that thing white ppl do when they disparage 'white ppl'

mandatory

I've done it myself, but now I think it's a bit tacky. Trying too hard.

that thing ___ ppl do when they ____ '____ ppl'

Congrats on using the word "tendentious" tho

when they do this, i tend to think "finally they get it"

or, what eric h said

that thing ___ ppl do when they ____ '____ ppl'

― mdskltr (blueski), Friday, April 23, 2010 8:40 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yes.

people don't understand that when we do this, we are playing ourselves

happy st george's day motherfuckers!

http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/liverpoolecho/apr2009/2/8/image-6-for-gallery-region-celebrates-st-george-s-day-405459912.jpg

there needs to be more white ppl thinking about white ppl in totality

they shd read more fanon/ignatiev/malcolm x and less 'stuff white people like'

^^ i feel like ppl who are keen to disparage white ppl are also keen to big up malcolm x & fanon & whoever

http://agrammar.tumblr.com/post/207970845/white

What surprises me, though, is how many white speakers—including people who are relatively savvy about race and culture—seem completely unbothered by the very obvious problems involved in using a racial shorthand for them. Some will quite casually use “white” as code for a certain set of qualities—safety, cleverness, politeness, education, middle-class manner, “literary” pretensions, alleged blandness—without, so far as I can tell, much noticing the shadow of opposites that casts on everyone else. (Danger? Vulgarity? Ignorance? Poverty? Savagery?) Some will argue, in earnest, that they’re actually taking the side of some vibrant other thing over bland, upscale whiteness—all without noticing how very old and familiar that line is. (Haven’t white audiences traditionally admired black artists as a source of transgression, of danger, of dirt, of “authenticity,” of “soul,” of “primitive” thrills?)

i tend to use 'white' as shorthand for 'white', but maybe i haven't read all of that strawman with the appropriate care and attention.

xp- yep

max's quote above is massively OTM. This is always said by people who whether consciously aware of it or not are drowning in 1950s "White Negro" crap. "I'm not really white, I listen to hip-hop! I'm not really white, I live down the street from a pupuseria that's muy autentico! I'm not really white, I don't own a TV!"

Why not just bring the word "bourgeois" back? It means something! And the thing it means is something people obviously want to express! And then people can stop denoting that thing by "white" or "suburban" or "American" or whatever other evidently wrong proxy they're using now.

I'm the whitest girl in the world AND I live down the street from eleventy-six jerk joints. Okay not anymore, now I live down the street from NYU. I miss the curry.

i lump this sort of stuff in with hipster bashing et al, the white people in things white people like are simultaneously a really narrow subculture and a vaguely defined punching bag for people who consider themselves above it.

max's quote above is massively OTM.

some white bread itt

[nabisco]'s blog post touches on one of my socio-political pet peeves, the one about black people not having the privilege to possess traits commonly defined as "white." In the black majority this tendency seems reinforced by their culture, particularly youth culture and the media they consume, but I think they do it, i.e., embrace things that are interpreted as urban, dangerous, primitive, and "black," as a way of appropriating and exalting an image thrust on them, because it's something they can do well, that they can do better than anyone else, and because it gives them a confidence that maybe their situations don't. They would rather be "black" than compete with whites at being "white," who haven't historically (and continue not to) let them be.

I suspect that this tendency boomed when the US deindustrialized in the seventies & eighties and the livelihoods of many of the black majority were lost. I also think that housing projects, in that they are culturally irresponsible uses of living space that have further fragmented community and family units, have exacerbated the problem.

Though black people also identify whiteness apart from "white"-ness and apart from the bourgeois.

youre skating on thin ice there bam

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c6/Yoko_Ono_-_Waking_on_Thin_Ice_(2003).jpg
Tell me why.

Why not just bring the word "bourgeois" back? It means something!

If I could just kill this one word, my entire life would have meant something. Also, afaik, the only white people who can even say this word correctly are the French.

http://annenahm.com/anneimage/2009/11/Michael+Jackson+Jackson_popcorn.gif

I say "paper mâché."

I'm the whitest girl in the world

Can you unpack what you mean by that, though?

her skin is this color: http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=4820506

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xfxmmOzXySs/SYAsMgcOTPI/AAAAAAAAAL8/xb4-GR4X9qE/s400/unpack+adjectives.jpg

Tell me why.

For one thing, you're treating "black people" monolithically. This is one thing that Nabisco has written astutely about -- one of the problems with using "white" as shorthand for "middle-class" or "dorky" or "liberal arts grad" is that it implicitly writes out all of the non-whites who literally exist in these spaces.

In the black majority this tendency seems reinforced by their culture, particularly youth culture and the media they consume

its not that i dont see what youre saying here (and fwiw i dont think i agree, but whatever), its just a kind of problematic way of saying it, isnt it? making sort of vague generalities abt the habits of a race is not a particularly constructive way to have a conversation, even if your hearts int the right place, in other words.

xp jaymc otm

yeah i was gonna get started on a post for this thread and i then i thought, no

ppl are white btw

u stole my post

like 30 secs faster and it would be my login under that post

people of non-color

Hmm, if I've ever disparaged a 'white person' it's generally when they're exhibiting some annoying form of 'white privilege'.

making sort of vague generalities abt the habits of a race is not a particularly constructive way to have a conversation, even if your hearts int the right place

well the thing is people's hearts usually aren't in the right place and they're not trying to have a constructive conversation - it's usually always as in "lol white people". i thought you of all people were into internet lols at the expense of others~

race vs. class

if any american whites are interested in mitigating for their whiteness feel free to sign the petition to pass the dream act, has something to do with stopping illegal mexican kids from getting deported or something, i dunno

i thought you of all people were into internet lols at the expense of others~

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Friday, April 23, 2010 11:54 AM

u do know dom doesn't post here anymore rite

this just in: white people still corny

This sounds like the worst thing

Not monolithically. Generalizing is not stereotyping, and it doesn't preclude the existence of people who don't fit. And "black majority," a phrase widely used and understood, narrows the group down quite a lot, and talking about black youth narrows the group further.

My argument's not quite the same as his, but it's not too different from the way Houston Baker talks about US blacks using generalizations. He includes more examples but he's writing books, not ilx posts.

Holy Jesus and Mary Chain and Joseph.

one of the problems with using "white" as shorthand for "middle-class" or "dorky" or "liberal arts grad" is that it implicitly writes out all of the non-whites who literally exist in these spaces.

That's implicitly in my post. That's what I said I disliked.

well the thing is people's hearts usually aren't in the right place and they're not trying to have a constructive conversation - it's usually always as in "lol white people". i thought you of all people were into internet lols at the expense of others~

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Friday, April 23, 2010 11:54 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dont think we disagree? what do you think im trying to say?

"heart's in the right place" "problematic"

Just call me racist.

u r not racist
u r white ppl tho

Not monolithically. Generalizing is not stereotyping, and it doesn't preclude the existence of people who don't fit. And "black majority," a phrase widely used and understood, narrows the group down quite a lot, and talking about black youth narrows the group further.

generalizing isnt stereotyping, but it suffers from some of the same discursive problems, doesnt it? and im not sure "black majority" is quite a widely-used and understood as you think!

jeez dude i dont think youre "racist"

http://readjack.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/43-carcetti-and-norman.jpg

http://vvoice.vo.llnwd.net/e14/what-is-a-juggalo.2764772.36.jpg

Then it's not as widely-used and understood as I think, but it's understood by the people I need to understand it, who are the people in my life I talk about race to. I talk about race A LOT, so forgive me for being glib and rushed and using generalizations.

<------ mad light though

Generalizing is fine place to start. If you end with it, you're not really generalizing anymore, you're recapitulating your argument.

There's a difference between being a bigot and a racist. Everyone's racist. Certainly I am. And I have said so to my lol black friends.

Solved: Why White Ppl are Assholes

i dont even know what youre talking about now

max is a racist

we're all racists

I mean that we are not colorblind, or just blind! We see differences in culure, personality and physical characteristics. To pretend that we don't is silly, naive, whatever. That doesn't mean that you don't distinguish between the structural and the behavioral roots of problems, that you become a bigot, that you value the dominant culture more, that you don't put a check to predispositions to prejudice, or that you don't reason with yourself about matters of race. You DO have to reason with yourself about race. You aren't born knowing what you need to know about it, whether you're white or not.

^^^ I'm assuming this is not controversial. Tell me if it is.

culure = culture, obv

http://religionandterror.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/blacks-vs-whites-after-civil-war.jpg

So far the only funny one has been the MJ "Thriller" gif.

Faygo a little funny. White and black dude a teensy bit.

What exactly is a white person?

I don't mean to sound baiting, or like a troll. But like, when people talk about 'white people,' esp in the US, don't they tend to mean someone of light complexion whose family immigrated here more than X number of years ago? Because recent immigrants don't fit into the rubric easily (and there's a whole history of ethnic groups BECOMING white over time...)

can we talk about music in here

no "I'm white btw" yet?

A bit obvious to deconstruct "white" like that, unless you actually want to know what it is.

A "female friend" weighs in: "And sometimes it does a disservice to frank acknowledgement of sociocultural inequity to focus on exceptions-i tended to be one w/regard to gender but it would be disingenuous to equate my exceptionality with any sort of norm."

Somewhat similar to this is men who disparage "men" usually from a feminist perspective - eg., talking about how "men" should step aside and let women run things, seeing how men have managed to thoroughly screw up the planet, and so on. This seems a little more serious to me than the racial version, which is usually played for laughs, since you could make a case from a biological perspective that men are more prone to violence or other undesirable behavior.

I find 'black' and 'white' increasingly problematic. Black people are brown and white people vary from pale yellow(ish) to my own lovely shade of pink and the constructs of 'white' and 'black' as cultures (aside from mere pigmentation) are ones that I find increasingly annoying whatever their historical and indentific realities so I try not to diss 'white people' and save my ammo for specific assholes.

http://rlv.zcache.com/general_james_longstreet_tshirt-p235706652153917715t5e4_400.jpg

'black' and 'white' might be made up but that doesn't mean they are not real

anyway, james longstreet zazzle tshirt, yall

A bit obvious to deconstruct "white" like that, unless you actually want to know what it is.

I'm just curious what this thread is about. I assume it's not about White Anglo-Saxon Protestants disparaging the *wrong* (Jewish? Catholic?) kinds of whites. It really means something closer to "hipsters disparaging their parents" right?

basically "liberal guilt" vs "redneck humor"

Liking The Wire - white

Black people are brown and white people vary from pale yellow(ish) to my own lovely shade of pink

This is bordering on truism. The rest of that I basically agree with, although it's not functional if you want to talk about "white culture" and "black culture."

Yeah, this is about white guilt.

black people can also be yellow or pink btw

"hipsters disparaging their parents" right?

Yeah.

&xxpost yeah

I mean, I can introduce to cousins of mine who have two African-American parents who have natural red hair and green eyes

Does anyone remember an article from around the 4th season of the Wire about an academic who was watching the show with kids living in that community? (Ie: Stfu wrt liking the wire = white.)

xpost We know this stuff.

then act like it

I mean, I can introduce to cousins of mine who have two African-American parents who have natural red hair and green eyes

― HI DERE, Friday, April 23, 2010 11:39 AM (49 seconds ago) Bookmark

a/s/l?

I can introduce to cousins of mine who have two African-American parents who have natural red hair and green eyes

Espcially down with this if they are girls and cute.

Ha ha goole. Beat me to it.

I said that for lulz, Mordy. Oh, and it's true.

naw jk

(true)

social constructivists - white

Well one is actually my mom's cousin and is 70. The other is 34 and had a baby with one of the dudes from Bone Thugs and Harmony.

Okay, if I disparage white people, it's usually those parts of my family who are white, Protestant Christian, racist (and not as good at hiding it as they like to think), jingoist, eat shitty food, have an annoying chip on their shoulder about me thinking this of them, and with whom I can have neither a fun time nor a good conversation and what I hate about them most is their assumption that, since I'm a white American male, I will automatically share their stupid prejudices.

i notched white on my census form, but i was kinda bummed. wanted to list as Jewish, but i guess it's for the best that there isn't such a choice (lul jews + lists). Besides, from experience (doing 20th century census analysis for classwork) i'm sure future scholars won't have any trouble figuring out that m0rd3ch4i s41n3f13ld was jewish.

How, Dan? Act like it how? That's some condescending bullshit to presume that people don't have eyes, or some ilxor's never heard of Wallace Thurman.

Because recent immigrants don't fit into the rubric easily (and there's a whole history of ethnic groups BECOMING white over time...)

Sorry, Mordy, I missed this. Hispanics coming to US, used to be "white," now "hispanic," blah blah. Yeah.

bam for someone who is eager to call ppl out for being "obvious" u are saying some freshman seminar-level shit up in this

^^^^ basically my point; your argument at the moment is basically "I hate generalities except when they are mine"

Be more specific, max, because you guys say that pretty frequently.

bamcquern = Vision?

I guess when I do this I'm basically just annoyed at the self-satisfied mediocrity of white middle-class identity.

Talk about the generality, then. And which ones am I hating on (for their being generalities)? I mean, do you disagree because I'm WRONG or because I'm OBVIOUS? Or both? And if both, you sort that out for me.

mordy asks "what does white mean" in this instance which is uhhhh a pretty relevant question and youre all "pretty obvious to do that" when like 10 posts prior you were all "were all racist man" which is... true on some insanely broad level? i guess? but not exactly a truth bomb into our brains

What wrong with saying obvious things? You don't get extra points for contrarian obtuse bullshit.

i dont even "disagree" with you because i cant even figure out what youre SAYING except that like... there is racism

sorry to bring this up again but before yall go any further into being annoyed at the self-satisfied mediocrity of white middle-class identity i just wanna make sure you've signed the dream act petition first kthx :)

I didn't have a problem with Mordy's post when I figured out he was being sincere. No, wait, I hedged in my orig. response to him, in case he was being sincere. But in case he intended to deconstruct "white," I thought that was already implicit in everything we were saying - that we were all on the same page.

One thing I really hate is when white people insist that others spend all afternoon carefully explaining why they are misguided. Bugs the shit out of me.

Then it's for being obvious. There is racism. I'll leave it at that.

syntactically weird, suzy

tbh, this doesn't really happen ever around my friends/acquaintances. i don't think i've ever participated in a conversation where we just hung around and disparaged the wrong kind of white people (unless it was hyper specific, like tea partiers, or people at Palin rallies). so this could only exist in some iconic, decontextualized way -- like it's more like something Liz Lemon would do in a 30 Rock episode than real people IRL. (Or I could be totally off-base and there are loads of people who do this.)

it's that "insist that others" - not syntax, word choice.

its also for throwing around statements about 'black culture' and 'black youth culture' and 'black majority' without any kind of qualifying explanation of what you mean! xxp

A BRIEF STORY ABOUT RACE IN AMERICA:

last fall I was in a modernist lit class where we read Cane by Jean Toomer, a dude of super-mixed creole descent who had assumed various racial identities throughout his life (went to both all-white and all-black segregated schools as a child, to give just one example).

several people were misled by the author's name and the prominence of female characters into thinking that Jean Toomer was a woman; when they learned that he was not, they expressed surprise and admiration for his ability, "as a man", to write complex/compelling/'realistic' female characters.

then, when it came time to talk about race, those same people didn't hesitate to assert that Toomer was CLEARLY black, regardless of what he himself might have to say about the matter; it's all right there in the text, "you can just tell" -- no white person could have possibly written about the lives and experiences of black characters with that degree of insight/sympathy/understanding/whatever...

it was sorta frustrating

i read cane in my modernist lit class too! did you guys read nightwood too?

You don't get extra points for contrarian obtuse bullshit.

can we just hold up a second while I process what this claim, if true, means for the lie that I have constructed as my life

xp
yup!

college!

seriously can't get through like 2 pgs. of nightwood over here

I'm right here. No need to throw around all those xxps. Well then start there.

Black majority - most of US blacks. Not a lot of money. Lots of them in jail.

Black youth culture (of the black majority, I said) - visit an 8th grade classroom of black kids - this would be - Being smart is gay. Mainstream rap & r&b. "White" dominant culture, when appreciated, is seen as exotic nonetheless.

Black culture - an interplay of how blacks and whites perceive "black culture"?

Trying to participate in a fast-moving conversation.

Black majority - most of US blacks.

hilarious

lolwat?

I get...zero points for contrarian obtuse bullshit

fuckin'

man oh man

well now i just feel silly being on this thread

i read cane in my modernist lit class too! did you guys read nightwood too?

― max, Friday, April 23, 2010 12:05 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

Tired. You can engage if you disagree. Maybe noise dudes can't?

re: black majority

Wtf else could it mean? Oh, wait, I see what's wrong with that. Is that quoted out of context? Didn't I add a couple of sociological qualifiers.

I get...zero points for contrarian obtuse bullshit

fuckin'

man oh man

― brad whitford's guitar explorations (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Friday, April 23, 2010 1:10 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well, u know, being smart is gay--ask any black youth

bamcquern, why u want to troll + breaked mine <3?

THAT COMMENT WASNT DIRECTED AT YOU IT WAS DIRECTED TO THE FUCKING POSTER WHO HAD JUST BEEN WRITING ABOUT THE BOOK CANE

1000TimesYes Can't believe there's enough boring white ppl in NYC to make High Violet a trending topic. Come back #Beiber, all is forgiven about 1 hour ago via web

When you say things like "black people select entertainment that paints them in a negative light" without acknowledging:

- the history of the entertainment industry in which they are working, which was controlled for years by white people only interested in negative depictions of black people and, to a large degree, still is controlled mostly by white people;

- the fact that depictions of negative situations such as crime, gang violence, poverty, etc in entertainment are not de facto tru-life stories that are directly analogous to experiences in the lives of every black person (I have not looked at statistics recently so I can't authoritatively say whether these experiences impact a majority of black people, but I can say through anecdotal evidence from my extended family of teachers, firemen, banker tellers, parole officers, lawyers, architects, football wives, nurses, engineers, bus drivers, sommeliers, etc. that more of them live crime-free lives than not, and those that do are all concentrated in one city, pointing more towards an issue with an urban area than an intrinsic issue with black people);

- black people are more than just brown and furthermore all people who would likely be classified as "black" in America don't necessarily identify themselves as being part of the same group (see, for example, the kerfuffle in Major League Baseball over African-Americans versus black Hispanics);

... when you start adding these things into the mix, you're talking in empty, useless platitudes with a bunch of ingrained, unchallenged assumptions that I, personally, as an upper-middle-class Ivy League-educated black man who has never been in any real form of poverty or danger yet still considers himself just as much of an African-American as the next person, find immensely dismissive of the fact of my existence and borderline offensive.

xp: okay yes, like that "definitions" post of yours is almost exactly what I'm talking about; I don't really care if you are like "your experience is different" because it is, but there are a significant number of people out there who have had experiences like mine, plus not everyone in the situations you describe react to them the same way, plus talk to any group of white 8th graders and they will ALSO tell you that being smart is gay

like I really don't want to be in a position where I'm defending Tyler Perry but...

wait, I haven't refreshed, but I'm sorry, max, for that engage comment, because I didn't read that whole interaction.

barnes shorts are better, btw

lol this thread

anyway I would say that the phenomenon the thread-starter is discussing is probably just another example of the whole "cynical distance" thing that my man zizek argues is an essential part of any ideological formation. but in general I wish americans would worry less about race and more about class (which would probably also help them arrive at 'better'/more progressive views about race)

dude, max, was correcting my error, mr caps

anyway I would say that the phenomenon the thread-starter is discussing is probably just another example of the whole "cynical distance" thing that my man zizek argues is an essential part of any ideological formation. but in general I wish americans would worry less about race and more about class (which would probably also help them arrive at 'better'/more progressive views about race)

that is fucking super OTM

my man zizek

Daniel, Esq to thread? jk.

1000TimesYes Can't believe there's enough boring white ppl in NYC to make High Violet a trending topic. Come back #Beiber, all is forgiven about 1 hour ago via web

that's the sort of thing i had in mind when starting this thread....

yeah whiney loves to talk about white ppl

Dan, that's all true and well-said, but my orig complaint was not with black people, it was with the structural problems in place that lead to those phenomena. Which is why upthread I mentioned the structural v. behavioral.

when people start thinking about class don't they do the same thing though - everybody looking down on "bourgies" when they themselves are dictionary-definition bourgeoisie - and thinking they're somehow excluded from that definition because they like to talk shit about the category - cf. also "hipster"

text:"white people" AND displayName:Whiney G. Weingarten

which is to say, "this thing people do when they disparage groups to which they belong" is a broader category maybe? and "white" is a red herring here?

that's because people don't know what the word bourgeoisie means

And my original comment was an offhand thing that I guess I figged would be overlooked because it leaned toward the obvious, but instead it was interpreted as, what, lol black people?

- black people are more than just brown and furthermore all people who would likely be classified as "black" in America don't necessarily identify themselves as being part of the same group (see, for example, the kerfuffle in Major League Baseball over African-Americans versus black Hispanics);

Others still are Africans or non-hispanic blacks from the Carribean or Brazilians... So what are some commonalities amongst native African-Americans in the various states and cities?

plus talk to any group of white 8th graders and they will ALSO tell you that being smart is gay

Yeah, but they're just copying the black kids. ;)

& you, Dan, highlighted those structural problems. I didn't meant to elide that fact in my post.

like it's more like something Liz Lemon would do in a 30 Rock episode than real people IRL. (Or I could be totally off-base and there are loads of people who do this.)

i did this last night. :/ a friend asked what i was reading and i told her it was the 33 1/3 book about neutral milk hotel, so that i could talk to my white friends about music. "white friends" meaning some of our specific mutual friends who obsess over indie rock (which i don't really listen to).

xxxxp

So what are some commonalities amongst native African-Americans in the various states and cities?

1. They were born in the US.
2. ...

these friends emailed me this morning about the national btw

2. back in 8th grade they thought being smart was gay

I still think, despite the gay point you make, Dan, that with most black youth (another generalization), there's an unhealthy societal pressure on them to be "black" as a means of fitting in and boosting self-confidence that's not as striking as pressures that average white kids face.

Jordan, did you mean it, or were you uncomfortable about reading a book about a band you felt had a very narrow cultural audience and it was a joke to elide that? (Whether or not that discomfort was appropriate or not.)

com on ppl now smile on ur brother :)

the latter

xp

lol "gay point" - I mean point about white 8th grade kids also thinking smart = gay.

re: crime stats: I read a pretty recent (2009 I think?) book which, IIRC, gave 1 out of 3 as the proportion of young black males (I forget exactly what the age range was for this statistic) currently in jail, on parole, or on probation. just in case anyone was curious.

(Punishing the Poor by Loic Wacquant, if yr interested)

why did thread about white ppl disparaging other white ppl turn into a thread about "black culture" and now crime statistics?

I still think, despite the gay point you make, Dan, that with most black youth (another generalization), there's an unhealthy societal pressure on them to be "black" as a means of fitting in and boosting self-confidence that's not as striking as pressures that average white kids face.

― bamcquern, Friday, April 23, 2010 12:25 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

ok, what's your point?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Franz_Xaver_Winterhalter_King_Louis_Philippe.jpg/210px-Franz_Xaver_Winterhalter_King_Louis_Philippe.jpg

King of Bourgies

bourgeois is just secret code for jewish anyway

why did thread about white ppl disparaging other white ppl turn into a thread about "black culture" and now crime statistics?

I chuckled at the Jewish guy saying, "Keep this thread white!" Also at anyone hoping an ILX thread could remain on topic. Btw, if we're going to talk about black people on this thread, ILX protocol demands that we either start arguing over food or music w/in 40 posts.

bourgeois is just secret code for jewish anyway

And Protestant, btw, at least in France.

I am an authentic white person, please disparage me as you will.

I totally misread "despite the gay point you make" and was about to get mad again.

As far as the average white kid not having the same types of pressures re: conformity and fitting in... Have you not been watching the news for the past decade? Did you forget that Columbine happened? Have you not heard about the case going on right now in MA where 6 teens are being tried for harassing a girl into killing herself? Did you not hear about the woman who cyberbullied one of her daughter's friends into killing herself? I think there is a dangerous level of romanticism both positive and negative in your conception of teenage life in this country that privileges one type of suffering over another, or maybe more to the point only acknowledges one type of suffering as valid.

why did thread about white ppl disparaging other white ppl turn into a thread about "black culture" and now crime statistics?

this is a very funny and pertinent question

& I still think that ongoing disruption of the family unit and community increase the pressure. disruption - prison system, the razing of neighborhoods to build projects, deindustrialization, and other things.

iiijjjj - why did the conversation after my post go in the direction it did instead of toward issues such as Dan brought up in his longer post. Why was there a presumption that I didn't understand those things, that they weren't strongly implied by what I said.

Also - "what's your point?" is not being used sincerely. It's like a kid saying "but why" again and again.

This post is so outdated already

lol, i'm not yelling that the thread should get back on track or something. i think it's relevant that this comes up in this thread. like: "why do some white ppl disparage other white ppl," makes sense would culminate in a discussion about the Wire half-way down the page. cause, ya know, ways of talking about race in America (on ILX?).

Oh, that's a good point, Dan.

have u guys seen the bottle openers they sell overseas

Which I wanted to post before things slid by, but I never meant to distinguish different kinds of suffering as more or less valid than others. The scope is certainly different, though. News stories versus numbers.

Also - "what's your point?" is not being used sincerely. It's like a kid saying "but why" again and again.

nah, i meant that quite sincerely. you obviously put a lot of thought into your generalization and now i'm just wondering what you're going to do with it.

why did thread about white ppl disparaging other white ppl turn into a thread about "black culture" and now crime statistics?

― Mordy, Friday, April 23, 2010 5:28 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

... 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.

that's the point?

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.

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

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.

i'm distressed.

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).

I only say "black majority" because Houston Baker, et al. say it. I thought it had common currency, so yeesh.

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

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.

... 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.

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.

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"

this is pretty otm

Crude generalizations - 1 part laziness, 1 part presumptuousness, 1 part typing on tiny netbook keyboard without a mouse.

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"

and simultaneously disavowing their commonality with mnstrm 'white ppl', in many cases

Michael White - I think it's inevitable that things get defined negatively.

(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

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gawker/2009/06/stuff-white-ppl-like.jpg

amon you're capable of so much better

and simultaneously disavowing their commonality with mnstrm 'white ppl', in many cases

My problem is less w/white people and more w/mainstream

cosign xp

i think bernard snowy can read nakhchivan's mind

who is nakhchivan

xpost I knew you would

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

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

nothing wrong with talking about 'problematics'

On zing but otherwise would post Doing That Thing You Do movie poster

you know you are a white person when you post to ilx

i'm inuit btw

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

I forgot this was a poll.

which type of white ppl are we talking about again?

the european ones

they are pinkish yellow and they disparage other pinkish yellow people

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!

if you are inuit in the kitchen, pakistani in the bedroom, and peruvian in the living room, what are you in the bathroom?

I was #29,044 to sign that petition

sweet thanks

You may say that iiiijjjj's a dreamer
But iiiijjjj's not the only one

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

white basketball players amirite

farts

"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.

^ classist

i wld nvr disparage white ppl

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

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.")

the angel was white

aren't they all ;) btw

1 of the angels is bunnie colvin from the wire hes a jerk tho

dk if thats a race thing mb hes just frustrated cuz no1 is bonen him...

Wait, are we really saying that white people can't say "nigger" if they're talking about the word "nigger," or just that they shouldn't call people niggers for whatever reason, good or bad?

To tipsy, I mean.

o yeah i seen one of those eps w/ bunny

That is cryptic but more in form.

vg abambf iidrc

very good and bam's buttfuck if i don't recall correctly

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

I think this is the best argument in favor - that this type of speech complicates the usual safe status of "whiteness" as the default or invisible category. However, my argument against is basically that it doesn't really open up any useful conversation, instead it usually acts as a conversational dead end - everyone laughs, "white people lol", and then it drops, because it's hard to go much further on the basis of generalizations about race which are pretty rickety to begin with.

bamcquern who did you like better on Roc, Ton Lōc or Heavy D?

Only remember Charles Dutton.

Also big ups on your ō.

i most commonly use "whiteness" to disparage people who are emotionally or sexually repressed, who aspire to or inhabit a suburban mainstream nuclear-family lifestyle, and who are unaware of their own white privilege. all of things happen to describe my immediate family, who are all white btw.

i'm not about to take a survey but i don't think everyone who uses "white" to disparage white ppl is referring to the same set of connotations. like, i know i'm not blowing anybody's mind with that statement but for me "whiteness" involves my own identity in re: to my family.

fwiw i self apply "white" in a disparaging way sometimes too.

this is v. amerocentric but is this right?

"white ppl" is the racialisation of a set of qualities and privileges by the ppl who have them. they are usually things like that are related to "going to college" or "being financially comfortable" and since this correlates w/ an actual racial inequality wrt these things, and since this is pretty problematic, it is easy to link whiteness itself w/ a set of charactrstcs that justify the inequality by naturalising it. it also, by labeling "white" characteristics as uncool, tries to downplay the desirability of thos adv. as a way of internalising guilty. (?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU9W7Qo1T6M

to be really honest tho i kinda conflate the "whiteness" and "straightness" in this sense but again that's probably just me

kinda assumes non-whites are really exotic non-repressed ppl who always express their emotions and stuff

exotic is not what i meant there oops, but i mean not normal and boring

i think plax would really like this book
http://www.newsfromnowhere.org.uk/img/books/1844671453.jpg

wait i can get paid for being white?

haha, yes, def. wanna read some roediger!

Plax, I think that post above is well-put and insightful.

kinda assumes non-whites are really exotic non-repressed ppl who always express their emotions and stuff

this assumption seems very OTM if most of my interactions with white ppl and how they expect me to be are to be believed

A lot of time the distancing/disparaging of certain privileges is a safe way of perpetuating them by resisting them with empty resistance. (This is a huge neoliberal trope across the board tho, where things like subversion/resistance/etc are ways of promoting neoliberalism. we trade real resistance for humor/bitching/etc. At least, as far as I understand it, this is Zizek's position on contemporary liberalism.)

i realize that harbl but for me, the white = repressed identification has as much to do with coming from a family / community of emotionally closed-off yankee folks -- i'll admit that it characterizes non-whites as "expressive" or whatever but otoh i don't associate expressiveness with any particular ethnicity or race.

well, maybe italians. they're pretty expressive, right?

Ugh Hi Dere that sounds irritating.

Hey where all the white people at?

my big problem with "lol wite ppl are like THIS" is that there's meant to be some sort of guilt attached to it, but there's never a corrective proposed. i like following through on things rhetorically, like "and this is bad because" "and we can rectify this by..." etc. if white bourgeois people are supposed to feel shitty about themselves because they buy premium organic produce while BLACK PEOPLE (tm) only care about what the cheapest food is that they can put on their table, well, what are white bourgeois people supposed to, like, do about it?

i read some stupid libertarian urban planning article about how blacks/latinos/etc don't care about smart growth and that's why places like portland are so white, and i just thought "what's your POINT?"

xp they're supposed to make fun of themselves for being so white about it iirc

(xp) and the tone of the piece was all "haha misguided liberals and their so-called progressive policies, don't they know black people are all moving to houston and atlanta??"

poor people shouldn't be expected to care about smart growth, that's why yuppie planners are paid to care about it on their behalf

haha, as if planners get paid anything

my big problem with "lol wite ppl are like THIS" is that there's meant to be some sort of guilt attached to it, but there's never a corrective proposed. i like following through on things rhetorically, like "and this is bad because" "and we can rectify this by..." etc. if white bourgeois people are supposed to feel shitty about themselves because they buy premium organic produce while BLACK PEOPLE (tm) only care about what the cheapest food is that they can put on their table, well, what are white bourgeois people supposed to, like, do about it?

The general answer to this usually involves donating money to something that either gives better food to BLACK PEOPLE (tm), donating money to something that helps BLACK PEOPLE (tm) be more successful so that they have enough cash for luxuries like premium organic produce to be an option, or donating money to something that makes premium organic produce cheaper than its counterparts.

ideally, yes, but i think people just like to take comfort in complaining and then not doing anything.

well yeah, complacent bitching coupled with inaction is part of being an American

where are my fucking french fries

that is what I was thinking before I got lunch

xxxp actually a really good answer to this question would be that grocery ordinance proposed by i think it was the city of los angeles, get bent do you know of it? it was supposed to severely restrict liquor stores/dollar stores and provide incentives to encourage grocery retail (infill) development, but i don't think it ever passed cause everyone was all screamin fascism?

Sometimes the "lol white people" thing can come uncomfortably close to age-old tropes involving romanticization of poverty - that poor people are happier because they are carefree, know how to enjoy life, aren't up-tight and stressed out by our modern middle-class lifestyle, etc. Cf. 18th and 19th century colonial attitudes towards the lazy, carefree native peoples. Obviously there's more than a little condescension in this.

xxxp actually a really good answer to this question would be that grocery ordinance proposed by i think it was the city of los angeles, get bent do you know of it? it was supposed to severely restrict liquor stores/dollar stores and provide incentives to encourage grocery retail (infill) development, but i don't think it ever passed cause everyone was all screamin fascism?

i do remember hearing about it and it's a great idea, but right-wingers and regular shmoes who don't understand how shit works were up in arms -- not sure what ended up happening. it's like that one-year moratorium on new fast-food establishments in south l.a. -- people thought it was just an outright fast-food BAN and all the KFCs and del tacos were gonna close, when it meant that all the existing businesses would get to operate AND other forms of business would have a better shot at developing local properties. and the moratorium was for one fucking year, not forever.

Sometimes the "lol white people" thing can come uncomfortably close to age-old tropes involving romanticization of poverty - that poor people are happier because they are carefree, know how to enjoy life, aren't up-tight and stressed out by our modern middle-class lifestyle, etc. Cf. 18th and 19th century colonial attitudes towards the lazy, carefree native peoples. Obviously there's more than a little condescension in this.

exactly. by painting ourselves ("ourselves" = the age-old "white people as the default masters of the universe") as being super-civilized, what does it paint others as? uneducated? uninformed? impolite? desperate?

i've read some interesting crit that takes a left-libertarian line on why grocery stores are so shitty in urban areas -- it's the gov'ts fault! well not really, it's specific regs about zoning and parking allowances. enforced car-dependence basically; in most cities you can't have a store of x-large size unless you provide y-amount of space in free parking. in a city you can't do that, unless the business clears enough money to pay for the land the lot is on. grocery doesn't have that kind of profitability.

in the burbs you have the land to put down huge parking lots, AND can construct big-box stores large enough to generate enough turnover to make it worthwhile.

so you can blame white ppl, after all, gladly

http://www.urb.com/2010/04/23/coachellas-hottest-not-white-women/

it's like we're holding ourselves up to a mirror and seeing the "underclass" "other" as being a bizarro version of that.

i've read some interesting crit that takes a left-libertarian line on why grocery stores are so shitty in urban areas -- it's the gov'ts fault!

sometimes it is! long-standing laws are very very hard to change. but "the government" is such a red herring -- it's all about the people. we keep those laws upheld because we bitch and moan every time someone tries to change them.

well the suburbs are entirely the creation of lavish and intrusive state policy, but libertarians will defend them unto death because that's where libertarians tend to live. funny.

goole, most cities' development codes allow for the waiver of parking space requirements, additional vegetative screening etc. if the land-use doesn't change when a new business moves in to occupy the former tenant's building. plus there's a lot of progressive "new urbanist" form-based codes (as opposed to conventional zoning & all its trappings) that planners are pressuring their city councils to adopt, as well as just simply allowing a lot more mixed-use development to put grocery & farmers market type zones closer to more densely populated & unwalkable areas.

well the suburbs are entirely the creation of lavish and intrusive state policy

all suburbs are?

so, fascism, basically? handouts, is what your telling me?

xp

i'm gonna go to lunch in hopes that we can un-derail this thread back to its original topic. :-)

so when a white person buys spices at an Asian food market, how white are they being and can we disparage them for it?

yeah handouts would be good, let's do this

btw ty whiney for posting those good arguments for miscegenation

so when a white person buys spices at an Asian food market, how white are they being and can we disparage them for it?

I'd say that's about 40% white, so it only merits a cocked eyebrow and perhaps a gentle elbow nudge to the side.

crutis: well not all no

which ones aren't?

i don't know.

i think the chinese ppl at my asian supermarket really like me and aren't saying mean things to me when i'm there

i mean about me

the asian grocery store is the closest one to my house, <3

is the lavish & intrusive government policy part the designation of widely separated residential and commercial zoning areas? (I honestly don't know how suburbs become established & I want to know what government policies put them in place)

i most commonly use "whiteness" to disparage people who are emotionally or sexually repressed, who aspire to or inhabit a suburban mainstream nuclear-family lifestyle, and who are unaware of their own white privilege. all of things happen to describe my immediate family, who are all white btw.

this seems like an awful choice of words

there are loads of others u cld use to describe that picture without implicating the awful binaries harbl notes

(I honestly don't know how suburbs become established & I want to know what government policies put them in place)

― I went to your blog and I didn't feel anything (Curt1s Stephens), Friday, April 23, 2010 5:20 PM (12 seconds ago)

me too! now that would be a lavish & intrusive government policy worth fussing about

i most commonly use "whiteness" to describe playing music in a rhythmically square fashion, but i think we've had that discussion

(I honestly don't know how suburbs become established & I want to know what government policies put them in place)

FHA loans after WWI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suburb#History

WWII

and then this dude made the magic happen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown,_New_York

is the lavish & intrusive government policy part the designation of widely separated residential and commercial zoning areas? (I honestly don't know how suburbs become established & I want to know what government policies put them in place)

― I went to your blog and I didn't feel anything (Curt1s Stephens), Friday, April 23, 2010 4:20 PM (14 seconds ago) Bookmark

as far as i have read, yeah. there are very precise restrictions that make everything huge. big minimum lot sizes, large margins between building and lot-edge, that kind of thing. plus the roads built to get out there, it's all very freeway-dependent.

xps

ie it's illegal to built anything small and walkable in a whole lot of places.

and to build multi-family housing

From the first, the Levitt development was racially segregated; a "restrictive covenant" in the original rental agreement, which migrated to the sales agreement, stipulated that houses could not be rented or sold to any but members of the "Caucasian" race. This covenant conformed to federal requirements that developers using FHA funding had to maintain the "racial homogeneity" of their developments. Only well after the 1954 racial integration decisions, including Brown v. Board of Education, was Levittown racially integrated, and even as late as the 1960 census only a tiny fraction of the community was non-white.

nakh, just being honest about my disparaging usage of "whiteness" and the reasons why i associate certain negative qualities with it. i'm generally aware of the problems those associations generate. but i find it interesting that you take issue with how those associations are unfair to non-whites (by binary association) rather than how it is unfair to whites (by marking repression as an essentially white trait). so i guess we are ok with disparaging white ppl per se?

"so i guess we are ok with disparaging white ppl per se?"

they can take it. see, but if we have learned anything from this thread it is that there are all kinds of different white people to hate.

some are pink. some are yellow. some live in the suburbs. some buy 40% of their spices at asian markets. all kinds!

some are black

some have red hair and bone thugs & harmony songs going through their heads all day long! all kinds!

sorry. N harmony.

granted, i have only skimmed this thread. i think i get the idea though.

how wd you go about disparagaing a conservative upper middle class gujarati family who live with their adult children in a gated surburban minimansion?

(for elmo)

lol @ this business class trollin

i'd simply say "lol gujarati, what's that, an Indian sports car?"

if i was visiting an upper middle class gujutari i probably wouldn't disparage them as i would be their guest

I normally love threads like this but I can't work out what anyone is arguing in this one.

Apparently the zoning/parking thing is related to why it's impossible to set up an arcade now?

but that is a wildly hypothetical question and i don't get what you expect me to say. would i call them "white"? probably not!

Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white

The connotations wearing my nerves thin
Could it be semantics generating the mess we're in?
I understand that language breeds stereotype
But what's the explanation for the malice, for the spite?

Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white

I wasn't brought here, I was born
Circumsized, categorized, allegiance sworn,
Does this mean I have to take such shit
For being fairskinned? No!
I ain't a part of no conspiracy,
I'm just you're average Joe.

Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white

Represents everything I hate,
The soap shoved in your mouth to cleanse the mind
The vast majority of sheep
A buttoned collar, starched and bleached
Constricting veins, the blood flow to the brain slows
They're so fuckin' ordinary white

Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white

We're better off this way
Say what you're gonna say
So go ahead and label me
An asshole cause I can
Accept responsibility, for what I've done
But not for who I am

Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white

many xposts: there is a really really great documentary about how the idea of suburbs came about, gonna see if i can remember the name and post it here

This is a pretty good book about the subject.

i think it was The End of Suburbia

the gujarati dude who works at the liquor store down the street always gives me relationship advice when I come in

the korean woman who works at the other liquor store down the street always stares imploringly into my eyes and kind of whispers, "Be careful that you do not drink too much"

Oh hey, I started a thread like this once a long time ago! Sure, I basically agree with the idea that it's a good thing for people to start seeing, like, American "whiteness" as a kind of culture, and not just some invisible default. But at least in my sphere, the way people disparage whiteness bugs me a little, for these reasons and more:

1. it's just viscerally annoying (to me, at least) to watch white people call each other so white, because at some point it's like "OMG YOU'RE BOTH WHITE, GET OVER IT"

2. I don't think it's often not about "white guilt" or "redneck humor," though those things are certainly there; in my area it feels closer to the way middle-class people pick on middle-classness, which is to say that people are basically calling one another boring and normal, and so complicated things about race are getting dragged into a conversation that's really just about suggesting "you're boring and predictable and I'm more interesting than you" -- it's implicating racial stuff just to call someone square, which is risky and can have bad effects

3. it's often based around this really narrow conception of "white" that basically does just mean bourgeois -- educated, affluent, NPR/PBS, whatever -- which (a) is really not an accurate picture of what whiteness might be in this country, and (b) on some level winds up being exclusionary and self-congratulatory, even if you think you're mocking it! especially because some of those qualities are ones that loads and loads of non-white people successfully aspire to, because things like education or safety or money aren't exactly cultural traits, they're pleasant things most people work toward having. I think most of the people who mock whiteness along these lines would have a really hard time talking to a non-white person who just got a scholarship at an Ivy and rolling their eyes about how "white" that was

4. and it does that thing Max quoted me on before, where if "white" means all that stuff, there's a little bit of a shadow where non-white people (and in the U.S. this tends to point to "black") must represent danger, vulgarity, etc. -- and of course even if you think that's a complimentary side to take, it's not exactly helping, you know? I mean, as far as the U.S. goes, I think that if anyone's gonna have any ideas about race/culture categories like "blackness" or "whiteness" or anything else, they should probably be really thoughtful about how they're putting the category together and why, and not just accidentally have them pop up in the course of making fun of your friend for wearing bad pants or something

5. the subtext of all those is that it's mostly talking about class stuff, not race stuff -- race is getting subbed in to mean social class -- and that seems slippery and bad to me. and also like a missed opportunity, because if you seriously wanted to talk about how whiteness works (or American whiteness, anyway), you could be saying all kinds of interesting cultural things that included the vast numbers of lower-middle-class and working-class white people who make up a huge chunk the population and what cultural continuities they do/don't have internally, or with upper-class white people, or whatever

those are some of many issues I have with it, though I agree that it's generally harmless and it doesn't really bug me until someone's being a dick about it (trying to deploy it as a really serious attack/criticism), or incredibly sloppy about it in an area they shouldn't (like talking seriously about race/class), or just doing it so much that it gets plain irritating.

(one other thing that particularly fascinates me is the number of social-class things labeled "white" that are totally full of middle-class east-Asians -- that there's already this huge thing in U.S. racial logic where the bourgeois/"stuff white people like" version of whiteness conveniently embraces all American-raised east Asians)

that covers most of my objections

if disparaging of 'white ppl' is intended to elucidate prejudices of the 'invisible default', it often fails because it dismally conflates class with race

if intended as cultural criticism it seldom amounts to more than narcissism of small differences among a small subset of 'white ppl'

3. it's often based around this really narrow conception of "white" that basically does just mean bourgeois

this is otm and one thing that bothers me a lot is that many problems in the u.s. stem from ignoring or minimizing the problems of poor white ppl, and subsequently blaming stuff on them and making fun of them

After long, hard thought, I have concluded that every racial category is so contaminated with racism that they are universally toxic to any kind of racial discourse. Therefore it is best just to pitch the concept of race overboard and deal as best you can with people, recognizing one's ignorance for what it is.

Btw, it doesn't matter if the speaker or writer is a highly considered intellectual, author, or scientist, or if the assertions are well-meant, or if they are backed by research data. The morass of past racism will distort whatever gets said, or at least a part of it -- unless the only thing that is being asserted is that no categorical claims about race can be possibly be true. Or, if the assertions are heavily qualified enough to pass for true, they will throw no light upon the subject, because the opposite assertion will be equally admissable.

You may differ with me on this. It is simply my own conclusion.

In that race is so tied to ethnicity and cultural identity, throwing out race as a concept like that brings up the specter of a default race/ethnicity/class again - never mind the difficulty of separating those things.

And the discussion, when people have it - let's say when intellectuals, report writers and policy makers have it, and not when ilx has it - becomes an impractical one to have. Like, in pitching the concept of race overboard, do we stop recording race statistics, and then not see the huge, disproportionate numbers of black people who end up in jail? It makes it difficult to see potentially or actually racially motivated legislation; it makes finding correctives difficult if they're ethnically or culturally specific (when ethnicity and culture are tied to race, which in this case they are).

btw was this thread started to disparage that other thread about fist bumping explosions

Fist bumping with explosions makes me giggle. I like all fist bump shenanigans. I'll fist bump if someone wants to, but it's not how I say hello or goodbye to my friends usually.

White people disparaging white people - some of it is of the "you're white, too, dude" variety. I'm kind of used to being disparaged as a white person - last ten years or so I've heard things like "you rich white kids" this and "you rich white kids" that on a pretty regular basis. Also how many people poohpooh this "lol you white" kind of speech here on ilx but say it to their friends in irl, not because "their friends understand," but because their friends really DO understand what they mean by it, and that further explanation isn't needed. Tipsy mothra made a point like this upthread, I think?

I want to post this here because it is fantastic. i dare you to disparage it:
http://cdn.static.ovimg.com/episode/362934.jpg

is that j0hn D?

X

whineys tweet is super aggravating

@Aimless: fyi when u recognize that a widespread concept is very problematic, there is usually a more productive dialectical solution than "pretend it doesn't exist and maybe it will go away"

that sounds harsher than I meant it to -- I think your heart's in the right place but your proposed situation is sort of idealistic

I still think, despite the gay point you make, Dan, that with most black youth (another generalization), there's an unhealthy societal pressure on them to be "black" as a means of fitting in and boosting self-confidence that's not as striking as pressures that average white kids face.

― bamcquern, Friday, April 23, 2010 12:25 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

the idea that there isnt pressure to 'be white' is ... insane. conformity is an lol hueg part of white culture as much as any other. theres constant signifying to indicate -- im not black btw!!! i wouldnt wear xyz or listen to xyz because im white, or if i do, its because its funny!! im not black so i cant take it seriously" -- its just another one of those invisible-nature-of-whiteness things

No offense taken, bernard.

The problem becomes that, the more you grab onto it, the more it entangles you. No matter how well meant the engagement or the positive end you are trying to reach for.

Choosing to disengage, to the extent it is even possible, is not a matter of pretending racism doesn't exist, so much as stopping pretending you can solve it by any deeper analysis than: it ain't true, and it ain't helpful, and it never was, and never could be.

This is NOT to say racism is not real, or it doesn't adversely affect people as individuals. It is and it does. Only that any conversations on race cannot be divided from deeply stupid racist conventions, and therefore must begin deeply mired in error.

also, reducing popular black culture to the pressure caused by oppression is one of the more problematic but basic assumptions of history that ppl have been rejecting for decades now. cf AGENCY

do we stop recording race statistics, and then not see the huge, disproportionate numbers of black people who end up in jail?

This seems like a reasonable gauge of racism and its effects, and therefore it has some value as a measure of the extent of the problem. What I can't get at is how this adds to our ability to solve the problem, other than to counter the claim that there is no problem. Once it takes you as far as recognizing that racism is still a big problem, it loses most of its leverage for positive good, afaics.

So, sure, you can keep those stats, but you shouldn't be under the misguided impression it accomplishes much beyond establishing our society distributes oppression based on senseless racial categories, and that this is senseless and should not continue. I mean, what else can you do with them?

Acknowledging that social pressures white and black exist is different from reducing popular culture to oppression, nor does it dismiss or put down popular black culture.

I would like, deej, to read some essays, chapters or books on this subject if you'd recommend them.

Not a universal thing among critics, but when black popular culture strongly reflects longstanding social problems in the US, e.g., socioeconomic disparity between races, and the black-white feedback loop, it's not uncommon for critics to sidestep those issues and to focus on works formalistically, or in a mostly formalist way that also acknowledges the culture of the business and the critical tenor happening. Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't pomo criticism in the last thirty years tended toward including feminist, marxist and other modes of criticism and away from criticism-as-closed-game-system?

Also, I distinguish between the agency of artists and business people and the agency of youth, particularly underage youth (but age is arbitrary). Like, youth ARE impressionable, right? Even if they can distinguish between fiction and reality? And it's not like 9th & 10th grade gangbangers in rough Chicago neighborhoods are listening to much besides rap & r&b that depicts blacks in ways that match up with the ugliest ways that whites stereotype them.

& re: agency: Agency is conventionally tied to voice, isn't it? That's what was talked about upthread - I mean, blacks not having the same privilege as whites to be uncool, to have traits that are not the antithesis of but not the same as qualities seen as "black" (streetwise, intuitive, primitive, rhythmic, sexy, dangerous, &c.). You say it's problematic, that one shouldn't deny blacks their agency, but TV's still stuffed with tokenism, ethnic stereotypes and blacks who are "black." Exceptions on TV have been Malcom, 30 Rock and others, but on TV this problem still dominates, right?

reducing popular black culture to the pressure caused by oppression is one of the more problematic but basic assumptions of history that ppl have been rejecting for decades now. cf AGENCY

That's almost like saying, "Well, black people prefer it that way."

& it's also equating mass media, commercial media, with black culture - not that it's not, exactly, but concessions and dilutions are definitely made due to the commercial drive, and the media is also often "blacked up" because that's what consumers, white and black, seem to want.

What is the TV show with 'Malcom'? All I can think of is

http://worldofhurtonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Malcolm-In-The-Middle.jpg

who always reminded me of a wheelchair bound, asthmatic Oliver Wendell Jones

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/1580/13lx4.jpg

Aimless: I don't think blacks and whites or "blacks" and "whites" have enough frank discussions together about race and ethnicity. I think there already is a tendency to want to be colorblind and to understand how "black" and "white" need be shown to be not particularly meaningful and unproductive terms, but that tendency has stifled discussion that blacks and whites have really needed to have with each other but haven't. Just looking at what I remember of my elementary education in the 80s and 90s I remember what we were taught about this stuff and the usual cant from classmates or teachers, and it definitely leaned toward the colorblind cant. If I talk to my white friends about this stuff, they get uncomfortable about it, but if I talk to - I don't want to say my black friends, because I don't talk to all of them about it, just to one - my black friend about it, it's interesting, productive, insightful and educational. That my white friends are so uncomfortable and feel racist for leaning toward any discussion that isn't the colorblind discussion, leads me to think that there's a lot lost and a lot of potential misunderstanding between races if those discussions don't take place.

Although these white friends live in a community more integrated than many, and have grown up with and have been friends with and have gone to (church) and school with working, middle, and upper-middle class blacks their whole lives. In Ft. Myers, though, which is barely integrated at all, I wonder that talking race to whites isn't virtually untouchable.

Yes, that Malcom. The black family in that show was distinguished by not being tokens completely free of ethnicity, they weren't "black," and they weren't used to make messages about Important Social Issues - to lampoon them, maybe. I think that social issues use is fading on TV, but tokenism and "black"-ness aren't.

This seems like a reasonable gauge of racism and its effects, and therefore it has some value as a measure of the extent of the problem. What I can't get at is how this adds to our ability to solve the problem, other than to counter the claim that there is no problem. Once it takes you as far as recognizing that racism is still a big problem, it loses most of its leverage for positive good, afaics.

So, sure, you can keep those stats, but you shouldn't be under the misguided impression it accomplishes much beyond establishing our society distributes oppression based on senseless racial categories, and that this is senseless and should not continue. I mean, what else can you do with them?

what part of this simple cause-and-effect equation don't you understand?

http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/spring03/racialbias.html → http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action

my man zizek

_________________________

Daniel, Esq to thread? jk.

― Mordy, Friday, April 23, 2010

?

me and slavoj are buddies, it's true.

I think it's only Americans who do this.

that was my impression too

well, like, duh

anyway I think this thread is kinda funny because the original fist bump thread was not started by a white person iirc. regardless continue with your incisive observations everybody

http://shiralicious.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/fist-bump.jpg

xpost

what part of this simple cause-and-effect equation don't you understand?

If you think that enacting affirmative action was ever a "simple cause and effect equation", then you have no clue about the history of racism in the USA. There, I had to say that. :(

Moreover, there are plenty of practical, moral and ethical arguments for making poverty, especially multi-generational poverty, and not race, the primary basis of affirmative action. The self-perpetuating cycle of poverty, ignorance, malnutrition, hopelessness and social stigma is not confined to any one group, nor is it in society's best interest to limit or narrow their efforts to break that cycle.

Moreover, poverty provides a much more objective, measurable and practical criterion that doesn't get bogged down in the politics of race nearly so easily. Although, to be fair, a solely poverty-based program would be race-baited, too. Racism doesn't give up the ghost that quickly.

(offers fist bump)

"The self-perpetuating cycle of poverty, ignorance, malnutrition, hopelessness and social stigma is not confined to any one group, nor is it in society's best interest to limit or narrow their efforts to break that cycle."

there are people who believe that this is simply america working. that the endless problems are good for business. that they are a part of the business. if you never solve the problems then there is an endless stream of money being pumped into...everything. anywhere it can be pumped.

Aimless so infinitely OTM on that. Gotta fist bump.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_People%27s_Campaign

If you think that enacting affirmative action was ever a "simple cause and effect equation", then you have no clue about the history of racism in the USA. There, I had to say that. :(

you asked "what can you do with" the statistics used to understand the real-world relationship between demographics and discrimination. my answer to that question was to point to affirmative action as one such real-world solution. provided you don't find this particular corrective measure "misguided" or "senseless," whatever you even mean by that, can you at least explain how it's not pertinent to the history of racism in the USA?

or maybe you just meant that all discrimination is equally unfair? please say that, cause that's a much easier argument to settle

btw someone used statistics to show that if you use class instead of race to do affirmative action and stuff it won't work that good and racial inequality will get worse. i don't wanna look up a citation now i'm just saying it wouldn't be so magical as some ppl think. although easier to do, from a legal standpoint

right, and i would assume that's mostly due to the fact that it's much easier for someone from the lower classes to maybe borrow a suit and a nice pair of shoes for a job interview than it is for a minority to, you know, dye their skin and change their name.

well i was mostly thinking of college admissions, and race-conscious school desegregation, stuff that's not so much down to individual decision-makers but more systemic. but there is that too.

now playing:

http://www.jazz.com/assets/2008/4/4/albumcoverMoseAllison-MiddleClassWhiteBoy.jpg

Also, I distinguish between the agency of artists and business people and the agency of youth, particularly underage youth (but age is arbitrary). Like, youth ARE impressionable, right? Even if they can distinguish between fiction and reality? And it's not like 9th & 10th grade gangbangers in rough Chicago neighborhoods are listening to much besides rap & r&b that depicts blacks in ways that match up with the ugliest ways that whites stereotype them.

"reducing popular black culture to the pressure caused by oppression is one of the more problematic but basic assumptions of history that ppl have been rejecting for decades now. cf AGENCY"

That's almost like saying, "Well, black people prefer it that way."

if you use class instead of race to do affirmative action and stuff it won't work that good and racial inequality will get worse

This is a very interesting assertion, assuming it is broadly true. But then, it would require asking a hell of a lot of questions about the proper goals of affirmative action, if poor people getting better jobs, a better education and better lives could be defined as a failure of those goals.

Additionally, if helping all poor people equally created even more "racial inequality", it might possibly shed some light on why poor "white" people feel aggrieved by affirmative action that is solely racially-based.

If you just want to compensate "black" people for the multi-generational crime of slavery followed by a century of legalized oppression and the havoc that wrought, then maybe we should be talking about reparations instead. Me, I'd rather move in the direction of socialism and let social justice do the work of promoting racial justice.

maybe you just meant that all discrimination is equally unfair?

Not what I had in mind.

By binding false racial categories to the definition of the problem, so far from reducing racism, you perpetuate those categories and solidify them. Redefining the problem as a set of measurable harms which must be addressed by society and, to the extent possible, reversing them, allows you to decouple the solution from the crap that caused the problem, while still letting you focus on delivering a solution.

I guess what I am talking about is pretty radical compared to affirmative action. Not really gonna happen. But affirmative action based on race plants seeds of racism even as it seeks to destroy them.

well you said poverty and *not* race. should be both. also in a lot of cases it's not solely racially based, for example i went to a school where white males from appalachia were a big beneficiary of affirmative action. i wish that were advertised more.

But affirmative action based on race plants seeds of racism even as it seeks to destroy them.

please, please tell us how it does this so this thread can become that much more amazing!

i'll take that thing white ppl do when they disparage 'white ppl' over that thing white ppl do when they disparage 'the concept of race,' every time

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

wonder if martin luther king jr's dreams were planting secret racist dream seeds that were undermining his dreams as he dreamt them

seriously, you have to trust me on this one. this song is awesome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jeq6dAvBSCI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY_GM7KLvk8

see, now that just looks scary. i'm afraid to click on it. crack the sky were not scary! they were geniuseses.

i'll take that thing white ppl do when they disparage 'white ppl' over that thing white ppl do when they disparage 'the concept of race

Please do tell us about the legitimacy and usefulness of the concept of race. Feel free to elaborate as much as you like. Use the words "half-breed", "quadroon" and "octaroon" wherever you feel it is necessary to make fine racial distinctions.

I ended up voting for "cool"

Please do tell us about the legitimacy and usefulness of the concept of race.

can't help disadvantaged races without first defining what a disadvantaged race is, bro. in america those are basically defined as any and all non-european race, now sit down

a-yo I'm not that disadvantaged tbh

can't help disadvantaged races without first defining what a disadvantaged race is, bro

I see what you mean. So, what would be this definition?

I mean, how can I tell when is someone non-european? Like, my niece, f'rinstance. She has a rather, er, mixed heritage in that regard.

dyao, i wouldn't be all that disadvantaged in europe (provided i spoke european)

aimless you're presupposing that people are rational about their discrimination. in the real world it doesn't work that way, it's a snap judgment. furthermore post pics of your niece please so we can all judge

??? I was speakig about growing up in america

I'm amused ppl think 'white-on-white' humor is a development of the last decade.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089277/

anyway I think this thread is kinda funny because the original fist bump thread was not started by a white person iirc. regardless continue with your incisive observations everybody

― dyªº (dyao), Saturday, April 24, 2010 11:18 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i am white btw

aimless you're presupposing that people are rational about their discrimination. in the real world it doesn't work that way, it's a snap judgment.

I rather well aware of this. But you are now proposing that the government keep stats and set policy based on something that cannot be rationally defined and is based entirely on snap judgements "in the real world".

Me, I can't imagine how to write such a policy so it doesn't get totally screwed up when it is transferred to "the real world". I am not proposing that the inequalities that arose in that real world, based on those irrational judgements, be ignored or allowed to continue to fester.

I am just looking for a way not to codify a set of irrationalities as the institutional basis for addressing the harm done of those inequalities. Which, it seems to me, could be done by addressing the policy to the harm (which is real) rather than to the racial categories (which are wholly irrational and impossible to make sense out of). If this means including some "white" people who have become enmeshed in similar kinds of harm, then I don't see that as an objection.

dyao, i was kiddin - obviously though all non-european races aren't discriminated against equally, some have it better than others, this is not a challop

aimless i just don't understand where you're going with your whole "shucks, why even bring up race in the first place" thing, as if people willingly pursue racial issues, as if consideration of race isn't a consequence of a heterogeneous human population. i don't have a problem with institutionalizing a correction for irrational harm, if you have an actual idea for how to address the problem that doesn't involve simply reverting to the status quo, i'd be interested to hear it! again, how exactly does affirmative action plant "seeds of racism?"

(willingly pursue, as opposed to having the issues pursue them)

until such time as all citizens are required to undergo a DNA evaluation that assigns them a ranking based on cross-referencing their specific genome and a spectral analysis of their skin color with a real-time discrimination database, checking boxes census style and respecting people's statements of self-identification will have to do

okay so let's pretend that we have an imaginary society with 100 people who self-identify as race A and 500 who self-identify as race B (where A and B are taken to be not essentialist biological categories, but historically contiguous cultural communities offering identities which people may (or may not) feel accurately represent them and their experiences)

say we divided this population into 5 classes, in order to study the demographic makeups, and we got these results (arranged from wealthiest to least):

1st - 5 A, 115 B
2nd - 10 A, 110 B
3rd - 15 A, 105 B
4th - 40 A, 80 B
5th - 30 A, 90 B

so, on the one hand, there seems to be a fairly clear discrepancy in the distribution of the two races across the class spectrum, with race A greatly overrepresented in the bottom 40% and and greatly underrepresented everywhere else. but does this mean that we can ignore race altogether, dissolving it into "socioeconomic status" and using the latter as the sole criterion for public policy (affirmative action, etc.)? if we just focus on helping "the lower classes", does this automatically mean that, because race A is overrepresented among said classes, we are working to remedy the systematic factors, the imbalances, that contribute to that overrepresentation? (if we can even agree that such imbalances exist...)

in this context, I would argue that "race" becomes a useful concept only when seen -- along with its necessary corollary, "racism" -- as a historical determinant of the present state of society. the line that leads from slavery through sharecropping and Jim Crow up to the modern 'workfare' system and the War on Non-Violent Drug Offenses is not a difficult one to trace. which is not to say that tracing the line answers any questions; but neither does erasing it right any wrongs.

(the above post was mainly prompted by aimless's objections to race-based affirmative-action, btw)

if we just focus on helping "the lower classes", does this automatically mean that, because race A is overrepresented among said classes, we are working to remedy the systematic factors, the imbalances, that contribute to that overrepresentation?

If the point of the exercise is to create a normative statistical distribution, then clearly you cannot ignore the criterion that the statistical distribution measures. That would be futile.

If the point of the exercise is to create a healthier society, then your first step is to outlaw the continuation of active discrimination based on group identity, and to enforce this. After that, I think you may safely place your efforts into assuring that everyone in every quintile has the chance for a good education, good health care, and enough to eat. If that is accomplished, I think you'll find that the perception of a deep-rooted social problem that perpetuates old injustices will go away.

wow, so if society can consciously re-engineer our perception of the problem, unconscious discrimination on an individual level will magically vanish in turn?

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

--justice roberts ; )

holy smokes aimless is your real-life identity that of supreme court chief justice john g. roberts??? you are like my dad's favorite supreme court justice of all-time, it is truly an honor to argue with you about whether or not affirmative action is inherently racist

the connection btween 'race is a biological myth' & 'we should pretend race simply doesnt exist so as to get rid of inequality' -- how do ppl make it?

im color blind

i literally dont know what race my girlfriend is--she could be black, white, purple, i have no idea--or my parents--i look in the mirror--am i chinese? am i from venezuela? who knows.

u r the mayor of chinatown bro

i just call it 'town'

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

max your bit isn't that fresh when stephen colbert's been doing it every night for the last 4 years

ouch

guess ill ask a mod to delete those 3 posts

tbf, roberts' bit is even less fresh

he doesnt really do "fresh"

max's mind not working in an original fashion since he put that Mets ski cap on.

feel justified by these totally conclusive poll results

you are like my dad's favorite supreme court justice of all-time

Please point me to the speech(es) where our esteemed chief justice advocates a single-payer universal health care system, a system of assured basic income for all US citizens, and public education with guaranteed class sizes of 20 or fewer and extra tutorial assistance for all who need it, as a method for erasing class inequalities, and I will gladly accept the great similarity between us.

please explain how affirmative action plants seeds of racism

mjpopcorn.gif

Regardless of how good you are at what you're doing, certain people will say you only got the job due to affirmative action with the assumption that you are taking the place of a m ore qualified white person in order to fulfill a quota.

This is why I was against affirmative action for many years; I didn't want bigots to think that I wan't actually that much better than them. Later on, I realized that affirmative action gave me an even better opportunity to make bigots crazy since I could take opportunities that, in their minds, I wasn't qualified for, then be way fucking better than them at it.

You seem to think this statement will clearly discredit me and make all your foolishnesses in this thread go away? OK. I'll play with you on that one.

The current approach to affirmative action "plants seeds of racism" by legitimizing and institutionalizing racial categories that have been thoroughly discredited, and which unavaoidably are tainted by thier racist origins. They make racist thinking more credible, by bolstering something that underpins the entire structure of racism and which has no rational basis in reality.

How easy is it to convince a white racist that there is no such thing as a "white race", when he has ticked off dozens of checkboxes on dozens of offical government forms that more or less force him into this category? Indeed, that require him to declare this bogus "fact".

the premises of your argument are faulty. for one, racial categories haven't been discredited. they've been criticized, for reasons i've explained upthread, but like i said, there's not currently a better approach to obtaining that data. for another, racial categories aren't racist. categories can't be racist. they're categories. they can only be incomplete or inaccurate.

Shall we recapitulate our entire positions once more? Or just declare that we are talking right past one another. It is plain to me from your comments that you have entirely failed to grasp my point. Let us agree that this is due to my horrendous failure to make my point clear.

In return, I shall overlook the fact that you seem to believe that I am advocating a position I do understand, do not condone and find exceptionally bigoted. And you seem impervious to even considering that you have made an error in judging my ideas, but would prefer to pin me down to finally admitting that I think that which I don't think -- a rather futile effort, allow me to suggest.

outlaw the continuation of active discrimination based on group identity, and to enforce this.

i am trying really hard to figure whether "active" discrimination is opposed to "passive" discrimination or wtf this means even

Try this: it is hard to outlaw inaction. Actions, however, are a bit easier to identify.

hey aimless u idiot race isnt a fiction, its a BIOLOGICAL fiction

it is very much a social reality

no no it's not that he's an idiot, it's that he's failed to make his point that being asked to select one or more races from a list of races, is racist

the dissolving of race as a social formation will be as protracted and contingent on external forces as its construction was. you can't just decide that society will be colorblind now bc even like the choice b/w an affirmative action type solution or not only reveals that racism or its effects is inherent in so much social policy and categories that to suddenly remove it would still require the re-articulation of those categories, but i mean, its pretty hard to know what a race-blind social formation would even look like so you really just have to try shit out maybe

deej don't apply extreme constructivist positions to race just because anthropogenic categories apply strict determinism to a genetic continuum

the language of describing that variety may be flawed and we can wish it was done away with altogether but it isn't entirely fictive

aimless is talking in a self-admittedly utopian way, the failure of his program would probably be that purging the language of race won't make it disappear in the collective unconscious, most likely the pathology will resurface as it does in political codewords like 'welfare moms'

socialist countries have traditionally had a crappy record in racial equality despite their rationalized approach to it (ussr, cuba etc)

that first sentence scans terribly ;_;

yeah I was head scratching over that

"we need to do away with the concept of race" strikes me as a pretty "white" thing to say tbh (read: racially privileged)

I'm amused ppl think 'white-on-white' humor is a development of the last decade.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089277/

I knew exactly what that was going to be before I clicked on it.

I feel like this is sort of a "lol white ppl" from 1956:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2131/2266333172_d9c22b78d9.jpg

(Although I guess it's not explicitly directed at white people, so never mind.)

The unfortunate thing about the Midnite Vultures era was watching white kids dancing to "Sexx Laws."

― cool and remote like dancing girls (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, April 29, 2010 9:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

this copy reminds me of the time when a girl* in my program said "oh, it's so fun to speak ghetto! me and my friends do it all the time"

*said girl was a white, college grad whose parents are missionaries

― shorn_blond.avi (dayo), Thursday, 2 September 2010 10:28 (6 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

see, that's exactly why i hate white people

― bernard goony (The Reverend), Thursday, 2 September 2010 10:31 (6 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

6 months pass...

The Reverend otm

― BIG CHARLIE aka the sheendriver (San Te), Saturday, 5 March 2011 18:16 (2 hours ago) Bookmark

was confused by san te's display name and almost dropped the "hoos is mexican" bomb

are you saying that you are now in possession of the hoos is mexican bomb

haha, *I* was momentarily confused by rev's display name and went "wait when did I say that???"

http://i.imgur.com/nl8IZ.jpg

btw, I love that the 4 lowest-placing options are: cool, endearing, thought-provoking, amusing

like if you told somebody "that thing you just said was neither cool, nor endearing," etc etc
they would probably feel pretty bad

this list is a good mix of white ppl i've never heard and token rap/r&b - toughie

― max tldr (k3vin k.), Sunday, 22 May 2011 03:46 (11 minutes ago)

Lifting the White Veil. Is interesting and useful from a dialectical viewpoint....it lists these cultural biases in concise lists - stereotypical "white" stuff like "don't show too much emotion". Only problem he uses terms like "white culture" which, if you use a lot of internet, call to mind scary white racist web pages.

I think the author is really sincere about what he is doing - he works with a "diversity consulting firm", advises workplaces on cultural sensitivity. It's important to call attention to biases, while being aware that not every member of a racial group participates in or identifies with these biases.

[....] Like if Memory Tapes picks me up at the airport, is he gonna be blasting an Air Supply tape in his car, or is he just gonna be playing Fleet Foxes or whatever like any other white person?

― james blood ulver (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, 4 August 2011 14:43 (12 minutes ago)

you don't understand, "any other white person" is the name of my post-chillwave project!

(also what's written in my facebook's "interested in:" field)

amusing was robbed

that thing whine people do

in all seriousness, though, as much as nabs covers the main thing that's odious about that stuff, one of the other things that i find obnoxious about white people using "white" as an insult is the otherizing of your own race, like 'oh i'm white but it's okay i listen to rap and watch chappelle's show, that guy is WHITE white' which is just like a more passive way of pulling some 'black on the inside' bullshit.

― Neil Young’s social media channels (some dude), Wednesday, May 2, 2012 1:27 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

plus it's just fucking stupid

― Choc. Clusterman (contenderizer), Wednesday, May 2, 2012 1:36 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nitsuh is not white

― ♆ (gr8080), Wednesday, May 2, 2012 1:38 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/05/bbc-6-music-saved

BOOOOOOOOOOO

― j/k lol simmons (history mayne), Monday, 5 July 2010 11:13 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

congrats to white people everywhere

― j/k lol simmons (history mayne), Monday, 5 July 2010 11:15 (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://whitepeoplehq.wordpress.com/

i lol'd http://whitepeoplehq.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/how-to-run-a-charity-that-gets-white-peoples-money/

better: http://agrammar.tumblr.com/post/359990238/the-rules-of-the-game-a-fuller-thought-on-j-hopper

http://i.imgur.com/IYVfNpS.png

common herbs

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rTFrJetYBgM/UCzlDnJCFaI/AAAAAAAAX3M/nG2h3T7iPGA/s1600/Frank_Bonner_on_WKRP.jpg

http://www.theorycards.org.uk/card16.gif

http://i.imgur.com/6LX134x.png

Worst white man on the cover of the New Statesman's 'Great White Male' issue

Yes. Exactly. OTM.

I think the reason the white males are being singled out in this instance is

actually I'm gonna let you guys figure it out yourselves

whitemansplaining

that thread is literally 100% white men complaining about other white men

really

literally

100%

you heard me

Whitemannotsplaining.

KILLFILE 2.0

actually I'm gonna let you guys figure it out yourselves

― lool at the herrlich (wins), Saturday, October 11, 2014 5:30 PM (5 minutes ago)

the balls on this guy btw. you think your 'this issue about white maleness seems to only have white male contributors on the cover' complaint is so sophisticated?

OMG, LOL

.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Guys, seriously, I'm crying with laughter. This is beyond self parody.

Your an honorary white English dude though.

my point was that it wasn't! xxp

I'm not white btw

Fucking act like it tho.

true

There are some really good posts in the original strain of this thread. What the fuck is the New Statesman anyway?

that thread is literally 100% white men complaining about other white men

Okay lol

I mean, yeah. The actual posters on the thread show greater racial diversity than the contributor list to the "Social! Justice! Issue!" of the New Statesman. That really tells you something about what we are irritated at, doesn't it?

(is it too soon to talk about the dollops of racism inherent in that whole "All British people are white!" assumption that Americans come up with?)

a lot of people with racial complexity in britain are made to assume they're white. i mean, i'm white, but i'm also half cypriot, which is ethnically distinct from anglo-saxon - i simply assumed i was 'as white' as all my schoolmates until ilx helped me confront fine ethnic nuance a few years back. i can imagine that there are lots of people who are made to smooth over their ethnicities, especially in a culture that refuses to 'see' race (i.e. much of white, middle-class britain)

a lot of people with racial complexity in britain are made to assume they're white

to be fair this could also apply to some of the Worst White Men from that NS cover, I think Botton's family are Sephardic jews from Egypt?

Yeah, absolutely, there is a ton of stuff to unpack about whiteness, and what it means, who has it, under what situations and how. And the cultural differences surrounding what it means and how it's expressed do vary between Europe and the US. I do not mean to simplify that complexity, or sweep it under the rug.

But, there's that line between not wanting to force people 'out of Britishness' by highlighting their race or ethnicity because that's icky and gross and othering. But at the same time wanting to dismantle that monolithic American (and not only American, it's a fantasy quite common here, too, coughUKIPcough but in this case it's coming from Americans) fantasy of Europe as 100% White because that's a racist fantasy which bears no resemblance to the present reality (or indeed the past).

Trying to counter that awful "I refuse to see race" attitude is a difficult line to walk without coming off like a twunt! "Race exists and I find it hard to talk about it, as a white britisher, but I'm going to try, even if I do it really clumsily and badly" seems like a more honest position than "I don't see race!" because jesus christ, I grew up in North London, South Africa and New York and wow, was I ever taught how to *see* race. I'll get it wrong, I'm certain, but I still think it's important to try.

last para v otm

So long as people are encouraged to self-define ethnically as they choose, I don't see a conflict with Britishness or even Englishness. The problems come when their choice is peer-determined, reductive and at odds with elements of their lived experience.

Europe as White, volkischness etc is a fascinating & grim topic about which I know not enough

I can't work out if Mordy is making a sophisticated satirical point or whether he's just a complete clown who has just assumed I'm white because no one has told him otherwise.

you act white

Sorry, Matt, we've been laughing too hard to tell him. <3

(also I think he has FINALLY - thank my lucky stars - killfiled me)

(laughing at him, not you. Sorry! You know we love you, DC)

that thread is literally 100% white men complaining about other white men

This thread is literally 100% white men complaining about that thread that is literally 100% white men complaining about other white men etc.

:)

worst white man disparaging the white men on the worst white man on the cover of the New Statesman's 'Great White Male' issue thread on the that thing white ppl do when they disparage "white ppl" thread

it's like these damn britishers just columbused the concept of "white ppl"

lols

in the interest of fairness & just to put the above exchange into context (at least as it pertains to me) I think I should note that mordy & I are fb friends & I was kinda assuming he was winding me up there re my ethnicity although it's more than possible he never twigged or legit forgot cause I act so darn white, & I don't really care either way (obv the point stands re other posters)

my original point was that even if everyone in that thread was a white man, finding it risible that the vast majority of contributors to that issue are straight white male and (crucially) terrible is not equivalent to going "ugh white ppl" like, in any way, at all. And if you actually read the thread we aren't* even talking about the things we were complaining about in the priv thread! We're discussing the individual terribleness of these 20 people.

*for the most part, not gonna say 100% like

posting that thread in this one just isn't the slam dunk you thought it was, sorry

that thing ilxors do when they disparage the ilx poster 'slam dunk'

Fucking act like it tho.

― everything, Saturday, October 11, 2014 5:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Ban this poster btw

dagzine4 years ago

it's amazing how it takes something like jazz and totally flattens it into something that kids can understand as Hip without understanding Cool. Kind of White. bip.

Posting "ppl" instead of "people" is so white.

"my peeps" obviously

ppl is efficient.

lol efficient that's so white amirite

bismillah

https://twitter.com/weismanjake/status/553256490920730624

mash that trenchant insight

Comedian, Diva

Stuff White People Like: The Reheated Leftovers Edition

WHITE PEOPLE SURE LOVE THE WIRE

― sanskrit, Thursday, 27 March 2008 18:15 (6 years ago) Permalink

white people otm

it's like sixty hours, that's pretty fucking serious

where does this fall on the scale?

http://carles.buzz/the-contemporary-conformist/

on the on-point side

easy ass recipe

Oh if only we had Carles during disco

Also Read: Contemporary Conformity [Part 2]

Yeah, uh, you're alright, thanks

But valuable work pointing out that stock photo models in affluent settings aren't necessarily the righteous and revolutionary brothers and sisters I'd always assumed

That post seems relevant to craftsmanship, consumerism, virtue, privilege, and quality

btw:

I h8 people that don’t ‘get’ why contempconformism is different than just ‘whiteys’ being whiteys.

Well for one thing, is Carles white?

Also idk about elsewhere but in Brooklyn it is definitely not just white ppl who are contempconforming

Carles is Hispanic iirc

This mailbag response otm

There are some nuggets in there, but then maybe also describing some1 u h8.

conformism not just 4 the heads anymore it's gone mainstream

this is good i was worried i was running out of nebulously inclusive labels to affix to anyone i want to other for whatever silly reason

full disclosure - i am wearing j crew pants at my middle class job rn

To be clear, the mailbag answer seems on point as a response to the email, not as a description of contempo conform

Thought his post was otm

never actually read Carles until recently but this seems to be on point

to me it seems like this* (like most labeling) is just an insider/outsider thing
us/them
etc

it means little outside of that imo, like that is its main purpose and what it is communicating to me
the details don't matter

*is anyone else thinking of mall fashion mecca contempo casual?

whoops, casuals
apparently now it is wet seal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_Seal

I am also heartily sick of that style but I'm not gonna start asking *hard questions* about why people choose it, some people just pick something that seems okay and go with it, not everyone is a heroic style adventurer.

so carles is like a millennial andy rooney right

I have to say, I recognize myself and my "lifestyle" in a lot of what Carles describes as "contemporary conformity." For that reason, it makes me cringe a little to read his posts, but it also seems sharply observed and well-considered and driven by curiosity, so I don't take it as an indictment of my tastes/values as much as an attempt to expose the social/cultural mechanisms behind them.

I didn't make it to the end of that. Writer can't do better than "Contemporary Conformist"? Pretty dopey name, highly questionable assumptions, like if you walk into a certain kind of store you have "conformed" to it and said YES to all of it, just as when I go buy my cheap functional cargo shorts at Wal-Mart I have obviously signed on to their whole life package.

CC's are causing brunch wait times to skyrocket.

some conformity is necessary in any society or social group, else it would fly apart from overwhelming mutual repellancy

I forgot to say, somebody who thinks croissants are exotic and some kind of rejection of American pastries....croissants peaked in America like a quarter century ago right? At this point do they have any resemblance to anything European, any more than pizza does?

can't believe a person thought some things omg so crucial

Idk if it's really an INDICTMENT of every single characteristic listed, I mean it's impossible not to have some of those unless you're a totally different age or group identification than you are, and/or truly live in the country or some other cultural enclave and never leave it. Or live off the grid or something. Who doesn't like pastry?? Or wooden furniture or whatever?! I guess it's an indictment of ppl for whom that whole article is a checklist or something. If they exist.

it's observational humor

Mmm, you put a title like "contemporary conformity" on it, suddenly whole levels of pretension added to what could just be a stylistic walk through Hipster Rogers Neighborhood.

you put a title like "contemporary conformity" on it, people are more likely to pass it around

Yeah, I don't think it is intended wholly as an indictment, but I think some people have interpreted it as such.

i'm actually impressed he avoided the pitfall of assigning it to a generation

THE MASON JAR GENERATION, coming in June, warm up yer kindle

it's sparking a contemporary conformist riot. the retweets and likes are off the charts

tbf this restaurant aesthetic has been around a while, prob needed calling out sooner rather than later

carles is critiquing how the logic of marketing has inflected the way people come to understand themselves and others. this is always what it's been about: with hipster runoff, his target wasn't hipsters as in "hipsters are shallow people." he was more interested in exploring the hipster as a cultural form, while writing like a child

i just wish he'd been around to call out bellbottoms, or that it was easy to look for whether rooney ever did

almond croissants are (usually) delicious

i still can't stand to wear shirts with buttons though

Great post by CRLS but portraying the adoption of a certain look and conforming via lifestyle posturing is something practiced not just by whatever narrowly defined micro-trendsetters but pretty much any and all consumers. Authenticity is Consumerist Canon, a sort of invisible AAA-rating system for goods and services, the invisible hand of the market revealing the most desired and valued products.

"Sometimes an almond croissant is just an almond croissant."

--- Bob Marley ---

almond croissants are babylon

CC's are just foodies and the other things they do.

you can dislike one particular column and still be CC, which is basically "white" afaic, like as a cultural form / idea.

i think he is unconvincing / less strong when he is trying to point out what 'auth' looks like because i think by definition it doesn't really have a look.

It seems to me like Carlos' critique is that they don't really like X they are just expressing their brand etc but I don't know what it means to like something authentically (he suggests that the real natural position is purchase dependent solely on affordability). On some level this seems like a rehash of the critique that the poor use gaudy possessions to signal wealth while the truly wealthy can afford to signal it through more minimalism.

I don't really think it is white actually.

I also don't think this is a stand up comedy thing, more seems like he's going for a millennial john Berger vibe

I mean u can say CC is based in or references whiteness but as a cultural idea it certainly appeals more to a sense of bourgeoise-ness

It seems to me like Carlos' critique is that they don't really like X they are just expressing their brand etc but I don't know what it means to like something authentically (he suggests that the real natural position is purchase dependent solely on affordability). On some level this seems like a rehash of the critique that the poor use gaudy possessions to signal wealth while the truly wealthy can afford to signal it through more minimalism.

― Mordy, Thursday, April 23, 2015 12:28 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't think he's saying they don't really like it ... More that it's as constructed as anything else

This is far more making fun of class distinctions than anything here.

Race is tied up in class distinctions of course. But I don't think you can do a 1:1 with "whiteness"

i don't think carles knows what he actually thinks about these things. his main purpose, imo, has always been to create this literary effect he is really good at, where the comfortable surfaces of everyday life are torn apart, revealing a level of banality that from a certain light seems funny, but from another angle is super depressing, like an abyss is opening inside you. sorting people into marketing niches the way he does is obviously dehumanizing, and it's especially weird because there is clearly no way -- from his standpoint -- to step outside and be more "authentic." for carles everything becomes class signaling, or else pathetic vying for acceptance bb. hipster runoff got too dark for me to read once he introduced "the mainstreamer," a character whose engagement with pop culture was fully an expression of her own self loathing

though to jeff's comment re foodies this phenomenon is pretty heavily about 'going out' as something inherently desireable / meaningful. xps

But seriously, folks...

All I saw there were a bunch of advertising and marketing images used to represent real people who supposedly had internalized those images to the point where they slavishly reproduced them in their real lives. Except all the images were of the painstakingly composed artifice that we all know exists briefly in front of cameras, but which swiftly decomposes itself into normality once the camera is finished, and not photos of anyone slavishly composing their lives in homage to those contrived images, which supposed people the author was disparaging. Those real life people we had to imagine for ourselves, based on the stock photos. Which seems suspiciously circular.

they don't really like X they are just expressing their brand etc

This is perhaps an expression of the self-destructive tendencies inherit in capitalism. Which is one of the big markets serving (self-serving) consumerism by perpetuating more consumption. There is some self-hatred in relying on an endless cycle of consuming products in order live in society, and those of us on the fringes may direct that angers towards others. What is of most value in a consumer society is Consuming. "I am a better consumer than you" is the preferred point of dissent. This stuff isn't new and it isn't even criticism. I still enjoy it tho, cos he's a funny writer, and he's great at what he does imo. I enjoy the style of it.

i guess i should be saying the value of carles is observational humor of the rooney style ("what's up with all the metal and wood in restaurants? does it feel more authentic? why?") - his intent doesn't really matter

except there are many, many people who live in front of that camera in different ways. it's the concept of the spectacle in action and i think it's disingenuous to deny its effects. xp

i agree carles is at his best when just purely observational, not trying to force a good/bad binary.

i mean you can tell he wants to do something else, it's right there in his new blog title "In search of a meaningful/authentic human/internet experience", but i think his current format / project would have to change / expand a lot more in order to get there.

I guess I wonder what makes his observation so valuable. The note that ppl of a given time tend to reproduce a particular aesthetic seems banal. Would Carlos of the 17th c be writing about baroque bros?

So - not talking about this article here, talking about the thread subject now:

When people say such and such place/practice/style is "white," does that imply that if somebody is not white and goes there/does that/acts like that regularly, does that mean they are "acting white"?

Logical conclusion right? But I bet that part of the equation isn't going to go down real well - and it shouldn't, either. Might be a problem with this whole line of talk.

Removed from the oh-so-sincere context of working for justice etc, defining certain things as "white" is something that racists have always been happy to do. The difference, that you might think means something, and that I sincerely doubt means enough to justify it, is that now these things are expressed in the context of a critique. Again, what do you say to non-whites who wish to partake of them?

This is not a made-up problem. It's like the shit Jimi Hendrix endured for not wanting to play properly "black" music - shit he endured from blacks and whites, who of course thought of themselves as working for progress. I doubt anybody here is going to defend what happened to Hendrix, getting called "an electric Uncle Tom" by you know who. But if you go around defining things as white, you might want to think about what kind of messages you are sending to everybody. You are not automatically immune from this possibility just because you can see where liberals of the 60s and 70s didn't quite have it down.

I don't expect anybody on this thread to just surrender and give up on the possibly positive value of this whole 'defining whiteness' thing - so how to do this right without just perpetuating exclusion?

i'm leaning in that direction. i still get some enjoyment from his shtick because i have a chip on my shoulder re consumer culture. and so i think you're right that it's not really valuable. xp to mordy

feel like 'whiteness' as a concept is a tricky deal and treated very well in books i haven't read.

Hear hear, I think it has been especially well dealt with in books I haven't read too.

my pov is that while i'm not in a position to tell someone who isn't white how to use the word "white," i think it'd be shitty, excluding and racist for ME to use the word "white" to describe things i thought were lame, conformist, etc. it'd be a weird, self-aggrandizing, racially essentialist action.

xxxp I'm reading Nat Hentoff's 'Free Speech for Me but Not for Thee' (btw super fantastic + i highly recommend if for nothing else than the vertigo of reading a book from 92 that perfectly describes 2015) + he writes about a time he met Mingus and someone came up to Mingus and accused him of not really being black enough to play the blues and then Mingus started playing and blew the room away (iirc i read this section late last night on the plane and may not be remembering correctly). anyway, Hentoff's point was that there will always be ppl saying other ppl aren't X enough, pure enough, etc enough & that those ppl pretty much suck.

With you on your adjectives, da croupier. Okay, Mordy, there will always be those sucky people, but do only sucky people create these distinctions? Because I think maybe otherwise well-meaning people do too.

sometimes well-meaning ppl accidentally become sucky ppl bc humans are flawed creatures

i do think there's a tier where liberally-minded white people want you to know they're aware of the failings of "white" people but then vanily extrapolate that only white people watch dr quinn reruns etc, assumming only white dr quinn watchers who can't handle the truth would be offended, and don't realize they're also telling an asian dr quinn fan that they're white

and i should note that not every asian dr quinn fan necessarily has to be offended, and could well say "oh yeah it's so white" - the point is that it's shitty to be a white person making that leap imo

Dr Quinn was hilarious

I guess I wonder what makes his observation so valuable. The note that ppl of a given time tend to reproduce a particular aesthetic seems banal. Would Carlos of the 17th c be writing about baroque bros?

― Mordy, Thursday, 23 April 2015 17:50 (40 minutes ago) Permalink

i don't think the point is that he's doing something that's completely unprecedented in scope, but it's pretty unprecedented for the current time—no one has really isolated this before in the current moment around these varying signifiers that i've seen

so...why is it 'valuable'? I mean, i don't think anyone is saying he's the new foucault, closer to a lamp post in a hipster studies thread, but that doesn't mean it's not interesting

ha ha, lamp post

no one has really isolated artisanal hipsters before?

several of them locked in basement presently

no one has interrogated the varying impulses behind artisinal etc

actually we have a thread that is kind of devoted to that that i've never read, i imagine you could ask one of the many people who posted in it why the subject interests them

oh we're definitely interrogating them

Mordy otm. This doesn't seem worth talking about.

I've seen message boards posts & self-aware jokes about conversationally, but not really articulated to a considered point the way it is here

i have a friend that does it in conversation almost every night and it gets really tedious really fast. i think carles is good at making people feel cool being included in it. but embracing that too much would diminish the coolness (see carles.buzz most recent post).

yes it can veer close to a wake up sheeple thing and I'm sure for some its about feeling smarter than the rest of the room but...you could say that as easily about philosophy in general

d-40 needs all the opportunities he can get to feel smarter than the rest of the room

(just jokes no need to argue that i'm wrong)

i meant, 'but you could say that about ilx in general'

smartest-person-in-the-room wave

woooooooooo

woooooooOOOoooooooooo

xxxxxxxxxxxx (fell into salad bar)

to a degree i guess i like thinking about market niches, something appealing in the sheer ridiculousness of it, gives my mind something to do that's like knitting. and to think you could profit from it with some kind of social capital is a bonus.

but at the end of the day it's not all that fun.

this guy gets a lot of credit for "noticing things, kind of"

yeah totally

it's his pioneering writing/image style. before he started writing, it was considered a mistake to use the same image multiple times in the same post. but now that wall has been broken

what an exciting new world we live in!

I dont know about whiteness but Carles doesn't use the word 'white' at all in that piece so I don't know why we are even talking about that. If you want to talk global appropriation it is not something limited to white patriarchal culture but one could say the abuses of capitalist imperialism et al greatly benefits that specific power structure so it's a good idea to be critical of it. But that isn't being addressed in this piece, it is more a compendium of trends and cultural artifacts.

let's see what he's seeing here: design aesthetic, clothing, a style, kitchen design, "experiences," post-pinterest, meaning in food, #nofilter, bakeries, brunch

huh *steeples fingers* interesting

what about part 2?

I feel like ‘most girls who aren’t mainstream skanks’ or weirdos are relatively Contemporary Conformist. When contructing a ‘self’ only using the medium of retail fashion, they can’t help but always be contemporarily conforming. (But this applies 2 bros too, I guess). What is it that women want? Do they want a ContempConformie guy to ‘impress’ their parents [via ‘mate who can provide’]?
Do they want ‘more than just a mainstreamer in a polo shirt’ but not a ‘low-life Tumblr culture loser’?
Are ‘cool girls’ who can ‘contribute’ to discussions at Contemporary Conformist establishments just a new iteration of ‘basic bitches’ who think they are different from ‘basic bitches’ that they shared in a listicle, but also embrace how sometimes they like being a lil bit basic, yall! ?

maybe work out your shit in private dude

it is almost like judging books by their covers doesn't provide the insight that ive always assumed...

he certainly has a knack for completely obliterating any sense of authorial point of view thru unhinged use of scare quoting

my favorite kind

It makes me want to read some Andy Warhol.

i feel like every person in this thread has engaged with dumber arguments on ilx

"I dont know about whiteness but Carles doesn't use the word 'white' at all in that piece so I don't know why we are even talking about that."

Nobody said HE did; thread topic is about white stuff; at least two diff discussions going on here.

so is the social capital something you get from reading carles? is he not just transmitting his audience's anxieties about whether their choices are real choices back to them

idk, i mean its not adorno, but it's also accessible

http://www.troll.me/images/ancient-aliens-guy/white-people.jpg

http://www.troll.me/images/ancient-aliens-guy/white-people.jpg

i love and admire affluent white ppl

didnt read that carles thing but feel like 'contempo conformo' could be called something better... or just call these ppl yuppies like everyone else already does who h8s these ppl (i.e. me and my friends)

yuppies are diff tho

u don't have to be a yuppie to live a CC lifestyle

sounds more like young bobos so I guess carles is young david brooks

I just went out and tried to describe how people are living, using a method that might best be described as comic sociology. The idea is to get at the essence of cultural patterns, getting the flavor of the times without trying to pin it down with meticulous exactitude. Often I make fun of the social manners of my class (I sometimes think I've made a whole career out of self-loathing)

carles is like tao lin for me- I find his appeal incomprehensible and it makes me feel like I belong in a different generation

maybe a different message board idk

Tao Lin the abusive creep? You shouldn't feel too bad, tbh

lol young david brooks. even though i like carles, i could see there being a weary paternalism behind the facade

seems like he's getting at some of the stuff Thomas Frank wrote about in the 90s with The Conquest of Cool except instead of critiquing marketing carles comes at it from the angle of "Look at these lames."

never thought id see the day

ilx turned on carles

sounds like carles is having an existential crisis. getting older happens to all of us, good buddy. we'll always have the justice jackets.

carles is like tao lin for me- I find his appeal incomprehensible and it makes me feel like I belong in a different generation

i dunno, I'm totes old and really like Tao Lin but Carles leaves me cold. I think young David Brooks is actually a good comp; you admire the craft but there's something kind of emptily self-regarding about the whole project.

Tao Lin and Carles are just two sides of the same despair. The former retreats into mysticism and the latter launches a guerilla attack on a culture that seems to repulse him (i say seems to bc carles is a persona.) Finding life meaningless is pretty old -- so not generational -- but the information overload element is new kinda. familiar exhaustion with bourgeois affectations/falsity but sped up

I think they're both remarkably anti-social and anti-political. All choices are false choices/life is vanity are major themes for the two of them

instead of critiquing marketing carles comes at it from the angle of "Look at these lames."

imo anthropology on homo marketus (which is always gonna be in danger of looking at these lames + which will require true humility & perspective) is gonna be a lot more useful going forward than fuck-the-corporations (though obv fuck the corporations). nb i thought this partic post was pretty boilerplate and the bit goole excerpted raised an eyebrow when i read it too. in general i have always thought carles is not as good as the thing he is trying to be has to be, but god bless.

but

he certainly has a knack for completely obliterating any sense of authorial point of view thru unhinged use of scare quoting

this a guilty pleasure for me; it is the very definition of a gimmick but sometimes i think just signposting cliches--acknowledging that this concept came from outside you and that you're not entirely sure you believe it but that it is now as inside you as any of your own feelings, that your authorial pov is not fully your own and you don't confidently understand the ways in which it's not--dissolves or unravels them faster than trying to purge them from your prose (which is what i do) as if they aren't squatting on your mind at all, as if you're brilliant and free. and since marketing works, mamabirdlike, by regurgitating cliches into you, experimental ways of dealing with them are presently v worthwhile artistic r&d. not that scare quotes are all that experimental in 2015 i guess.

(and not that writers haven't been Dealing With Marketing since the 1960s at the very least.)