rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

We get so bombarded with images of these media celebrities that they become part of our visual language. While it's probably worth interrogating how we use the images and why, it's not realistic to expect people not to use them. I mean these are media personalities, and they're full of camp and caricature. Maybe it's not cool for a suburban white kid to put Gucci Mane as his avatar or w/e, but if so, then why is it ok for him to drive around mouthing the lyrics in his car and mimicking the videos, or to listen to it at all for that matter? I get why there can be racism in this, I just think the average teenager gets sent a pretty confusing message about how he's supposed to digest it all.

so all this Cosbygifs shit is racist as hell

the reason white teenagers get mixed messages about their consumption of black culture is because there's no pure-of-heart, correct way for white teenagers to consume it.

lorde

oh lorde

But srsly I feel like there has been a schizo relationship to black pop culture ever since there has been widely distributed black pop culture, and it seems like the channels of media distribution kind of want people to have that relationship to it, because that's what makes it feels subversive and dangerous and guilty. Sorry if this is the kind of shit that is already taken for granted on ILM/ILX, some of you guys are always two steps ahead of me.

Like clearly this stuff is intended for white consumption, but white people are supposed to feel a little teensy bit like maybe it isn't.

Ohhh lorde please talk to this sucker cause they killin hip hop

couldn't bring myself to type it :D

http://I.imgur.com/SiwVMtl.jpg

This obv doesn't beg the question if it is racist, for it so so obv is. It's getting that time of the year again where Sinterklaas and his blackfaced 'helpers' are on their way. In recent years the debate about this has heated up more and more. The more traction the anti-Black Pete movement is getting (even though prob 95% wants things to stay the same/doesn't care), the more grim the racist counter reactions are, bringing up the vilest racism I've ever seen.
The Zwarte Piet discussion lays bare how racist this country really is, and still most people are blind to it. Reactions like "if you n-word don't like our tradition then fuck off to your own country" are common (even though most are born here, or in my case, born here and white btw and also against it). I won't go into the 'pro' camps 'arguments', as they are too depressingly stupid. But it comes down to: it's tradition, he's black because he came down a chimney (O RLY? Did he get those lips and earrings from going down a chimney as well?) etc.

The above image is from today. Not the 50s or 60s, no, from today. A right wing political party (who are in office!) in rotterdam hung black Pete dolls on lamp posts... Yes, that's right. They hung them, to make a case for 'black Pete is not going away and fuiud'. You can't make this stuff up. Mayors have said it's a case of the people to decide. And our idiot prime minister famously said 'I can't change BP's appearance, because black is what he is', embarrassingly referring to a black friend he has who doesn't have a problem with it (*weeps*).

Sorry for going on but I needed to vent. Never before have I felt so out of touch with nearly 95% of the people of this country. The 'debate' tears through family relations and friends. Yet still I'm optimistic. Every year more and more people are pleading for a reform of some sorts (make Pete of all colors, not just black etc). And I believe in ten years things WILL have changed for the better. But man, the whole white reaction when even suggesting to change things a little are so aggressive, so 'you can't take this from me! This is what defines us Dutch!'. It is so godawful depressing,

/end of rant

http://I.imgur.com/SiwVMtl.jpg

Amazing... Imgur removed the image. That's all you need to know really.

http://I.imgur.com/h6JRH64.jpg

http://www.whitenessproject.org/

DEPRESSING. Especially the comments about slavery.

The area of town where my wife works has all these Halloween decorations up around the various civic and arts institutions, giant wooden articulated cutouts that look like zombies and goblins and whatnot. But a great many of them look a lot like traditional blackface figures, much like Le Bateau Ivre's picture, that I can't believe someone didn't say "Hmmm, maybe we need different stuff." The first time I came down the street and saw one I did a double take.

xps
Is it only me that's struggling to see exactly what the project has to do with 'whiteness'?

I think that's one of the insights of the project

I'd considered that angle but the 'whiteness project' can hardly trade on its failure to get white people to talk about what it means to be white. If one of the big insight is supposed to be that most white people conceive of race in term of the 'other', then it has shown us nothing that we weren't familiar with.

I said this in someone's fb feed today but my impression of the clips that I've seen is that at least part of the project is to give people enough rope to hang themselves. Which I enjoy to maybe an uncharitable degree, and which granted has a short shelf life after which it's just piling wrongness and trauma on top of wrongness and trauma, but I can enjoy it for a little bit at least.

It's also revealing that white ppl seem to want to talk about whiteness by talking about non-white people instead of any intrinsic qualities of "whiteness"--it may rather turn out to show that the concept of "whiteness" is hollow in a lot of places and already defined by it's...hm "opposite" may not be the right term because nurturing a binary relationship is totally not helpful given the infinite spectrum. But anyway defined by what it is not. That it's to some (maybe a large) degree only propped up by its opposition?

Sorry, you did basically say that in fewer words, but I think you may be overrating how familiar people are with that possibility?

Anyway I came here to say that one of my relatives is really upset about MObama's vine co-opting a Lil Jon song to promote the consumption of a healthy fall vegetable. Her affronted concern trolling for the dignity of the office of First Lady is delicious.

i'm guessing "turnip for what"

whiteness as a whole has been defined by our treatment of non-white ppl, when they actually talk about being white they just bring up their specific ethnicities rather than race cause there's actually something else to talk about there

xp

Exactly! She was so mad she wouldn't even tell me WHAT video, I had to go searching youtube.com and guess at which MObama attack ad it was mostly likely to be!

Well that whiteness thing isn't going to get very far. If you're inclined to say things like, "I don't get the whole discrimination thing," you're likely to view a "whiteness project" as the product of elitists.

Those responses are the embodiment of "whiteness" - avoiding dialogue with outsiders is a tactic if exclusion. So is the refusal to think about discrimination, to consider another's view.

"tactic of" exclusion, I meant.

they sound honest though - isn't that the point? to get their honest, biased views?
actually, i don't really know what the end game is here with it either

This was where I saw it, fwiw:

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/15/why_the_whiteness_project_is_so_mortifying_partner/

People are talking about it like we are here so maybe it's good idk

"Maybe it's good idk" -- 2014 rallying cry

seems like it will shortly outlive its usefulness once it achieves ubiquity at which point racist white people will call it out as racist against white people and avoid it

then we can just go back to flagging the everyday racist things white people say all over the internet

We sure do talk about white people a lot.

I do wonder what determined the constant emphasis on being white as an opposition to blackness in these videos - was it the questions, was it unprompted, selective editing of answers? Or was it really that these people automatically focused on it?

gathering individual testimonies on some general notion of whiteness abstracted from the dynamics & situations in which it is reified seems unproductive. the only value is negative & given how defensive ppl are about it it doesn't seem helpful. there's plenty of more serious & historical attempts to understand ~whiteness~ like the nell irvin painter "history of white people"

I actually think the whiteness project is productive, partly *because* whiteness is (maybe just for white people? or just me??) such an elusive concept -- in these videos, the juxtaposition of attitudes that aren't normally found in such close proximity (because of age & class stratification) comes closer to making the essence of "whiteness" appear than anything else I've ever encountered in my life

like obviously the hipster girl wearing coke cans in her hair(??) saying "I JUST CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHICH RACIST JOKES ARE OKAY TO TELL AROUND MY BLACK FRIENDS" is worlds away from the working-class dude who still has an ax to grind over some affirmative-action hires that got newspaper coverage in 1993, who is in turn worlds away from the office professional saying "none of my coworkers identify as white, we all identify as Irish or Polish or Italian"

... buuuuut they are all part of the ungraspable totality of White Systemic Racism in America & it is unusually honest to see them lumped together as such

I'm worried my argument might boil down to "the ignorant statements any given white person is likely to make will reflect only a narrow subset of all the possible ignorant things white people in america can believe"

the affirmative action case that old guy references is fairly recent, though

I'm worried my argument might boil down to "the ignorant statements any given white person is likely to make will reflect only a narrow subset of all the possible ignorant things white people in america can believe"

xp sorry I just assumed it was older because lol news cycles... would it at least be fair to say that the interpretive framework through which the Old White perceives an affirmative-action-related lawsuit is basically unchanged since the 90s? because I'm pretty sure that, if you had asked him in 2002, there would have been some high-profile case in the past ~5 years he could have pointed to just as easily, to make the exact same point.

btw my gut feeling is that this tendency is less pronounced among millennial whites, but I could be totally off the mark there... I've definitely encountered the second-generation affirmative-action grievance before ('my uncle was passed over for promotions at THREE different companies!' type shit)

http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/10/director_of_the_whiteness_project_wants_honest_conversation_about_race.html

I think I uktimately agree with this dude and what he's trying to do but I'm not very likely to check out the rest of this

I’m going to be frank. I’m not really interested in hearing white folks talk about race or whiteness. I’ve been a minority in majority-white spaces since I was 12 years old. I feel like I know what your subjects are going to say. Why should I take the time to watch?

I would say that people like you and me who have thought about race a lot and have been around and processed it, maybe that’s not who this project is for. But, again, I go back to all these women of color who’ve written me from Albuquerque to Australia, who’ve said it was really painful but incredibly cathartic to hear what white people say when they’re not in the room. That’s all I can say.

Are you afraid that you’ll end up creating caricatures of white people? How will you avoid that?

I certainly hope not; that’s not my intention. I think that’s an issue every time you do a project on race: People always try not to see themselves in the people up there on the screen. One of the reasons why I did it in Buffalo is because when people think about race they think about the South. When I did “Two Towns of Jasper,” people would say, “That’s not me. That’s the South.” But you’d be in denial as a white person if you didn’t admit that you hold some of the most discomforting things [said in “The Whiteness Project”]. When Deanna says white people think black men are inherently violent, she’s not saying something that people don’t know. And I’m not sure why I’m getting attacked for saying something that’s true. All she’s saying is something that’s representative of 40 percent of white Americans. I don’t think it’s that radical to acknowledge it. You can caricature [“The Whiteness Project”] but you’d be missing an opportunity to examine perhaps for yourself why and how what’s being said relates to you—as opposed to attacking person saying it. It’s not about these particular individuals. They represent common views. I don’t want people tying this whole thing to those particular 21 people in Buffalo. I commend and respect them. And I am incredibly grateful that they agreed to participate.

Have you talked to anyone involved in the series since it went live last Friday?

Yeah. One person told me he values and believes in what I’m trying to do. But he also says he’s nervous about the effect it’ll have on everyone. You know, I’m happy to become the punching bag for this project but I really hope these 21 people don’t become the punching bag. They took a leap of faith about being honest and it’s terrible to think that then you get punished for it. Everyone’s always saying they want an honest conversation about race but then when you have one, you can’t punish people when they speak their minds—especially if they’re not attacking you. And certainly if you want to bring someone along [in their understanding of race] and make progress, attacking them does not advance the conversation.

In the responses you’ve gotten since last Friday, what’re the three common themes you’ve picked up?

One: “This is amazing, Thank you for doing this, This is the most incredible thing I’ve seen.” Two: “I don’t understand it.” Three: “You’re a fucking asshole”—and, “You all just should die.”

I don't need to watch this; I can get exactly the same results by going to pretty much any family gathering.

I think I uktimately agree with this dude and what he's trying to do but I'm not very likely to check out the rest of this

― 💪😈⚠️ (DJP), Friday, October 17, 2014 11:05 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^

me three i think.

everybody i've shared that link with gives me serious side-eye and then asks why i want them to watch it.
"discussing whiteness" among liberal white people is an immediately suspect thing to do.

Just throwing out there that one of the reasons white people don't have anything to say about whiteness that isn't about non-whiteness is that whiteness is already, as the metaphor goes, the water we're swimming in. What do you say about air? What do you say about the sun coming up in the morning?

when you grow up as effectively the ONLY black person in your town, the white ppl around you sometimes forget you're black and expect you to parrot this shit back at them, so I haven't really felt like I've learned anything other than new and exciting ways to roll my eyes

Basically it just demonstrates that whiteness is the baseline of "normal" for white people and everything deviating from it is what's up for discussion.

Some of us don't need this demonstrated but it's okay if not everything is for you/me/us. Like Dan said.

xp Well sure.