Tendo City

Um.

No?

EdenMaster Wrote:Um.

No?

Wrong answer! You obviously need racial sensitivity training!

I don't see how a caricature of a black person is racist either. If it was of a white person, would it be racist? How about a Hispanic, an Asian, a Native American, or an Arab? No? Hmm...

/thread

Yes, definitely.

Geno Wrote:Wrong answer! You obviously need racial sensitivity training!

I don't see how a caricature of a black person is racist either. If it was of a white person, would it be racist? How about a Hispanic, an Asian, a Native American, or an Arab? No? Hmm...

/thread

Yes,

Yes,

Yes,

Yes,

and Yes


EDIT - I couldn't find anything for white people.

Mr POPO ! DB-Z token black guy , To top it off he is the butler of a green pointy eared alien.




This is all I could find for whitey

Fittisize Wrote:Yes,

Yes,

Yes,

Yes,

and Yes


EDIT - I couldn't find anything for white people.

Well, if they're depicted doing something stereotypical (i.e. Muslim killing), then it's pretty racist.

Come to think of it, what are some stereotypes of white people? You know, other than ripping off of other cultures?

African American:


Asian (Japanese in particular, and by that, I just mean anime):

Well that explains it, then. The image does not load for me. All I see in ASMs first post is blank space. Not even a red X or broken link, just nothing. Hence my confusion.

I see your image and raise you some Inky Racer.

I had to switch browsers to see it since broken images are invisible in Opera. I then viewed the image from its host site, which doesn't allow hotlinking, in order to figure out what it was a picture of.

Someone please explain using logical arguments why any of those images is racist and not a stereotypical caricature.

Picaninny (or any other spelling) is a term for an unkept wild child, for anyone from the south they know this term and it is used generally to any kid who looks like a mess. Black children being poor as a standard in early American history is something that is a fact, so seeing an unkept black child and refering to him or her as a pickaninny was meant in harmless fun. Rugrats, Bushbabies, carpet sharks, wildboys, ruffians, hooligans, etc are all part of the same lexicon. Watermelon, as a general rule, is cheap. Poor people eat cheap food, even when we didnt have dinner we had watermelon when I was growing up. LOL A NIGGER EATING WATERMONllOLOLOLO OMG has always been somewhat of a disappointment for me as its much funnier when they are buying menthols or selling crack to our white daughters. This image, is a simple ad talking about watermelon ice cream, sold to children. With a picture of a messy looking kid using the artstyle of the time which Dragonball Z paid homage to. Because its an artstyle.

Would it have been better to show this art style?



Oh wait, he's a characature of a stereotypical black preteen, lets make the ad white. Because that wont hurt anyone.



Now we're talking.

Now this is funny, you posted a pic of something 'racist'. Here's what the pic is (from the website you retrieved it from)

Cynthia McKinney - The Cartoon & Photoshop Files
Posted by Randy on April 5, 2006 08:06 AM

I've just posted summary of Cynthia McKinney's antics over the past week here, but this post is all about the pictures.

First is the screen shot I used before, courtesy of Expose the Left, showing how different McKinney has looked in the recent past.



Then we have this Cox & Forkum caricature of the Congresswoman that I'm sure will bring out some race card players to say it has some sort of racist implications, when in actuality it is simply mocking her craziness.



Then David Lunde sends me this hilarious photoshop job in which he gave McKinney the Condoleezza USA Today makeover (click here for background).



Again libs, this is mocking what USA Today did to Condi and has nothing to do with McKinney's own appearance. Just a funny photoshop David Lunde came up with as a throw back.

Then I had to include this cropped screenshot of McKinney that the Independent Conservative has been using in his posts on the McKinney situation. I crack up everytime I see it:



---

http://michellemalkin.com/2005/10/26/demonizing-condi/

The demonizing in question from USA today.

You pulled an image off google and called it racist because it depicts a black woman with exaggerated African American features who's in the middle of a mindless rant and obviously insane. There isn't even a hint of racism: You want it to be racist. Based on your guidelines, any characiture of Whoopi Goldberg is racist.

I'll do all the images and point out how ridiculous people are and how infantile they'll throw 'race' in to the equation. But the real racism? The real hate, the belittling and the straight up brainwashing? Its on the front page of your news paper. Not a single nigger joke, not once is the word 'nappy' used and by all appearances, there's no harm done.

http://www.rightwinged.com/2006/08/rerep..._cant.html

Hi-larious.

An exaggerated charicature of a Japanese soldier obviously aligned with Nazi Germany telling Americans that when you take a shit, it lands in Japan. This is WW2 Propaganda, it's not racist - It's hate of the enemy and morale boosting fun. That slant eyed bucktoothed Jap is begging to be shot for his alignment to Germany, look at his arrogance of some stupid little island people who thinks they can best the Fucking States, what better way for anyone, even little Johnny, to do his part in the war then to send his feces to Japan while in the restaurant, movie theater or whatever that sign was hung in.

And dont try to tell me the way he's depicted speaking is racist, that's how Japanese people sound, and that's why it's funny. Do Indians try to sue Fox over Habib in the Simpsons? What about Asian Reporter Trisha Takanawa in Family Guy? This is a funny image and a lighthearted approach to dealing with the world wide political views and madness of war to stay sane in insane times.

Its hateful, its low-brow, it's funny, but it's not racist. Prove me wrong.

Quote:You pulled an image off google and called it racist because it depicts a black woman with exaggerated African American features who's in the middle of a mindless rant and obviously insane.

You're right, except I typed in "racist hispanic caricature" into Google image search and the picture of McKinney came up. In fact, I didn't even know who Cynthia McKinney was until your post. Shows how culturally aware I am. Anyways, the images I posted were simply made to prove a point: that it defintely is possible to paint a racist caricature of somebody, no matter their race (except um, for white people). Maybe the caricatures I chose weren't the best examples of that, but whatever, I was pressed for time and was just looking for a simple illustration.

Quote:This image, is a simple ad talking about watermelon ice cream, sold to children. With a picture of a messy looking kid using the artstyle of the time which Dragonball Z paid homage to. Because its an artstyle.

Bullshit, while the guy who drew the ad might have simply been trying to sell watermelon ice cream, it's still reflective of an extremely racist period of American history. According to Wikipedia (which is obviously not the best reference but it's all I have) the term "Pickaninny" is "an offensive, derogatory term for black children." While the term may have been originally coined to describe any unkept or messy child, it definitely became something that was used exclusively to describe young black kids. Way back in the day in might have been thought that calling a young black kid picaninny was "harmless fun," but it most certainly wasn't harmless and is another racist footnote in American history. That ad is clearly racist because it blatantly adds to a stereotype that blacks are poor, dirty, and cheap. While this was for the most part true when the ad was printed, it doesn't make it right to poke fun at it, and is again, reflective of a racist culture. I'm surprised you see the ad as being so innocent.

Quote:An exaggerated charicature of a Japanese soldier obviously aligned with Nazi Germany telling Americans that when you take a shit, it lands in Japan. This is WW2 Propaganda, it's not racist - It's hate of the enemy and morale boosting fun. That slant eyed bucktoothed Jap is begging to be shot for his alignment to Germany, look at his arrogance of some stupid little island people who thinks they can best the Fucking States, what better way for anyone, even little Johnny, to do his part in the war then to send his feces to Japan while in the restaurant, movie theater or whatever that sign was hung in.

Once again, when I see Japanese hate propaganda it reminds me of an extremely racist period of history. It's allegedly meant to inspire comradeship and bravado and to rally support behind the troops off defending our freedom and whatever, but what's dangerous about anti-Japanese propaganda is that they weren't meant to collectively inspire the nation to rally behind their military so much as they were meant to create a deliberate hatred for anybody who looked Japanese. They were the enemy because of their race. Anti-Japanese propaganda added to a virulent racist culture where over 100,000 Japanese Americans were interned for really no other reason that being Japanese. Tens of thousands of Japanese-Canadians were also interned, and there are several documented cases (and this is probably true for at least a few Japanese Americans) of Japanese-Canadians who were also World War I vets (fighting for Canada) who were robbed of all their belongings, interned, and eventually deported because they were thought to be the enemy. It's that part of history that comes to mind when I see anti-Japanese propaganda. It's not meant to find humour in cultural differences like Trisha Takanawa, but instead meant to inspire hate.

Oh come on Lazy, you're honestly going to pretend that racism isn't racist or something? You're wrong.

Quote:An exaggerated charicature of a Japanese soldier obviously aligned with Nazi Germany telling Americans that when you take a shit, it lands in Japan. This is WW2 Propaganda, it's not racist - It's hate of the enemy and morale boosting fun. That slant eyed bucktoothed Jap is begging to be shot for his alignment to Germany, look at his arrogance of some stupid little island people who thinks they can best the Fucking States, what better way for anyone, even little Johnny, to do his part in the war then to send his feces to Japan while in the restaurant, movie theater or whatever that sign was hung in.

And dont try to tell me the way he's depicted speaking is racist, that's how Japanese people sound, and that's why it's funny. Do Indians try to sue Fox over Habib in the Simpsons? What about Asian Reporter Trisha Takanawa in Family Guy? This is a funny image and a lighthearted approach to dealing with the world wide political views and madness of war to stay sane in insane times.

Its hateful, its low-brow, it's funny, but it's not racist. Prove me wrong.

American WWII propaganda was EXTREMELY racist against the Japanese. That picture's plenty of proof, but if you need more, just compare how the Germans were treated and depicted to how the Japanese were. The Japanese were rounded up and put in concentration camps, and in the media they were depicted as animalistic savage killers who stab you in the back, look like monkeys, and are all identical.

The Germans, in contrast, were treated like comic fools. Hitler was a buffoon, not a serious threat, in American propaganda. The Japanese, or Tojo? Completely evil. We now know who was worse... but you'd never have figured that out from seeing WWII American propaganda. America was far too racist to even realize that it was acting racist, actually; even Americans opposed to racism against blacks were fully in support of the stereotypes against the Japanese.

Now, the best counter-point to that is to simply point out that the Japanese were just as bad. And indeed, it's true; Japan was very racist against Europeans before and during the war. But does that excuse either side? I'd say no.

Quote:Picaninny (or any other spelling) is a term for an unkept wild child, for anyone from the south they know this term and it is used generally to any kid who looks like a mess. Black children being poor as a standard in early American history is something that is a fact, so seeing an unkept black child and refering to him or her as a pickaninny was meant in harmless fun. Rugrats, Bushbabies, carpet sharks, wildboys, ruffians, hooligans, etc are all part of the same lexicon. Watermelon, as a general rule, is cheap. Poor people eat cheap food, even when we didnt have dinner we had watermelon when I was growing up. LOL A NIGGER EATING WATERMONllOLOLOLO OMG has always been somewhat of a disappointment for me as its much funnier when they are buying menthols or selling crack to our white daughters. This image, is a simple ad talking about watermelon ice cream, sold to children. With a picture of a messy looking kid using the artstyle of the time which Dragonball Z paid homage to. Because its an artstyle.

Do you actually believe this comment, or are you just trying to set people off... either way, it works. If you're going to try to act like that kind of stereotype, particularly when combined with the watermelon, isn't an extremely, extremely racist image, then there's really nothing I can say. It's a very old stereotype of black people, and it's most definitely not a good one. The very dark skin with bright red lips one is similar, and it too is most certainly not meant to just be a caricature; it's meant to be an insult, of course. Or at least, it's a stereotype made up by racist people... but that probably amounts to the same thing.

Seriously though, very old stereotyped black kid with watermelon? There's pretty much nothing about that image that ISN'T racist.

Oh, and you're right, make the kid white and there would be no racism, probably... unless it used some other stereotypes for some white ethnic group of course, then it would be (and such things certainly exist, for just about any ethnic group!). But that's not what it is.

Holy shit you're all retarded.

Racism is to hate a race. To hate a race of people, to despise a race of people based on the the surface of their culture and propagated fear. Fear that some race might be inherently better in some way or another, so they must have some negative down swing to help the racist feel better about themselves.

If it was called Nigger Ice Cream 'The Watermelon ice cream for stupid niggers!" then i'd gladly accept its racist tones. But a drawing of a black kid that looks just as ridiculous as today's characitures of blacks (from Boondocks to the PJ's) for an ad for ice cream is not hateful at all, there is nothing there that says its putting anyone down. And no, just because a word is used on a black it doesnt make that word suddenly racist. My great grandfather called me and my sister 'little picaninny terrors' because its a southern term and we were on his farm in Alabama.

I said logical arguments, all you guys are doing is saying 'its racist because there's a race depicted'

Quote:American WWII propaganda was EXTREMELY racist against the Japanese. That picture's plenty of proof, but if you need more, just compare how the Germans were treated and depicted to how the Japanese were. The Japanese were rounded up and put in concentration camps, and in the media they were depicted as animalistic savage killers who stab you in the back, look like monkeys, and are all identical.

The Germans, in contrast, were treated like comic fools. Hitler was a buffoon, not a serious threat, in American propaganda. The Japanese, or Tojo? Completely evil. We now know who was worse... but you'd never have figured that out from seeing WWII American propaganda. America was far too racist to even realize that it was acting racist, actually; even Americans opposed to racism against blacks were fully in support of the stereotypes against the Japanese.

Now, the best counter-point to that is to simply point out that the Japanese were just as bad. And indeed, it's true; Japan was very racist against Europeans before and during the war. But does that excuse either side? I'd say no.

They had anti miscegenation laws back then, Going after Germans would have been more tricky due to inter-marriage.

Canada was just as much in the wrong back then, We put the Japanese in camps too, The famous Japanese- canadian environmentalist David Suzuki grew up in a internment camp in B.C.

I suppose "Detention" is preferable to killing them,In some ways given all the anti Japanese propaganda back then , The internment camps probably protected the Japanese from the mobs of angry Canucks and Yankees.

Japan in ww2 was just as brutal and grizzly in its warfare, The rape of Nanking is one example.

Unlike the Germans the Japanese took no prisoners and didn't give a hoot about the Geneva convention.

I kind of see your point lazy, but don't you think it's a double standard to get upset about the portrayal of stereotypical fat people in media and not the same about races being stereotyped? That is what this is about - stereotypes marginalizing a group of people. I especially disagree with you thinking that Japanese propaganda was A-OK. I don't even know what to say in response to that.

Quote:If it was called Nigger Ice Cream 'The Watermelon ice cream for stupid niggers!" then i'd gladly accept its racist tones. But a drawing of a black kid that looks just as ridiculous as today's characitures of blacks (from Boondocks to the PJ's) for an ad for ice cream is not hateful at all, there is nothing there that says its putting anyone down.

Huey from the Boondocks is the same as a black kid eating a watermelon? Really? What if it were a black guy eating fried chicken and smoking crack while stealing a stereo?

I don't think you can equivocate the watermelon kid with Huey. Huey has an afro, that's about it. He's well-spoken, intelligent, level-headed (aside from having radical liberal beliefs), interested in Kung Fu and Japanese culture (like Aaron MacGruder) and provides the commentary for the show. Riley is more of a stereotype. Besides, the comic/cartoon were created/written by a black man, and they have certain privileges about that sort of thing. Unless you think that, for instance, white people should be able to say nigger as liberally as black people, which is looking at things from a dichotomy that makes no sense.

Quote:I said logical arguments, all you guys are doing is saying 'its racist because there's a race depicted'

I don't know if some of these images are racist per se, but it's very racially insensitive, reinforcing the same image of poor, simple black people in that particular case.

Quote:And no, just because a word is used on a black it doesnt make that word suddenly racist. My great grandfather called me and my sister 'little picaninny terrors' because its a southern term and we were on his farm in Alabama.

Historical context makes it what it is, and most people say words with racist overtones with that very intent. Not all, but most. Don't be obtuse.

[edit]

One more point. Although I disagree with racial insensitivity, I don't think history should be censored to take those sorts of things out. I disagree with editors cutting out parts in cartoons that depict racist things, like Jerry in Tom & Jerry falling into a bottle of ink and coming out in blackface. We should look at that and recognize it at a time when people were still ignorant and callous to minorities, not erase it entirely.

Sacred Jellybean Wrote:I kind of see your point lazy, but don't you think it's a double standard to get upset about the portrayal of stereotypical fat people in media and not the same about races being stereotyped? That is what this is about - stereotypes marginalizing a group of people. I especially disagree with you thinking that Japanese propaganda was A-OK. I don't even know what to say in response to that.

On fat: Ever seen Total Drama Island? Here we have one fat character who is completely oblivious to sexual advances, only interested in eating, he is a giant farting, belching mess inherently asexual and disgusting. To any kid who's overweight and trying to imprint on who he (or she) wants to become as they grow up, their only positive view in to being overweight is Jack Black. Someone who has to use humor to compensate for his physical appearance in film, literally going after women who are attracted to other men who are attractive yet boring, and wins them over by being funny and imaginative. So, sorry fat kids, if you're not funny or imaginative you're just screwed.

In Family Guy Louis explains on multiple occasions that she loves Peter because of how he stood up to her father and that he made any situation relaxing and care free. Him being a retard, funny, etc are things she views as negative towards his character. Its the only time i've ever seen an overweight male depicted as attractive based on his ability to be romantic and be a better man than her other suitors. But for the audience, it's still naturally inclined to have the fat guy do 'funny things a fat guy should do' because hugely obese and naked is funny, because overweight people are considered asexual, like watching a toddler run through the living room naked. It's incredibly hateful and insensitive and its just not brought up in media or discussion. They're TRYING to be hurtful towards overweight people, they're TRYING to make fun, put down, and laugh at people that are overweight. They purposefully make the fat character gross, they purposefully make the fat character a greedy unattractive mess. But 'They drew that African American with big lips!!! THAT'S RACIST!!! oh the artist was black, it's okay ^_^' , I mean holy shit dude. Holy shit.

On WW2 pops: It's war! Hate the enemy, sponsor your allies. In WW2 we fell in love with the dutch and Canada, that's also around the same period that the UK became a major part of our collective. Whether it was bridges in government or types and styles of clothing. Regardless of who your enemy is, you do everything you can to make fun, belittle and hate them. You can giggle at a Osama spoof on SNL or Family Guy but Japanese are off limits? The cartoon of some arab decapitating a jew is funny because that's actually happening and it looks that ridiculous. If we can throw a joke out about a guy strapped with TNT calling out for his 70 virgins, we can make a joke about an ignorant and confused Japanese. A culture mind you, that America thought of historic and beautiful until they aligned with Germany. Then they became enemies, and you do everything to make that enemy feel less of themselves and feel every ounce of our hate. To every man, woman and child.

It should be noted however, the characiture alone isn't hateful. Its a cartoon of a Japanese, you cant draw that without using references to Japanese facial qualities. Even Shigeru Miyamoto agrees.

Quote:Huey from the Boondocks is the same as a black kid eating a watermelon? Really? What if it were a black guy eating fried chicken and smoking crack while stealing a stereo?

This is funny to me (aside from comparing eating fruit to committing crimes), doing crack and stealing a stereo and... eating chicken? Srsly? So almost every ad for Popeye's chicken or KFC is racist because it depicts black people eating southern styled foods? I already explained watermelon, another southern favorite. Why so Southern? This may come as a shock but the civil war wasn't even that long ago, and most blacks, almost the entirety of blacks in the United States were in the south. Though they've died off, it wasn't too long ago we had people alive in the 1950's that remembered the end of the civil war, my mom was a child when she had to use the Whites Only bathroom. Blacks are almost exclusively from the south, so southern styled foods are in the family, passed down from great great grandma etc. Watermelon, fried chicken, barbecue anything from the south you can think of, but a black with cornbread isn't as funny as a big awkward slice of watermelon. My mom was raised on a farm in Alabama, we eat the same shit and everytime my mom tries to make collard greens I go get Taco Bell.

Quote:I don't think you can equivocate the watermelon kid with Huey. Huey has an afro, that's about it. He's well-spoken, intelligent, level-headed (aside from having radical liberal beliefs), interested in Kung Fu and Japanese culture (like Aaron MacGruder) and provides the commentary for the show. Riley is more of a stereotype. Besides, the comic/cartoon were created/written by a black man, and they have certain privileges about that sort of thing. Unless you think that, for instance, white people should be able to say nigger as liberally as black people, which is looking at things from a dichotomy that makes no sense.

You're just as brainwashed as the other damn people around here. First, I was using just the picture: A modern depiction of a young black male. I could use other references, there are characters on that show with huge lips, low bros, midnight skin, and big and just plain big and stupid. I happen to agree with almost everything i've seen in Boondocks, the episode where Martin Luther King woke up from a coma and went to do a speech, but called everyone a worthless bunch of niggers because he was so angry at the way 'blacks' had become was not only hilarious but profoundly deafening. There are white people who work on the show, does that mean they're racist? That's fucking retarded.

I assume you know who Al Jolson is (Jewish white guy who did an amazing act as a black jazz singer), who also spawned the cartoon character Bosko (a black boy who's naturally inclined with music and resembled Jolsen in his make up). It's a vaudeville art style.

Look at today's art style concerning girls: We have anime super cute prepubescent types who could resemble a preteen but with large breasts, though sometimes flat chested to boost the prepubescent appearance. Its all based on the 'cuter and more innocent, the hotter' and for the most part any guy can agree. Then you have the American super graceful, wispy type. Think Dee Dee from Dex's Lab or the cast from Sixteen, then you have Disney who says a beautiful woman has hands and feet from a 7 month old, still wispy and ultra graceful. Then you have the universal badass woman, not really Samus Aran (the buxom blond), but the warrior types of women. Usually depicted in very intense realism, veins and bulges and etc. Anime didn't even exist in the 1960's except for a new show called Astroboy that spawned a lot of creationism in Hollywood and Japan alike. All we had Disney's graceful princess or the Tex Avery curvy red head. How did we get to prepubescent girls? Because the audience grew in to anime style, and super cute became the audience evolved. The art styles in depiction that have changed and evolved over time: The hips disappeared to being smaller than the shoulder's width. Round breasts are replaced with stubby handfuls, smokey, half closed eyes replaced with huge, bright eyes like on a confused deer. The style evolved to match the tastes of its audiences. The same thing happened with the 'Bosko' style of art when depicting any black. Why?

Cameras and projectors sucked ass back then. It was hard to tell on screen who was black. Today, we can actually light appropriately as blacks soak up more light, so if you lit your scene for white skinned people and put a black in it, you wouldn't see them! Back then, the problems were a thousand times worse. By making the lips much brighter than the skin and using a stereotypical hairstyle of blacks it was easier for the audience to see it was a black on screen. For a time, it was even argued if Micky Mouse was black because, well, he is.

Quote:I don't know if some of these images are racist per se, but it's very racially insensitive, reinforcing the same image of poor, simple black people in that particular case.



Historical context makes it what it is, and most people say words with racist overtones with that very intent. Not all, but most. Don't be obtuse.

*I'M* being obtuse? In a thread where it's claimed that any characiture of a race can qualify as potentially racially insensitive!? Oh, I cant help it if there's an actual bigot or racist who twists historical reference so he can voice his hate upon a particular race, but taking things from media with no hate intended and trying to make it hateful is just as retarded.

Quote:One more point. Although I disagree with racial insensitivity, I don't think history should be censored to take those sorts of things out. I disagree with editors cutting out parts in cartoons that depict racist things, like Jerry in Tom & Jerry falling into a bottle of ink and coming out in blackface. We should look at that and recognize it at a time when people were still ignorant and callous to minorities, not erase it entirely.

Entirely? Is a little bit okay? Oh look, 50 years from now there isn't a single scrap of evidence that Germany taught school children that Jews aren't human beings. In that episode (and other cartoons where that happens) they're referencing Al Jolson and/or Bosko. A vaudeville Jazz musician depicted as a black man. If we're going to play that game, then I want every scene of Dave Chappelle depicting a stuck up white guy removed from media because it offends me. Now tell me that's not retarded.

From Kombo:

NEWS
Apparently Racism Exists in Resident Evil 5, Left 4 Dead 2
July 15, 2009 | 2:10 PM PST

by: Bryan Roush

Yesterday, from the Houston Chronicle's Game Hacks Blog, Willie Jefferson wrote about how current and soon to be released games are becoming consistently racist. Usually, I don't even pay attention to blogs/articles like this because it's just a blogger. But the article has picked up some speed, and has started to become the new controversial topic (again).

Jefferson writes,

One of the games that comes to mind is "Left 4 Dead 2." Though the game isn't out yet, it's already causing an uproar. Set in New Orleans, players will have to fight their way through hordes of zombies - with several of them who appear to be African-Americans. When I saw the first trailer for the game, all I could think about was Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath. Setting the game in a city that was scene of dead, bloated bodies floating by so soon afterward was a bad call, IMHO. The city has had enough to deal with -- Valve, you should have spared them, even if it's just a video game.

Another game, "Resident Evil 5," puts gamers into the heart of Africa, blasting zombies. I bet you'll never guess what color they are.

He ends with:

The game that really inspired this blog entry was Ubisoft's "Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood." The game starts out with players assuming the role of Ray, a Confederate officer, working to save his brother, Thomas, who's pinned down by Union soldiers. I nearly dropped the controller. I have so much respect for President Lincoln -- he wanted to preserve the Union and ended up freeing the slaves -- and have just as much respect for the Union Army.

Responses to Jefferson's blog have been mixed, and the blog itself has had the effect of poking a somewhat dead horse. Comments on the Houston blog site have ranged from outraged to apathetic. Some users were even disappointed that no new information about video games was brought up. In any case, only time will tell if Jefferson came late the party or stoked the fire.

---

el em aye oh

The guy's name is Willie Jefferson.

I bet you'll never guess what color he is.

Quote:The Germans, in contrast, were treated like comic fools. Hitler was a buffoon, not a serious threat, in American propaganda. The Japanese, or Tojo? Completely evil. We now know who was worse... but you'd never have figured that out from seeing WWII American propaganda.

I bet the fact that Japan launched a direct and unprovoked attack on the United States had nothing to do with this difference in characterization!

Don't be so dense. Sixty years of hindsight and history have made Hitler out to be the ultimate evil of the war (and he truly was), but the true depth of that evil was not revealed until the end of the war. In addition, Germany never posed a legitimate threat to the United States. Japan did. In fact, our initial declaration of war did not include Germany or Italy or any other Axis satellite. Until Hitler stupidly decided to issue a pre-emptive declaration of war against the U.S., America was content to focus primarily on Japan. The Pacific Theater has been marginalized over the years, which is why we rarely remember the truth about Japan: They were America's real nemesis in that war, not Germany.

From Kotaku:

Houston Chronicle: Video Game Racism "The New Norm"?
By Owen Good, 8:00 PM on Thu Jul 16 2009, 13,285 views (Edit, to draft, Top, Slurp)

No, not that guy. Norm, as in, status quo. As in, we've masticated the shooting-black-people argument in Resident Evil 5, now let's pile on Call of Juarez and an unreleased game for good measure.

It's a blog post that's a bit too sensitive and an argument that's a bit too convenient and dramatic for my taste, but the Houston Chronicle's Game Hacks blog tees up the Big R in a color-by-numbers mainstream look at something - which is, more or less, that any three can make a trend. In this case, the writer takes controller-dropping offense at participating in a story as a Confederate sympathizer (Juarez).

The game that really inspired this blog entry was Ubisoft's "Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood." The game starts out with players assuming the role of Ray, a Confederate officer, working to save his brother, Thomas, who's pinned down by Union soldiers. I nearly dropped the controller. I have so much respect for President Lincoln — he wanted to preserve the Union and ended up freeing the slaves — and have just as much respect for the Union Army.

This guy may legitimately feel that way. Fine. I think if Call of Juarez was overtly sympathetic to Confederate aims of slavery, instead of just framing the story of two mean-ass brothers in the context of soldiers of a failed cause, we'd have a different discussion. Similarly, it'd be a big problem if Left 4 Dead 2 was explicitly about Katrina and the institutional racism that fueled such a listless response and collective shrug at a disaster we thought only could happen in the third world.

But this sort of rumination seems to me to be picking a fight where none exists. And it points up the difference between sensitivity and tolerance. Not everything has to provide a teachable moment or avoid an uncomfortable subject altogether. Look at film.

Racism in Video Games: The New Norm? [Houston Chronicle via Trueslant]

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Thank God there's people who actually think out there. If the paranoid delusional racist-fearing zealots had their way, any media with a character or portrayal of a race other than white in it would be over analyzed and compared to .... oh shit........

lazyfatbum Wrote:They're TRYING to be hurtful towards overweight people, they're TRYING to make fun, put down, and laugh at people that are overweight. They purposefully make the fat character gross, they purposefully make the fat character a greedy unattractive mess. But 'They drew that African American with big lips!!! THAT'S RACIST!!! oh the artist was black, it's okay ^_^' , I mean holy shit dude. Holy shit.

It depends on the degree to which the caricature is demeaning. Simply drawing a black person as someone with a wide nose and big lips isn't really racially insensitive, it's just the artist trying to put accuracy in his renderings. Drawing a black person with such facial proportions in a manner so exaggerated that it becomes ugly and ridiculous is pretty much just as demeaning as marginalizing fat people by stereotyping them all to be disgusting pigs.



Black people are from the south and like watermelon, there's nothing racist about this!

Quote:On WW2 pops: It's war! Hate the enemy, sponsor your allies. In WW2 we fell in love with the dutch and Canada, that's also around the same period that the UK became a major part of our collective. Whether it was bridges in government or types and styles of clothing. Regardless of who your enemy is, you do everything you can to make fun, belittle and hate them.

And you see nothing wrong with hating every person who's a part of the race that we're at war with? Even the people in our own country? Even in a case like the War on Terror where it's fundamentalist muslims that have been combatted, not all muslims? The problem with this kind of propaganda is it's just one more motivation for people to blindly resent, harass, degrade, or even physically assault or kill any person who belongs to that race. In a melting pot like America, that should be a huge concern.

Unless I've been oblivious to it, you really don't see that propaganda to that degree any longer, and rightfully so.

Quote:You can giggle at a Osama spoof on SNL or Family Guy but Japanese are off limits? The cartoon of some arab decapitating a jew is funny because that's actually happening and it looks that ridiculous. If we can throw a joke out about a guy strapped with TNT calling out for his 70 virgins, we can make a joke about an ignorant and confused Japanese.

I don't think all dark humor that draws on that kind of thing is wrong and contemptible. I've laughed at muslim fundamentalist humor before and don't feel guilt for it. I laughed my ass off when watching Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead when that joke was turned on its head when a muslim worker at a fast food chicken restaurant (hired thanks to affirmative action :FuckYou: ) learned that the zombie chickens would take over the country if they were ever let outside and decided to blow herself up to save freedom and democracy.

The point is, humor and free speech are different from government-sanctioned propaganda.

Quote:A culture mind you, that America thought of historic and beautiful until they aligned with Germany. Then they became enemies, and you do everything to make that enemy feel less of themselves and feel every ounce of our hate. To every man, woman and child.

Fucking christ, can't we leave the hatred and xenophobia towards an entire group of people (for something that they aren't responsible for, only their government) to our fucking military? Can't that be their job? I'm just not comfortable with getting overly-nationalistic and accepting this kind of behavior and mentality as normal. It's fucking creepy.

Quote:This is funny to me (aside from comparing eating fruit to committing crimes), doing crack and stealing a stereo and... eating chicken? Srsly? So almost every ad for Popeye's chicken or KFC is racist because it depicts black people eating southern styled foods? I already explained watermelon, another southern favorite. Why so Southern? This may come as a shock but the civil war wasn't even that long ago, and most blacks, almost the entirety of blacks in the United States were in the south. Though they've died off, it wasn't too long ago we had people alive in the 1950's that remembered the end of the civil war, my mom was a child when she had to use the Whites Only bathroom. Blacks are almost exclusively from the south, so southern styled foods are in the family, passed down from great great grandma etc. Watermelon, fried chicken, barbecue anything from the south you can think of, but a black with cornbread isn't as funny as a big awkward slice of watermelon. My mom was raised on a farm in Alabama, we eat the same shit and everytime my mom tries to make collard greens I go get Taco Bell.

Granted, portraying black people eating certain foods isn't exactly the most harmful stereotype, so I'll drop this one. Something about it just seems rude and demeaning. Would you feel comfortable giving any of your black friends a nice big watermelon for his birthday? I mean, come on...

Quote:You're just as brainwashed as the other damn people around here. First, I was using just the picture: A modern depiction of a young black male. I could use other references, there are characters on that show with huge lips, low bros, midnight skin, and big and just plain big and stupid. I happen to agree with almost everything i've seen in Boondocks, the episode where Martin Luther King woke up from a coma and went to do a speech, but called everyone a worthless bunch of niggers because he was so angry at the way 'blacks' had become was not only hilarious but profoundly deafening. There are white people who work on the show, does that mean they're racist? That's fucking retarded.

Still, Aaron MacGruder was at the helm and it was probably mostly his idea (and even he took flak from some leading figures of the black community, like Al Sharpton). If it was a white person in his shoes that was responsible for the episode, yes, it would be racist. Because of the historical context of black people being disparaged by white people in power. White people calling black people ignorant and worthless is much worse than a black person making the statement that his own people are acting ignorant and worthless when they have much more opportunities today than they did in the past. It's just the way things are, and it's not hard to see why.

Quote:I assume you know who Al Jolson is (Jewish white guy who did an amazing act as a black jazz singer), who also spawned the cartoon character Bosko (a black boy who's naturally inclined with music and resembled Jolsen in his make up). It's a vaudeville art style.

Look at today's art style concerning girls: We have anime super cute prepubescent types who could resemble a preteen but with large breasts, though sometimes flat chested to boost the prepubescent appearance. Its all based on the 'cuter and more innocent, the hotter' and for the most part any guy can agree. Then you have the American super graceful, wispy type. Think Dee Dee from Dex's Lab or the cast from Sixteen, then you have Disney who says a beautiful woman has hands and feet from a 7 month old, still wispy and ultra graceful. Then you have the universal badass woman, not really Samus Aran (the buxom blond), but the warrior types of women. Usually depicted in very intense realism, veins and bulges and etc. Anime didn't even exist in the 1960's except for a new show called Astroboy that spawned a lot of creationism in Hollywood and Japan alike. All we had Disney's graceful princess or the Tex Avery curvy red head. How did we get to prepubescent girls? Because the audience grew in to anime style, and super cute became the audience evolved. The art styles in depiction that have changed and evolved over time: The hips disappeared to being smaller than the shoulder's width. Round breasts are replaced with stubby handfuls, smokey, half closed eyes replaced with huge, bright eyes like on a confused deer. The style evolved to match the tastes of its audiences. The same thing happened with the 'Bosko' style of art when depicting any black. Why?

Cameras and projectors sucked ass back then. It was hard to tell on screen who was black. Today, we can actually light appropriately as blacks soak up more light, so if you lit your scene for white skinned people and put a black in it, you wouldn't see them! Back then, the problems were a thousand times worse. By making the lips much brighter than the skin and using a stereotypical hairstyle of blacks it was easier for the audience to see it was a black on screen. For a time, it was even argued if Micky Mouse was black because, well, he is.

Not all blackface was used to lambast and demean black people, but from what I understand, most of it was. I might be wrong about that, though, I've only read it second-hand from other people.

Quote:*I'M* being obtuse? In a thread where it's claimed that any characiture of a race can qualify as potentially racially insensitive!? Oh, I cant help it if there's an actual bigot or racist who twists historical reference so he can voice his hate upon a particular race, but taking things from media with no hate intended and trying to make it hateful is just as retarded.

You act as though there are only one or two people who used a particular word and ruined it for everyone. Enough people used it that way to change the meaning of the language into something racially-charged. Therefore, even though not every person who uses these words isn't trying to be racist, it's easy to infer as such all the same, making it racially insensitive. This isn't that hard to grasp, so yes, you're being obtuse.

Quote:Entirely? Is a little bit okay? Oh look, 50 years from now there isn't a single scrap of evidence that Germany taught school children that Jews aren't human beings. In that episode (and other cartoons where that happens) they're referencing Al Jolson and/or Bosko. A vaudeville Jazz musician depicted as a black man. If we're going to play that game, then I want every scene of Dave Chappelle depicting a stuck up white guy removed from media because it offends me. Now tell me that's not retarded.

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding you, but is this directed towards me? Did you completely miss my point? I said things like this SHOULDN'T be erased and censored.

And you can't really lay claim to the same amount of victimhood as black people, so you can't get as upset when seeing White Chicks, or seeing Eddie Murphy or Dave Chappelle do Whiteface. Being called "Cracker" isn't nearly as painful as a black person being called "Nigger", because your history doesn't involve slavery and persecution and inequality that even exists today. So yes, it's retarded, but not the way you meant.

And by the way, in case you bring up Tropic Thunder with Robert Downey Jr. in blackface, I wouldn't call that racist, because its content is different. It's making fun of two things: 1) white people stereotyping blacks (and it was counter-balanced by a black person being present calling him out on it) and 2) actors who go through ridiculous lengths to prepare themselves for roles (such as Christian Bale losing all that weight for The Machinist).

Godammit bean. You make these all encompassing claims and then I have to come in and explain and everything, I am not smart enough to undo all the brainwashing this terrordome has injected in to you, but I will try. Lord help me I will try. *gets headband* *secretly likes the in depth discussion* *plays remixed 80's love songs*



1.) He's deformed and doesn't even look human while the white male is depicted as subtle and sophisticated. If he (honky) was in the same art style, it would just be a bizarre comic. The other factor is his speech, but of course the 'yas boss' dialogue is something that came from the fact that blacks during that time (implied) simply weren't educated, but it should be noted, their dialect sounded exactly like any uneducated southerner. Its a spoken southern dialect. Black, white or whatever. It could be easily used to make fun of southern people in general.

2.) The idea that a black waiter is serving watermelon to a white customer is not racist. The implied hate is that A.) Honky is trying to bring up the fact that Bosko just wants hims a big ol' watermelon piece, you get the idea that he is indirectly belittling him as if there are others present at the table and is trying to direct attention to his poor judgment and unsophisticated dialect and manners. B.) That he's a slave and he is speaking to his owner, that's not racist. That happened, there is no implied hate, that is the way things were.

Ultimately what do we have? What hate is actually being expressed to a race of people in that particular pic? It specifically draws attention to the appearance of blacks and makes them look to be more monstrous than human and that they have poor judgment on what a large enough piece of fruit is acceptable for one person. I think we can let the last one go. But the first is very serious.

The idea that black people look more like monkeys than white people do.

...and it's a fact.

Go a head, hate me. Call me a racist, call me whatever you want. Black people look more like monkeys than whites do. In commercial use, we all see pictures of gorillas because they're common in our love of adventure and wildlife. Gorillas, always depicted as overly strong, threatening, bullish and often times as confused and dense. Whites, or any non black race for that matter, will see a black acting threatening and immediately get those same commercial images of angry apes in their head. You cant help it, everyone does it. Black people even do it to each other. Why?

Because we're apes. Blacks simply look more like modern apes, even though chimpanzees and gorillas have nothing to do with our heritage in the evolutionary climb. Perhaps broken or branched off from us at some point, but for hypothetical example: an evolved chimp would not be a human being. It's a different species. It wouldn't look like any human being at all. Saying we came from chimps is as accurate as saying birds came from reptiles. But a four legged lizard or a snake cant even begin to compare to any bird. The line of evolution doesnt exist in a form we can see, as the species it once was, has evolved on, causing its prior existence to longer be.

We are primates though, through and through. You might want to make judgments on things like 'wide' noses. Well, no one has wider noses than Inuits and the mongols, I mean wow, those are some wide load noses. How come we dont stack up "eskimos" and mountainous Asian cultures with apes? Because they dont resemble modern apes, they're just big nosed Asians. This is the problem: We are too simple in our judgments and too easily swayed in to any commercial appeal.

The fact is, blacks are and were found all over the world. They did not "all come from Africa", many did, but not all. Calling every black an African American would be like calling any Jew an Israelite (which is a totally different argument), which is completely nonsensical.

Big lips. No one says Angelina Jolie resembles an ape. In fact, women are paying a lot of money to have their lips enlarged and is usually considered very appealing to have large, pouting lips. Every woman wants big lips, big lips on a male (of any race) usually makes them look more beefy, more powerful. I have huge lips, so I get the same remarks. But these women, myself, no one says they look like an ape. Fish maybe, but no one uses the A word.

It's a combination of many features, but it's two in particular that do it for our simple minds to attach one image (a black human being) to another (an ape). The jutting brow and the black skin. No matter what, it brings forth the same image of the modern ape. When white people have a jutting brow, we call out Frankenstein! or make references to that person being slow or retarded. Or huge and powerful, depending on the rest of their features.

When a person, of any race, sees a black man or woman who doesn't have a jutting brow, we make them models. Not kidding. Sometimes the jutting brow works in their favor (to make them look more powerful) but almost by some unwritten law: The less black a black person looks, the more attractive they are in commercial use. This isn't always the case, it depends on the product, what is being sold and who is it being sold to. A jutting brow, midnight black skin (even photographed black and white to boost the effect), muscular frame, jutting lower lip and an arrogant expression; From shoes to hats to drinks and music and anything inbetween -- a powerful image of a man in power can sell anything. One look at 50 Cent and you see it in motion perfectly executed: Anyone who wants to be strong, threatening, respected and powerful will be attracted to his image.

And he looks like a modern ape. How do I get around it? We dont. It's a bullshit effect of media. The same bullshit effects that make men want girls to be size 4 with triple D's or men with 6 or 10 packs and the face of a 4 year old boy that is just a few hairs shy of being a woman (change the jaw structure and they're a perfect fit). But thats not a good example actually, as tastes in feminine and masculine charms have evolved and changed. It seems blacks have been compared to apes for centuries and it hasn't moved beyond that except by the educated who just giggle at it.

How long did you think a Panda Bear is a bear? they're actually a type of raccoon. Raccoons are related to ferrets but prairie dogs aren't. What about the realization you had while in school that dolphins, whales and etc are mammals and not fish? I think the answer is education. But it wont help that a dolphin looks like a gentle shark and a Panda looks like a big snuggly bear. Blacks carry the brunt of the commercial scope, you can find a picture of a black guy and compare it to a gorilla easily. That, by itself, is not racist. Its as harmless as taking a picture of someone and comparing it to an object or other animal, or celebrity. But its the hate that counts - does the person who is making the observation hate the race in question. And that is where the line is drawn. In fact, where the first line that was drawn in that comic you posted. A hateful message to propagate hate.

Ever seen that commercial, I think it's for... I dunno, some prescription drug or something. But it would show food on one half of the screen, and then people that resemble that food. It was pretty ingenious in some of its designs to make the people look like the food and vice versa. Disney and Pixar has a great way of making everyday objects resemble people, a tea cup handle becomes a nose and looks completely natural, etc. Disney also showed us that black people can resemble frogs or lions just as well as apes and in fact takes great pride in the idea of making people in to animals and using their facial features to match a particular animal. It is a natural human interaction, just like when we talk to a stinky pile of laundry or yell at our computers to breath lfe in to inanimate objects, or imagine animals as if they were people.

We can even make a lighthearted joke of 'lol Britney looks like an angry vulture in that pic" or what have you, so its all very inherent.

So here we are, looking down the barrel of these horrible claims that its natural to see black people with strong black features compared to modern apes in physical appearance and we load the gun with the question: Is it racist?

The answer is no. Anything you say or do towards a race you hate is racist. So if you're racist, the answer is yes.

If that image you posted had a black man depicted with subtlety and sophistication like the whitey is, and mind you this is a trick question, would it still be racist? I'm very curious to what your answer would be.

Now i'll just hit up your specific points in the next post.

Quote:And you see nothing wrong with hating every person who's a part of the race that we're at war with? Even the people in our own country? Even in a case like the War on Terror where it's fundamentalist muslims that have been combatted, not all muslims? The problem with this kind of propaganda is it's just one more motivation for people to blindly resent, harass, degrade, or even physically assault or kill any person who belongs to that race. In a melting pot like America, that should be a huge concern.

Unless I've been oblivious to it, you really don't see that propaganda to that degree any longer, and rightfully so.

One distinction, Nobody chooses to be Japanese, but You can choose to be a Muslim.

I was once a major hater of Muslims and greatly loathed their religion , Some Muslims I've met have caused me to have a change of heart.

A reason for islamaphobia in the Americas besides all the terrorism and berserk temper tantrums that have been sensationalized by the media, We north Americans have forgotten out history, We just came to learn about the rise of Islam and its relations to our own history, having to learn about all that in our present time after 9/11 its easy to take history out of context.

I didn't know about the demise of Christianity in the middle east which was decided at the battle of Yarmouk in August 636 Just east of the sea of Galilee, A religiously driven army of Arabs managed to win a decisive victory against the extremely disorganized and unprepared Byzantines, The East Roman Byzantine empire was still reeling from wounds suffered at the hands of the avars & slavs in the Balkans that descended onto the empire at the outbreak of the last Roman-Persian war.

Then the 700 year occupation of Spain , Followed by the taking of Constantinople in 1453, The Siege of Vienna in 1529.

We all knew about the crusades, What we didn't know was that they had been kicking our hide for years before and after that, Its clear that the crusades was a retaliatory response by christian Europe to the advancing Muslim empire.

Political Islam should be resisted just as much as political Christianity or anything else like it, The thing that irks the hell out of me is the radical Zionism by christian fundamentalist ,Who believe that they are in some apocalyptic war with Islam and need to do everything possible to give material and military support to Israel and even the psycho west bank settlers.

Radical Christian Zionism who are entrenched in U.S politics but also have a footing in the political arena in all Anglo countries.

The reason the Islamic world is in a fury , Is the long standing mess in Palestine, Also the recent history of European colonialism like in Algeria and so fourth, Not to mention the poverty and oppression of western backed dictatorships, Which brings out a xenophobic hostile sentiment amongst them.

Quote:Blacks carry the brunt of the commercial scope, you can find a picture of a black guy and compare it to a gorilla easily. That, by itself, is not racist. Its as harmless as taking a picture of someone and comparing it to an object or other animal, or celebrity. But its the hate that counts - does the person who is making the observation hate the race in question.

FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH.

You can make a comparison of a black man to a gorilla. Whether or not it is a true act of racism depends upon the motive and intent behind the comparison.

If you make the comparison in a strict biological sense, to compare and contrast physical features and attributes, it is not racist.

If you make the comparison to imply that blacks are hulking, unintelligent sub-human creatures, it is inherently racist. In this sense, the physical similarities are simply a tissue-thin visual element. The point in this scenario is to denigrate blacks specifically as being less than human.

lazyfatbum Wrote:

1.) He's deformed and doesn't even look human while the white male is depicted as subtle and sophisticated. If he (honky) was in the same art style, it would just be a bizarre comic. The other factor is his speech, but of course the 'yas boss' dialogue is something that came from the fact that blacks during that time (implied) simply weren't educated, but it should be noted, their dialect sounded exactly like any uneducated southerner. Its a spoken southern dialect. Black, white or whatever. It could be easily used to make fun of southern people in general.

He's "deformed" in the sense that he has big lips, big ears, and a big, vacant grin on his face. Is it not true that this is the same type of caricature that we were talking about before?

On the other hand (and you touch on this in your post), if the black person was given white features (as in facial proportions, which you purported to be what black people in media are given to be more accessible and aesthetically pleasing and are most likely right about it) is wrong too, as there's a subtle message in there saying that black people only look beautiful when they look the most like white people.

I could apply "bury my head in the sand" logic and say that it's true that black people in the south were uneducated, poor (hence liking cheap watermelons), and subservient to their white masters, so there's nothing racist about this cartoon.

Quote:2.) The idea that a black waiter is serving watermelon to a white customer is not racist. The implied hate is that A.) Honky is trying to bring up the fact that Bosko just wants hims a big ol' watermelon piece, you get the idea that he is indirectly belittling him as if there are others present at the table and is trying to direct attention to his poor judgment and unsophisticated dialect and manners. B.) That he's a slave and he is speaking to his owner, that's not racist. That happened, there is no implied hate, that is the way things were.

I don't really get the "there are other people at the table" part, but other than that, I think this is the crux of what makes the cartoon racist, and in retrospect, I don't think it was the best example to bring up. I had actually considered taking it out of my post last night for that reason, but decided to leave it up there.

Quote:The idea that black people look more like monkeys than white people do.

...and it's a fact.

Yes, it's a fact that black people look more like gorillas than white people. The problem with comparing black people to apes or gorillas is that it's more than likely done it a way to dehumanize and degrade them. If blacks and whites were on the same playing field and there wasn't a history of whites dehumanizing and degrading blacks, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it.

Really, who wants to be compared to an animal? If you had a girlfriend or wife who was a little long in the face, would you laugh and high five anyone who called her a horse?

Quote:Big lips. No one says Angelina Jolie resembles an ape. In fact, women are paying a lot of money to have their lips enlarged and is usually considered very appealing to have large, pouting lips. Every woman wants big lips, big lips on a male (of any race) usually makes them look more beefy, more powerful. I have huge lips, so I get the same remarks. But these women, myself, no one says they look like an ape. Fish maybe, but no one uses the A word.

I have big lips too and have gotten compared to a donkey before. :) Thankfully not by a woman, that would have stung me so much more.

Quote:Ever seen that commercial, I think it's for... I dunno, some prescription drug or something. But it would show food on one half of the screen, and then people that resemble that food. It was pretty ingenious in some of its designs to make the people look like the food and vice versa. Disney and Pixar has a great way of making everyday objects resemble people, a tea cup handle becomes a nose and looks completely natural, etc. Disney also showed us that black people can resemble frogs or lions just as well as apes and in fact takes great pride in the idea of making people in to animals and using their facial features to match a particular animal. It is a natural human interaction, just like when we talk to a stinky pile of laundry or yell at our computers to breath lfe in to inanimate objects, or imagine animals as if they were people.

I feel that the anthropomorphization of animals or inanimate objects is contextually different and not related to this discussion. This is more about the reverse of what we're talking about - making animals/inanimate objects more human so we care more about them. What we're talking about is making human beings of one race seem less human to marginalize them.

Quote:We can even make a lighthearted joke of 'lol Britney looks like an angry vulture in that pic" or what have you, so its all very inherent.

The person who would probably be hurt the most by this is Britney Spears, and it's not like she looks like a vulture all the time. This is markedly different from comparing an entire race of people to an animal that's seen as a lesser form than humans, but an animal resembling a human nonetheless.

Quote:So here we are, looking down the barrel of these horrible claims that its natural to see black people with strong black features compared to modern apes in physical appearance and we load the gun with the question: Is it racist?

I might sound like I'm contradicting myself here, but making the simple and innocent observation that black people resemble apes more than whites, in and of itself, is not racist. It's just that it's a very fine line to walk, because most people making that comparison are doing it in a hateful/derogatory manner. Again, if black people had no history of being persecuted and subjugated by whites, this would practically be a non-issue (aside from the fact that no one wants to be compared to an inferior beast).

Quote:If that image you posted had a black man depicted with subtlety and sophistication like the whitey is, and mind you this is a trick question, would it still be racist? I'm very curious to what your answer would be.

Given that it'd still be playing off a stereotype that's part of a larger, collective, racist archetype, I'd say it'd still be a little racist, but it would be more bizarre than racist (and probably funnier for that reason). It'd be slightly more of a subversion of that line of thinking, because BLACK PEOPLE LOVE WATERMELONS LOL usually goes hand-in-hand with BLACK PEOPLE ARE POOR DUMB UNCIVILIZED SOUTHERN MOTHER FUCKERS LOL, but I could still see why black people would be offended by it, because of the connotations it has towards racism towards blacks that some white people still hold.

Sacred Jellybean Wrote:It depends on the degree to which the caricature is demeaning. Simply drawing a black person as someone with a wide nose and big lips isn't really racially insensitive, it's just the artist trying to put accuracy in his renderings. Drawing a black person with such facial proportions in a manner so exaggerated that it becomes ugly and ridiculous is pretty much just as demeaning as marginalizing fat people by stereotyping them all to be disgusting pigs.

Not true at all, not in the least. You just explained the art of caricature. A caricature of whoopie goldberg is going to give her a giant lipped smile and a horribly widened nose, try it on google. Some artists focus on her smile and scrunch her face up, others blow her other proportions in to humorous levels. Try a Lil Wayne caricature or 50, it takes his already bizarre look in to something that strikes fear in to the heart of every woman. But their 'black features' are blown way out of proportion - it's a caricature, it's supposed to make you smile. If the person is fat, the same idea is implied, the chubby cheeks get blown out, the double chin gets exaggerated etc. But here's the fun part: A caricature of a beloved actor (John Candy) Vs. one of a hated political figure who's over weight (pick one) guess who is going to look like a warm hearted teddy bear and which will look like a fat disgusting mess? It's the hate that matters. He may even have pieces of food dribbling from his chin, etc. No, the image you used shows a thing. A thing, not a man. It's a blatant and bizarre attempt to make a human being look so much like a monkey, it has lost all of its human traits from the neck up (reminds me of the little monkeys holding the cymbals). They didn't make a caricature of a man, they literally used a monkey's face.

So all we have to do is think: Are they (artists) depicting their features to reflect their actual features or are they attempting to demoralize and demonize someone? But wait, what if the black person in question is a universally hated political figure? Well, that answers our question - its perfectly okay.

The entire issue stems from the idea that racism is hidden, we dont know when its being done unless its shoved in our face. But it can be so, so much more subtle than that.

Quote:And you see nothing wrong with hating every person who's a part of the race that we're at war with? Even the people in our own country? Even in a case like the War on Terror where it's fundamentalist muslims that have been combatted, not all muslims? The problem with this kind of propaganda is it's just one more motivation for people to blindly resent, harass, degrade, or even physically assault or kill any person who belongs to that race. In a melting pot like America, that should be a huge concern.

Unless I've been oblivious to it, you really don't see that propaganda to that degree any longer, and rightfully so.

War means you destroy the people responsible for that government. Any supporter of that government, the fact that you live there makes you responsible. If you are a part of a government that is at war, you are fair game. At war with Japan, race played a major issue. Such as trying to snuff out any Japanese spies in America, especially considering it was discovered that Japanese spies were in Hawaii posing as Hawaiians! Being ignorant to differences, we rounded up anyone Asian, Koreans, Chinese, anyone with Asian features. We were protecting our assets and rightfully so. During the cold war, if you looked Russian you raised an eyebrow, if you spoke Russian you were questioned, if you were Russian you were told to leave. War is war, anything that we can use to separate the enemy from the ally will be used to its fullest extent.

With the current situation there is obvious pops, anyone from the middle east is immediately questioned, but again the problem is that we are ignorant. We cant tell an Iraqi from a Turban wearing Indian, education is important. Our country is suffering in this department, most people under 25 cant repeat our states and capitals or even sing the national anthem, let alone recognize locals on a world map or ethnic differences. The propaganda of old did indeed come from citizens and government alike, the government today avoids it so as to bow out of being dragged in to the argument of racism or being insensitive, but thankfully we are free to voice those opinions.

The Koran, a collection of sura with moral lessons has blatant writings outlining that anyone who's not for the Koran can be justifiably killed. The mostly backwards people who follow its teachings in the middle east are only barely out of the bronze age today, it's only because of outside influence do they even have technology as they've made absolutely nothing for themselves. They're a war-like people with nothing to live for, other than war and hate. The same can be said for most of Israel. It's just hate mongering hate and it's been happening for thousands upon thousands of years with no change. If you're not part of them, I dont care what your genes say, you're golden. But being of that gene pool I will question you undeniably and rightfully. I only hope that my government can also question you until we reach a settlement so we can move on and no longer worry about their violent attempts to be heard. Terrorism is an ideal, but it comes from the middle east, I'm being vague in its description but I have to be, because it is vague itself.

We had to shoot children because they used their children against us, strapping bombs to them. They are a horrible, horrible people that will always support their need for hate. It is honestly too bad when you consider how beautiful the rest of their culture is.

Converted Muslims view religion like they did with Christianity; you can 'make it your own'. Literally picking and choosing what you want from the Koran, ignoring passages you dont agree with. This is not the case with true Islam, the Islam that is practiced in the middle east. For all it's poetry and beautiful lessons, writings of hope and prosperity, it also carries a message of hate, destruction and death. To kill anyone who disagrees and that people who aren't a part of it have no soul to bear. That's not a religion, that's a cult. They can be exterminated for all I care.

Do you honestly believe that the terrorist organizations are comparable to our 'Waco Incidents' where someone slipped his nuts and bolts and made privately funded insane asylums? Our own government snuffed Waco, our own organizations burnt it to the ground. Can you say the same for their government who publicly funded these organizations and supplied them (along with America's support that bit us in the ass)? I dont think so. It is a war with a race, like it or not, simply because it is that race who follows those beliefs. If you dont follow the beliefs, you'll move and seek sanctuary. Instead they stay, they strap explosives to their infants in a tooth and nail fight to murder anyone they dislike in their current tormented hell of their constantly grinding axe they have with the entire world.

Am I wrong?

Quote:I don't think all dark humor that draws on that kind of thing is wrong and contemptible. I've laughed at muslim fundamentalist humor before and don't feel guilt for it. I laughed my ass off when watching Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead when that joke was turned on its head when a muslim worker at a fast food chicken restaurant (hired thanks to affirmative action :FuckYou: ) learned that the zombie chickens would take over the country if they were ever let outside and decided to blow herself up to save freedom and democracy.

The point is, humor and free speech are different from government-sanctioned propaganda.

I agree, it should be up to the people. But if its a war with a people who happen to be of a particular race and there is something in media to demonstrate it, dont immediately disregard it. If we went to war with Ireland, I would expect the same hate of their culture and likes. It's imperative to war. There should be a picture of a red headed inbred-looking woman getting raped by an American human/helicopter Transformer-esque robot while she flails and tries to beat it off of her while holding pitchers of beer and I will support it fully. Thankfully though, if I disagree with the war, if I think it's wrong, I can fight that propaganda and support the ones that mesh with my thinking, or I can make my own.

Quote:Fucking christ, can't we leave the hatred and xenophobia towards an entire group of people (for something that they aren't responsible for, only their government) to our fucking military? Can't that be their job? I'm just not comfortable with getting overly-nationalistic and accepting this kind of behavior and mentality as normal. It's fucking creepy.

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

Quote:Granted, portraying black people eating certain foods isn't exactly the most harmful stereotype, so I'll drop this one. Something about it just seems rude and demeaning. Would you feel comfortable giving any of your black friends a nice big watermelon for his birthday? I mean, come on...

What about a fruit basket that, among other fruits, also contains watermelon? Is it only slightly rude and demeaning? Or do I get away from being rude because there's also oranges? Read what you said: Giving a gift = rude and demeaning. I have gone to park barbecues with every kind of people with bags of chips under one arm and a watermelon under the other. I guess I'm a big rude asshole that hates those niggers. Nevermind that I like watermelon (especially considering it works like natural Viagra!) and nevermind that in the cartoon you posted, the white guy (who I believe is implied to be southern) is the one ready to eat the watermelon. Yes, I will give a watermelon as a gift to a black person and if I got any negative response i'd take it back and tell that fucker to lick the wettest part of my taint.

Quote:Still, Aaron MacGruder was at the helm and it was probably mostly his idea (and even he took flak from some leading figures of the black community, like Al Sharpton). If it was a white person in his shoes that was responsible for the episode, yes, it would be racist. Because of the historical context of black people being disparaged by white people in power. White people calling black people ignorant and worthless is much worse than a black person making the statement that his own people are acting ignorant and worthless when they have much more opportunities today than they did in the past. It's just the way things are, and it's not hard to see why.

This is incredibly ignorant! I cant make the same observation as the writer of the show (which I have brought up multiple times in the what-if scenario of if MLK being alive today)? I cant agree with what the show proclaimed because that makes me racist? If I directed or wrote for the show (that ep in particular), now i'm racist? Dont be like that, please. Honesty, educated opinion and having a pair of balls are not negative aspects about anyone, no matter who or what they are. I dot care if the director was Chinese and the writer was an orthodox Jew, its truth and message is perfectly clear and easy to agree with by all parties. Blacks were once Kings and Queens, Pharaohs and Prince's, now American as you and I and have the freedom to rule the world, and do it well (with some questionable spending). Dont tell me that I cant voice my opinion that black assholes are dragging down other Americans of every race, because I can say the same about mexicans and whites or who ever I have an opinion on without being considered a hate monger or racist. Do you agree with what the show depicted? If you do, does that mean you're racist?

Quote:Not all blackface was used to lambast and demean black people, but from what I understand, most of it was. I might be wrong about that, though, I've only read it second-hand from other people.

Not at all, Al Jolsen was a great musician and had an act where he pretended to be a black man. He wasn't a big stupid ignorant nigger for people to laugh at, he played the role of a talented performer. Even at the time, men and women who could perform as the opposite sex or a different race in vaudeville acts was popular. Whoopie Goldberg does an awesome impression of when she was little and wanted to be a white girl with white girl hair, she ties a t-shirt to her hair and pretends its her golden locks (that bit also has messages of being young and black and thinkiung you're not 'good enough' as whites, something that all blacks dealt with in a mostly white country growing up in the 50's and 60's). When Goldberg and Ted Danson (who I believe they were either dating or just best friends) dawned blackface at a press event, Danson got reamed for it. It was completely blown out of proportion by people who simply didn't understand.

People see someone mention 'black' and immediately question if its racist or not. It's horrible.

Quote:You act as though there are only one or two people who used a particular word and ruined it for everyone. Enough people used it that way to change the meaning of the language into something racially-charged. Therefore, even though not every person who uses these words isn't trying to be racist, it's easy to infer as such all the same, making it racially insensitive. This isn't that hard to grasp, so yes, you're being obtuse.

Picaninny; would you have also believed it was a racist advertisement if it said 'Bush baby'? or 'black kid'? or 'Colored baby ice cream'? Is it racist to use a black person or a caricature of a black to sell something? It's not being obtuse to suggest that a word has no hate behind it. But maybe i'm terribly wrong, i'll explore a bit,

From wiki: Pickaninny (also picaninny or piccaninny) is an offensive, derogatory term for black children, derogatory term in English that refers to black children or a racist caricature. It is a pidgin word form, which may be derived from the Portuguese pequenino (an affectionate term derived from pequeno ("little").

I'm already confused, an affectionate term for little is derogatory?

wiki: Although the term was used generally, it came to refer to the associated stereotype of African American children. "Picaninnies had bulging eyes, unkempt hair, red lips and wide mouths into which they stuffed huge slices of watermelon."[1] The Picaninny was distinguished by its young age, male or female. "They were also half dressed and animalistic. The picaninny was seen as one of a multitude of black children.

Do you see the humor yet? A term used to describe any child as an animalistic, half dressed heathen is now a racist term because it was also used on blacks. So I suppose 'asshole' is now a racist term.

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

Wow, this guy's pretty badass and I never heard of him. But he wrote a book called 'My picaninny days." in 1909. I assume, he refers to his days of being a poor and unkept child, even approaching the likeness of a street rat (think Aladdin minus Disney).

When I worked in Louisiana, I had a friend who was an extra on one of the sets (he was black and older) and said in conversation, "I have to get home cuz my picaninny's have probably ate me out of the house." and was refering to his own kids. Later, one woman (white) told me that 'her little picaninnies got in trouble' because they didn't stay behind a line when shooting on location. I dont believe either the black guy or that woman were trying to be hateful to a race, just using a derogatory term for their children that is meant to be cute and refer to them as little rule breaking, animalistic shit heads.

reference.com: Related terms
Cognates of the term appear in other languages and cultures, presumably also derived from the Portuguese word, and it is not controversial or derogatory in these contexts. It is in widespread use in Melanesian pidgin and creole languages such as Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea, as the word for "child" (or just young, as in the phrase pikinini pik, meaning piglet). In certain dialects of Caribbean English, the words pickney and pickney-negger are used to refer to children. Also in Sierra Leone Krio the term pikín refers to child or children. In Nigerian and Cameroonian Pidgin English, the term used is picken. In Chilapalapa, a pidgin language used in Southern Africa, the term used is pikanin. In Surinamese Sranan Tongo the term pikin may refer to children as well as to small or little.

[edit] :D



So, i'm calling bullshit. It is a harmless word used to describe any child in a mildly and culturally acceptable way. Just as you might refer to children as monsters, terrors, rats, pigs, or what have you. It is not a racial slur in any form.

But, if its used by a racist to make a hateful remark to a black person or child, then there's a problem. It's the hate that makes it what it is. And when there is hate, anything can be racist. I can call a man a failure, but if that man is black is he honestly going to think I speak of 'failure' in terms of being slaves? being genetically deficient in some form? or some other bullshit? is it *my* fault that he's paranoid about what a white says? No. I have no reason to alter or change my vocabulary in any way as to be 'more polite' to anyone or fear the use of a word because it may offend someone, somewhere, at some point, for some reason. Bullshit, bullshit bullshit.

Quote:Maybe I'm just misunderstanding you, but is this directed towards me? Did you completely miss my point? I said things like this SHOULDN'T be erased and censored.

No sorry, I was speaking generally to the world like an article. You said "Not erase it entirely." and I ranted on that particular aspect.

Quote:And you can't really lay claim to the same amount of victimhood as black people, so you can't get as upset when seeing White Chicks, or seeing Eddie Murphy or Dave Chappelle do Whiteface. Being called "Cracker" isn't nearly as painful as a black person being called "Nigger", because your history doesn't involve slavery and persecution and inequality that even exists today. So yes, it's retarded, but not the way you meant.

This is so wrong... on so many levels, sir. Claiming victimhood? Is that what blacks do? And not only that, but apparently I cant claim victimhood when I feel its appropriate because i'm not the right race? There isn't a single black person alive today under the age of 30 that has dealt with any real persecution or inequality, or slavery, a side from idiot racists who banter on about whatever it is they're mad about. Unfortunately, those racists can even be police officers, or other people meant to help. That is a huge problem and I have no answers to combat that.

But I do, in fact fully fully, have the right to feel persecuted. I was hugely fat, I was treated like absolute shit for it from anyone and everyone. I'd be sitting with my dad at a restaurant or at the movies just to have people walk by and collectively yell out "ew!" or make cow sounds or yell 'Oh God imagine that naked!" How about being a nine year old kid and getting ice cream from the ice cream truck and having a car load of people drive by and yell 'ENJOY YOUR ICE CREAM FATTY" and it happened every day, everywhere I went, no matter what I did or what context it was used in. Even when I was jogging or working out. I was constantly and consistently belittled through school and in anything I did. Dont you dare tell me I have no rights to feel persecuted or victimized or have the capacity to understand it. I dealt with more shit as an overweight white male than any average black guy in this day and age. Unless they lived up the road from a nightly clan meeting.

As far as black entertainers making fun of whites, it means absolutely nothing to me (a side from being funny or well executed), it doesn't offend and it's not because there's no slave history. In fact in my genes somewhere are people that were persecuted by Rome, probably in yours too. But we have the ability to laugh at ourselves, we have humility. Someone without those abilities will be 'victimized' at anything pointed in their general direction, all I have to do is say 'a black guy walked in to a bar' and the emotionally defunct will grip their fists in anger, but everyone else can enjoy the joke, including blacks.

The word cracker or honky or nigger or any derogatory word towards a race will cause pain if real hate is involved. If I get in a fender bender and a black guy gets out of his car and yells 'you stupid honky bitch!" You bet your ass i'm going to get offended, just as offended if I was black and called a nigger. It's hate, and I have every right to feel just as pissed as any other race.

Quote:And by the way, in case you bring up Tropic Thunder with Robert Downey Jr. in blackface, I wouldn't call that racist, because its content is different. It's making fun of two things: 1) white people stereotyping blacks (and it was counter-balanced by a black person being present calling him out on it) and 2) actors who go through ridiculous lengths to prepare themselves for roles (such as Christian Bale losing all that weight for The Machinist).

Tropic Thunder had some awesome moments and Robert Downy Jr's lines were some of the best. Why would anyone call that racist? The dyanmic that made it fun was that the black guy was being 'overly masculine and ghetto' to compensate for being homosexual and attempting to hide it while Downy was stuck in his character because he didn't like who he actually was and only comfortable portraying other people. In different contexts, they were the same person, both pretending their lives. I thought it was well written and hilarious. The black guy's char (forgot his name, his char or the actor :P) reminded me of the Family Guy quote "Behind every gold tooth is a man saying please dont look at my tiny penis." :FuckYou:

lazyfatbum Wrote:Not true at all, not in the least. You just explained the art of caricature. A caricature of whoopie goldberg is going to give her a giant lipped smile and a horribly widened nose, try it on google. Some artists focus on her smile and scrunch her face up, others blow her other proportions in to humorous levels. Try a Lil Wayne caricature or 50, it takes his already bizarre look in to something that strikes fear in to the heart of every woman. But their 'black features' are blown way out of proportion - it's a caricature, it's supposed to make you smile. If the person is fat, the same idea is implied, the chubby cheeks get blown out, the double chin gets exaggerated etc. But here's the fun part: A caricature of a beloved actor (John Candy) Vs. one of a hated political figure who's over weight (pick one) guess who is going to look like a warm hearted teddy bear and which will look like a fat disgusting mess? It's the hate that matters. He may even have pieces of food dribbling from his chin, etc.

I'll give you this one, perhaps I've been a little too sensitive on the subject. I can concede that exaggerating certain features alone doesn't imply that an image is racist. Otherwise, this image would be, which I don't think is true:

Quote:So all we have to do is think: Are they (artists) depicting their features to reflect their actual features or are they attempting to demoralize and demonize someone? But wait, what if the black person in question is a universally hated political figure? Well, that answers our question - its perfectly okay.

There's a difference between depicting someone specific and depicting a generic person from one race with stereotypes abound.

Actually, I can't tell if you agree or disagree with me. Making fun of someone specific is okay, because you're only deprecating one person (which is run-of-the-mill in political cartoons), but deprecating an entire race is bad.

Quote:War means you destroy the people responsible for that government. Any supporter of that government, the fact that you live there makes you responsible. If you are a part of a government that is at war, you are fair game.

I guess Muslim fundamentalists would be justified in wiping America off the map without a second thought since every single one of us supports every idea from our government and every facet of influence we have upon the middle east (since we have such a hive-like mentality, especially the paranoid schizophrenic variety of us). George W. Bush was elected, so that means I supported him (even though I didn't vote for him) and okay, I voted for Obama, so even though I disagree with his administration supporting policy to detain people indefinitely and potentially continuing to detain those who could be acquitted by trial, even though I had nothing to do with the policy and the opposing candidates policy would have just as bad, I still support him and can justifiably be killed.

I don't even know why I'm wasting my sarcasm, you would be perfectly one-hundred percent-okay-no-problem-stamp-of-approval with killing children who have no concept of politics or war with being slaughtered for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. That's not just twisting those words out of context, I'm basing it on the other post you made in the other thread.

Quote:We had to shoot children because they used their children against us, strapping bombs to them. They are a horrible, horrible people that will always support their need for hate. It is honestly too bad when you consider how beautiful the rest of their culture is.

Yeah, using children/teens to do their dirty work is all kinds of fucked up, but isn't it possible to disable them without killing them, such as with rubber bullets?

Quote:Converted Muslims view religion like they did with Christianity; you can 'make it your own'. Literally picking and choosing what you want from the Koran, ignoring passages you dont agree with. This is not the case with true Islam, the Islam that is practiced in the middle east. For all it's poetry and beautiful lessons, writings of hope and prosperity, it also carries a message of hate, destruction and death. To kill anyone who disagrees and that people who aren't a part of it have no soul to bear. That's not a religion, that's a cult. They can be exterminated for all I care.

Do you honestly believe that the terrorist organizations are comparable to our 'Waco Incidents' where someone slipped his nuts and bolts and made privately funded insane asylums? Our own government snuffed Waco, our own organizations burnt it to the ground. Can you say the same for their government who publicly funded these organizations and supplied them (along with America's support that bit us in the ass)? I dont think so. It is a war with a race, like it or not, simply because it is that race who follows those beliefs. If you dont follow the beliefs, you'll move and seek sanctuary. Instead they stay, they strap explosives to their infants in a tooth and nail fight to murder anyone they dislike in their current tormented hell of their constantly grinding axe they have with the entire world.

Am I wrong?

Although I don't know any Middle Eastern people and have never been there, I would hesitate to say that so many people who live in the Middle East are fundamentalist psychopaths who support using children as weapons. Human nature holds that people are defiant and free-minded enough to not conform to every single idea that any kind of leadership will put out.

Do you have any more information on the underlined? From what I know, terrorist groups (I think Hezbollah) will sometimes provide humanitarian services (such as basic utilities like water, schools, etc) to the populace and I wouldn't be surprised if they're ingrained enough in the way-of-life that it's difficult for the government (the Lebonese government, in Hezbollah's case) to not support them in some way.

Quote:I agree, it should be up to the people. But if its a war with a people who happen to be of a particular race and there is something in media to demonstrate it, dont immediately disregard it. If we went to war with Ireland, I would expect the same hate of their culture and likes. It's imperative to war. There should be a picture of a red headed inbred-looking woman getting raped by an American human/helicopter Transformer-esque robot while she flails and tries to beat it off of her while holding pitchers of beer and I will support it fully. Thankfully though, if I disagree with the war, if I think it's wrong, I can fight that propaganda and support the ones that mesh with my thinking, or I can make my own.

So what you're saying is that propaganda that dehumanizes a group of people is just fine and in fact imperative to war, if you agree with it? Again, concern for "spies" or not, it's wrong to get caught up in cultivating hostility towards one race in our own country because our government says we should be at war with them. Why should a 5th-generation Chinese American man take shit from a bunch of pig-headed, jingoistic, nationalistic, flag-waving retards for something China did?

Quote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patton

I don't get the point you're trying to make? And I'm not reading through thousands of words to see how it's relevant to what I quoted. :P

Quote:What about a fruit basket that, among other fruits, also contains watermelon? Is it only slightly rude and demeaning? Or do I get away from being rude because there's also oranges? Read what you said: Giving a gift = rude and demeaning. I have gone to park barbecues with every kind of people with bags of chips under one arm and a watermelon under the other. I guess I'm a big rude asshole that hates those niggers. Nevermind that I like watermelon (especially considering it works like natural Viagra!) and nevermind that in the cartoon you posted, the white guy (who I believe is implied to be southern) is the one ready to eat the watermelon. Yes, I will give a watermelon as a gift to a black person and if I got any negative response i'd take it back and tell that fucker to lick the wettest part of my taint.

I never said WATERMELON = FUCK NIGGERS! WHAT THE FUCK THERES A WATERMELON IN THE ROOM SOMEONE HATES NIGGERS OH SHIT. If you already know a black person and give him a watermelon, it's probably alright because he likely knows you well enough to know you aren't racist. You're oversimplifying things by saying "giving a gift = rude and demeaning". No one likes to be stereotyped. It's more like, if you were a fat kid and eating dinner at your friends' parents house and they gave you 5x the portions of everyone else. Wouldn't you feel insulted?

Like I said, watermelons aren't the most harmful stereotype, it's that it's part of a larger racist force that IS harmful. It's guilty by association. I'm not calling every white man who's given a black man a watermelon racist, but the act can certainly be seen as suspect.

Quote:This is incredibly ignorant! I cant make the same observation as the writer of the show (which I have brought up multiple times in the what-if scenario of if MLK being alive today)? I cant agree with what the show proclaimed because that makes me racist? If I directed or wrote for the show (that ep in particular), now i'm racist? Dont be like that, please. Honesty, educated opinion and having a pair of balls are not negative aspects about anyone, no matter who or what they are. I dot care if the director was Chinese and the writer was an orthodox Jew, its truth and message is perfectly clear and easy to agree with by all parties. Blacks were once Kings and Queens, Pharaohs and Prince's, now American as you and I and have the freedom to rule the world, and do it well (with some questionable spending). Dont tell me that I cant voice my opinion that black assholes are dragging down other Americans of every race, because I can say the same about mexicans and whites or who ever I have an opinion on without being considered a hate monger or racist. Do you agree with what the show depicted? If you do, does that mean you're racist?

You can make the same observation, but it sounds more racist coming from a white man's mouth than it does from a black man's mouth. Do you really not grasp the context? On one hand, the observation is coming from an outsider, someone who's not part of the race and isn't born with the same disadvantages. Say what you want, white privilege exists in this country (see about how we agreed that a black person whose facial features more closely match that of a white person's is more marketable). It's easier to deprecate an entire race and brush them off and feel hatred towards them or feel that they're inferior WHEN YOU'RE NOT PART OF THAT RACE.

Think of it this way. What hurts more: when you criticize yourself in your own mind, or when someone else criticizes you?

Aaron MacGruder has more privilege to speak about black people without sounding racist because he IS a black person and can empathize more with their struggles (or criticize them if he considers falling short). It's alright as a white man to see certain parts of black culture, like gangsta rap or other harmful influences, and recognize them for what they are. But if it were a white man behind that specific episode, with black people acting like completely incoherent morons and essentially pissing all over the progress they've made from the end of civil war to the end of Jim Crow laws, it not only wouldn't have sounded as authentic and but it would have sounded racist.

You just can't stand up and make the same criticisms about the collective black population that Bill Cosby makes, I'm sorry, I know it's racist at heart, and you can cry and whine "reverse racism" and "but what about MEEE??" all you want, but it's just not the same. It's just not your place and they're taking on that role just fine without you. Just agree as tactfully as possible and move on. If you think about how you're at an advantageous position in being white and male, a part of the most readily-accepted status quo, you shouldn't whine about it.

Quote:Not at all, Al Jolsen was a great musician and had an act where he pretended to be a black man. He wasn't a big stupid ignorant nigger for people to laugh at, he played the role of a talented performer.

I didn't mean Al Jolsen specifically, I meant blackface in general. But again, I'm willing to admit I might be wrong on that. Given the history of racism from whites towards blacks, though, somehow I doubt I am.

Quote:Whoopie Goldberg does an awesome impression of when she was little and wanted to be a white girl with white girl hair, she ties a t-shirt to her hair and pretends its her golden locks (that bit also has messages of being young and black and thinkiung you're not 'good enough' as whites, something that all blacks dealt with in a mostly white country growing up in the 50's and 60's).

This sounds heartbreaking, incredible, and funny all at once, and if you could refer me to what movie/TV show/stand-up she did that, I'd love to see it.

Quote:When Goldberg and Ted Danson (who I believe they were either dating or just best friends) dawned blackface at a press event, Danson got reamed for it. It was completely blown out of proportion by people who simply didn't understand.

Yeah, that sounds like it was blown a little out of proportion. If Goldberg was okay with it, why shouldn't we be?

Quote:People see someone mention 'black' and immediately question if its racist or not. It's horrible.

Racism should not be tolerated, so I have no problem with certain things being scrutinized. As long as we're careful about what's actually racist and what's lighthearted, what's actually harmful and what can be laughed off, it's not an issue.

The problem here is that it's so subjective, otherwise we wouldn't be wasting our time and fingerstrokes (I tell ya, I know my fingerstrokes could be put to better use than this *ignores blue-balled boner crying silently from within pants*)

Quote:Picaninny; would you have also believed it was a racist advertisement if it said 'Bush baby'?

You're going to have to explain Bush Baby, I don't get how that has any racial connotations.

Quote:or 'black kid'? or 'Colored baby ice cream'? Is it racist to use a black person or a caricature of a black to sell something? It's not being obtuse to suggest that a word has no hate behind it. But maybe i'm terribly wrong, i'll explore a bit,

From wiki: Pickaninny (also picaninny or piccaninny) is an offensive, derogatory term for black children, derogatory term in English that refers to black children or a racist caricature. It is a pidgin word form, which may be derived from the Portuguese pequenino (an affectionate term derived from pequeno ("little").

I'm already confused, an affectionate term for little is derogatory?

Nobody said that the origins of the word have the exact same meaning. The meaning of certain words and phrases changes and evolves, that's how not only language but human ideas work.

Quote:wiki: Although the term was used generally, it came to refer to the associated stereotype of African American children. "Picaninnies had bulging eyes, unkempt hair, red lips and wide mouths into which they stuffed huge slices of watermelon."[1] The Picaninny was distinguished by its young age, male or female. "They were also half dressed and animalistic. The picaninny was seen as one of a multitude of black children.

So what we have here is a word whose meaning has shifted. Until it was phased out of common vocabulary, it was a racially-charged and demeaning term used to paint black children as uncivilized savages. It WAS used generally against all children, but it's changed to most likely describe black children. Do you think this might be because black americans were uncivilized when taken for slavery from Africa? It can easily be taken as a slight against black people, one step away from calling not their children unwashed and wild animals but calling they themselves animals. Which again, ties into the racist idea of black people being uncivilized and inferior human beings.

Quote:Do you see the humor yet? A term used to describe any child as an animalistic, half dressed heathen is now a racist term because it was also used on blacks. So I suppose 'asshole' is now a racist term.

Now you're just being ridiculous. People didn't collectively change the meaning of "asshole" to mean "black-skinned piece of trash", so it's not a racist term. "Pickaninny" changed to specifically describe black people.

Quote:When I worked in Louisiana, I had a friend who was an extra on one of the sets (he was black and older) and said in conversation, "I have to get home cuz my picaninny's have probably ate me out of the house." and was refering to his own kids. Later, one woman (white) told me that 'her little picaninnies got in trouble' because they didn't stay behind a line when shooting on location. I dont believe either the black guy or that woman were trying to be hateful to a race, just using a derogatory term for their children that is meant to be cute and refer to them as little rule breaking, animalistic shit heads.

reference.com: Related terms
Cognates of the term appear in other languages and cultures, presumably also derived from the Portuguese word, and it is not controversial or derogatory in these contexts. It is in widespread use in Melanesian pidgin and creole languages such as Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea, as the word for "child" (or just young, as in the phrase pikinini pik, meaning piglet). In certain dialects of Caribbean English, the words pickney and pickney-negger are used to refer to children. Also in Sierra Leone Krio the term pikín refers to child or children. In Nigerian and Cameroonian Pidgin English, the term used is picken. In Chilapalapa, a pidgin language used in Southern Africa, the term used is pikanin. In Surinamese Sranan Tongo the term pikin may refer to children as well as to small or little.

What we can learn walking away from this is that different regions have different meanings for the word, I suppose. But the fact that wikipedia cites it as a racially-derogatory term indicates that there are plenty of places that do see this as something racial. Maybe your encounters provide a counter-point, but it's not as though one person pulled this idea out of their ass and it caught on.

Quote:But, if its used by a racist to make a hateful remark to a black person or child, then there's a problem. It's the hate that makes it what it is. And when there is hate, anything can be racist. I can call a man a failure, but if that man is black is he honestly going to think I speak of 'failure' in terms of being slaves? being genetically deficient in some form? or some other bullshit? is it *my* fault that he's paranoid about what a white says? No. I have no reason to alter or change my vocabulary in any way as to be 'more polite' to anyone or fear the use of a word because it may offend someone, somewhere, at some point, for some reason. Bullshit, bullshit bullshit.

I'm not suggesting that any aggression towards any black person is an act of racism, nor that people need to be overly-polite towards black people for fear of offending them. That may sound like a contradiction, but if it was completely unheard of that "pickaninny" had any racial connotations, I would have no problem with calling black children pickaninnies.

Quote:This is so wrong... on so many levels, sir. Claiming victimhood? Is that what blacks do? And not only that, but apparently I cant claim victimhood when I feel its appropriate because i'm not the right race?

And you complain about me "making these all encompassing claims and then I have to come in and explain and everything"? What you said makes no sense in the context of the debate and you completely twisted my words around. In a racial context, you can't really claim victimhood in the same way that blacks have and do. The best you could do is cite an example where you got beat up by a group of black kids because they wanted to get back at whitey, or some shit. But even that isn't on the same scale, because neither you nor your ancestors had to deal with institutionalized racism to the same degree.

The only race that's been shat on more than black people in this nation's history are Native Americans, and at least they weren't taken as slaves and forced to live side-by-side with people who hated them and constantly made to feel inferior through segregation when they finally were granted their freedom. Not that I'm minimizing what was done to Native Americans, but that's another topic.

Quote:There isn't a single black person alive today under the age of 30 that has dealt with any real persecution or inequality, or slavery, a side from idiot racists who banter on about whatever it is they're mad about.

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/loca...exion.html

Seriously, although we've made a lot of progress, we're still not completely there, and in fact are probably still far off.

Quote:But I do, in fact fully fully, have the right to feel persecuted. I was hugely fat, I was treated like absolute shit for it from anyone and everyone. I'd be sitting with my dad at a restaurant or at the movies just to have people walk by and collectively yell out "ew!" or make cow sounds or yell 'Oh God imagine that naked!" How about being a nine year old kid and getting ice cream from the ice cream truck and having a car load of people drive by and yell 'ENJOY YOUR ICE CREAM FATTY" and it happened every day, everywhere I went, no matter what I did or what context it was used in. Even when I was jogging or working out. I was constantly and consistently belittled through school and in anything I did. Dont you dare tell me I have no rights to feel persecuted or victimized or have the capacity to understand it. I dealt with more shit as an overweight white male than any average black guy in this day and age. Unless they lived up the road from a nightly clan meeting.

I suspect you're exaggerating. I've never seen fat people being verbally abused and discriminated against so much beyond grade school. Intolerance towards fat people, as towards any group of people, should not be tolerated, but if you're a fat or chunky white male, things are still looking pretty good for you in this country. I'd rather be a fat white male than a female or a racial minority any day of the week, not because they're inferior, but because perceptions towards them still aren't free of bias.

Just be glad you aren't a fat woman, given that so much more is expected out of women and their bodies/looks.

Quote:As far as black entertainers making fun of whites, it means absolutely nothing to me (a side from being funny or well executed), it doesn't offend and it's not because there's no slave history. In fact in my genes somewhere are people that were persecuted by Rome, probably in yours too. But we have the ability to laugh at ourselves, we have humility. Someone without those abilities will be 'victimized' at anything pointed in their general direction, all I have to do is say 'a black guy walked in to a bar' and the emotionally defunct will grip their fists in anger, but everyone else can enjoy the joke, including blacks.

I look forward to a day when races can freely poke fun at each other without it being misinterpretted or misconstrued as something truly hateful, but I don't quite think we're there yet.

Quote:The word cracker or honky or nigger or any derogatory word towards a race will cause pain if real hate is involved. If I get in a fender bender and a black guy gets out of his car and yells 'you stupid honky bitch!" You bet your ass i'm going to get offended, just as offended if I was black and called a nigger. It's hate, and I have every right to feel just as pissed as any other race.

It might hurt you, but it's easier to take lumps when you're part of the majority in power than a minority.

Quote:Tropic Thunder had some awesome moments and Robert Downy Jr's lines were some of the best. Why would anyone call that racist? The dyanmic that made it fun was that the black guy was being 'overly masculine and ghetto' to compensate for being homosexual and attempting to hide it while Downy was stuck in his character because he didn't like who he actually was and only comfortable portraying other people. In different contexts, they were the same person, both pretending their lives. I thought it was well written and hilarious. The black guy's char (forgot his name, his char or the actor :P) reminded me of the Family Guy quote "Behind every gold tooth is a man saying please dont look at my tiny penis." :FuckYou:

Tropic Thunder was pretty damn funny, but unfortunately, I thought it fell short. :( Some of the jokes just seemed cliched and weak, like "Oh these are just M&Ms" *makes it obvious that it's actually drugs*, and white guy dancing like a black guy (though the fact that it was Tom Cruise made it funnier), and some other things. It definitely had its moments, though, that Simple Jack stuff was pretty damned funny.

I dunno, I thought the black guy turning out to be gay was kind of cliched as well. It just seems like it's been done to death before. Still a funny movie and worth at least a rent, though.

I like all your points! I'll touch on two specifically for now:

Jack Black making it obvious it was drugs was important because its illegal drugs, in a film that young people might see, any film that might, in some way, could be considered a family event, the illegal drugs are put in very obvious and very bad light. Also, Jack Black is over dramatic which fits him well as he's so highly animated and physical. In a film where its audience would be mostly adults illegal drugs can be expressed more realistically. "did you score any bud? yeah got a dime from this scene kid, almost popped wood until I realized it was a boy." In a family film: LOK AT MARIJUEGNA OH NO *marijuana is lit specifically to highlight it amont the other props on the table* WHAT DO WE DO WITH IT, SHOULD WE SMOKE IT THAT WOULD BE BAD HUH OMGZ ITS ILEGAL I WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR". Black char being gay, hmm... my first thought was the sheriff from Blazing Saddles pretending to be gay.

Why Are Hollywood's Black Gay Characters on the Downlow?
http://www.queerty.com/why-are-hollywood...-20090212/

Hey! The NAACP Image Awards are today! Did you mark your calendar? Did you remember to buy extra popcorn? Were you only vaguely aware they existed and didn’t even know they were televised? You’re not alone, gay at-home viewer. While there’s a veritable cornucopia of gay characters on film and TV – Scotty on Brothers and Sisters, Eric on Gossip Girl, Dev in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Dr. Dakota in Grindhouse, etc. – there are depressingly few examples of characters on screen who are gay and black.

A forum yesterday in Los Angeles, “Knocking Down the Door: Black LGBT Images in Media,” hosted by GLAAD and the National Black Justice Coalition, explored both possible reasons for such underrepresentation, as well as what can be done to improve gay black visibility in entertainment.
"Just having an image of a black gay [character] alters your imagination of what can be possible."

The forum began, as all gay powwows in California usually do, with a grim post-mortem of the recent gay marriage ban. The panel forum, made up of high-profile out actors, writers, directors and media personalities, were united in their belief that the bill passage’s stemmed from a lack of gay visibility in the black community. If gay and black individuals are not open with their families members, their co-workers, their fellow churchgoers, the forum suggested, then the idea of someone being gay and black becomes something foreign and strange to many in the African American community. J. Karen Thomas, an out actor, singer and forum panelist describes it simply enough: "Most communication is non-verbal. Whether it’s in a film or on TV or in a commercial, we’re very affected by what we see. So just by having an image of a black gay, bisexual or lesbian, it alters your awareness and your imagination of what can be possible."

Thomas brought up the fact that numerous black actors, from Morgan Freeman to Chris Rock, played the role of American president well before most folks had heard of Barack Obama. By showing, often in a nonchalant way, that a black president was both feasible and possible, it helped clear the way for people to be comfortable with the idea of a black president like Obama. In the same way, Thomas contended, having images of LGBT characters struggling with the same problems as much of the audience members struggle with can only help increase awareness and recognition in the black community.
(cont'd)
--

I think the only times I have ever really seen a black on screen who is gay in any humorous way is one in prison from any numerous films, that might be the cliche you're sensing. But a lot of these even take the joke in to realms of being straight, but becoming gay in prison. Or inversely, a guy with his rag on, shirt in a front knot, etc gets free from prison, and scrambles to lose his gay identity and return to the hetero he was, as he only became gay to survive prison. But this was the first time I had ever seen the 'over compensating' gay guy who is trying to pretend he's hetero because he doesn't want to face it (remember the names of his drink and candy bar?), I thought that was pretty original and funny.

Fuckin Simple Jack, God it looked like an actual film that would have been made around the release year of Forrest Gump to cash in on 'lovable retards' as a genre completely ignoring the fact that its a classic 40's and 50's romance homage. Hell, it's probably based off a real script that was only kept around as a joke! :D

It's interesting that you thought 'white guy dancing like a black guy'. The humor in it that I got was that an older, overweight executive was dancing like he's you and fit. A person of the actual age portrayed wouldn't be able to move like that in a stressed out overweight body. Plus as you said, it's Tom Cruise and he's just being a dork in his character that oddly enough, also showcased the common theme of every main character on the show: we hide behind masks, whether its drugs, our personal torment and fight to be free and how we deal with life. Cruise's char was so uptight he was practically a soulless robot. The irony that he could dance so passionately and so obviously practiced but only in private gave an insight in to who he is. Why did you jump to him 'dancing like a black guy'? Isn't there plenty of latino people in music who also dance that way? or white? whether it's music videos (which the scene is supposed to resemble) or actual club dancing. Cruise also has a giant gold bling of a dollar sign which is mostly common with eccentric pimps, but i'm surprised you didn't catch the Ali G reference (or did you?) -- another character portrayed by a talent who uses masks (Sacha Baron Cohen), who is rarely interviewed or even seen outside of his characters. A real life version of Downey's character.

The actual song used from Ludacris (not his best, but quite decent) Get Back, carries the theme of the entire movie's story arc.

[Intro]
Heads up! Heads up!
Here's another one!
And a - and another one
OOHHHHHHHH!!!

[Chorus]
Yeek yeek woop woop!! why you all in my ear?!
Talking a whole bunch of shit
That I ain't trying to hear!
Get back muhfucker! You don't know me like that!
(Get back muhfucker!! You don't know me like that!!)
Yeek yeek woop woop!! I ain't playing around!
Make one false move I'll take ya down
Get back muhfucker! You don't know me like that!
(Get back muhfucker!! You don't know me like that!!)

[Verse]
WHOO!! S-s-so c'mon c'mon
DON'T ... get swung on, swung on
It's the knick knack paddywhack, still ride in Cadillacs
Family off the street! made my homies put the baggies back
Still stacking plaques! (yep!) still action packed! (yep!)
And dough!! I keep it flipping like acrobats!
That's why I pack a mac, that'll crack 'em back
Cause on my waist there's more Heat than the Shaq Attack
But I ain't speaking about ballin, ballin
Just thinking about brawlin till y'all start bawlin
We all in together now, birds of a feather now
Just bought a plane so we changing the weather now
So put your brakes on, caps put your capes on
Or knock off your block, get dropped and have your face flown
Cause I'll prove it! scratch off the music!
Like hey little stupid! don't make me lose it!!

[Chorus]

[Bridge - repeat 4x]
I came (I came) I saw (I saw)
I hit 'em right dead in the jaw (in the jaw)

[Verse]
See I caught 'em wit a right hook, caught 'em wit a jab
Caught 'em wit an uppercut, kicked 'em in his ass
Sent him on his way cause I ain't for that talk!
No trips to the county, I ain't for that walk!
We split like two pins at the end of a lane
We'll knock out your spotlight and put an end to your vain
Put a DTP pendant at the end of yo chain
Then put the booty of a Swisha at the end of a flame

[Chorus]

[Bridge]
HEY! You want what wit me?!
I'm a tell you one time, don't FUCK wit me!
GET DOWN! Cause I ain't got nothing to lose
I'm having a bad day, don't make me take it out on you!
You want what wit me?!
I'm a tell you one time, don't FUCK wit me!
GET DOWN! Cause I ain't got nothing to lose
And I'm having a bad day, don't make me take it out on you!

[Verse]
Man! Cause I don't wanna do that
I want to have a good time and enjoy my Jack
Sit back and watch the women get drunk as hell
So I can wake up in the morning wit a story to tell
I know it's been a lil while since I been out the house!
But now I'm here, you wanna stand around running your mouth?!
I can't hear nothing you saying or spitting, so wassup!
Can't you see we in the club?! Man shut the fuck up!!

[Chorus]

[Outro]
Ah! We in the Red Light District!!
Ah! We in the Red Light District!!
WHOO!! We in the Red Light District!!
Ah! We in the Red Light District!!
WHOO!! We in the Red Light District!!
WHOO!! The Red Light District!!
WHOO!! The Red Light District!!
Ah, we in The Red Light District

---

The litteral words: Get back, you dont know me like that, is the theme of every main character who surprises us by revealing who they really are. The other aspects of the song talk about dealing with life's issues and how it change and that we cant judge them until we see them at their worst and at their best. Who we are, in particular, the tough exterior and that built-up emotional callous that protects us from getting hurt or dragged down emotionally to just 'survive' the often ego-wrenching day to day formalities of living and how we deal with stress and relieving it. In that part of that particular song, he even says I rarely leave the house, mentions that he's at a club, and now some guy is giving him trouble and wants to fight. To relieve stress, he went dancing at a club, which is what Cruise is doing in his private office.

I caught the little cross overs and moments of aha! on my second watch, first watch I just laughed because Cruise was reenacting a poorly made rap video and had the Ali G reference, though I didn't understand all the dynamics. But not once did I think Cruise was attempting to dance like a black guy, or do anything of any particular nature that could specifically relate to black American (or otherwise) culture without also including everyone else.

Butt shaking, high kicks, phat beats, rolling, bambam, hand cross, jazz hands, sticky fingers, spongebob and tictac are also all portrayed in Lazy Town by a vaguely European prepubescent white/asian (?) girl and my buddy Sportacus, who i'd go gay for, and has no race because his facial hair defies reality and laughs defiantly at human laws of physics and dont even get me started at his ass cleavage and both of them very non black (tho there are black chars on the show obviously, with other races as well). Maybe it was just hearing the song by Ludacris that put you in the mind frame, but that was picked specifically for its title and content, if not made specifically for the movie, but the fact that its rap shouldn't push any connotation of being black. His (Cruise) entire style and everything he did reminded me of N-Sync, which is I thought was the humor. Attractive teen heart throb movements and actions on an older, out of shape character who is a high level business executive and very ass-to-chair.

The other thing i'd like to touch on is that article you posted.

Holy shit.

oops.

If you research the swim club in question and read up on the aftermath of the whole event, turns out its an adult swim club. 'Changing the complexion' was speaking directly to all the children that were coming in. They wanted an adult atmosphere and there were adult blacks, peurto ricans, mexicans, etc that never had a problem at the pool or with the club. All the kids were coming in because there was a lack of places to swim, so the club opened its doors to the schools and summer camps so that for a fee, the regulated pool could be used. But the sheer number of kids that arrived in buss after buss was too much for the club and they had to start sending kids away.

They knew each school coming in, they knew which schools/camps were primarily black and completely welcomed them. But once the droves of kids showed up, it was too much for the club and they told them they had to leave and returned the money. Race was never an issue, the kids did nothing wrong, the club did nothing wrong.

But WOW, what a terrible fucking choice of words. "There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion…and the atmosphere of the club."

Complexion. A word commonly used for skin.

Atmosphere. A calm, relaxed atmosphere.... for rich white people. Invaded by (you guessed it!) noisy picaninnies.

This is the real racism, not what the club did or said, but that people implied whatever they wanted and used it to their advantage to boost their already skewed views. I dont doubt there were hateful people at the pool who pay good money to AVOID kids and noise and took out their aggressions vocally. But the words complexion and atmosphere spoke directly to the fact that this was a private club with a maintained pool, kids make messes and cause trouble, get in fights, splash and dive, scream and laugh etc ruining all the fun for the uppity WASPy nigger-hating God fearing Christian republicans :Fuck you: never mind the other minorities, members at the pool. The complexion of the adult swim club with too many kids, making it unattractive for adults. That's it.

"I heard this lady, she was like, 'Uh, what are all these black kids doing here?' She's like, 'I'm scared they might do something to my child,'" said camper Dymire Baylor.

Let's paint a picture.

A middle to upperclass white woman with her white children is upset that kids from an urban, inner city summercamp all jump in with their slang, talk of Nike's and who shot their neighbor last night, etc. Scaring the shit out of Mommy Dearest. This isn't racism, everybody tenses up around inner city people, regardless of color. Look at New York. Crime is almost 50/50 between black and white people. So Mommy Dearest tensed up because her privately schooled children would be easy pickings for toughened city kids. I would have done the same thing if my were under 8 or so. By 9 he or she should know how to toughen up.

"When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool," Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. "The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately."

This is horrible if true. But imagine being an employee and taking the risk of saying 'blacks aren't allowed' (which is already untrue as there are black adults who are members of the pool) and the hell you could catch for it, not just getting fired, but getting sued. I think seeing the white kids exit the pool and the 'minorities aren't allowed' were misheard and skewed from what actually happened. It was the fear of a black mom who felt disrespected. Tie it in with the above; a white mom called her kids in. I'm sure that happened, but it wasn't something like EW NIGGER COOTIES! it was genuinely worried parents who aren't used to having suburb kids mix with city kids.

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/loca...-Race.html

Wow.

A private pool opened for summer camps to beat the heat but they couldn't handle all the people and they were losing the revenue of their traditional adult customers. They turn the camps down and refund them. Suddenly, confused people who didnt understand why a flood of 60+ kids jumped in the pool and called their kids in so they dont get thrashed in the wake are now 'yelling racial slurs'.... Jesus. This is exactly what I was talking about.

If it were a buss load of white kids that were told they cant stay, there's no news. Other than maybe the private club looking like crusty old farts who dont want kids to have fun. Now, just because 'blacks' are involved, anyone suffering from 'white guilt' or any black who fears everything that comes out of a white mouth, are on their soap boxes... preaching to the choir. Man what a disgusting mess. All of it would have been completely avoided if the pool owners would have just rescheduled until they can hire more crew to regulate the pool and keep their adult members happy along with allowing the children to have fun.