only Nixon can go to China?" whatever the opposite of that is, this is it. In the current cultural/media environment hypothetical white man Tony Kant is as concerned with with (And I don't use this pejoratively) virtue signalling on race as they are on other civil rights issues.
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