Billie Eilish joined Bad Bunny in speaking out against ICE during her acceptance speech at the Grammy Awards, slamming the organization after winning song of the year for “Wildflower.”
The singer was bleeped as she said “fuck ICE,” giving strong commentary during the speech. “Thank you so much. I can’t believe this. Everyone else in this category is so amazing. I love you so much,” she said, standing next to her brother Finneas. “I feel so honored every time I get to be in this room. As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything but that no one is illegal on stolen land. And, yeah, it’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now, and I feel really hopeful in this room, and I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting, and our voices really do matter, and the people matter, and fuck ICE. That’s all I’m going to say. Sorry. Thank you so much.”
OK, but I think the point a lot of commenters were making is Billie Eilish’s anti-ICE statement was likely genuine. She might be a slackivist, but it seemed like you attributed her statement to just a grift trying to get kudos and this attitude is applied to every progressive celebrity. I always find this perspective unnecessarily pessimistic.
I know being a celebrity basically gives you a mental illness, but I’m pretty sure celebrities authentically believe things. If they were in it purely for a grift, they’d start appealing to rightwingers given how much more money they’d be making that way.
what makes it genuine? i have no doubt she feels that way. i can feel lots of things and make statements about them.
that is very different than taking actions regarding those feelings. and that is true of celebrities as is of everyone else. Lots of people I know complain about stuff, but few of them actively make choices to improve the things they complaint about. And the people who tend to actively do such things… don’t complain or make grandiose political statements.
One of my friends and I donate to immigrant families. I take old computers from work, fix them up, and together we give them to immigrant families, because they need computers. I take direct action to support and make their lives better. I don’t complain about how hard they have it and how awful their lives are and how evil ICE is. I simply help them.
If I must judge people’s virtue while remaining rational, I don’t judge people as bad for not taking action. No one chooses to be born, we are not obligated to do anything. In fact, my perspective is that if virtue is of any concern then collective society intrinsically owes the individual for having fostered itself as natalist (which it has to to continue to exist). If any blame can actually be placed at all, of course.
I don’t actually even believe in free will. I don’t deal with virtue outside of catharsis and interpersonal relationships, being a consequentialist.
For instance, I feel hatred towards those that could have but did not vote in 2024, largely out of catharsis. I know its pointless outside of emotional satisfaction.
So from that perspective: it makes sense you feel frustration at slackivists, but its just catharsis. Your anger and chastisement of them is unlikely to foster any actual positive outcome.