rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

I'm in no position to tell Meghan McCain how or what she can do obv but on behalf of some of my idiotic gay friends please let me apologize

wrt Harambe memes and Dat Boi tho, and the article I posted, it's more about nerds-accessorizing-vaguely-racist-stuff (as a corollary to 'nerds' feeling themselves like an Oppressed People who edge into that sweet spot of racist-enough-to-be-edgy-but-not-racist-enough-to-be-racist content) (WGW, this is for you, this is what you were talking about when you were asking if 'doge' was yellowface and it's not but the effect is the same, maybe?)...

...than it is white-women-and-white-gays-posting-Rihanna-gifs-because-they-feel-like-accessorizing-black-culture-somehow-brings-them-closer-to-the-community-that-the-economic-model-they-profit-off-of-isn't-built-upon-anti-blackness

I feel like almost all black reaction GIFs I see are in that 'positive' vein

yeahhhh .... but .... idk, a lot of the time when I see them used by white people, I think of racially insensitive halloween costumes. It's dressing up as a person that has been historically (and is still) oppressed by your people. It makes me uncomfortable.

blackface reaction gifs are so utterly ughhhh, especially when used by white folks. However, a group text I’m involved in frequently deployed drag performer reaction gifs, and that *also* bums me out, even though two of the members of the group text identify as trans and drag performers themselves. Sometimes they don’t bother me, though. On the occasions they DON’T bother me, it’s usually because source is a general pop-cultural reference -as opposed to, like, a meme or a particularly humiliating loop from Top Model

it's "positive" in the sense that white people perceive (or project) some quality in blackness that they want to momentarily have for themselves and then discard again. It's not directly mocking black people in a cruel way but it's still using them as a mask. I mean, this is kind of pervasive, so it's hard to disentangle what's "problematic" from what's not sometimes -- isn't a lot of white hip-hop fandom partly about projecting a fantasy onto black people/using black people to live out desires one doesn't otherwise want to express?

I mean I generally feel grossed out by those reaction gifs but I'm just trying to examine the deeper phenomenon they represent.

fgti has been reaching some level of internet consciousness that is going to be increasingly out of sync with the binary thinking the internet encourages

wrt Harambe memes and Dat Boi tho, and the article I posted, it's more about nerds-accessorizing-vaguely-racist-stuff (as a corollary to 'nerds' feeling themselves like an Oppressed People who edge into that sweet spot of racist-enough-to-be-edgy-but-not-racist-enough-to-be-racist content) (WGW, this is for you, this is what you were talking about when you were asking if 'doge' was yellowface and it's not but the effect is the same, maybe?)...

...than it is white-women-and-white-gays-posting-Rihanna-gifs-because-they-feel-like-accessorizing-black-culture-somehow-brings-them-closer-to-the-community-that-the-economic-model-they-profit-off-of-isn't-built-upon-anti-blackness

I think the article you posted has some very good analysis and insights mixed in with some glaring overreach and assumptions that muddy the argument. In particular, holding up Animal House as an ur-propaganda piece misses its genesis as the synthesis of the writers' experiences as frat members at Dartmouth/final club members at Harvard; due to the privilege circle in which they were operating, the archetypes at play when they put together the movie read very differently than when broadcast out into the wider culture and I think the interpretation of intent put forward by the piece is distorted as a result. (I wouldn't argue against the conclusion re: that movie's affect on the wider culture but it's also worth pointing out that the handling of race is about 500 times more sophisticated than the examples put forward in Sixteen Candles and Weird Science.)

I wouldn’t use either, but IME there’s a difference between posting a picture that silly fake fro The Rock wore in “Central Intelligence” and a reddit meme of, like, a grinning hobo with wheat stuck in hair.

Ooh, the reaction gif thing has always bothered me. Solution: white ppl should be limited to Seinfeld reaction gifs only.

*Seinfeld bass*

@ soda and man alive, I'll say it again: white gays (and white women) use those reaction gifs, as drag performers use the language, in order to accessorize black culture, as an attempt to bring these white people closer in proximity, culturally, to a community that they profit off of, economically.

My bff Prof. Muhly is always using "my hair is layed out like Jessye Norman" on his blog updates and it really doesn't work for me and I've told him so

@ DJP yeah, I was waiting for the article to leave the frame of John Hughes movies and get into 90s and 00s nerddom, but not today I guess

WGW, this is for you, this is what you were talking about when you were asking if 'doge' was yellowface and it's not but the effect is the same, maybe?

oh man, that thread :/

it is totally derived from Engrish, but because it's a dog, and not a person it's abstracted a bit from basic "Supplies!" yellowface, and it's more palatable. Also, cute dog.

It's kinda like instead of "sassy black woman" reaction gif, someone posted this (sorry WGW)

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/96/35/8a/96358a7ced999ede3d5e6998f7feb6ff--happy-birthday-mom-animal-kingdom.jpg

@ soda and man alive, I'll say it again: white gays (and white women) use those reaction gifs, as drag performers use the language, in order to accessorize black culture, as an attempt to bring these white people closer in proximity, culturally, to a community that they profit off of, economically.

That might explain why it seemed like it was so prevalent among democratic party surrogates.

and of course, there is this:

https://i.imgflip.com/e23l9.jpg

Some of these things also have a way of melting into the cultural landscape so we forget their origins, e.g. "Bitch, please" when not expressly tied to a black woman. Nowadays when I listen to 70s rock music for example, I'm almost shocked at how much quasi-blackface there seems to be in it. But listening to it growing up, I had no idea what the origins were, I just thought that was "rock n roll."

@ sarahell I think my heart just stopped, I can't think about this any more

So I referred to it as 'smart guy' meme above but you google that and among the top results are https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/92444781/Thinking-black-guy or https://memegenerator.net/Thinking-Black-Guy and ugh is there no escape.

idk if I was looking for that particular meme I'd type in "thinking black guy"

In recent months, Mr. Trump has used closed-door conversations to question the authenticity of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate. He has also repeatedly claimed that he lost the popular vote last year because of widespread voter fraud, according to advisers and lawmakers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/28/us/politics/trump-access-hollywood-tape.html?_r=0

it's like damien thorn is the US budget director

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=C23C3PqVgR0

"in a perfect world we wouldn't need poverty programs" amazing

what's on mulvaney's forehead?

It's Ash Wednesday

ah

because helping people who need help is what leads to.. people needing more help? of course!

white house statements that read like onion headlines

https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/need-know-violent-animals-ms-13/

Too many innocent Americans have fallen victim to the unthinkable violence of MS-13’s animals.

Oh ferchrissakes! What about dozens of innocent victims who are wedding guests in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and other places, who keep getting violently blown to bits by the heinous animals at the US Department of Defense, who use drone-fired missiles to kill, maim and spread terror?

That's a White House statement? Sadly it's far too late to say, good luck, USA.

Made me go wtf. It'd been a while.

Oh ferchrissakes! What about dozens of innocent victims who are wedding guests in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and other places, who keep getting violently blown to bits by the heinous animals at the US Department of Defense, who use drone-fired missiles to kill, maim and spread terror?

well, those folks are brown

the folks in ms-13 are brown

you can probably join the dots yrself from there

calling 'some people' "animals" is fine. but don't you dare call real americans "deplorable"!

good job whitehouse now do one for "shithole" countries

https://patch.com/new-jersey/cherryhill/cherry-hill-east-principal-apologizes-insensitive-prom-ticket?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=blasts&utm_content=national

NEW: mugshot of the man accused of walking into Boulevard Mall with a fake gun. Emile Daren Hobson has been charged with committing an act of terrorism. @FOX5Vegas pic.twitter.com/QG30Crnw4i

— Tiana Bohner (@FOX5_Tiana) May 18, 2018

wow bad news for the white girl who was walking around Kent State with a rifle

utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=blasts&utm_content=national

facebook.com social campaign blasts national - probably racist

the barrier is Barack Obama, who radicalized the party with his pessimism, who reminded us of past sins, who told Americans they should feel ashamed of themselves

https://nypost.com/2018/07/09/its-not-bernie-whos-holding-the-democrats-back-its-obama/

and then fulfilled by Trump, who has radicalized our pessimism, committed himself to past sins, and made Americans feel ashamed of ourselves

no, really

https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/charlottes-city-council-votes-to-accept-contracts-to-host-rnc-in-2020/275-574409498

BAD OPTICS

https://secondnexus.com/news/trump-administration-not-assist-obama/

I keep getting called "bro", "broski", or some other variation of the term, by black guys. It feels like I'm being made fun of for being a generic white doucher. Which tbh is how I present but anyway. I'm getting through it.

sounds like a scene from Blindspotting

i think you are overreacting

i wouldn't worry until you get called 'brian scalabrine'

I keep getting called "bro", "broski", or some other variation of the term

Are you Polish?

Does “spook” have several meanings or nah? Bc I use “spook” the way we might refer to our resident ILX user’s profession but also I have heard it used against POC so help me out here. Is it one of those things where we need to phase it out bc it’s too close for comfort or is it context specific thank you

You can’t go wrong not using words that can be confused for being kinda racist even if they aren’t necessarily so.

The Human Stain to thread

right obv but also I’m just asking more broadly

I think it’s context specific but also understand why the BBC renamed the show to “MI5” when they brought it over here

A spy is sometimes called a spook because their profession requires them to adopt a certain invisibility. Black people have been called spooks because, supposedly, being black makes them invisible in the dark and this was considered a humorous idea by racists. No black person should be called a spook under any circumstances, but one can usually pick out the intended idea easily enough from the context.

This seems a bit like the controversy over using the word niggardly to describe a cheapskate.

I think it can be useful in describing a spy working within a specific context... but you want to be sure it can't be confused with the epithet which is dated but still offensive xxp

Also I am tempering two pop culture references,

One is back to the future which is obv derogatory and,

A Bloom County cartoon where Steve Dallas is dancing like Michael Jackson and he’s internally monologue-ing about whether he’s working for the feds or not