Flight Facilities have responded to criticism surrounding a “privileged” Facebook post they recently published about the US Presidential election.
The producer duo took to social media following Donald Trump’s win to call it “one of the greatest reality checks of our time”, but they copped plenty of flack from fans and fellow musicians alike.
Now, they have issued a statement to triple j saying, “Our intention was never to imply that people don’t have the right to protest, nor should should they simply have to get over the results of this election.”
Instead, they say they were trying to get across “that the results of a democratically held election cannot be flipped”.
What So Not commented on Flight Facilties’ original post criticising the way they spoke about “protesting and rioting”, explaining they were very different things, and Flight Facilities have now backflipped on their original comment that “protesting and rioting undermines the fabric on which a great country was built,” writing in the statement, “Those, including many of our friends and fans, who have joined the protest, have an absolute right and obligation to do so, where they see necessity for change or justice.”
They further wrote that they don’t “doubt the injustice and hate against minorities, both in the USA and around the world”, but feel that we should stop making assumptions that those who voted for Trump possess “an ignorantly hateful characteristic”.
“Perhaps they do? But our intention is to believe and hope that there is more to all these people, than simplifying every single individual down to a tag or insult,” the pair say.
“And if we can’t reach out compassionately to those, who would otherwise be so easy to block out and ignore, what hope is there of progress?”
The original post is still on their Facebook page, and has garnered close to 4,000 reactions. Read it in full, below.
Flight Facilities Facebook Post
This election should be treated as one of the greatest reality checks of our time. And instead of kicking, screaming and insulting, maybe it’s time to stop, look around, and look inward as to exactly how this has happened. Protesting and rioting in response to a democratically held election, undermines the fabric on which a great country was built. Sometimes things don’t go the way we want them to. That’s life. But if we live by the mentality of turning to violence and intimidation when things don’t go our way, why should we expect our adversaries to take the higher ground when it does?
There’s a cultural divide that has taken place, and the world is trying to point the finger, yet nobody wants to look at themselves. We’ve created a pop-culture, internet generation. A generation of people who have lost the ability to challenge their own preconceptions. We pick our friends on Facebook. We choose who we follow on Instagram. We select who to follow on twitter. And then delete, ignore, insult or pigeonhole anyone who differs from us, instead of asking “Why?”
We individually craft our own perfect little bubbles, then have the audacity to ask “how the hell could this happen?!” when the cards aren’t in our favour. We’re so buried in social media ‘likes’, viral nonsense, and a smug sense of self-congratulatory narcissism, that anybody asking “how could they be so out of touch with us?”, has dared not consider that “maybe it’s us who are out of touch with them?”.
The mainstream media wrote it off. Social media ignored it. Hollywood laughed at it. And the polls never saw it coming. Has anybody volunteered accountability yet? No. Because even now that the results are in, those groups will, somehow, profess themselves as the ‘smart ones’ who ‘get it’, as they continue to belittle the 59million+ Americans who likely used that as motivation to make their voices heard.
Diversity of elements like ideas, culture, class and race are all attributes that define a beautiful country as a whole. And naturally they divide us, too. Does racism exist? Absolutely. Are we to assume over half a country is racist? Absolutely not. To generalise about the complexities in the majority of a voting nation, is no better than the act of racism itself. America should be proud to have made a huge step in electing an African-American President, twice. The Republican party won the 2016 election with less of the white vote, than when it lost in 2012, which hopefully suggests that this week’s truly unbelievable result is less about hate, and more about the resonance of something more we failed to see.
The sun will rise tomorrow. The world will keep turning. So, be excellent to each other, especially those you disagree with, and prove to us all that, irrespective of party politics, you can still be the greatest country on Earth.
