this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
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Take the following premise. Bob sees Mike (who has blue hair) rob an orphanage, and considers him a bad man.
Bob exclaims in a public forum, "That blue-haired sneak! He should be found and put in jail."
Mike (wearing a mask while on the run) highlights this statement, replaying a record of it in another location, and adding: "I can't believe Bob would say such terrible things about blue-haired people! This is extreme bigotry!"
Jill, who also has blue hair, and Derek, who simply doesn't like bigotry, both miss the context of the robbery that happened earlier, and are shocked at the isolated statement.
When the town meets later, the issue of a robbery at the orphanage is downplayed, and the town instead spends the meeting condemning Bob's bigotry.

While a lot could be said about the whole sequence, I want to find out if there is a shortened term used to refer to the deception by Mike when deliberately misrepresenting the grouping of a targeted statement; eg, to build class solidarity the wrong way. The closest I've found might be "Strawmanning" or "Divide and Conquer" but it seems common enough I'd like to see if there's a name.

I tried to generalize by picking "blue hair" for the example, but I admit it'd be an odd, off-color statement by race or appearance. There are still other forms of grouping that are more common to state in conversation, like "gamers" or "voters", or "farmers", in which such statements could apply to all, or just some, of that broad group.

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[–] DomeGuy@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think the terms most applicable to the situation you described are "bigotry" and "democracy"

In your initial description, blue-haired Mike's misdeeds are considered by the town to be of less importance than Bob's bias against blue-haired people. No deception occurs -- the group is merely spending their time addressing an ongoing general ill rather than a completed special ill.

This is generally just fine. Groups tend to rightly recognize that ongoing issues are of greater priority than completed misdeeds, and perpetuated bias is essentially always an ongoing issue.

There isnt a specific word for a wrongdoer attempting to distract from their misdeeds by exaggerating someone's bias. It's either an easily addressed distraction (bob says "I'm sorry I contributed to anti-blue-hair bias when reporting Mike's misdeed" and the town moves on to the orphan robbery) or it's a persistent problem ("why are you wasting time on the hurt feelings of those worthless blue-haired freaks; somebody STOLE a COOKIE from an ORPHANAGE!")

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The reason I brought this topic up was because in some cases, it isn't easily addressed.

One example that I think is often misunderstood is an interview with the developer of Battlefield V, being asked about the inclusion of female characters. The interview response generally targeted overt sexism and women-hatred that came online as a result. The response was long, but ended with the statement: "You have two choices: either accept it or don't buy the game."

Yet, I saw this quote being forcefully pushed into a lot of other contexts, as though this was EA's response to everything from general historical accuracy criticisms, gameplay issues, pricing problems, etc. There was a small crowd of overt misogynists that could pull a lot of people to "their side", and weaponize the conversation, by making the general playerbase of the game feel like they were "being attacked". I saw the quote used by many people that I knew generally didn't care about avatar genders. Many afterwards never even came to realize there was a wave of Gamergate-style "Your body my choice" sexism, or desire by female gamers to be represented, in response to Battlefield's off-history inclusion efforts (hence the "no one even heard of the robbery" part of the example)

So my point is these distractions generally are not as easily addressed as you believe. In many real-world allegories to the sample, the metaphorical culprit behind the orphanage robbery is never actually put in jail since the proper response would require societal reaction, but the actual reaction has built up two "sides" that are of equal size.

[–] DomeGuy@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

EA including women in a video game, saying "accept it or don't buy the game", and anyone continuing on after that is absolutely perpetuating a societal ill.

Anyone who doesn't see that, and gives even rhetorical space for pretexes like "historical accuracy" or "gameplay" or "games journalism", is perpetuating that same I'll the same way white "moderates" who argued the civil rights movement shouldnt actually do anything.

I know this sounds harsh, but the ordinary response to a game you don't like is to just not buy it. If you don't like the gameplay or the graphics, or the voice acting, or the labor practices of the developer, or whatever, simply not paying for it and not playing is the best and primary way to signal that.

I didn't suggest that this kind of bad behavior is always easily addressed. I said and will say again that when assertions of bias are not easily addressed, the ongoing bias is literally more important than anything else that could be addressed.

When a Nazi sits down at your table, either kick him out or accept that you're a Nazi.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

EA including women in a video game, saying "accept it or don't buy the game", and anyone continuing on after that is absolutely perpetuating a societal ill.

Rather than give a full reply, I’m going to ask you to rephrase this because this is a really confusing line. I don’t know what “continuing on” refers to. The sentence structure suggests EA’s inclusion of women in a game was a societal ill; but I’ll give you time to clarify on that.

[–] DomeGuy@lemmy.world 0 points 15 hours ago

I think you need to intentionally misread that sentence to get that interpretation. But, since you asked:

[Since] EA [is] including women in a video game, [and responded to complaints by] saying "accept it or don't buy the game", [their message is clear] and anyone continuing on [with their complaints] after that is absolutely perpetuating a societal ill.

I'm not all that interested in letting you sealion about how it's unfair for me to dismiss somebody's "very real" concerns just because unrepentant sexist bigots are also making sexist attacks. So I'll also quote and annotate my original point:

[Bigotry is] either an easily addressed distraction or it's a persistent problem [that is more urgent than near any other concern].