― KSTFUNS (Ex Leon), Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:44 (eighteen years ago) link
np: vioxx ~ waterfalls of ecstacy (2 bad mice remix)
― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:50 (eighteen years ago) link
Am I right, folks?
― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay must fight Zolton herself. (allyzay), Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― discus (dr g), Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dan (Obligatory Bush Quote) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― firstworldman (firstworldman), Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― Remy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dan (Tomayto, Tomahto) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 3 November 2005 20:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:00 (eighteen years ago) link
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
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
― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:12 (eighteen years ago) link
as long as they speak english on the job *groans*
― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― pretentioRemy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― discus (dr g), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― pretentioRemy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:47 (eighteen years ago) link
He always knew how to drop science.
― KSTFUNS (Ex Leon), Thursday, 3 November 2005 21:53 (eighteen years ago) link
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
― terry lennox. (gareth), Thursday, 3 November 2005 22:46 (eighteen years ago) link
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
No, my sense is that people are hyper-aware of the possibility of getting accused of racism, and of its consequences, and so they'd like to restrict the word to some clear-cut realm of pure hate, in order to be clear they can never accidentally stumble over into it. This is why so many white people run around complaining that black people "overuse" accusations of racism. And interestingly enough they might sometimes be right, but what's bizarre about this is how it's white people who enforce that supposed "hyper-sensitivity" -- if black people are too quick to shout racism, you'd think you'd more often see frank racial discussions in which people actually stood up and said they didn't think the accusation was unwarranted. I mean, this is a side-issue, but it's odd to me that people will claim blacks "over-accuse" of racism, but not, like, grow some figurative balls about it: I'm seriously still amazed that when that guy in D.C. used the word "niggardly" and everyone got angry, his supervisors and colleagues actually hemmed and hawed and tried to be sensitive and placate -- instead of just saying "sorry, it's a word, it means something else, look it up."
So I suppose my question is this: how is it that like 80% of this country's population can live in weird irrational fear of being called racist by some little subset of 10% of the remainder? How can people claim that the term is overused and "played" as a "card" and devalued -- and yet fear it so much that they wind up on eggshells over it? In other words: what real power does an accusation of racism have over a white person -- apart from the power other white people will give it, by abandoning the accused? Do you see where I'm headed with this?
― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:55 (eighteen years ago) link
Up your ass?
― discus (dr g), Thursday, 3 November 2005 23:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― discus (dr g), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:07 (eighteen years ago) link
because i dont think it's pragmatically expedient to do so! "racism" has all sorts of connotations and contexts that people use to distance themselves from it.
this is exactly my argument:
No, my sense is that people are hyper-aware of the possibility of getting accused of racism, and of its consequences, and so they'd like to restrict the word to some clear-cut realm of pure hate, in order to be clear they can never accidentally stumble over into it.
except im arguing that the "clear-cut" meaning of the term has already been (largely) sorted out. if you avoid shouting racism at someone they are more willing to look at those beliefs or actions which are in fact probably racist but dont fall under the "pure hate" portion of that definition.
― ryan (ryan), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― ryan (ryan), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― emilys. (emilys.), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― emilys. (emilys.), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Friday, 4 November 2005 00:59 (eighteen years ago) link
me at halloween
― dog latin (dog latin), Friday, 4 November 2005 01:12 (eighteen years ago) link
im arguing that the "clear-cut" meaning of the term has already been (largely) sorted out
Sorry, Ryan, but I'm arguing that this is total bullshit. For instance: segregation was racist, yes? But just think how ridiculous and ahistorical is it to imagine that segregation was perpetuated strictly by "clear-cut" hood-wearing card-carrying racists! No, segregation in practice was held in place by any number of everyday, normal people: store owners and lunch-counter operators and employers and bus drivers. In the South, chances are the bulk of these folks liked black people -- they employed them, were friends with them, brought them into their homes. They didn't have a "problem" with them. But when it came down to it, they'd still tell these people to use the back entrance or give up their seats, and when it came down to it, they wouldn't give them jobs beyond sweeping up and ironing the clothes. That is what racism is -- the murderers and cross-burners are just an extreme expression of it. The word "racist" shouldn't refer strictly to cross-burners any more than the words "liberal" or "conservative" should refer strictly to the extreme left and right wings.
Just for instance, look at anti-Semitism in late-30s Germany. If we were to say a German of that era was an anti-Semite, we wouldn't exactly be accusing him of masterminding the death camps, or even standing outside cheering -- all we'd be saying is that this person had swallowed some percentage of the rote, everyday, caricatured anti-Semitism that was all over the time and place. And if that were true, how in the world would "but I disapproved when I found out about Auschwitz" matter? What bearing would that possibly have on the workaday stereotypes or conspiracy theories or other bullshit this person might have casually believed about Jews?
No: Nazis and Klansmen and virulent racists are red herrings in this conversation; they're just the organized extremes, the far-out bizarro expression of attitudes (of everyday racism, or anti-Semitism, or whatever else) that are all around in everything else. Surely this makes sense?
to say that an accusation of racism only has power over a white person because other white people give it power is ridiculous
My question: how so? Being called a racist doesn't do anything more to a person than being called an asshole does -- it's an insult that hurts your feelings, but it doesn't hold any particular power over you except insofar as you and other people believe it. I say white people give it power for a reason: a white principal isn't going to fire or suspend a teacher because someone called the teacher an asshole, but he's a lot more likely to get scared and take action if the accusation is racism. (To be completely fair, a lot of that also has to do with there being whole systems of black organizations that can follow up on an accusation like that -- with bad publicity or boycotts or whatever -- but the same is true of any number of interest groups that people don't feel quite as beholden to!)
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 4 November 2005 02:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 4 November 2005 02:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 4 November 2005 02:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 4 November 2005 02:39 (eighteen years ago) link