Comment Re:Slashdot comments indicative of the problem (Score 1) 1262
I see it as a "boy who cried wolf" scenario, wherein actual examples of sexism and racism get lost in the rather weird claims. For example, I once read an essay that claimed "prose" is racist since it evoked the notion of someone having leisure time to compose it, leisure time historically afforded to upper-class whites by black slave labor. Then you get such gems as "PIV is always rape", in which basic biology is now rape. When I worked as a grocery store cashier, a co-worker was accused quite loudly by a customer of being racist since he wouldn't honor an out-of-date coupon (as per the store policy). This year's Miss Nevada was berated by other women as anti-feminist for daring to suggest women should learn to protect themselves against rape.
When people are exposed to enough of these kinds of stories they start to see all accusations of racism and sexism as some sort of ridiculous witch hunt. Then when legitimate issues come around, such as Ms Sarkeesian's situation, people either downplay it or ignore it outright since they've been conditioned that racist and sexist are ridiculous charges.