rolling 2013 thread on race and racism

it's 2013 and a new year, probably time to put the rolling is this racist? thread to rest, eh?

would like to request that really obviously, outrageously racist stories not be posted itt unless there's an interesting angle; yes, we know that racism exists on the interent and it is ugly (and I'll be the first to admit I've been guilty of this as well), no need to remind everybody

I'll start us off with this piece, which is really good:

http://www.mtvhive.com/2013/01/16/the-only-black-guy-at-the-indie-rock-show/

r.i.p. "is this racist?" we never were actually sure.

very appropriate dn ; )

oh shit

http://jezebel.com/5976202/i-cant-stop-looking-at-these-south-korean-women-whove-had-plastic-surgery

this article rubbed me the wrong way

Clicking through, it's obvious that there is indeed one specific way that is considered the best way for a woman to look, and it's a cross between Belle and Chinese actress Fan Bing Bing.

clearly all these south korean women are aspiring to a look that's a cross between ... an american cartoon character and a chinese actress. couldn't be anybody from south korea.

just a matter of years before they become a teeming, undistinguishable horde who all look exactly alike.

this is obviously racist but i think it has an interesting angle:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/550058_10151351615104827_699043959_n.jpg

a slanted one amirite

that MTV Hive article is amazing

I'm kind of surprised/amazed I've never gotten "you must be a precious unicorn" looks at any of the Cure concerts I've been to

yeah it's really great

I didn't have anywhere to post this when I first came across it but this is really great too:

http://4thletter.net/2012/11/me-and-my-people-got-history-why-how-i-write-about-race/

particularly crucial:

The black kids of my generation and the ones before it were raised with the notion that it’s essential to hold onto one’s “blackness,” and that venturing outside of those boundaries meant you were trying to assimilate to white society, to “be more like one of them.” But essentially every African-American child growing up has an intimate knowledge of some version of the black experience, and the way we dress or the music we listen to still won’t hide the color of our skin. I never saw my interest in alternative culture as a way to obfuscate my racial identity. Aside from the annoyance of being typecast as a fan of a band purely based on superficial concerns, that conversation overlooked the one substantial reason why there are a lot of black people who relate to TV on the Radio’s music: They are a band primarily consisting of African-American men who often explore what it means to be African-American. For a generation of alternative music fans made to believe we were betraying “what it means” to be black, a band had finally come along that made that very idea a theme in its music.

The first gig I ever went to was The Cure at Wembley Arena and I can remember walking around the concourse thinking it would be nice to spot a least one black person. Didn't see any, but there were a lot of people wearing black. Can't remember getting any stares tho.

why is that chinese man wearing... oh, it's a kuwaiti man holding the corners of his eyes, almost got me there

Hey an article about race AND comics!! Going to have to read this shit...

dude you are killing it with these essays:

I’m not with that. Not at all. I said a while back that one of the biggest parts of being black in America is being constantly reminded that you are black. That’s a clear example. Black is different, black is weird, black must be pointed out when you see it, especially when it contrasts with normal. I mean, white. It makes you feel like you don’t belong every minute of every day, like you’re an intruder in the only home you’ve ever known.
― Bel-Air the Fresh Prince, sitting in a chair (DJP), Wednesday, January 23, 2013 4:24 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed, I think I just read three of them after that first link.

― mh, Wednesday, January 23, 2013 4:35 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

damn it, DJP, we're on the other thread now, stop luring me back

― mh, Wednesday, January 23, 2013 4:35 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah david brothers is probably one of my favorite writers on the internet right now. I linked to a bunch of his stuff on django unchained in the django thread, really great if you've seen the movie.

i don't think the 'chinese eyes' in that ad is nearly as offensive as the clearly insincere smile. it's more of a grimace, like he really hates chinese food and chinese culture in general, and he resents being made to do the 'chinese eyes' thing, not because it's racist, but because he would really hate it if anyone thought he was chinese.

i don't think the 'chinese eyes' in that ad is nearly as offensive as the clearly insincere smile.

how do you manage to consistently find a new level of insane

that kuwaiti chinese restaurant wants you to know that they NEVER USE KETCHUP OR COLORING AGENTS

they also apparently brag that they use "organic, vegetable-based MSG"

at least that's what I think it says, I have to, uh, squint to read it...

there's really nothing interesting about that kuwait ad, we can move on guys

more than happy to

I dunno, I think there's a dynamic between a cultural faux pas vs. underlying malevolence that the ad might be instructive in.

yeah let's direct the conversation back to how badass Luke Cage is, if we could...

Kuwaitis, and everyone, need to learn its not ok to do the squinty eye thing, I doubt he was intentionally trying to hurt feelings/be mean/make light of phenotypic differences... but this is a melting pot or salad bowl or whatever and in a multicultural society you have to adhere to basic PC rules that we've all determined through unwritten cultural treates, even if you are also an immigrant and a minority, them's the rules and you break them at your own risk.

That's all I have to say about that dumb ad.

*cultural treaties

Is every white hip-hop fan required to own a copy of The Marshall Mathers LP? Does every gender studies major have a framed poster of Kathleen Hanna on their wall?

This is where the argument sort of loses me.

south park does the squinty eye thing a lot more than family guy but of the two, i feel family guy actually harbors more genuine racism in their hearts.

there's some kind of parallax view watching other cultures perform racial prejudice i think, not that that ad is a great example

really i just wanted to say parallax view. parallax view, parallax view.

ok. i'm done. we can talk about other stuff.

You mean feeling all weird about northern european santa claus and his gang of black friends, wondering wtf british people are on about with golliwogs or the way they refer to chinese restaurants, and then walking around my home saying I got "gypped" out of money and that I can't work on my car because the engine compartment is built for tiny japanese hands?

We're all racist in our own, special ways

and by "we" I mean people other than me, can't imagine I'd ever screw up like that

except for when I do

south park does the squinty eye thing a lot more than family guy but of the two, i feel family guy actually harbors more genuine racism in their hearts.

both of these are bad, but South Park is actually pretty good on some racial issues (as long as they don't involve Asians, I guess). one thing you never see on Family Guy (or any Seth Macfarlane show) is a non-white character in which the character's race isn't pointed out in some way.

I thought Black Peter was some actually ancient tradition but I looked up and it appears he only goes back to the 1850s, and has always been "Santa's servant/page/valet/etc." so....

fuck that "tradition."

The last line of that article:

I wish all these surgery-seekers would watch The Elephant Man and Mask before booking an appointment.

jesus fucking christ you have got to be kidding me

that Douglas essay is really rad

I wish all these surgery-seekers would watch http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4b/The_Mask_%28film%29_poster.jpg/220px-The_Mask_%28film%29_poster.jpg before booking an appointment.

jesus fucking christ you have got to be kidding me

really had no idea what they're trying to say here, if anything doesn't Elephant Man suggest that outward appearance is indeed important?

This is where the argument sort of loses me.

Why?

Cause Slim Shady is a sucka-MC not even white people have to respect.

doesn't Elephant Man suggest that outward appearance is indeed important?

^^^makes you think

http://filcomenterprises.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/elephant-frog.jpg?w=648

I think it's kind of odd that they mention KPOP as a culprit but don't bemoan Western Imperialism as similarly grotesquely inspiring the music industry.

because i mean yes not required, but i'm happy to casually assume that most gender studies majors of a certain era are bikini kill fans and that basically everyone into hip-hop of a certain era has a copy of that eminem album.

The essay generally makes a great deal of sense to me. But there's also something silly about pretending that if a band has a sound that you are known to be fond of, and is known to be good at that sound, and also does things or is things that might resonate with you for other reasons, then it is some sort of bad stereotyping to suppose that you might be fond of that band. I get the impulse to take umbrage at it, but I don't necessarily feel it is legitimate.

and there's a right and wrong way to make those sort of suppositions, i'll grant, and a right and wrong set of reasoning behind them.

as a white hip hop fan who never liked eminem that line didn't bother me at all lol

like if someone actually said "you _don't_ like such and such, what's wrong with you?" or something, that would be much more troublesome. and i feel like it's the shadow of that accusation that the essay is taking off of on this point.

everyone liked eminem circa that album! it was so freaking inescapable.

in retrospect, it was probably the last time that he actually had something front-to-back solid, or even half solid.

inescapable /= good (or even that everyone likes it)

The point of the essay, though, is not so much the "why don't you like what you're supposed to?" question as it is "why do you like MY music?" That conversation showed one of these people explicitly putting TV on the Radio in the "indie music for black people" box solely because of their skin color rather than because of anything that might be going on in their lyrics, which is where the author makes the case. And also, as Shakey helpfully demonstrates, transferring a generality into a universality is inherently problematic.

Also I dunno I think that guy maybe has a bit of a chip on his shoulder abt TVOTHR... I know Armenian metal fans whose favorite band of all time is System of a Down cause "they're Armenian man!!!!" -- I realize being like a 3rd generation Armenian-American does not have anywhere the same weight of "othering" than being African-American I don't really get why anyone would be p.o.'d at assumptions that they like a band cause they are playing in one's preferred genre and are of their ethnic background.

It has to be very alienating however to be the one black guy at like a Built To Spill concert or whatever, though. I've heard similar gripes from black people into other things coded as "white" like tabletop gaming and heavy metal.

I don't really get why anyone would be p.o.'d at assumptions that they like a band cause they are playing in one's preferred genre and are of their ethnic background.

oh man, let me just tell you that this is basically the worst fucking thing aside from just being treated like shit because of your skin color, and it manifests itself in practically every facet of your life (see: a bunch of kids asking me why I didn't date the black girl in my class for example, even though we weren't friends and neither of us was attracted to the other)

^

it is akin to walking into a restaurant and, instead of getting a menu, being handed a big plate of watermelon and fried chicken and being told "don't worry, I know what you like! *wink*" and you're all "wtf this is a gyro place, I came here for a gyro"

well hold on, is this fried chicken gratis?

okay lol

well sorry I guess I don't really get it. sorry.

live in Japan for a while, you will start to get it

(see: a bunch of kids asking me why I didn't date the black girl in my class for example, even though we weren't friends and neither of us was attracted to the other)

― Bel-Air the Fresh Prince, sitting in a chair (DJP), Wednesday, January 23, 2013 6:02 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol I had this experience a few months ago: was hanging out with my friend and his girlfriend; his girlfriend said to me, "hey dan there are some girls in my class who are way cute and I think might be your type" "oh really?" "yeah let me get on facebook and show you"

she then proceeded to show me the profiles of all five korean exchange students in her class

._.

oh dear lord

ironically this shared experience is one of the things my wife and I bonded over when we started dating

also file under: continuing adventures in why 乒乓 can't get a date

I mean, my friend and his girlfriend both went to my college! these are smart people

oh that is even more head-desky

do your friends write for family guy or south park?

apologists South Park's unrepentant racism re: asians are disgusting savages imho

FOR South Park's etc

south park has such a bizarre hold on so many people

well sorry I guess I don't really get it. sorry.

― Frobisher the (Viceroy), Wednesday, 23 January 2013 23:25 (Yesterday) Permalink

lol

we've had this conversation before and i know this is kind of uh subjective but SP 'racism' always strikes me as playing off the kinda stuff that eg. an asian-american would laugh at their asian-asian relatives for sometimes embodying. maybe that's harmful in a way but i'll leave it to others to decide for themselves obviously. i've said before that i don't find their jewish humor the tiniest bit offensive and i wouldn't know how any of their other racial stuff is any more offensive than the jewish stuff. BUT again i can only speak for myself and my experience/my heritage, maybe there's something actually offensive about it that i'm missing.

why are we even talking about south park anyway?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/austria/9820517/Lego-accused-of-racism-with-Star-Wars-set.html

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02459/LegoToy_2459827b.jpg

haven't seen much SP but - you know, the kind of stuff an asian-american will laugh at their asian parents for, once broadcast into the larger american audience, then becomes the kind of stuff that white people will laugh at asian-americans for

maybe one big difference is that one of the south park writers is jewish?

there's a difference between me and my siblings joking about how fucked up our family is and some other person who hardly knows us joking about how fucked up our family is. joking about shit you have experience with is always different from listening to other people come in and repeat vile shit they've been hearing about people who look like you

I think Trey Parker is hapa or something. anyhoo, they're clearly somewhat aware that kids are out there watching their stuff and repeating everything (e.g. shitty beef) and feel a little guilty about it.

that doesn't stop them though!

sidebar: for a very long time i was the jew who was Totally Cool with jew jokes, mostly bc i never really felt 'othered' or offended or anything as a jew so w/e. and then something sort of clicked for me in high school when a good (gentile) friend of mine started the 'what's the difference between pizza and a jew' joke that i'd heard a million times already. there was something in the way he said it and the look in his eyes that just made me want to puke. i remember actually feeling genuinely distrustful and also freaked out at the fact that i was reacting that way. when i was a kid i was morbidly obsessed w the holocaust and a part of the obsession was indulging my own fear, and i guess that erupted. a couple years later i would almost jump a kid for a horribly-formed joke where he threw a quarter on the ground and said something like "go after it jew", which he clearly thought was fine in a 'we all watch south park, don't we?' way. i'd never really felt rage like that before.

but i imagine that's still not even close to what it's like wiith racial jokes. people usually can't tell i'm a jew and there aren't many places where other people would care about me being a jew anyway. i can joke about it with non-jewish friends nowadays and trust that they probably won't go into weird overboard territory. and jew stereotypes aren't nearly as prominent as racial stereotypes here.

people usually can't tell i'm a jew

but sometimes they are carrying their anthropometric nose measurer and you're fucked right?

thing is the pizza joke is something i've never heard a jew say, and i'm not sure why non-jews have always been so excited to tell it to me. there's a difference between "look i'm being offensive" jokes and "haha we're joking about shared cultural experiences" jokes. reclamation is also a part of it but different story i guess

xp well sometimes my horns pop through the curls but usually they can't see

that's only when you see a really sexy person, right

that's why they make special yarmulkes with holes in them

I liked the episodes on king of the hill when bobby would start speaking yiddish much to hank's consternation.

Colbert sometimes drops an offensive chinese guy joke and it makes me cringe so much. Cos pretty much the entirety of the joke is "Oh how wrong this is!"

amy sedaris is way more cringeworthy than colbert on this front.

Colbert HAS had a running gag (maybe for the last couple years?) about his "offensive asian character" w/ a clip of him doing a voice.

haven't watched king of the hill in ages but feel like I would probably be pretty bothered by kahn's portrayal (like in the same way apu kinda bothers me now)

is still colbert still doing brownface for his mexican tv character

actually am i imagining this or did he bring out that character when romney darkened his skin for univision?

a horribly-formed joke where he threw a quarter on the ground and said something like "go after it jew"

wau wtf

when i was in school i really didnt want to tell people because that it fails to turn people into Cartman (at least in high school), ha ha, you fucking JEW

totally otm about how non-jews are just drawn to those kind of jokes (how many jews can you fit in an ashtray?), most of the jews I know joke a lot more, but it's actually funny

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Ssud8db3HLY/RvosJS2vRiI/AAAAAAAABh4/oezNfIlItso/s400/frog+with+torah.JPG

are these jokes something you can retell, or do you have to be there?

its the second, i've never heard a jew tell a Hitler joke and for good reason

i'd like to remind jews that we have a perfectly good thread to complain about anti-semitism right here:
A rare talent for making money

Wow when someone said "Jew jokes" I thought that meant, like, "You kids have fun, I'll just sit here in the dark" or "two Jews, three opinions." Clearly I missed out on...a whole...something.

when ppl use jew as an adjective it's usually not a good sign

I mean there are dead baby jokes, I guess it shouldn't surprise me. It's just...pizza?? I'm not googling for the punch line but I can guess where it's going. And then "in an ashtray"? IN AN ASHTRAY. Man, I will bitch about religious assholes of all kinds, all day long, but come the fuck on.

i've never heard a jew tell a Hitler joke and for good reason

watch mel brooks much?

(ok yeah, DJP i see where you're coming from. I didn't read this encounter in exactly that way, but in terms of a conversation like that it also depends on your friend and your relationship to them, and a whole bunch of other things. i mean i actually know lots of people who will try to like things or seek them out because the performer shares their ethnicity, and they'll be totally open about it, but otoh if the wrong person made an assumption in the wrong way about what they liked or why, they'd get real froggy).

what is the frog saying in hebrew

when ppl use jew as an adjective it's usually not a good sign

― moët plaudit (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Wednesday, January 23, 2013 8:48 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

using ”jew” where ”jewish” could work is a huge red flag

using 'jewess' is a red flag that could envelop the world

Oh yeah I don't understand about that one. I kind of like the word "Jewess" although I guess I'm not rly allowed to and/or no one gives a shit what some evangelical girl from Michigan thinks anyway. But why is it so bad and hated?

with mel brooks et al the point of the joke seems more 'lol look at how stupid and lame nazis are,' not so much 'lol here i am exploiting the holocaust for a cheap laugh' like your standard SP-watching run-of-the-mill quasi-racist bro.

http://www.thejcconline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/the_red_tent.jpg

I mean the only person I have ever heard use it is a hilARious Jewish woman from Long Island who once told me a story about being hit on by a transit cop on the MTA and only later realizing he gave her his number because he saw that she hadn't put her underpants back on after leaving a dude's apartment, so she p much does whatever she wants.

xp lol I own that book

hilARious Jewish women from Long Island can no doubt say whatever they want!

ppl *in* the group can appropriate; ppl not in the group cannot (reasonably)

what is the frog saying in hebrew

chag sameach - happy holidays
chazak chazak v'nischazek - be strong be strong be strengthened

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2kAvGTqmIE

xp Yeah no I get that. I don't understand why the word is not okay to begin with.

it just isn't? in the same way that 'negress' isn't?

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/jewess-jeans/1056741/

i've never heard a jew tell a Hitler joke and for good reason

there are a bazillion Jewish jokes about Hitler. Jokes trivializing the Holocaust, eh not so much

I don't really get why anyone would be p.o.'d at assumptions that they like a band cause they are playing in one's preferred genre and are of their ethnic background.

oh man, let me just tell you that this is basically the worst fucking thing aside from just being treated like shit because of your skin color, and it manifests itself in practically every facet of your life (see: a bunch of kids asking me why I didn't date the black girl in my class for example, even though we weren't friends and neither of us was attracted to the other)

― Bel-Air the Fresh Prince, sitting in a chair (DJP), Wednesday, January 23, 2013 5:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^

― 乒乓, Wednesday, January 23, 2013 5:03 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post PermalinkBanal racial transgressions from people of good intent must be pretty common. I can imagine how these frequent little acts of estrangement could be maddening.

This is something that I slowly became aware of, because it's not blatant and it doesn't happen to me. The frequency of these banal transgressions from people of good intent. Just never being able to take a break from this background drone of estrangement.

what IS the difference between a pizza and a jew?
this is an oven joke isn't it

how did you guess

there are a bazillion Jewish jokes about Hitler. Jokes trivializing the Holocaust, eh not so much

this is what I really mean to say, I guess we've made our share of Nazi jokes but many of the jews I know (myself included) have relatives who died in the Holocaust, y'know? hence why it really began to bother me when people I didn't even know were like "oh you're Jewish? well have you heard this one" and the answer is always yes

good time for a hilarious punning headline, u shitty e-rag

http://laist.com/2013/01/25/hispanic_gang_members_suspected_of.php

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2263136/School-class-teaches-white-people-oppressors.html

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/01/16/article-2263136-16F71937000005DC-815_634x640.jpg

i love this 800% magnified photo of the school supervisor

last picture of the school is the type they'd use in a school shooting news brief

'It’s really just awful.'

xp Had the same thought.

school class teaches TRUTH YOU CAN'T HANDLE WHITEY

"what IS the difference between a pizza and a jew?"
i thought this would be a boboli vs bubbeleh thing.

one's italian the other killed our lord

BUT WAIT

Something about New York?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddz2LMS4YvY

Cinnamon sticks being Jamaican DJs isn't racist it's just a fact of life.

http://crapsouvenirs.com/wp-content/main/2011_04/bananas.jpg

Of course Whites have taken what they want and should not apologize to any one. Tom Metzger

- tommetzger14 , Warsaw Indiana, 18/1/2013 21:07

DORKS WHO SIGN THEIR POSTS LIKE IT'S A FREAKIN EMAIL

In May 1991, Metzger had to agree to stop selling T-shirts of Bart Simpson in a Nazi uniform with the words "Pure Nazi Dude" and "Total Nazi Dude".[17]

weird. I just saw a W.A.R. bumper sticker on a minivan in my neighborhood yesterday. up until now, the worst i had seen were confederate flags and anti-obama stickers. this is the first person i've seen here who was unequivocably like "ayup, I'm a straight-up nazi, nbd."

I never noticed them on cars but someone was putting some W.A.R. stickers around my town for a while a couple years ago. I carried a stepladder and paint scraper around in the car and would take them down on my way to the gym at 6:30 in the morning which I figured lessened my chances of running into angry skinheads while defiling their stickers.

^^ personal hero

i love this 800% magnified photo of the school supervisor

― Why they hide the bodice under décolletage? (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Sunday, January 27, 2013 10:10 AM (6 hours ago)

more than one strange photo choice in that story:

http://i.imgur.com/4juCRM7.png

last picture of the school is the type they'd use in a school shooting news brief

― #guy #guy fieri #poop #hallway (zachlyon), Sunday, January 27, 2013 2:12 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The author was clearly having fun with this caption under the django still:

Equality: Despite white people engaging in slavery, the unnamed parent believes alternative views should be considered

Just one more bit of local flavor:

http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/government/anne-arundel-sheriff-s-office-posts-disturbing-tweet/article_510442f3-7fdd-5b59-8fbd-b3d683ad69df.html

The Anne Arundel County Sheriff’s Office is investigating how a link to a politically charged message from a Facebook page titled “American White History Month” was posted from its Twitter account this morning.

The link posted by @AACOSHERIFF just after 7 a.m. sent followers to a post from the Facebook account of Reb Orrell, who according to his profile, is a cold case investigator and part-time cyber investigator with the Office of Sheriff Ron Bateman.

The post shared by Orrell was from the American White History Month Facebook page.

The post “joked” that the IRS sent back his tax return due to listing illegal immigrants, drug abusers and prisoners among others as dependents.

The post was removed by 10 a.m.

Maj. Rick Tabor said he was in county Circuit Court in Annapolis this morning when his secretary alerted him to a number of phone calls about the Twitter post.

The Sheriff’s Office issued a statement this morning.

“The Anne Arundel County Sheriff’s Office has been made aware of a very disturbing post on our Twitter page. The Sheriff’s Office in no way condones the views of the posting and we are investigating the matter.”

See he got it wrong, illegal immigrants, drug abusers and prisoners are the only reason he has a job. He is dependent on THEM.

Shocked, SHOCKED at the idea of racism among Annarunnelcounny pigs -- er, I mean law enforcement professionals. The County cops and sherriffs have always sucked, and most of them don't live there..

http://www.egotripland.com/black-bart-simpson/

had no idea! pretty dope

<3 that article.

Damn DJP is OTM all over this thread, have had many of these same thoughts.

TWU do you live in annearunnelcounny or you used to, i forgot

i don't think i mentioned it but the article in the first post of this thread was a good read

i worked for years on a vv mainstream and long running tv program that had thousands of hours of footage logged in and described succintly, and nothing would stand out from those basic descriptions, they were usually something like:

Man walks down dock to boat at end of pier

but if the guy was black, the description would be entered in as

Man walks down dock to boat at end of pier BLACK AFRICAN AMERICAN

Born and raised, went to college there and got gone. Still love it, though.

lol, i remember black bart t-shirts being a thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5xb1fAHkdc

cool soundtrack

ah so

what the fucking fuck

everything about these "Food Beast" ppl seems to be entirely punchable

foodbeastTV 12 hours ago
It was a coin flip between the oriental riff and gong, or Ke$ha.
Reply · 18 in reply to leonel1982

they also have a "How to eat a Tic Tac like a boss" video so clearly the only answer is burlap sack + rocks

Oh man, I remember those shirts, from the era before the writers realized that Homer was the focus of the show, not Bart.

That was like 90-91 or so, when you'd see bootleg shirts mixing Bart with MC Hammer or the Detroit Pistons.

I think I had an "Underachiever & Proud of It" shirt in 1990.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8R_FrF_Bk0

oh ffs

anyway the joke is on the foodbeast ppl, where are you gonna store your leftovers???

what does "like a boss" even mean

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/like-a-boss

"boss" is a title bestowed upon only those most approved of bros

does "like a boss" mean lifehacking your chinese takeout

does it mean you lack the basic motor skills to transfer food onto a plate

hey man you asked, dont shoot the messenger

am i getting old, is that what is happening to me

i should know better than to expect meaning in memes smdh

::posts to ilx like a boss::

^^^ gets it

Reminds me of my favorite advertising trope: people who fail horribly at performing simple tasks while looking exasperated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08xQLGWTSag

I couldn't make it halfway through that video. I feel that way all the fucking time. Maybe I should go buy some products.

I think most of those have ended up as part of the "Thanks, OBAMA" meme. xp

http://i.imgur.com/hLlIDaX.gif

ha xpost

hahahaha

The guy struggling to wash his car is my favorite, tho.

smh @ people who know "like a boss" as a meme first and a rap song second

shake your head like a boss

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzrhtnANhj1qbrshw.gif

smh @ people who know "like a boss" as a lonely island song first and a meme second

shaking your heads at people who don't know rap songs from the previous decade

Really, "like a boss" is such a generic thing to say, I wouldn't be surprised if people had used it decades ago. Seems sort of like New Englander slang.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fM5K5jK840

um?

whats up, forks?

oh, just saying i don't get the youtube leong posted?

Reminds me of my favorite advertising trope: people who fail horribly at performing simple tasks while looking exasperated

― © all the feelings (Austerity Ponies), Wednesday, January 30, 2013

ah, got it; thought it was boss related

That ad is a Chicagoland classic.

fuzzy memories dot tv

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

people seemed to stop liking bosses around the great depression.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2272369/A-country-divided-Stunning-photographs-capture-lives-ordinary-Americans-segregation-Jim-Crow-south.html#axzz2JsL9Rxfh

Parks exhibit just opened at the State Museum here. Definitely gonna check it out.

OH god I started reading the comments. *slaps self*

http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/southern-slave-owner-vs-modern-democratic-state-lf-135202

National Business Review MAKES U THINK column from someone who used to hold a reasonable amount of sway in national politics in NZ, depressingly.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/sns-201301291330--tms--amvoicesctnav-c20130129-20130129,0,5193782.column

You don't have to spend much time in Vietnam before you notice something unusual. You hear no birds singing, see no squirrels scrambling up trees or rats scurrying among the garbage. No dogs out for a walk.

In fact, you see almost no wild or domesticated animals at all. Where'd they all go? You might be surprised to know: Most have been eaten.

...

All of this raises an interesting question. Vietnamese have been meat eaters through the ages, while their Southeast Asian neighbors to the west -- Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar -- have largely left their wildlife alone.

In each of these other countries you see flocks of birds that are absent in Vietnam along with numerous pet dogs and cats. There, people eat rice, primarily, and for many people in most of those states their diet includes little more than that.

Vietnam has always been an aggressive country. It has fought 17 wars with China since winning independence more than 1,000 years ago and has invaded Cambodia numerous times, most recently in 1979. Meantime, the nations to its west have largely been passive in recent centuries.

Many anthropologists and historians attribute the difference to the state's origins. Vietnam was born of China, while India heavily influenced the other countries -- two nations with drastically different personalities, even today.

Well, certainly that played a part. But I would argue that because Vietnamese have regularly eaten meat through the ages, adding significant protein to their diet, that also helps explain the state's aggressive tendencies -- and the sharp contrast with its neighbors.

(Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former foreign correspondent for the New York Times.)

http://i.imgur.com/f6gZMBO.jpg

What the fucking fuck.

LOL, still hurts after 30 odd years? Losing, I mean.

yep, that vietnam, always invading other countries and imperializing 'em. that's exactly how that went down.

Now, however, tradition is clashing with modernity -- and the law has changed with it. Thirty years ago, it was illegal to keep a pet dog. The government held the view that dog meat was a nutritional priority that couldn't be ignored. That point of view still pertains, though the government repealed the law years ago.

In fact, still today, driving down the highway it's not unusual to see a flatbed truck hauling dogs curled up in little stacked cages, six cages high, eight deep, off to market -- similar to the way chickens are transported to slaughterhouses in the west.

But now, Vietnam is a rapidly prospering state; more than half the population was born after the Vietnam War (which they call the American war). Per capita income is about $3,400, which may not seem like a lot but is higher than in most neighboring states. And as the middle class grows, so does Western influence -- picked up from television, movies, Facebook, Twitter and the rest.

With that has come a new desire among some to keep pets. So now you do see an occasional dog here and there, lounging on the front porch of someone's home -- but under the watchful eye of its owner. Even now, as Vietnam rapidly modernizes and matures, if the dog wanders too far from home, someone will grab it and then serve dog for dinner.

Visiting Vietnam, many Western visitors despair. As one Western blogger put it: "I can quite honestly say it's the most gruesome thing I have ever seen."

I could not agree more.

Mylai.jpeg you fucking fuck

I was reading about how during the Cultural Revolution school kids would run around scaring birds and not letting them perch until they grew so exhausted they fell out of the sky dead and could then be eaten.

WOW that column is maybe the worst attempt at 'evolutionary sociology' or w/e that I've ever seen...... and I've seen some pretty bad ones!

boy are my arms tired

really makes u think.....

if they can eat "man's best friend"... who's to say they wouldn't eat the man himself??

http://img2.blogabond.com/UserPhotos/3374/580/DSC06733.jpg

The mind boggles at how things may have been in Cambodia had Pol Pot ate hot dogs every day.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/assets/2012/05/07/sn-dinosaurs.jpg

"Welcome to Laos"

17 wars in 1000 years seems like a low avg to me

that's one hot war every 1000 year average

hahah

lol

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mattbuchanan/how-to-see-race-from-silicon-valley

Jesus fucking Christ

I have to agree with the dude's major point in that there's no explicit gatekeeper in internet-y sort of things in that pulling a james tiptree is not only easier, but probably the norm.

gd why do successful people get so defensive about this stuff? you already have money and a career, you're not going to lose either by admitting you had an advantage.

"the circles that most minorities run with"

world's worst new yorker caption.

although i also have this feeling like "tech journalism is a shitty career that means nothing and will blow away in the wind. who the hell wants into that?" as well.

"the circles that most minorities run with"

http://i.imgur.com/Q7tXdL4.png

tech journalism is what farhad manjoo does for slate right? basically writing reviews of new software/apple products? it's hard to imagine that there's a market for more than one tech journalist in the world.

gizmodo iphone rumors keep at least half a dozen people employed

true, he should really change his byline from 'world's foremost persian tech journalist' to 'world's only tech journalist'

i suspect the real answer to "why don't minorities get bloggy jobs" is the same answer to why minorities were underrepresented in occupy protests (i.e. they were working at/trying to find a real job because they have bills to pay).

def an unaffordable luxury for most ppl to be able to write a blogspot blog 2-3 hours a day for 3 years

i suspect the real answer to "why don't minorities get bloggy jobs" is the same answer to why minorities were underrepresented in occupy protests (i.e. they were working at/trying to find a real job because they have bills to pay).

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, February 5, 2013 3:26 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya definitely the problem here is that too many minorities have jobs

esp if you want to do something w/ your time that you won't regret on your deathbed

*submits 1000556th post to ILX*

lollllll

ilx' foremost persian techno poster

all you have to do to become a paid ilx writer is to post on ilx 2-3 hours a day for 3+ years

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mattbuchanan/how-to-see-race-from-silicon-valley

I see it as a bit like

http://snarkerati.com/tv-news/files/2008/06/scorpion_island.jpg

i suspect the real answer to "why don't minorities get bloggy jobs" is the same answer to why minorities were underrepresented in occupy protests systemic racism

why isn't systemic racism also behind occupy protest participation as well?

I thought that was enough strikethrough to get the point across. Should I have continued?

was expecting a hard-hitting article on race in silicon valley and instead i just see a bunch of tweets from random nobodies

is this par for the course in tech writing nowadays?

i think what this thread needs is in orbit to explain systemic racism

I just deleted the most awful, horrifying response to that question

Sorry everyone

was expecting a hard-hitting article on race in silicon valley and instead i just see a bunch of tweets from random nobodies

is this par for the course in tech writing nowadays?

That is par for the course from Buzzfeed

djp i'm glad you're apologizing for keeping us from your awful, horrifying responses but a real apology would involve you recreating the response and posting it again

Haha I thought I had deleted that

Basically it was a horrible unfunny Occupy comment

(The deleted comment was in response to Phillip, not tlg)

it's easy, just write a bunch of blogs several hours a day, work your ass off, time travel back to the early 2000s, and then get bought by AOL

next thing you're going to tell me minorities don't have equal access to time machines

if minorities had access to time machines they'd have gone back and fixed this shit by now

marty mcfly was a hero to most...

*pulls self up by bootstraps*

I've hired an intern to pull me up by my bootstraps for me

@Jason
1. start a blog, 2. Write daily for 2-3 hours for 1,000 days 3. Do that for 1 topic & you break in. -- it is that "simple" #hardwork

*searches #hardwork tag to find out how to break into an industry via hard work*

it's probably easier for a minority to become a tech blogger by first becoming kanye.

xp: If your industry is "sports" it is a very fruitful search

tbf it also helps to blog about something that people with money like, in a manner that makes it sound like you're one of them

so I'm basically saying make people think you're a white male and blog about electronics

was expecting a hard-hitting article on race in silicon valley and instead i just see a bunch of tweets from random nobodies

is this par for the course in tech writing nowadays?

― the late great, Tuesday, February 5, 2013 3:42 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark

well the twitter-war was in response to this article on race in silicon valley and tech journalism:

http://jamellebouie.net/blog/2013/2/3/and-read-all-over

1. join the cia. 2. train daily for 2-3 hours for 1,000 days 3. do that for one specialty like undetectable poisons -- it is that simple. #wetwork.

it's a great piece, and also either directly or indirectly addresses a lot of the points raised itt

*workshard*

top tweets for #wetwork are not what i... um, expected?

we twork

#dirtywork

article mentioning app.net as an echo of white flight really rings true in some ways

twitter is too noisy!

1. start a revenge-for-hire business

I agree with the assessment in the article but disagree about it being the responsibility of what are basically ramshackle operations to correct for this disparity. It's way more incumbent on Apple to get its shit together than for Macworld.

why can't it be both

ya why does macworld get to say "hey we're good until someone else cleans up their act"

otoh pay/jobs for people producing tech >>>>> pay/jobs for people in tech "journalism"

because macworld is likely on its last legs and scrambling to survive.

you really jumped the shark

my feeling right now is the preponderance of white faces in journalism in general these days is due in part to the fact that it is sort of like being an artist now -- the only way to do it is as a full time hobby, with some other source of income.

basically, this: http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/feature/how-succeed-journalism-when-you-cant-afford-internship

didn't guy from oxbow used to write for macworld?

to the extent tech journo is any different, it is because you might get payola to act as a hypeman for some new vc bs.

yeah I was gonna quote this part xp

A good analogue for this is traditional political journalism, which, like technology writing, has publications with staffs that are heavily white and heavily male, despite the large number of blacks, Latinos, women, and other defined groups who work in politics. In a post called “The Economics of Magazines and Diversity,” Atlantic senior editor Ta-Nehisi Coates described some of the problems with access in the magazine world. “The traditional way of breaking into magazines involve[s] ways utterly inaccessible to most black people. The unpaid internship was long seen as a [rite] of passage. Very few Americans can afford such a luxury, and fewer still African Americans can afford it.”

If macworld could ever afford paid internships in the past, it's highly unlikely they can do so now. Apple on the other hand...

i feel bad for anyone who has to do tech journalism, whether they're black, white, purple...

i mean there is an element where its sort of like fighting to integrate the horse-drawn-carriage industry in the midst of the model-t boom.

i agree with the article fwiw but i sincerely wish a better more fulfilling future on underrepresented minorities than blowing tech companies in print for a living until no one cares anymore.

that's hardly the point tho - if minorities want to become tech journalists the response is not "go to med school"

True, it's "go to business school"

that's hardly the point tho - if minorities want to become tech journalists the response is not "go to med school"

― 乒乓, Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:33 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^true

i wish gruber had gone to med school to be honest.

"and such small portions"

although if a minority wants to become a music journo otoh...

i kid, i kid

ok i now see that the larger point is about why non-privileged groups aren't in certain non-traditional careers even if they might want to be, my opinions about tech journalism aside.

internal (familial, peer) and external pressure + if a profession believes in its larger value, shouldn't it be making it easier to include others outside of a legacy tribe?

w/r/t this particular career though, the barrier to entry is basically zero, so the rewards are relevant, and if the rewards are close to zero as well, then being a shitty thing to want to work in plays a large role -- i don't think even this profession thinks it has larger value.

the barrier to entry isn't 0, though

the barrier to entry is not zero xp

anyway fwiw I think that anytime the issues of racial representation and media intersect, the importance is amplified; media & visibility shape so much

it's zero in comparison to almost any other enterprise you can think of, especially brick&mortar.

re: media & visibility -- all the more reason for minorities to shoot for scott forstall's job and not gruber's.

social barriers fill the gap when capital is less of an issue. xp

saying money/power is what minorities should go for is subtly racist imo

and there's no social barriers to opening a minority-owned B&M business? getting SBA loans, permits, attracting clientele, making sure your neighbors are cool with you, etc... etc...

right. given that the job is to be popular, things that might impact popularity due to the majority of america being total fucktards (like, i dunno, race), would tend to take on a certain import.

Those are, again, barriers of economic and knowledge, not social barriers. xp

^ no.

media visibility is important inasmuch as it multiplies the 'types' of x person in the workplace. (just shooting the shit here fwiw)

xp dude, where did i say there's no social barriers to opening a B&M business?

There are giant gaps when it comes to economic opportunity and background knowledge between some groups when it comes to the field of tech writing, but for the sake of conversation, dump those -- there are still many people who aren't white men who work in technical fields or have equivalent knowledge and credentials to those writing for technology websites, but they're still far in the minority as far as writers.

btw I completely misreplied on my previous one, Matt was on it

Really hope Joel Brinkley gets run out of town for this.
https://www.change.org/petitions/professor-joel-brinkley-stanford-university-resign-from-teaching

there's this idea that the internet is free of (irl) social networks and anyone can blog their way to anywhere "they want" to go. connected machines don't like create social mobility out of thin air.

It's true, Jason Calacanis and John Gruber have never met anyone face to face

Vietnamese are an industrious people who have pushed their nation into the modern world even after decades of warfare – unlike some of their neighbors.

Oh, I see, he was really disparaging Vietnam's dumber, less aggressive neighbors and not Vietnam. Thanks for clarifying, dude

if this is ultimately a socioeconomic thing, ie poor people can't afford to be poor, then I think it

a. fits into a bigger picture but isn't necessarily more or less of an issue w/ 'tech journalism', I mean how big a field is that even vs like the fact that upper middle class white kids make up an enormous % of the unpaid interns + entry level jobs in washington dc etc
b. is only a race thing in that poverty correlates w/ race? like all of this is true, but it's still a race thing second when the socioeconomic factor is what's driving it

re: money/power, since racism tends to reduce or deny both these things, i don't think it's unreasonable to reach for them or to encourage their reach as a curative
re: "where did i say there's no social barriers to opening a B&M business?"
my point is that doing blog-gy stuff, there is so, so, so much less against you in comparison that to bring up social barriers at all implies there's something specifically worse about it in blog-gy stuff than in the B&M world, where I'd argue the opposite is true.

there are social barriers in blogging in that there isn't a neutral mainstream culture, so why would blogging from your own perspective not bring your own cultural influence into it? I mean, we're basically saying "blog like a white person"

nah, social barriers exist more or less to the same degree in the one world we live in.

re: money/power, since racism tends to reduce or deny both these things, i don't think it's unreasonable to reach for them or to encourage their reach as a curative

BIG difference between thinking it's unreasonable to reach for them and encouraging their reach as a curative. the curative should be enabling choice, not forcing something as a "curative" xp

It's kind of the unspoken assumption that technology writing is somehow this pristine, neutral realm untouched by personal experience and bias and that anyone who does it well is going to be equivalent

from each tech blogger according to their ability to each tech blogger according to their need

loooool

'the curative should be enabling choice, not forcing something as a "curative"'
how do you enable choice without also aligning social expectations? there will always be an element of coercion.

re: "one social world"
If you're doing a B&M business, and as a minority need to be non-threatening to clients or any other gatekeeper, there's a lot more effort to comport yourself and code-switch your way to that end. online, you can either shoot for a niche audience that would be impractical in the B&M world, or present as a white, male, tech writer, or some combination with far greater ease.

See, the issue is that seeing "white, economically advantaged male" as non-threatening is a bullshit proposition because they are the very fuckers keeping their profession full of their kin

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

and somehow that's also not code-switching? xp

online you can choose to code-switch to any degree you like. in fact, being that anyone can do this lends more weight to the idea your online audience won't care what your background is because it's likely fake anyway.

you lost me man *gets off the train*

Philip, so your argument as to why there isn't a more diverse workforce of technology writers is that aspiring writers are not good at code-switching?

I mean, I was an aspiring ilxor for quite a while and I feel like I'm just now understanding the gammon

my argument is that tech writing is a shitty occupation which explains why even with zero entry costs, only people of some kind of privilege end up grabbing the top spots.

my god jason calacanis' response

http://blog.launch.co/blog/doing-the-right-things.html

I’m a white guy so I’m not allowed to talk about race.

drops microphone, ends blog post

We don’t have hatred in our hearts for people, except maybe for inefficient people. Oh yeah, and for the people who build bad products -- we have a lot of hate for them!

Two of my most successful writers are now high-profile bloggers: Xeni Jardin and Rafat Ali. The first a woman, the second with much darker skin than mine (brown, but not black for those obsessed with the exact tone -- really?)

uhh, you brought it up dude

I complain about Anil Dash a lot, but his comment on that blog post is pretty good

i was about to say

reading about the serf wages he brags about paying, i'd now actually be horrified if minorities constituted the bulk of his workforce.

great comment from "TOP COMMENTER" Michael Robertson there

That dude needs to visit some places in America that aren't Silicon Valley. Or he could just check out East Palo Alto.

http://needlesslycrunk.tumblr.com/

mixed opinions

my main opinion is "wow how stupid"

i heard the murderous death one in DJ Paul's voice and it worked for me, what can i say
but majority not so cool yes

its like a project someone did for internet 101 class

the cute turtle is cute, but yeah this is troublesome.

downloaded a buggy version of the x goes through y filter for laffs bot

welp

http://gawker.com/5981825/racism-doesnt-exist-in-tech-because-white-tech-blog-millionaire-jason-calacanis-has-never-seen-it

Silicon Valley is built on a series of myths, but none is more important than the myth that individual resolve can overcome the weight and inertia of systems.

reminder that bill gates' mom was responsible for him selling ms-dos to ibm and that his dad is the named partner in one of the top law firms in the world

given he interned as a congressional page, i'm always surprised by either his restraint or lack of interest in actively pouring resources into lobbying in order to secure favors for microsoft and now his foundation.

Self-attribution fallacy strikes again

don't knock the hustle

Asian tech bloggers should end their paragraphs with the word 'boom' more often.

huffpo's house style is to use 'gong' instead.

u don't know my struggle from brooklyn to the top

I got mine!

https://prospect.org/article/rising-tide-anti-black-racism

wtf with this VW ad with the white guy speaking in Jamaican patois to everyone

Oh yeah that was fun. Later there was a Taco Bell ad with senior citizens sneaking out of the nursing home at night and doing, you know, typical Latino things like getting gangster tattoos.

I was like, Jesus, once you start noticing shit you just cannot ever relax, can you?

i don't know if there's anything explicitly or even implicitly race related about this product but why don't y'all just take a look at this and tell me what you think:

http://cdnl.complex.com/mp/620/400/80/0/bb/1/ffffff/d1e61a8683115fdeede80250cd1b4345/images_/assets/CHANNEL_IMAGES/STYLE/2013/02/jpress1.jpg

what language was the fun. song sung in? I am honestly speculating that that Taco Bell commercial was deliberately bad xp

also that article was v good dayo

context: this item is part of a "young, hip" line of menswear just launched by legendary prep outfitter j press

xpost

(also available in navy blue)

idk what i think, wd rock

Bandana shirt otm I may have actually had something like that, age 14 or so.

Needs jean cut-offs.

fair enough -- like i said, it's not exactly race related. i was just thinking, i don't think it would have been possible to market this product to affluent urban white ppl 15 or 20 years ago because GANGS

I'm from farm country, dude. Bandanas never went out of style with farmers.

yeah I had blue & red bandanas in that style when I was a kid 15-20 years ago!

idg what the issue is with the shirt

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DbeVhny3T4g/TH2jDKrXzZI/AAAAAAAAAdg/5cOjl5Xen_U/s1600/colors_1988.jpg

omg lol i didn't even see that as bandana, i thought it was some kind of faux-african print

i'm not claiming offense, it's just interesting how the meaning has shifted -- i just recall as a lil suburban white kid i remember being warned by older peers how wearing a red bandana would get me shot by crips

lol this is def urban baggage

i'm more weirded out by j press doing a "young, hip" line of menswear tbh

bandana style is 70s hippie to me. reminds me of something my dad would wear.

(shirt is $85 btw)

I've always felt uncomfortable about Eno's "paw paw negro blowtorch", which is supposedly about this guy.

I read somewhere that "The word "Negro" was still in common and non-pejorative use in Britain in the early 1970's when this song was written. The choice of the word here should be viewed in this context." but that just sounds like someone excusing their racist grandpa for using the N word because it was "acceptable in the times in which he grew up." Damned if it doesn't get stuck in my head from time to time, though.

Thoughts?

Brian Eno makes some good music and has some nice ideas but does a lot of really questionable shit, too, whether it's in track naming or that Qu'ran track on Bush of Ghosts or producing U2

as a liberal i am obligated to put this here

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/fairfax-county-parent-wants-beloved-banned-from-school-system/2013/02/07/99521330-6bd1-11e2-ada0-5ca5fa7ebe79_story.html

that is the most republican looking woman in the world

i don't think eno using 'negro' is necessarily racist but i'm not sure about the race-y orientalist curios/caricatures who appear all over taking tiger mountain by strategy.

I wonder at what age this book would be appropriate for one of her children

only 2 cops in all of los angeles

depiction of gang life approved by noted inner city experts "screen international"

It’s not about the author or the awards,” said Murphy, a mother of four, whose eldest son had nightmares after reading “Beloved” for his senior year Advanced Placement English class. “It’s about the content

lol your eldest son is kind of a baby tbrr

He is a 19 year old freshman in college.

by some standards, he's kind of an old man.

He's 18. Mommy has *issues*.

lol and the school already has a policy that allows students to opt out of reading they find uncomfortable

the reality of slavery gave my son nightmares, i must preemptively protect all future children from this hardship

happens on the same day as

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/07/symbolic-idaho-bill-would-require-students-to-read-atlas-shrugged/

The Jewish kids in my HS cinema class had to watch Leni Riefenstahl films along with the rest of us, so I'm not opposed to having to read things I'm uncomfortable with. I am more incensed by atrocious parents who try to stop people reading books *they* haven't read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/opinion/when-jim-crow-drank-coke.html

http://www.globalnews.ca/report+gays+blacks+nixed+as+images+on+canadas+new+plastic+bank+notes/6442806172/story.html

OTTAWA - The Bank of Canada considered celebrating gay marriages, black hockey players, and turban-wearing RCMP officers on its new plastic bank notes - but eventually nixed them all in favour of the more traditional images of a train, a ship and a monument.

heh

respectively

"Gay mawwiage . . . is like a twain . . ."

lol your eldest son is kind of a baby tbrr

A college freshman that talks about having "night terrors"? That's what toddlers have.

I have known several teens who suffered from night terrors but, to my knowledge, none of them tried to blame them on uncomfortable reading material

night terrors is an actual thing!!

A night terror, also known as a sleep terror or pavor nocturnus, is a parasomnia disorder, causing feelings of terror or dread, and typically occurring in the first few hours of sleep during stage 3 or 4 non-rapid eye movement NREM sleep.[1] Night terrors tend to happen during periods of arousal from delta sleep, also known as slow wave sleep.[2][3][4] During the first half of a sleep cycle, delta sleep occurs most often which indicates that people with more delta sleep activity are more prone to night terrors.[3] However, they can also occur during daytime naps.[5]

I was gonna say

I'd be more concerned if 'Beloved' didn't give you some kind of terrors.

Behated

I didn't know, I have never heard of anyone aside from young children having them.

xxp that's what i was thinking!

Yeah, night terrors totally exist in adults - it's different from bad dreams. I've woken up thinking I was in hell - the walls of my bedroom on fire, monsters everywhere. Not fun.

I had to read Beloved for A-level (Britisher thing), it gave me night boredoms.

we read Sula instead, which I dug so much that I dove directly into Beloved and The Bluest Eye

Beloved is now the only one that I really remember, mostly because of the movie

think we read beloved in like 6th grade?

The only thing I remember from 6th grade was I Am The Cheese. Didn't read any Morrison until college and still haven't read Beloved, tbh.

(Sula and Song of Solomon)

mostly what I remember was thinking 'there must be a ghost in this book' after reading like the first 2 pages and then being really happy to see that suspicion validated in the next 5

I've always felt uncomfortable about Eno's "paw paw negro blowtorch"...I read somewhere that "The word "Negro" was still in common and non-pejorative use in Britain in the early 1970's when this song was written.

On the contrary I think it was anachronistic even in the 70s, I imagine Eno used it 'cos it fitted and had a more poetic effect

I found 'Beloved' a bit tortuous but underneath it all, it's pretty horrifying. I think I liked 'The Bluest Eye' the most readable. I know I read 'Sula' but i don't remember much about it now.

Anyway, fuck parental literary critics nine times out of ten. If they want to engage with their children and that helps the children hone their arguments about a piece of work, so much the better, but telling schools what they should or shouldn't be teaching, unless you're some kind of literary giant (even then) or pedagogical expert, is nagl.

Eno's always insisted that his lyrics are basically meaningless so I wouldn't look too much into that one

I still have night terrors occasionally afaik.

why privilege authorial intent xp

You read Beloved in 6th grade???????? I remember trying to read it in... 9th? and finding it too impenetrable to process. (Finally was able to read it senior year, after Sula and TBE)

it's like a good kids cartoon show, something in it for everybody

Toni Morrison rules, Jazz is real interesting.

I think I'd rather have night terrors than the humiliation of my mom telling everyone at school I have night terrors from cliff notes.
even so I fully support students rights to be completely unengaged with required reading lists and supplementing their literary education by drawing dragons with light sabers beating up cops.

Did anybody else read _Sounder_ in jr high/middle school?

read that somewhere between 3rd and 5th grade

feel like I should have but remember nothing about it

I definitely went through a Newbery Medal phase in grade school, looking at the list on Wikipedia I'm somewhat surprised by the number I didn't know existed

I remember Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry being incredible

I routinely read all the books in the summer reading lists provided by my school, even the ones that were only 'recommended' : \

remember maniac magee and spinelli in general being great

My mom's library ran a summer reading program that was essentially a "who can read the most books" competition, where your name would race around a track on the giant bulletin board in the kid's section; I was in direct competition with a dude a year older than me where we both hit upon the strategy of starting in one of of the fiction section and working down the rows, taking out whatever the maximum number of books you could check out at a time was (I think 15?), reading them in a week or less, then returning them and moving to the next 10-15. Everyone else in the competition would have read between 10-30 books over the summer and we were regularly reading over 150. It ruled.

That's so awesome.

Maniac Magee is a terrific book!! Not read other Spinelli I don't think.

My local library had one of those competitions, and while I participated I was nowhere near that level -- I think I was at maybe 8 books a week, which still seems a lot now when it seems like I don't have much time to read.

have memories of participating in one of those comps too and getting stickers but I don't know if I won anything besides the precious gift of ~knowledge~

Pretty sure I won a free pan pizza from Pizza Hut (possibly the only chain restaurant my town had and therefore v v exciting) and then my mom may have not let me enter again the next year because it wasn't fair? I can't remember.

I got stickers -- I was really obsessive about stickers so that was enough for me.

i tried to cheat by reading the shortest possible books and when i dipped into picture books the librarian took me aside and had a stern talk about the spirit of things and i was like but what about pizza hut dawg, WHAT ABOUT THE PIZZAS HUT

there is a striking similarity between library book contests and competitive hot dog eating.

lol. i loved Maniac Magee

I know a lot of kids thought it was unfair that my mom was a librarian but I wasn't 100% sure why unless they thought it was unfair access, to which I was like "hey you could always get your parents to drop you off at the library on their way to work and then pick you up on their way home and then you could read everything under the sun too, and I'd still dust you because I can read three books in the time it takes you to read one"

If I had cultivated writing to the same degree that I cultivated reading, I so would have done an English degree

if kobayashi's dad was nathan of nathan's hot dogs, people would cry shenanigans, too, with much respect to kobayashi's eating prowess.

its crazy when i think how much more i used to read when i was young. or at least how many more books.

one of the biggest fights I ever had with my mom was when she went back over my reading log and condensed 5 Mr. Men books into a single entry

I remember filling out a list for one of those reading competitions, sending it off to ??? and getting back a book as a "prize". It was this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9c/Darkwalker_on_Moonshae_book_cover.jpg

Turns out this isn't really an appropriate book for an eight-year-old...thanks for the nightmares, Mr. Competition!

oh man, it's a penguin book! i wonder what it would look like in the old school penguin design scheme.

heh I remember reading 'jumper' in like 3rd or 4th grade because I would always hang out at the sci-fi section of my library and one day this old dude was like 'hey kid read this'

there was the scene in the beginning where he almost gets raped by truckers (3rd grade me: why are these trucker dudes spitting into his butt) but then there were awesome scenes like when he gets a girl and they french kiss

awesome to a 3rd grader, I mean

he was happily using those truckers' faces as a bidet

that does not sound like the Hayden Christiansen movie! or maybe i imagined it completely wrong

in the book he first becomes able to teleport after running away from home and hitching a ride with a trucker who brings him to a gathering of truckers who all try to rape him

then he becomes really good at it and robs a lot of banks

ach! that sounds like a robert cormier book.

He becomes really good at raping?

well he probably could if he put his mind to it

Q: How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
A: Practice, practice, practice!

its crazy when i think how much more i used to read when i was young. or at least how many more books.

― s.clover, Tuesday, February 12, 2013 12:58 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post P

real talk :-/

I haven't read a novel since high school.

ditto. killed the form for me

I read two books last weekend fuck y'all nonreaders

i probably read like three books worth of internet

per day

SI swimsuit edition goes on a tour of the colonies http://jezebel.com/5983737/sports-illustrated-swimsuit-issue-goes-to-7-continents-finds-exotic-people-to-use-as-props

I am sympathetic to the point being made by that Jezebel post but it undercuts them slightly when their second example is described as "the centrality of whiteness" when they admit that model in question is not white (although she is "wearing Western clothes" aka a bikini, which neatly elides the idea of Western with white) and, despite what they go on to explicitly say in their copy, in the center of the picture.

Their writing has declined in quality in the last two years or so. I find Jezebel hard to take seriously

listening to any of those gawker/deadspin/jezebel family bloggish sites talk about race makes you want to drive a nail through your skull until your brains all fall out your asshole

I totally get the issue they set forth but Nicole OTM, that article is really poorly argued and written. Lost me when it suggested that Spaniards are non-white.

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/5158/5158,1111786088,3/stock-photo-frog-that-quot-hit-the-nail-on-the-head-quot-on-white-background-with-clipping-path-237248.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/qYwo9p1.jpg

a+ gis work there!

oh dayo that is MARVELOUS

http://www.thebolditalic.com/negroclash/stories/2784-im-not-your-black-friend

wow, San Francisco really IS the more successful Boston of the West Coast

feel like i missed the 'hipster racism' phenomenon

oh, just wait

xp seriously? you are lucky, man, because i can't get away from that shit

yesterday this prostitute who was hittin on me or something was shouting like oooooooooooooh! Sluuuuuuuuuuumdog @ me when I walked down the street in the afternoon

I mean she was more like fuckin w/ me than hittin on me but you get the picture

then later in the evening I was talking to some random white girl who busted out in some crazy indian accent when talking to me it was all v strange

I don't get fucked w/ racially in an overt way for whatever reason, but one my friends who's korean gets shit from every race on a pretty regular basis, and usually I'm like "just shrug it off" but even little things aren't too easy to shrug off I guess?

-_-

I dont get fucked w/ racially in an overt way on a regular basis I mean

i follow you, just saying it sucks, even if people aren't being overt, it's a common annoyance to deal with idiotic behavior even from people who otherwise aren't virulent racists

i've read some other amazing stories about sf and the tech industry. it seems like a terrible place.

http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/02/kixeye-takes-substantial-corrective-action-after-black-contractor-calls-out-racist-behavior-at-social-gaming-firm/

according to the 2010 census, African Americans make up 5.8 percent of SF

kind of stunning but then again, unfortunately, kind of not

lobby to be counted as one city with oakland

aka "blackland"

jesus christ, sterling's story

Do we have a "what YA reading did you?" thread? Because I'm catching up on here and remembering all the Gordon Korman and Scholastic "Apple" novels

there are a few search results for 'young adult'

but no 'YA novel nostalgia thread' afaict

can I use this thread to vent about stupid assholes who make racist jokes and then double down when you call them out on it & and call YOU racist for being able to identify what they said as racist? I guess I just did.

fight the good fight

republican standup comedy?

"republican"?

can I use this thread to vent about stupid assholes who make racist jokes and then double down when you call them out on it & and call YOU racist for being able to identify what they said as racist? I guess I just did.

those people are the worst

I also have very little time for people who excuse all kinds of awful horseshit under the guise of "states' rights"; there was a very memorable AFC playoff party that I brought to a screeching halt by arguing with a blowhard over this, culminating in me going full-on rhetorical illogical extreme on him and accusing him of tacitly supporting Jim Crow. I was afraid I was going to alienate one of the hosts as this dude was her boyfriend's best friend but I later found out that she thought he was a total jackass and loved watching him get ridiculed so win-win.

That happened to me this year when arguing with a friend-of-friends when were were out having beer and pizza. Something about voting crackdowns being ideologically-minded and not at all related to the possibility of fraud. I felt really bad but it turned out my friends and the dude's girlfriend all thought he was off base

this guy tried to act like I had no business calling him out for his bottom-of-the-barrel "Ebonics" impression because he's "lived in the city" "his whole life" and his "black neighbors" "wouldn't take kindly" to a "white boy from Lilburn" "speaking for them." Yeah dude, I'm sure there's nothing your black neighbors hate more than white people taking racism seriously & not tolerating your racist fun! I'm sure they told you that to your face, right, since we can't speak for people we aren't? So sorry I killed your making fun of black people party.

sorry I know this isn't the first or last time wite kids have been boneheaded un-self-aware racists but I have to vent to be able to concentrate right now

I used to get that from my brother-in-law about his life experiences on the mean streets better known as the Detroit suburbs. You know, real Notes From Livonia-type bullshit, where his only exposure to the city in question is really the occasional trip to Greektown.

yeah, like a white person can't be offended by another white person being derogatory about non-white people

that is really the worst argument. fuck that guy.

Dude going all 'race betrayal' when fellow whiteys call his shit - the search for equal treatment isn't a competitive team sport, asshole.

call YOU racist for being able to identify what they said as racist

i don't care if you're black white purple etc

feel like I read similar complaints about SF+tech firms the last time around during the first dotcom boom. money attracts assholes is my guess.
xxxp

Also, people _really_ into tech don't always have developed socialization abilities

SF tech company probably = reddit in the flesh

not an "is-this-racist" or "this-is-racist" post, but not sure what to make of this line of argument, although it is an interesting article: http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/02/11/mike-davis/exterminating-angels/

Also, people _really_ into tech don't always have developed socialization abilities

― The New Jack Mormons! (kingfish), Thursday, February 14, 2013 4:39 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i've not necessarily found this true. but a videogames company otoh.

no prob - this is just meant to be a thread for the general discussion of race, purposely meant to discard the narrower confines of the other thread

to get taxonomical for a second, as described this looks way more like bro-racism than nerd-racism to me. it was the project manager getting all whitesplainy on him, not a coder

Isn't kixeye the same company called out on brogrammer culture a few months back?

like, this is a frat boy telling you how bad his irish ancestors had it, not an engineer forwarding you a charles murray article

xp

gah blanking on the name of this standup on Comedy Central last night who I was enjoying before he abruptly dropped some totally racist schtick about "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" ("first, everyone on this show is Mexican. so you know it's not their first baby") who then doubled down with some even worse shit. was sad that joe schmoe white comedians still trot this stuff out unrepentantly.

xp

is it broracism?

that article was terrifying

The confluence of youth, the start-up aggressive culture, and the existing tendency for programmers and the IT (or gaming) sector to skew male really sets up a lot of these places as the worst workplaces. I don't think that any particular aspect is the source of the racism and sexism, but they're really mutually-affirming traits when it comes to locking it down.

real Notes From Livonia-type bullshit

Historically known as "Lily-White Livonia" just ftr.

is there really that much of a difference between 'nerd racism' and 'bro racism'

like these nerds (be they on reddit or a game company) DO have social skills, they've just been socialized by a shitty culture, same validation the cool kids get

If these people were my friends, why did I feel so bad when I hung out with them?

not sure this has anything to do with race, really

amazing how some people just feel like they are exempt from being called racist

I mean, not all that "amazing" -- obv people don't like to see themselves as Bad People and Racists are Bad People, so it's natural to deny accusations of racism. but still. I just can't.

Tom Segura. that's the comic I was thinking of. in case anyone cares. avoid that guy!

kixeye apparently fired four people as a result of that post. they said something about how it was a poisonous culture that developed only in one tiny group in the company. i sort of buy that that level of asshattery might actually get cracked down on by companies (especially if it hurts their image, etc.). but on the other hand, it felt very much like something more general regarding bay area tech culture.

and yeah, i think some of this has to do with young people who think they're awesome (and are very white, too, sure). grumpy-old-man stuff here, but really why do we live in a society that venerates youth and self-confident when young self confident people are just the worst.

why do we live in a society that venerates youth and self-confident when young self confident people are just the worst.

otm

is there really that much of a difference between 'nerd racism' and 'bro racism'

not really! just different enabling circumstances, if you see nerds and bros as socially different. pretty much the same, when it comes down to it.

also, I agree with crut about that point being very otm

me too. it's hard for anyone to internalize that what they did was fucked up when there's always a support system ready to spring up and go "don't let them get you down! you're a beautiful flower!"

I think a lot of people find it easy to declare themselves Not Racist, because they did not INTEND to hurt anyone and Deep Inside in their Heart of Hearts they are a Good Person.

like, this is a frat boy telling you how bad his irish ancestors had it, not an engineer forwarding you a charles murray article

if this is in response to Sterling's article, where the same whitesplainy dude also made wetback jokes, ebonics jokes, compared black ppl to rappers that they don't resemble at all, and called black employees' dress "thuggish" instead of "unprofessional", it makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever

if this is in response to something else, never mind

elmo otm

Once you say something like "slavery was so long ago" or try and make light of it in any way, you really don't deserve to be taken seriously in any capacity.

why do we live in a society where ppl are shamed by being called racist but not shamed by being racist? i guess bc the judgement/ostracizing is what stings, not the behavior.

like, if you are saying racist things and behaving like a racist, then you are racist, or at least you are "being racist". i mean, this doesn't exclude that you can be wrong, and you can realize you are wrong, you can apologize, and you can learn and grow and regret doing & saying racist stuff, but "i'm not racist on the inside" doesn't let you off the hook

xp to crut

Deep Inside in their Heart of Hearts they are a Good Person

unfortunately, no one has a flashlight and the ability to venture all the way back into wherever the hell this aspect is stored so we're stuck with judging people on whether they are assholes to others, which is actually a pretty good judge of the kind of person you are

if this is in response to Sterling's article, where the same whitesplainy dude also made wetback jokes, ebonics jokes, compared black ppl to rappers that they don't resemble at all, and called black employees' dress "thuggish" instead of "unprofessional", it makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever

if this is in response to something else, never mind

― Ima R.A.E.D. (DJP), Thursday, February 14, 2013 4:32 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i meant this in response to kingfish's assertion that "Also, people _really_ into tech don't always have developed socialization abilities", which didn't seem in sync with the depiction of the manager. his problems don't look like poor socializing to me but basic privileged bigotry.

i don't want to make too much of my distinction between "bro racism" and "nerd racism" really; the racism on view in that article looked like active maliciousness mixed with cluelessness, not awkwardness and resentment

ya if anything these frattish dudes are oversocialized

well, in some ways, but not others. in-group versus out-of-group socialization is the problem in both

Ah okay, I get you now.

we can all just get along

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2013/feb/11/bradford-race-issues-school

children don't see skin color, right??

props to the writer for being a lot more charitable than the situation deserves

Of course children see skin color, they're not BLIND. I don't know, I've never had to navigate a kid through learning about race but it seems like we keep having the wrong conversation about kids and skin color ALL THE TIME.

I mean "we" as in media sources posted to ilx or read by me on the internet, etc.

I'm not going to link that study that showed parents who avoided talking about race or tried to raise their kids to be "colorblind" ended up tending to have kids with strong racial biases again but it's really worth remembering when reading stories like this; the default reaction is to think "oh the kid's parents must be racist" when the actual situation can be a good bit more complicated.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/09/04/see-baby-discriminate.html

Bigler's experiment seems to show how children will use whatever you give them to create divisions—seeming to confirm that race becomes an issue only if we make it an issue. So why does Bigler think it's important to talk to children about race as early as the age of 3?

Her reasoning is that kids are developmentally prone to in-group favoritism; they're going to form these preferences on their own. Children naturally try to categorize everything, and the attribute they rely on is that which is the most clearly visible.

XP OH HAI

i think it depends on whether you consider children to be wise little innocents in the uncorrupted state of nature, or brutal little savages who need to have those base tribal impulses civilized out of them

definitely the latter

kids are walking id machines driven by an instinctual understanding of game theory

kids are awful but otoh so are home schooled kids

Kids are awful and teenagers are worse. It's more like a harm minimization strategy.

watching my three-year-old niece is one of the most amazing things; how quickly she can assess a situation and then deploy exactly the right amount of adorable cuteness to get what she wants RIGHT NOW is breathtaking and, on a terrifying level, inspirational

we're all fucking horrible

http://www.thenation.com/blog/172925/white-people-have-give-racism

haha oh man

good luck with that one, dude

I have it on reliable information that racism completely ended within 24 hours of that article being posted

maybe next year we can start a campaign for white people to give up racism for Lent

"It has to be a concerted effort on the part of white people to actively reject racist beliefs, thoughts and actions."

Agreed on this, but "give up" implies it's something you're actively doing and can quit, and this is the opposite of the headline's sentiment. Most racism is passive and institutional!

This is a pretty awful story.
I don't doubt it, because I have to go to Flint at least once a month for work and it seems like a very segregated city.

ah here now what

Patients choose their doctors, he said. Some women prefer to see female gynecologists, for example.

Yes, because my having to use a separate restroom at work from the women in my office is completely just like the Jim Crow laws of post-Reconstruction.

well, now that you put it that way

i feel like unisex bathrooms would be more cost-efficient and totally acceptable if not for the troughs.

there is a simple solution to that

Do you work at a rodeo, Nunez?

I've been totally ok with all the unisex bathrooms I've been in during my life, all two or three of them

WTF, Mississippi to finally ratify the 13th amendment?

Mississippi has finally abolished slavery 148 years after the 13th Amendment was first passed by the Senate - thanks to movie-goers at the University of Mississippi.
Dr Ranjan Batra, an associate professor of neurobiology and anatomical sciences at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, saw the Oscar-nominated Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln in November.
The movie left him wondering what happened next when each state voted on ratifying the amendment.
He discovered that Mississippi was the only state that had not officially voted in favour of the change.
A note on the US Constitution website said: 'Mississippi ratified the amendment in 1995, but because the state never officially notified the US Archivist, the ratification is not official.'

my erstwhile college has unisex bathrooms all over the place; some now say "bathrooms equipped with urinals" or "bathrooms equipped with sanitary bins" b/c they weren't built as unisex bathrooms. gendered bathrooms are a tool of the patriarchy basically.

you went to one of them there liberal arts schools, didn't you, silby?

My wife and I don't even pee in front of each other, so I don't know why I should start now with Bev from sales.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=IGH2HEgWppc

"that's west fourth street dancing, nobody in harlem would do that"

Once again, I discover an internet meme that is already dead or on it's way to being dead. Seems the meme has nothing to do with the dance.

the meme has nothing to do with the dance

yeah I found this confusing too

http://www.good.is/posts/intermission-two-philly-poets-scathing-performance-on-hipster-racism/

I'm more interested in the performance than the write-up, but when "hipster racism" comes up, why do so many people site the Norman Mailer essay written in 1957? There's been sooooo much writing about cultural appropriation since then.

that Lester Bangs essay is probably a bit over-cited but also a classic

so that slam performance seems to be about "hipsters who are also naive racists" as opposed to "hipster racism," which i understood to be different, more like "saying racist things because it's transgressive"

Also that Bangs essay cites Norman Mailer xp

IMO saying racist things because it's transgressive is just racism if deployed more than once

so that slam performance seems to be about "hipsters who are also naive racists" as opposed to "hipster racism," which i understood to be different, more like "saying racist things because it's transgressive"

― fueled by satanism, violence, and sodomy (elmo argonaut), Thursday, February 21, 2013 9:53 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, the narrow definition, as I see used around here, is roughly equivalent to "ironic racism" but I think the word is used more broadly to include a cluster of behaviors and attitudes around race (including ironic racism, and naive post-racism racism), sometimes associated with hipsters.

ime ironic racism is generally deployed by well-intentioned liberals of many backgrounds and your standard hipster stereotype fits in there

but they tend to be more misanthropic about it idk

this whole thing http://www.collapseboard.com/features/interviews/the-interview-iceage-want-you-to-know-that-theyre-not-fascists/

"Well, I mean, when we sold the knives they had like a sign saying “no stabbing”. "

But I mean, I think most of those people who try to make us look like fascists… they are like, they are the judging ones.

http://www.history.com/images/media/slideshow/axis-military-leaders/goering-at-nuremberg.jpg

transcribing phone interviews and leaving in all the "you knows" and "I means" is nearly always a gigantic dick move and becomes substantially more so when it's with someone not speaking in their first language

You're allowed to be dickish to dicks who use fascist imagery and are unable to articulate why they do so.

to the New Order thread, batman!

be that as it may, it's undermining the point the writer's trying to make, not helping it

I dunno - printing it verbatim seems fair in this case.

The only thing I think is a shame is… if black people or if Jewish people, you know, got offended by stupid people calling us fascists

Like I think like um you know this guy is like um completely missing the fucking point and deserves to be shown up as an inarticulate idiot.

maybe should have changed my display name before getting all high horsey :)

Did Joy Division or New Order use any Nazi imagery beyond the names? I honestly don't know.

Yes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Ideal_for_Living

oof. had no idea about that

the Death in June tattoo is a major wtf, Douglas whatshisname is a longtime MAYBE I JUST LIKE THE AESTHETIC/am-I-or-aren't-I tiresome 80s ideological edgeplay dude

transcribing phone interviews and leaving in all the "you knows" and "I means" is nearly always a gigantic dick move and becomes substantially more so when it's with someone not speaking in their first language

Doing this probably actually helped support the band's position that they know nothing about politics and are just naive dummies who make music

There's always been this thread of fascist imagery in punk music that's usually invoked as just another "fuck you" gesture. It's always been stupid.

yeah but Death In June is kind of a red flag - whole bigger level of engagement w/fascism

Boyd Rice etc

they are so PROVOCATIVE wake up sheeple

yeah but you have to look at the way they contextualise the Nazi imagery

oh hang on

my question is this:

You say you aren't racist, that you are just grabbing imagery that expresses emotions you are feeling. However, the emotions represented by this imagery are racist. How can you reasonably claim that the emotions you are expressing by re-appropriating this imagery aren't racist, particularly if you cannot articulate what emotional content you want to convey by using this imagery?

Death In June is kind of a red flag - whole bigger level of engagement w/fascism

I listened to Death in June for a while before I really became aware of their history. same w/NON. didn't even realize the totenkopf was a nazi symbol until much later :/

also, let's say that you are a naive young band from some backwoods corner of Europe and you have no idea that the imagery you have used on your records is racist. then somebody explains to you that it is racist. do you

a) go "OH MY FUCKING GOD WE'RE IDIOTS, WE CANNOT APOLOGISE STRONGLY ENOUGH FOR ASSOCIATING OURSELVES WITH THIS SHIT, WE'LL DO OUR BEST TO WITHDRAW ANYTHING WITH THESE IMAGES AND WE WILL NEVER EVER DO IT AGAIN"

or

b) shrug, go "it's just pictures man, we're definitely not racists but these pictures are cool, it's not our fault if you think this white power looking stuff is white power imagery, dealwithit.gif"

?

setting aside the question of whether or not any musicians/artists are "actual" nazis/fascists, from an aesthetic POV I find the whole schtick of using deliberately offensive imagery to provoke an outraged reaction to be pretty vapid and tiresome; unless you are fascinated by transgression as an end in and of itself, it doesn't communicate much of any value. The insight that there are ideas or images that a lot of people in a given society are going to freak out about is not particularly deep imho. especially something like nazism/european fascism, which has been analyzed to death. Whether or not any of these goons are actual nazis/fascists takes a back seat to their shitty aesthetics imho, I'm not really worried about Douglas P winning a seat in gov't or anything, by and large these people are just idiots making bad art.

xp

idiots making bad art do sometimes attract audiences who like to show their excited appreciation of the bad art by going out and hurting people tho

along the same lines (can't remember if this was posted here or in the anti-semitism thread)

i'm not really worried about the BNP winning a seat in the UK government but it doesn't mean they don't incite and condone racist violence

idiots making bad art do sometimes attract audiences who like to show their excited appreciation of the bad art by going out and hurting people tho

this is sort of true but I'm inclined not to blame violence on art

I am p worried about fascism continuing to resurge tbh. The moral fuzziness is already in place.

if art on one level represents expressions of belief are you saying you're not inclined to blame violence on any expressions of belief?

the Death in June tattoo is a major wtf, Douglas whatshisname is a longtime MAYBE I JUST LIKE THE AESTHETIC/am-I-or-aren't-I tiresome 80s ideological edgeplay dude

― available for sporting events (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, February 22, 2013 7:28 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no doubt, i really can't stand this kind of shit

kind of o/t but in one of my recent internet weird-ideology trawls i found that one-time (?) ilxor Ann Sterzinger has a novel out on the same tiny publisher that put out a holocaust denial book.

well that's weird

I think art by itself is pretty low on the totem pole of factors inciting people to violence. it can inform and contribute to a culture that condones or encourages violence, but dudes that go out and lynch somebody or bomb a temple or beat somebody up - I'd be willing to bet there social, economic and psychological factors in play that are way more significant than just listening to a Skrewdriver record

xp

find the whole schtick of using deliberately offensive imagery to provoke an outraged reaction to be pretty vapid and tiresome

Noise dudes to thread. Agree with you, by the way, even though I'm like the world's biggest Throbbing Gristle stan.

tbf when TG started out you cd still provoke an outraged reaction in the UK by going outside without a hat on

that doesn't mean I have to de facto think the existence of those records are a good thing (btw did their lunatic fans stop endlessly searching for the band's name on various websites looking for fights? iirc that's why we always googleproofed their name)

the funny thing to me about the whole Iceage brouhaha is the defense of English not being their first language, mostly because the director of my church choir is Danish and speaks fluent, almost accent-free English and is also fluent in French, German, Swedish, Norwegian and Italian. Now, I don't expect everyone from Denmark to be a wildly polyglottal as this dude because that would be silly, but from his own admission he says many people in Denmark speak English very well (according to Wikipedia, many university courses are taught in English...? who knew) but I did expect the dude in this interview to be able to answer the question "why do you use this imagery" with something more illuminating than "we aren't fascists, we just like the emotions it represents"

the records are shitty! of course they aren't a good thing.

but from his own admission he says many people in Denmark speak English very well

in fairness, I have heard people in France, Holland, Germany, Belgium, Denmark Sweden and Norway all assert "everybody speaks English" or words to that effect; it's pretty true in Holland, but in some other countries where people generally think themselves quite fluent in English, it's actuallyhttp://farm1.staticflickr.com/213/496082671_0c7509dcf0_z.jpg?zz=1

I don't see how posting menus from Mississippi restaurants proves yr point

I can buy a fascination on purely an aesthetic level (I feel there's a direct correlation between the quality of iconography and the level of fascism in say a country's military which is why the US stepping up its branding game in the 2000s really got me nervous)

rare King Tubby dub iirc

xp

I don't believe anyone in France has ever said ppl their speak any language other than French, which is manifestly the best language in the world

It's the most French language in the world, this is for sure

from my experience young people in scandinavian countries can speak perfectly understandable if a bit stilted english. older generation less so but if they're just out of high school there shouldn't be that huge of a language barrier there

"Hey, we're speaking English"?

this happened at the Supreme Court today

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sam Ponder asked him in open court, “You’ve got African Americans, you’ve got Hispanics, you’ve got a bag full of money. Does that tell you — a light bulb doesn’t go off in your head and say, ‘This is a drug deal?’”

(correction: it happened in a federal trial the SC declined to reconsider)

sweet fucking christ, fire that dude

or woman, if it's a female Sam

^ checked

I didn't! I have met a couple female Sams lately, though.

female Sams

great band name

sham pharoahs and the sams

nah i meant yr privilege

nah I have some weird complex where I think women are less likely to be sexist/racist/etc

I should be over that by now :/

let's be real you just don't think they should be judges

That was an attorney

And what's this "they" you're on about?

oh i couldn't say they might be reading

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/02/25/172879996/justice-sotomayor-chastises-u-s-attorney-for-race-bating-in-drug-case

kind of o/t but in one of my recent internet weird-ideology trawls i found that one-time (?) ilxor Ann Sterzinger has a novel out on the same tiny publisher that put out a holocaust denial book.

fyi I was doing some random ILX archeology and found this: The 'I hate this generation' thread - C/D