Rolling 2015 Thread on Race

Fundamentally, racism isn't a question of logic. It's a question of power.

That Chronicle author has, ah, some hangups: Raymond Carver, trained by writers steeped in anti-Communist formulations, probably didn’t realize that his short stories were doing ideological combat with a dead Soviet dictator.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, June 24, 2015 8:29 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

guys this is a wry joke at Engle's expense

"hangups" lol is this the 70s or something

you're right – let's have a rap session about it

http://blog.teeter-inversion.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Roger_50-Thumbs-Up.jpg

groovy

goole it’s wry, but author does mean to draw straight line from cia funding to carver’s style

frederik, wasn’t thinking of ilx so much as political argumentation in general. & imo sometimes slowing down & seeing things as more complex isn’t just matter of logic, but pragmatic politics (to have effect on minds & policies & relations of power). but i take your point

And I take your point too. It's def about pragmatism for me as well. And learning the historical connections behind the shorthands is always important, and telling them if people ask (though I guess every everyone who debates racism or anti-semitism or feminism knows the deal with correcting the same historical misconception for the 1000th time, and being ignored).

Fundamentally, racism isn't a question of logic. It's a question of power.

― Frederik B, Wednesday, June 24, 2015 8:58 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

word porn

sry i meant why do i hate that artist thing that people keep posting on my facebook so much? why am i such a jerk?

missed the thread till now and posted this elsewhere:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/06/misty-copeland-athlete/397364/

i would welcome some thoughts on if this is trolling, poor consideration or a reasonable point
― like a giraffe of nah (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, July 1, 2015 3:07 PM

not sure. is the point of the article that her career breakthrough goes hand in hand with her total commercialization?
― Nhex, Wednesday, July 1, 2015 3:41 PM

just that the first black prima ballerina at ABT is presented as an "athlete" not an artist; seems like charged language
― like a giraffe of nah (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, July 1, 2015 4:14 PM

Clickhole totally nailed it with this one. oh wait...

http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000003773643/a-conversation-with-white-people-on-race.html?action=click>ype=vhs&version=vhs-heading&module=vhs®ion=title-area

i don't see how ballet can be considered a "sport" even if it involves something we might consider "athleticism"

There's no was a competitive element to it, but what if there was?

LOL, again:

There's no competitive element to it, but what if there was?

Bobby Jindal releasing a t-shirt to troll Hari Kondabolu wrt Twitter allegations of being a race traitor probably deserves a mention in this thread:

http://i.imgur.com/FjBLVKN.jpg?1

http://mic.com/articles/121382/bobby-jindal-hari-kondabolu-twitter-so-white

that J logo looks weird. like a hook or something. some sort of wall fastener...

looks like a water slide

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31wGVaDMC%2BL.jpg

haven’t followed or looked into jindal thing (beyond passing online refs), so hesitate to comment

but, of all things to criticize (or mock) jindal for…

dunno, generally speaking, more often than not, find political criticism based on ‘race traitor’ or ‘whitewashing’ theme… nagl

of course, conservative politician is likely to have certain views on certain issues related to race—
insofar as those views are objectionable, criticize those views;
but race-betrayal, race-denial angle seems like form of 'racial-identity policing' which bothers me

related trope bothers me in other areas than politics, cf criticism of mindy kaling’s show (which i haven’t seen) bc, apparently, it didn't thematize her race sufficiently

so maybe some counter-trolling is justified…? maybe i’m wrong

Jindal's official governor's portrait looks like it was literally whitewashed tho

http://images.dailykos.com/images/127268/large/jindalportrait.jpg?1423001935

xp, Yes, i think it's pretty unhelpful. Jindal is clearly a piece of work but there's plenty of room to call him out on his politics (including his political statements on race) without going down that road. For a start, positioning social conservatism and crass racial politics as "white" ignores how common those things are within sections of the Indian-American (and wider NRI) community.

The weird portrait's apparently not the official one.

xp ^def true, and works as joke
but extending that into serious criticism?
ah but then none of this is v serious, it's twittertown

agree, sharivari

xp, Yes, i think it's pretty unhelpful. Jindal is clearly a piece of work but there's plenty of room to call him out on his politics (including his political statements on race) without going down that road. For a start, positioning social conservatism and crass racial politics as "white" ignores how common those things are within sections of the Indian-American (and wider NRI) community.

The weird portrait's apparently not the official one.

― who epitomises beta better than (ShariVari), Wednesday, July 1, 2015 6:09 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah i feel like calling them 'white' and excluding them from the community masks the fact that those sentiments areprevalent in the community - i think it's better to try and wrestle and unearth them within the community rather than to just sweep it under the rug. same goes for conservative east asian americans imo

you think that Jindal portrait's bad, you should see the one they've got in the capitol of Huey Long.

http://i.imgur.com/kkyVPEu.jpg

what's happening to skinny elvis over there?

Not really a portrait, obv.

But it depicts Long's assassination. The other unfortunate fella is Carl Weiss, the assassin, getting mowed down by Long's bodyguards.

That illustration hangs in the capitol hallway where it all happened. You can even stick your finger into one of the bulletholes.

did they assassinate him with a poison that made his hand swell up and cause an aneurysm

wow what a weird painting
weiss as sorta hipster saint sebastian
and (uncropped below) scary eye-bulging statue looking on

http://hdtd.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/01/30/huey1_2.jpg

long doesn't seem in such bad shape there (aside from hand swelling), for a guy who's about to be dead.

Long's bodyguards returned fire, hitting Weiss 62 times

holy fuck

pplains, isn't one of the bullets still in the wall? could have sworn someone said that. the animatronic huey long at the desk that will perform speeches is still the best theme attraction in a government building I've seen.

looks like the famous painting of the zoot suit riots:

http://www.kcet.org/socal/departures/columns/assets_c/2014/02/ZootSuitRiots-thumb-630x414-69618.jpg

wau @ Long portrait, that's incredible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOHaJizzjdg
http://everysinglewordspoken.tumblr.com/

that movie focuses on like 3 people

https://medium.com/@johnmetta/i-racist-538512462265

great read

i w/o thinking really referred to myself as a racist in conversation w/another white person and it really derailed the conversation in an unpleasant way

thanks for the link, DJP -- amazing piece.

i dont agree with the entirety of this but this part shows, i think, how pervasively this framework infests everything:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/02/looking-white-in-the-face/

Postmodern theory tries to interrupt that expression at every stop, to put every word in scare quotes, to put our own presuppositions into question, to make us worry about the murderousness of “we,” and so to get in the habit of asking, “we, who?” I think that what modern philosophers call “pure” reason — the Cartesian ego cogito and Kant’s transcendental consciousness — is a white male Euro-Christian construction.

White is not “neutral.” “Pure” reason is lily white, as if white is not a color or is closest to the purity of the sun, and everything else is “colored.” Purification is a name for terror and deportation, and “white” is a thick, dense, potent cultural signifier that is closely linked to rationalism and colonialism. What is not white is not rational. So white is philosophically relevant and needs to be philosophically critiqued — it affects what we mean by “reason” — and “we” white philosophers cannot ignore it.

"Historically, there is no quotidian without the enslaved, chained or dead black body to gaze upon" - claudia explains it all

Article upthread talks about how white people don't think about where they *choose* to live as a part of their racial privilege. Something that causes a lot if unspoken tension on Facebook, Twitter and other online social groups is the difference between people from overwhelmingly white towns and those with a more diverse population. I came from an integrating suburb, I am grateful that my parents didn't want their children to grow up in a segregated environment. They wouldn't associate with people who would abandon diverse areas, let alone people who would actively oppose integration. Those people have some serious thinking to do about how segregation has benefited them, spend less time schmoozing and promoting themselves and be more circumspect in their online behavior. The actions of those pro-segregation people were very hurtful to the rest of us and it's not my job to educate or entertain people who come from those backgrounds. I don't socialize with such people in my offline life, why would I do that online?

Rachel Dolezal's new line is "I wouldn’t say I’m African-American, but I would say I’m black"

ok

Oh, I figured she'd wised up and was trying to lay low until people forgot about her. Huh.

nope she's in Vanity Fair

vanity for sure. fair? well that's complicated

I think you can see what she's getting at if you want to read the piece. I'll root for her, whatever mistakes she may have made, and glad there's more focus on trans issues through her story.

I lol'd:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs4P1kKK-5k

did you guys see this episode? we were dying and crying. oh man so funny. "He wants to be a publican. A British tavern owner. A noble profession."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XGTPCYaBrw