Instructor and filmmaker Warren Smith posts movies of classroom discussions (amongst different topics) on his Secret Scholar Society YouTube channel. A video Smith posted on January 26 has gone viral, with over 10 million views on X Twitter since Saturday. The YouTube views are just below 450,000 as of this writing.
Smith opens the video asking his college students what they need to discuss. A boy (or younger man) off digital camera asks if he nonetheless likes the works of Harry Potter creator J.Ok. Rowling “regardless of her bigoted opinions.” (Rowling has been attacked and smeared as “transphobic” for standing up for ladies’s rights although she has expressed help for the trans neighborhood.)
By an train in essential considering, Smith leads the scholar to an epiphany–not by forcing his personal opinion of Rowling on the scholar, however by main the scholar to look at his expressed view that Rowling is bigoted.
Frivolously edited for formatting excerpt from the YouTube transcript:
Instructor: So these guys need to discuss JK Rowling? Is that, so what’s occurring with that, what do you need to know?
Pupil: Uh, she’s she’s had a reasonably controversial previous. I simply need to know like what are your ideas on it and like, do you continue to like her work regardless of her uh, bigoted opinions?
Instructor: So let’s get particular although, let’s outline bigoted opinions, what opinions are bigoted? We’re going to deal with this as a thought experiment. I’m not going to say what’s proper or improper or what option to assume, the entire level is to discover ways to assume not what to assume. Yeah so while you say bigoted, you ,you’re, you’re beginning with the conclusion that given her bigoted opinions. So first let’s begin with does she have bigoted opinions? So when while you say bigoted opinions…
Pupil: She has had a historical past of being extraordinarily transphobic, I’ve heard.
Instructor: You’ve heard, so what, are you able to give me an instance?
The scholar pulled up a 2019 tweet by Rowling and skim it to the instructor, “Costume nevertheless you please. Name your self no matter you want.
Sleep with any consenting grownup who’ll have you ever. Stay your greatest life in peace and safety. However pressure girls out of their jobs for stating that intercourse is actual?”
Costume nevertheless you please.
Name your self no matter you want.
Sleep with any consenting grownup who’ll have you ever.
Stay your greatest life in peace and safety.
However pressure girls out of their jobs for stating that intercourse is actual? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill— J.Ok. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 19, 2019
The scholar adopted with a 2020 tweet by Rowling that he described as an apology, “I respect each trans individual’s proper to dwell any method that feels genuine and cozy to them. I’d march with you in case you had been discriminated in opposition to on the idea of being trans. On the similar time, my life has been formed by being feminine. I don’t consider it’s hateful to say so.”
I respect each trans individual’s proper to dwell any method that feels genuine and cozy to them. I’d march with you in case you had been discriminated in opposition to on the idea of being trans. On the similar time, my life has been formed by being feminine. I don’t consider it’s hateful to say so.
— J.Ok. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2020
Instructor: So you discover that bigoted? What do you discover about it that was…
Pupil: It was deemed transphobic. Like I personally…
Instructor: Do you discover that transphobic your self?
Pupil: Uh I don’t actually have an opinion on it however I’m simply going with what a whole lot of different folks have mentioned.
Instructor: So let’s pause it, let’s not go together with what different persons are saying. Let’s attempt to discover ways to critically assume, so let’s analyze the tweet ourselves. In order that assertion, do you see something problematic? Disregarding different folks’s opinions.
Pupil: Um, she did attempt to pin some issues on a particular group of per, of individuals.
Instructor: The place the place does she do, try this, are you able to learn that?
Pupil: “However Pressure girls out of their jobs for stating that intercourse is actual”
Instructor: So after I hear that I’m decoding that as which means if a girl says that you realize saying that there’s a distinction between males and feminine after which being attacked as transphobic, I believe that’s what she’s saying by attacking somebody for stating that intercourse is actual.
Pupil: That’s precisely what she’s saying.
Instructor: Is that transphobic to you?
Pupil: So to me, no. Stating that intercourse is actual is just not transphobic it’s only a reality of life. It exists.
Instructor: So is there something you disagree with in that tweet?
Pupil: Uh, in that tweet I can’t actually see something that I personally disagree with. However I can see why some folks would assume, ‘oh that is offensive we are able to’t have that right here.’
Instructor: Certain.
Pupil: Uh, there’s an apology tweet…
Instructor: Let’s learn that what did she say there?
Pupil: “I respect each trans individual’s proper to dwell any method that feels genuine and cozy to them. I’d march with you in case you had been discriminated in opposition to on the idea of being trans. On the similar time, my life has been formed by being feminine. I don’t consider it’s hateful to say so.”
I respect each trans individual’s proper to dwell any method that feels genuine and cozy to them. I’d march with you in case you had been discriminated in opposition to on the idea of being trans. On the similar time, my life has been formed by being feminine. I don’t consider it’s hateful to say so.
— J.Ok. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2020
Please watch the video to see the whole dialogue.
The viral publish on X Twitter:
That is completely sensible. A scholar accuses @jk_rowling of being transphobic. This instructor skilfully dissects the declare and challenges it by asking questions.
He teaches not what to assume, however the way to assume critically.
Watch till the tip.
You see the epiphany in real-time. pic.twitter.com/x00gWdOugc— Lee Harris (@addicted2newz) February 3, 2024