that's the point?
― Mordy, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:40 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh, iiijjj, I think I'm going to drop it to take a nap. Not to be dismissive of anyone, but for practical reasons.
I think the way white & black feed into each other is interesting and it's just something I like to talk about, but it's easier to do with someone in person.
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:40 (fourteen years ago) link
really? i think it's what people do if they don't feel too guilty, they're pointing out someone else who is guiltier/whiter than they are. can be pretty annoying though i've done it. i'm v v v white btw
― harbl, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:41 (fourteen years ago) link
though a lady at work did say i was "thug"
btw I only posted crime stats cuz I wanted to find a concrete middle ground between bamcquern's meaningless 'black majority' and hi dere's anecdotal "no one in my family outside of one urban area". no, 1/3 isn't a majority by any means, but it's still a distressing number.
― INSUFFICIENT FUN (bernard snowy), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:41 (fourteen years ago) link
i'm distressed.
― Mordy, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:41 (fourteen years ago) link
you're maybe missing the point that this isn't about "disparaging other white ppl" so much as "taking an ironic distance towards one's own self-acknowledged whiteness in order to harmlessly mock it"
... which, to put it rather crudely, is something you'd only really feel the need to do if you were aware of, and felt guilty about, your own white privilege.... any discussion of which will necessarily have to touch on certain structural features of modern american society.
Well... yes and no. I don't see why black people automatically have to be dragged into a conversation about why white people make fun of themselves. There are a bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with black people (interesting that everyone jumped on and ran with the "liberal guilt" side but totally ignored the "redneck humor" side; it seems it's easier for people to handwave self-deprecating humor when it's done to highlight and elevate how much more enlightened you are now than it is to confront and acknowledge humor that points out all of the warts on your body).
― HI DERE, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:42 (fourteen years ago) link
I only say "black majority" because Houston Baker, et al. say it. I thought it had common currency, so yeesh.
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:42 (fourteen years ago) link
see i'm not sure if bamcquern is right with all of his crude generalizations but his observations are preferable to just mumbling about problematics and avoiding any consideration of nonwhite ppl as having some wilful agency determining their cultural outlook beyond the history of their oppression, which seems to be a fairly common timidity among american left-'white ppl'
they seem to be afraid they will be seen as eliding the contribution of white racist ppl (govt etc) to poverty, incarceration rates etc among nonwhite ppl, which oughtn't to be the case if their rhetorical poise is up to the ask
whether bamquern's is, i dunno, but that's a very profound and interesting question in itself
― nakhchivan, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:44 (fourteen years ago) link
it seems it's easier for people to handwave self-deprecating humor when it's done to highlight and elevate how much more enlightened you are now than it is to confront and acknowledge humor that points out all of the warts on your body).
I had a long argument with my lol black friend about that Tiger Woods woodpile cartoon when he said he didn't think it was racist if there was some truth to the joke.
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:44 (fourteen years ago) link
It's odd to me that often identity turns around negativity. Black people have the history of racism and enslavement, Irish people their oppression by the Brits, Poles the animosity towards them both as slavs but especially as Catholics (at the beginning at least), etc... My ancestors may have been the white people who were doing the hating and the oppression but not suffering from anything worse than having to live amongst inferior races and suffering immigrants to come and screw up our little paradise or Indians encumbering the land that God intended for us so we (or at least I) don't have much of a sense of 'white culture' apart from its racism, its grim religiosity and its bland food so I don't really identify with my Anglo-American side very much or feel much attachment to it except maybe to a certain strain of American liberalism and a respect for the Common Law.
― Il suffit de ne pas l'envier (Michael White), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:45 (fourteen years ago) link
this is pretty otm
― death cab for cutty (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:45 (fourteen years ago) link
Crude generalizations - 1 part laziness, 1 part presumptuousness, 1 part typing on tiny netbook keyboard without a mouse.
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:46 (fourteen years ago) link
and simultaneously disavowing their commonality with mnstrm 'white ppl', in many cases
― nakhchivan, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:47 (fourteen years ago) link
Michael White - I think it's inevitable that things get defined negatively.
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:48 (fourteen years ago) link
(interesting that everyone jumped on and ran with the "liberal guilt" side but totally ignored the "redneck humor" side;
Larry the Cable Guy or Jeff Foxworthy or whatever = sympathetic mockery of traits presumably shared by audience and performer"that thing white ppl do" = please don't associate me with the target of my withering progressive scorn
― INSUFFICIENT FUN (bernard snowy), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:48 (fourteen years ago) link
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gawker/2009/06/stuff-white-ppl-like.jpg
― am0n, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:48 (fourteen years ago) link
amon you're capable of so much better
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:49 (fourteen years ago) link
My problem is less w/white people and more w/mainstream
― Il suffit de ne pas l'envier (Michael White), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:49 (fourteen years ago) link
cosign xp
― nakhchivan, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:50 (fourteen years ago) link
i think bernard snowy can read nakhchivan's mind
― velko, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:51 (fourteen years ago) link
who is nakhchivan
― am0n, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:52 (fourteen years ago) link
xpost I knew you would
― INSUFFICIENT FUN (bernard snowy), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:52 (fourteen years ago) link
that's cuz they're totally different things! (and while I can't claim to be able to read the original poster's mind, I think only one of them is "that thing white ppl do")Larry the Cable Guy or Jeff Foxworthy or whatever = sympathetic mockery of traits presumably shared by audience and performer
Larry the Cable Guy or Jeff Foxworthy or whatever = sympathetic mockery of traits presumably shared by audience and performer
thankfully i'm not american, so i haven't heard of any of those white ppl and am completely unaware of whatever tradition they belong to
― nakhchivan, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:52 (fourteen years ago) link
nothing wrong with talking about 'problematics'
― max, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:53 (fourteen years ago) link
On zing but otherwise would post Doing That Thing You Do movie poster
― Mordy, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:54 (fourteen years ago) link
you know you are a white person when you post to ilx
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:54 (fourteen years ago) link
i'm inuit btw
― velko, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:55 (fourteen years ago) link
bernie you were right in saying that americans would be well-served to focus on issues of class and not race, but until there can be a greater degree of separation between the two, what difference does even it make? until such time as it does happen, whites don't necessarily need to feel guilty about white privilege but what they DO need to do, and what guilt can be a very effective albeit prob unhealthy catalyst for, is spending a tenth of the time they devote to being cute about it on the internet to attempting to enact some sort of tangible change promoting diversity and social justice through opportunities for the more vulnerable classes/races, such as signing the dream act petition
― iiiijjjj, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:56 (fourteen years ago) link
I forgot this was a poll.
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:56 (fourteen years ago) link
which type of white ppl are we talking about again?
― elmo leonard (elmo argonaut), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:56 (fourteen years ago) link
the european ones
― iiiijjjj, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:57 (fourteen years ago) link
they are pinkish yellow and they disparage other pinkish yellow people
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:57 (fourteen years ago) link
alright I gotta go smoke weed and do dishes but before I leave I just want to say: my use of the word "harmless" upthread was very deliberate, and meant to convey that "that thing" entails very little risk for the white ppl who engage in it, because it's basically masturbation
xp dude I signed the dream act petition already, chill!
― INSUFFICIENT FUN (bernard snowy), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:58 (fourteen years ago) link
if you are inuit in the kitchen, pakistani in the bedroom, and peruvian in the living room, what are you in the bathroom?
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:58 (fourteen years ago) link
I was #29,044 to sign that petition
― HI DERE, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:59 (fourteen years ago) link
sweet thanks
― iiiijjjj, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:59 (fourteen years ago) link
You may say that iiiijjjj's a dreamer But iiiijjjj's not the only one
― velko, Friday, 23 April 2010 18:00 (fourteen years ago) link
haha sorry, didn't mean to seem so defensive -- I really do appreciate your persistent nagging throughout this thread, and I hope it's gotten more people than just me and hi dere to sign
― INSUFFICIENT FUN (bernard snowy), Friday, 23 April 2010 18:02 (fourteen years ago) link
white basketball players amirite
― mookieproof, Friday, 23 April 2010 18:03 (fourteen years ago) link
farts
― iiiijjjj, Friday, 23 April 2010 18:03 (fourteen years ago) link
"Larry the Cable Guy or Jeff Foxworthy or whatever = sympathetic mockery of traits presumably shared by audience and performer"
Jeff Foxworthy was some white collar middle-management telecom engineer before mustaching up. Similar story with "Larry"These dudes are definitely slumming.
― Philip Nunez, Friday, 23 April 2010 18:18 (fourteen years ago) link
^ classist
― am0n, Friday, 23 April 2010 18:20 (fourteen years ago) link
i wld nvr disparage white ppl
― good luck harbl county usa (Lamp), Friday, 23 April 2010 18:41 (fourteen years ago) link
i believe in and admire the accomplishments of white culture
like this episode of supernatural i just watched 1 of the bros - dean - he str8 fukken bones an angel
― good luck harbl county usa (Lamp), Friday, 23 April 2010 18:42 (fourteen years ago) link
the angel was white
man what a gr8 show
plenty of reasonable points in the thread and i understand the objections and reservations, but...
when i was involved in various discussions (with mostly white american people) about obama during the '08 campaign, i made plenty of comments like, "talking about race just freaks white people right the fuck out," which i think were intended and understood not as literal statements (not all white people, obv) or as reductionist by exclusion (white people are not the only people who get freaked out in talking about race), but were still i think more or less fair statements. to say that talking about race freaks out white americans is a shorthand way of acknowledging the degree to which white americans have been historically able to dance around the subject in all the ways and for all the reasons i think we all know. and speaking as a white american with a fair amount of experience observing and engaging other white americans on the subject of race, it's the kind of generalization i feel comfortable making.
like someone said at the beginning of the thread, i think it's more healthy than not for "white people" to talk about "white people," because it is a move away from the sense of whiteness as a racial/cultural default. of course there are a lot of problems wrapped up in it, but that's true of talking about "race" in any context. every statement from anyone on racial issues comes loaded with pages of footnotes and caveats that yr reasonably aware person will provide without needing them spelled out. (of course, when you're not talking to "reasonably aware" people, you need to actually state all those footnotes and caveats, and really you're better off just skipping the conversation entirely because you're going to end up spending 45 minutes talking about why black people can say n---er "but we can't.")
― women are a bunch of dudes (tipsy mothra), Friday, 23 April 2010 18:45 (fourteen years ago) link
aren't they all ;) btw
― am0n, Friday, 23 April 2010 18:46 (fourteen years ago) link