White trick-or-treaters in blackface: C/D?

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Well it'd be nice if the students' stated opinions were taken into account in what was going to enrich their experience, don't you think?

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 19:58 (eighteen years ago) link

Lots of things would be nice.

― discus (dr g), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 20:01 (eighteen years ago) link

Dan Perry OTM

The main rebuttal of "why are all the black kids sitting together" is "well, why are all the white kids sitting together?" Just because there are less of us doesn't mean we're not just sitting with our friends like everyone else. Just because we all look the same (though we really don't) doesn't mean we are. My all-black table actually had a token, my white friend Aaron from HS, and it used to baffle the shit out of everyone. For whatever reason.

― Candicissima (candicissima), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 20:07 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah geez and why aren't their more white kids in black frats?

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 20:32 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah geez and why aren't there more white kids in black frats?

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 20:32 (eighteen years ago) link

Sleep dep has never fucked so much with my spelling skills.

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 20:33 (eighteen years ago) link

I read those posts backwards and was disappointed to see you hadn't originally asked why there weren't more white kids in black farts.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 20:49 (eighteen years ago) link

Well it'd be nice if the students' stated opinions were taken into account in what was going to enrich their experience, don't you think?

Heavens, no.

― Austin Quigl3y (gabbneb), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 20:58 (eighteen years ago) link

If I had been white friend Aaron I would've introduced myself as Marisa Tomei.

Air America (used to?) air a commercial insinuating that not allowing a white kid into a black frat would be wrong because any form of discrimination is bad, yet another case of blacks huddling into separatist comfort zones.

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 21:06 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah geez and why aren't there more white kids in black frats?

Because they always break the canes during step routines?

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 21:07 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.ssaland.com/Halloween/images/One-wild-and-crazy-yoda.jpg

― strongo hulkington's ghost (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 21:31 (eighteen years ago) link

OH MY GOD

― Dan (I Have Lost My Shit) Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 22:16 (eighteen years ago) link

Why do people not worry when like, Asians all sit together at the same table?

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 22:24 (eighteen years ago) link

http://espn.starwave.com/media/motion/2005/1030/rm1v_thumbnail_big.jpg = http://motion-lotion.com/music/k_honda/images/mb5_maggotbrain.jpg

Obv.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 22:49 (eighteen years ago) link

ATTN DAN PERRY

YOU MIGHT'VE MISSED THIS ON ESPN.COM

http://search.espn.go.com/keyword/search?searchString=mike%20tyson&page=multimedia&multimediaCount=15

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 22:56 (eighteen years ago) link

Why do people not worry when like, Asians all sit together at the same table?

because white people don't need to be liked by Asians

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 23:11 (eighteen years ago) link

Some of these might be pics from that party but mostly they look too cool to be Chicago students.

― Paul Eater (eater), Thursday, 3 November 2005 00:37 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.lunacynet.com/league/images/s3_lazarou.jpg

RACISM AT HALLOWEEN!

My friend (of indian descent) went as a grand-wizard. He got my other friend's mum to make the white hood for him.

― dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:12 (eighteen years ago) link

why wasn't anyone pissed about all those kids dressed up as ghosts? that's inexcusable, they're making fun of the dead!

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:39 (eighteen years ago) link

thats clever, what you did

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:42 (eighteen years ago) link

When did ethan turn into gareth?

― KSTFUNS (Ex Leon), Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:44 (eighteen years ago) link

did you get my depressing postcard from lanfortshire?

np: vioxx ~ waterfalls of ecstacy (2 bad mice remix)

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:48 (eighteen years ago) link

x-post: when he quit using apostrophes?

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:49 (eighteen years ago) link

gareth used apostrophes too, back in the day

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Why aren't the witches offended by halloween?

Am I right, folks?

― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:51 (eighteen years ago) link

i suddenly regret making that joke

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:52 (eighteen years ago) link

who couldve guessed youd regret a joke equating black people with dead people

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:23 (eighteen years ago) link

No one cares if Mexicans all sit together at a table, either.

― Allyzay must fight Zolton herself. (allyzay), Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:25 (eighteen years ago) link

How about Peruvians?

― discus (dr g), Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:33 (eighteen years ago) link

"You forgot about Poland!"

― Dan (Obligatory Bush Quote) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:37 (eighteen years ago) link

opening up a can of worms i'm sure, but ethan how come you don't make any distinction between a person being racist and just not being sensitive re: race issues? honest question.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:47 (eighteen years ago) link

As I figure it … racism's conscious and intentionally oppressive or hurtful behavior, and racial insensitivity is ignorant / misinformed idiocy without maliciousness.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:55 (eighteen years ago) link

Also, they both suck when directed towards you.

― Dan (Tomayto, Tomahto) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:56 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't think the line is ever that clear between those two things, and I'm incredibly skeptical of the "conscious" and "intentionally" in that particular framing of it. (Plenty of people are actively-racist in ways that are more ignorant than consciously considered, and even segregation wasn't "intentionally" oppressive/hurtful.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:00 (eighteen years ago) link

There should be an "always" qualifier in that last bit, but I still think the majority of segregationists would have argued and largely believed that the system was better for everyone involved.

It's really, really dangerous to start thinking "racism" is solely limited to people who actively hate certain other races and take active steps to be mean to them; this describes like a really tiny portion of the history of racism, which is almost always more about having particular expectations of people or ideas about them and their status based on race. Whether those ideas are "conscious" or "ignorant" is a pretty vague spectrum based on how much people have sat down and thought about the nuances of their belief systems -- i.e., something really, really hard to judge without mind-meld technology.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:04 (eighteen years ago) link

is there an acceptable audience to joke irreverently about race? there must be a difference between something directed at a race rather than using it as a mask to hide a punchline, right? i'm asking this because whenever i get in one of these sorts of discussions on ilx, i suddenly feel as though i am being inappropriate. in real life, otoh, i almost never feel this way, unless i am talking with someone from another generation, or in the presence of someone who actually does harbor racist/ignorant feelings.

i have never had a racial slur directed to me, though i'm sure that in various confrontations some people may have regarded my actions as having to do with being white. i have been with friends who have been racially slurred in my presence and it is indeed an incredibly awkward, hurtful and, yes, sometimes somewhat funny situation. the right idiot making the right bizarre racist comment can sound so absurd that you have to laugh at it. is that okay?

i don't think that sensitivity is always necessary to promote the alleviation of racism. i'm not asking for permission to tell racist jokes, i'm saying that it seems like there's a way to talk intelligently and with humor about race that shouldn't offend people.

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:10 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't know that anyone would disagree with that!

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:12 (eighteen years ago) link

No one cares if Mexicans all sit together at a table, either.

as long as they speak english on the job *groans*

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:19 (eighteen years ago) link

Point taken… if not necessarily agreed-upon, Nabisco. However (to pick at a tangential point): refusal to consider 'intent' always strikes me as more of a clever poststructural conceit than an actual way to operate intellectually. Especially re. touchy subjects like race, we're constantly evaluating intent, nuance, audience, authorship, etc.

― pretentioRemy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:21 (eighteen years ago) link

It is an easy way to validate whatever response one might have.

― discus (dr g), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:22 (eighteen years ago) link

but isn't the whole issue of 'when boondocks does X it's funny… and when mallard fillmore does X it's offensive' really framed in terms of intent?

― pretentioRemy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:24 (eighteen years ago) link

I think you'll need better than a rhetorical example to make yr point.

― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:30 (eighteen years ago) link

remember when lord custos told me i had no right to say anything on ilm was racist til i could prove the poster was an active member of the klan?

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:34 (eighteen years ago) link

I mean with boondocks vs. mallard fillmore, its not just 'intent' its the expressed message that is different.

― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:37 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, Remy, intent has to do with it, sure -- but my point was that it's not even close to an either/or of "intentional" versus accidental/ignorant. There are loads of things we think of as out-and-out racist that don't involve explicit intent or consciousness. (Hell, you can just plain not-like all people of a certain race without that being intentional or even really conscious!) And apart from a few easily spots where it's easy to tell the Klan members from the "oops, I didn't mean it that way" accidents and misunderstandings, it can get really hard to draw clear lines between "racist" and "insensitive/ignorant." (To be honest I think I question this distinction from the other direction -- is there any form of racism that's not mostly rooted in ignorance and accident and unconscious passed-down crap?)

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:41 (eighteen years ago) link

I mean, I worry that people nowadays are so frightened of being "accidentally" accused of racism that there's this push to redefine proper racism as consisting only of adults who woke up one morning, officially decided that they hated all "inferior" black people, and went out and got laminated membership cards to that effect. Which is bizarre, insofar as the history of stuff in this country that we consider racist (including slavery and segregation) was largely perpetuated by people who didn't have nearly those cut-and-dried opinions.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:47 (eighteen years ago) link

remember when lord custos told me i had no right to say anything on ilm was racist til i could prove the poster was an active member of the klan?

He always knew how to drop science.

― KSTFUNS (Ex Leon), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:53 (eighteen years ago) link

who couldve guessed youd regret a joke equating black people with dead people

TS: ethan in "righteous outer of racists" mode vs. ethan in "THAT'S NOT FUNNY" mode

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 3 November 2005 22:15 (eighteen years ago) link

hey wait, my postcards arent depressing

― terry lennox. (gareth), Thursday, 3 November 2005 22:46 (eighteen years ago) link

nabisco i'd object to the term because it's use (or overuse) almost always comes across as another form of "othering"--constantly identifying racism or racists as a means of differentiating oneself. as a word that is used most often in the service of political expediency i think it simply leaps over the ways in which "racism" is a lot more insidious and amorphous than any public discourse allows. i think in a lot of cases it's fine to attack the term especially when what is being distinquished from "racism" is also seen as harmful.

in other words, it's often a bad term precisely because it's connected to slavery and segregationist, and this let's everyone off the hook.

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:14 (eighteen years ago) link

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