Racist? yes, NO?

[lazyfatbum]

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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: