Rolling 2015 Thread on Race

maybe the last 3 minutes of everything

*swish*

golfclap for morbs

And when has Sanders himself (as opposed to his supporters) said anything remotely suggesting "why aren't you people grateful for all I've done for you?"

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says he was not the person who sent an apology email to Black Lives Matter activists and believes an apology is unnecessary.

During an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," the Democratic presidential hopeful was asked about the apology email that BuzzFeed obtained.

"Well, that was sent out by a staffer, not by me," Sanders responded. "Look, we are reaching out to all kinds of groups, absolutely ... But on this issue of Black Lives Matter, let me be very clear. The issue that they are raising is a very, very important issue. And there is no candidate for president who would be stronger in fighting against institutional racism, and by the way, reforming a broken criminal justice system."

Sanders stressed the need for "real changes" to the system before "MTP" host Chuck Todd raised the question again.

"You said a staffer put it out, but you felt an apology was necessary?" Todd asked.

"No, I don't," Sanders said. "I think we're going to be working with all groups. This was sent out without my knowledge."

The email -- sent out by the campaign’s African American outreach director, Marcus Ferrell -- called for "a more formal interaction" between the Black Lives Matter movement and Sanders. "I apologize it took our campaign so long to officially reach out," Ferrell wrote.

Black Lives Matter protesters have interrupted Sanders' campaign rallies twice in the last two months to criticize him for not being vocal about issues of race.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-no-apology-to-black-lives-matter_55d0b03ce4b0ab468d9d920d

well there you have it. seems like an unnecessarily dickish thing to say, even if he's not wrong on the substance. kind of surprised, but also not, that his new PR people didn't coach him better on that

yeah was not aware of that

BLM was on Nightly Show last night. Cringed at HRC talking w them.

right wing media is accusing shaun king of being white

I see Hillary supporters on FB very angry at BLM when last week they were totally cool with them

this is becoming the "how thin is your skin" test

It was a condescending non-answer w occasional threatening language and strawmen.

King is currently on Twitter responding to what he has described as a white supremacist conspiracy fwiw.

I think the vast amount of attention focusing on how BLM is affecting the candidates or how THEY are reacting to it, rather than the goals BLM want to work towards, is evidence of that. The media keeps talking about the gaffey stuff so that they never have to confront the actual real world positions of the group. It's just fuel for their oligarch gossip shitshow.

The media keeps talking about the gaffey stuff so that they never have to confront the actual real world positions of the group.

It doesn't help when group members say they're more interested in provoking personal/emotional responses from Hillary Clinton than discussing potential policy outcomes. I mean, this quote...seriously?

“What we were looking for … was a personal reflection on her responsibility for being part of the cause of this problem that we have today in mass incarceration...And so her response, really targeting on policy, wasn’t sufficient for us.”

That says to me that BLM is less a political organization than a theater troupe.

I think there's a danger in assuming that every activist is representative of the movement. There are plenty of policy goals put forward by people who are part of Black Lives Matter, but this piece echoes the idea that the Clinton meeting was a missed opportunity.

http://thesouthlawn.org/2015/08/18/a-short-follow-up-to-the-previous-post-on-black-lives-matter/

they're more interested in provoking personal/emotional responses from Hillary Clinton than discussing potential policy outcomes

think you're misreading that given her direct personal connection to (as they say) "being a part of the cause of this problem that we have today in mass incarceration", i.e., her husband's passing of the 1994 crime bill as linked upthread

they wanted her to do what Bill did, which is admit that that approach was wrong (her personal complicity in it may be a bit of a stretch, idk if she advised Bill to pass that or was involved in it like she was with healthcare debacle etc.)

What could have been an answer from HRC about these policies and what she wants to accomplish it and how she will represent their voice as an elected official was more or less a restating of the criticism that they are protesting wrong. Which is like the theme of the year.

or to repeat:
Hillary defending the crime bill as being a response to legit community concerns is p fucking rich, esp when Bubba just apologized for signing it: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/16/us/politics/bill-clinton-concedes-his-crime-law-jailed-too-many-for-too-long.html?_r=0

xp

God forbid we question our elected officials on policies they have supported for decades.

he said more or less the same thing though

Mr. Clinton explained the context in which he acted. “When I took office, we had had a roaring decade of rising crime,” he said. “We had gang warfare on the streets. We had little children being shot dead on the streets who were just innocent bystanders standing in the wrong place. We had kids in Los Angeles doing drills in their schools to learn how to drop down and get under their desks because of people just doing random drive-by shootings.”

Ted Nugent's racism on Facebook. Why can't this coward answer to his black critics? You'd think he would be more respectful since he owes his career to black musical innovation:

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/08/20/nra-board-member-ted-nugent-calls-black-man-a-m/205057

They should take him off classic rock radio. Replace him with blues songs.

The guy in the next cubicle over from me listens to classic rock radio all day - I haven't heard a single Ted Nugent song in the four months I've been here.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2015/sep/02/taylor-swift-wildest-dreams-video-colonial-african-fantasy

the pathetic burst of outrage around this video gives fighting racism a bad name.

not that in theory, a white popstar doing a video about the wild in africa couldnt be offensive, but the reality is that its about WILD dreams, and WILD does also = WILDLIFE, which as some people may know, DOES EXIST IN AFRICA, hence TS' decision to film a song with WILD in the title in a place with WILDlife. does it resemble an old colonial hollywood image of africa? well yeah, but that doesnt mean that just because its white people in a black continent that that automatically makes it racist. its not really a colonial fantasy either as there are no black people in the video which the white cast are ruling over. had there been some black servants pouring tea with huge smiles on their faces, that would be another thing.

I had assumed the furore surrounding the thing was overblown, but now, reading your defense of it, I'm not so sure

Wildlife exists other places than Africa. The idea of Africa as a depopulated and animalistic place is very much a colonialist fantasy, as in, it's a fantasy that was popular doing colonialism.

no ghost emoji

I thought the video was terrible and it is about race in the sense that Taylor Swift flaunts her privilege in every video she makes, and that's just not how life is in the U.S. for most people. I hate the way she uses retro nostalgic looks from a time when rock and roll came from the working class.

I know she gets a pass from a lot of people but I find this stuff unforgivable and her music is overrated anyway.

in the sense that Taylor Swift flaunts her privilege in every video she makes, and that's just not how life is in the U.S. for most people.

ilm

Just to confirm, it's certainly not that way for me.

I live in a Taylor Swift video, ama

I am a rhinoceros fwiw

I wonder if anyone else has ever made a video that doesn't represent how life is for most people in the U.S.

just not how how's life's life is

the swift video was pretty bad on a number of levels

but the petite meller video referenced in the guardian article and praised for you know showing actual african people was not any better though and was in many ways worse and much more strongly evoked a white colonialist vibe imo. i think if you are a white pop star it is just maybe 9/10 times not a good idea to film a music video in africa? find a different context lol otherwise you are just gonna look like that russell brand "african child" thing from a few years ago

im no swift fan, the only song of hers i like is shake it off - and yes, in that video, she does appear to be mocking the black dancers in there, whether because they are not thin/skinny, or because they are black, or both, im not 100% sure.

I had assumed the furore surrounding the thing was overblown, but now, reading your defense of it, I'm not so sure

say more.

Wildlife exists other places than Africa. The idea of Africa as a depopulated and animalistic place is very much a colonialist fantasy, as in, it's a fantasy that was popular doing colonialism.

is she wanting to hark back to a more pleasurable time when white people could go to africa and live like the wealthy? maybe. but if it wasnt africa, it would just be her wanting to live like kings and queens. which is par for the course in yknow, that genre known as the POP MUSIC VIDEO. yes its in africa, which could change it slightly, but i dont get the sense its going for a full on colonial fantasy, a la say, a tv series like indian summers. the reason being that she is not lording it over any actual african people. does their absence make it worse? possibly. or perhaps their absence means that it doesnt actually matter. its not like she was filming it in the middle of lagos and pretending no actual nigerians existed there. shes filming it in some rural location where there is a high chance that the local population is more of the animal variety, than human.

I thought the video was terrible and it is about race in the sense that Taylor Swift flaunts her privilege in every video she makes, and that's just not how life is in the U.S. for most people. I hate the way she uses retro nostalgic looks from a time when rock and roll came from the working class.

you might want to do a quick crash course in all those non-privilege-flaunting and entirely working class hair metal videos of the 1980s. expecting swift to renounce her glamorous status as a POPSTAR just cos most people dont live that way is a bit silly, as is thinking pop/rock artists have to adhere to some sort of ancient r&r working class credo. shes not springsteen.

the pathetic burst of outrage around this video gives fighting racism a bad name.

not that in theory, a white popstar doing a video about the wild in africa couldnt be offensive, but the reality is that its about WILD dreams, and WILD does also = WILDLIFE, which as some people may know, DOES EXIST IN AFRICA, hence TS' decision to film a song with WILD in the title in a place with WILDlife. does it resemble an old colonial hollywood image of africa? well yeah, but that doesn't mean that just because its white people in a black continent that that automatically makes it racist. its not really a colonial fantasy either as there are no black people in the video which the white cast are ruling over. had there been some black servants pouring tea with huge smiles on their faces, that would be another thing.

say more.

I'll confess that initially I was talking from a place of ignorance. I'd only seen a number friends complain about it on fb when I commented.

I dunno, any amount of bad decisions can be justified by the good intent guiding what was considered in lieu of what wasn't. Not to say that such issues aren't complex but having watched it I can see why it raised a few eyebrows.

Typically, I find the persistent reduction of Africa in western media and pop culture to wildlife/poverty at best dehumanising and irritating and while I don't usually think it makes sense to expect better, marrying ss African wildlife shots with dressed up colonial imagery is always gonna have my eyes rolling. I could point to all manner of things that annoys me for similar reasons but I think the sheer volume of it is belied by the fact that most people aren't used to hearing Africans complain about it.

The decision to include no black people in any capacity was clearly a calculated one, you might even say a sensible one. But there's an assumption being made here by you and whoever made the call for the video that needs interrogating i.e. what's to say that the colonial fantasy has to have anything to do with black people? I mean what are we talking talking about when we conjure images of colonialism? Because for the most part and certainly in the subjective sense, it is not actually black people. We're usually talking missionaries, jungle, khaki, pith helmets, empire and white men with elaborate facial hair blithely deciding the fates of millions from thousands of miles away - but not so much the millions.

You're also implying here that colonial imagery can only be evoked by the subjugation of black bodies which doesn't bear scrutiny when you consider how integral the domination of land, image (the erasure thereof) and narrative were to the process.

I don't expect everybody feel where I'm coming from with this but I don't think you can play with such images without also bringing to bear what they imply, especially amongst people who are constantly being asked to internalise such fantasies as their own history.

TBH i cant really disagree with any of that, maybe im just now inured to colonial imagery and aesthetics divorced from the political histories (eg in london you get indian cafe/restaurant chains like dishoom selling colonial-era environments with no mention of what colonialism brought). i probably shouldnt be defending TS - she comes across as someone lacking any kind of clue about race or politics.

This is naive, to think Swift isn't being offensive. Swift makes her bucks selling tickets to predominantly white teenage girls, and her whole schtick is "aren't I enviable?" The female audience is supposed to identify with Swift, when most of them lack the skinny white blondeness or wealth to seriously entertain flying around Africa, being a movie star. Yes it does matter.

In other words, who decides that Taylor Swift is "glamorous" and why is that supposed to be "glamorous"?

i'm not really sure about this one. she's so specifically selling these Elizabeth Taylor/whatever fantasy for this video (ala the Gone Girl fantasy from "Blank Space", and whatever the heck "Bad Blood" was) and yeah obviously these fantasies don't include minorities (or realism) which IS offensive, but not sure how to counter that? don't sell these fantasies?

cast a diverse group for the videos, acknowledging that race isn't integral to character?

tbrr people are casting their friends and associates and w/e and they are all wite

is the video a reference to a specific movie? just curious

is the video a reference to a specific movie? just curious

Birth of a Nation, I think.

lol

Like kendrick

Xxxpost

and Gigi Hadid, Zendaya, Jessica Alba, Serayah McNeill...

http://www.eonline.com/news/692446/taylor-swift-s-wildest-dreams-director-defends-video-amid-backlash-there-are-black-africans-in-a-number-of-shots