@NJBeisner I am praying for the jurors who are not letting her go acquitted on insanity plea. She is not special and she admitted to killing her own kids.
There are some thoughtful discussions here, but I think several important points are being missed. Comparing Eileen Gu to the Kardashians reduces the criticism to wealth, celebrity, or privilege. That is not really the issue.
The more significant question is the extraordinary institutional accommodation surrounding her. China does not recognize dual nationality. Yet, in Gu’s case, the normal framework appears to have been bent—or at the very least rendered remarkably opaque—to accommodate one exceptionally valuable individual. This is not merely a case of a wealthy person enjoying privileges unavailable to ordinary citizens. It raises the more troubling question of whether an entire legal and political system can become flexible when the state decides that one person is useful enough.
But even that is only part of what makes the criticism of Gu different.
Eileen Gu spoke publicly and persuasively about discrimination against Asian Americans. She also argued, correctly, that Asian Americans should care about injustices suffered by other communities. That is a universalist moral claim: if we demand solidarity for ourselves, we should extend it to others.
Yet when she was asked about the mass arbitrary detention of Uyghurs—and about representing a state detaining more than a million people—her standard suddenly changed. She said, in effect, that she did not know enough: that she would need extensive travel, conversations with people on the ground, and years of study before she could form a view.
That position is difficult to reconcile with the moral framework she herself had previously articulated. One does not need to complete years of field research before expressing basic concern for people subjected to mass detention. Nor is the question whether she possesses sufficient expertise to resolve every geopolitical dispute. The question is whether someone who presents herself as socially conscious is willing to extend even minimal moral sympathy when doing so might carry a personal cost.
That contradiction becomes more striking given that she studies international relations at a top university while simultaneously suggesting that geopolitical questions fall outside what she can reasonably comment on.
@tiffhuangx described her as opportunistic, ruthless, and careless. Others have characterized the public persona as “Eileen Gu, Inc.”—a carefully managed global brand and ruthless most of the time. Many of us wish to live in a world guided by morality and values not by one that rewards crulty. Ambition, wealth, and self-promotion are not in themselves moral failures. What is troubling is the selective application of moral principle: speaking confidently about justice when it enhances one’s public identity, while retreating into professed uncertainty when the victims are politically inconvenient.
For me, the refusal to offer even the smallest expression of sympathy for people in CONCENTRATION CAMPS is more revealing along with her bending an entire authoritarian system to change the rule "just for her.". And surely the fact that figures such as Jay Shetty can celebrate the brand without engaging with that contradiction tells us something larger about the system we inhabit: status, moral language is highly marketable, while moral consistency is rarely demanded.
@TimothyCIppel@JustinUSA As they say you can tell about someone by their company. I love exposing these 2 tongued idiots. You are a retard commenting under someone who is telling truth about this commie fool. Well only idiots support him.
@TimothyCIppel@JustinUSA You are pathetic to keep supporting a loser who shapeshifts every election. Apologies don’t mean a thing. It just shows he doesn’t stand for anything and another puppet of commie party of democrats. My friends in Michigan are never voting for this fool.
Hasan Piker confirms that Abdul’s apologies are strategic.
Why did it take him 6 months to apologize for his comments about a terrorist attack against a synagogue in Michigan?
To win political points.