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I’ve been wondering where the line is drawn when deciding if something is racist or not. Some examples of controversy that keep coming up: Cultural Appropriation: Is it acceptable for white people to wear dreadlocks? My own view is that religious appropriation can be insulting. If the Saints football team were to have literal saints as their mascot, with Saint Peter being wheeled in on an upside-down cross, turning wine into fish or whatever, that probably would get shut down pretty quick because it would be insulting. A Lakota headdresses Halloween costume might be a similar sort of misuse of religious iconography. On the other hand, I’m unable to muster the same concern over white people succeeding in the non-religious fields of jazz trumpet or twerking. Institutionalization : The proposal of policies like a service cut or rate increase for public transportation is often decried as racist, due to its disparate impact on poor minorities. However, if the (mostly white) Boston transit worker’s union decided to go on strike, would that not be a decision to worsen a disadvantage to minorities in an attempt to benefit a white membership? Of course, the strikers are just looking out for themselves, not trying to disrupt anyone else’s life. But looking out for yourself sometimes means perpetuating institutional racism - just like middle class parents look out for their children by supporting local funding for local school districts, to keep their tax dollars out of poorer schools. But still, should a strike by laborers really be called out as racist? Meta-racism: Is it racist for a white man to straight up tell a black man that what he experienced as racism is, in fact, not racism? While the white guy is less likely to have expertise in the area, nobody’s perfect, and it may be impractical to hunt for another person of color to explain that service dogs are not, in fact, racist. (This came up when a black man demanded that another patron’s dog be removed from a restaurant, insisting that “I don’t care how many permits you show, there’s no way in Hell a black person would ever be allowed in here with a dog.”) Geography: Should retail workers be able to complain that people from southern India keep coming in and trying to bargain down the marked price of goods, without being called out for racism? I say yes, since it’s a geographical difference, not racism. Similarly, “Asians suck at driving”: racist. “People who learned to drive in Beijing suck at driving”: not racist. This is because Beijing roads are terrible. Archaic terms: Unlike racial slurs, Asian Americans I know don’t seem to take the term ‘Oriental’ seriously. It’s a lot like an Israeli getting called ‘an Israelite’. He is more likely to find the other person ridiculous than to be offended. Of course, there are two very different types of racism. Here’s an example of an exchange that happens from time to time: Blowdryer posted:I've heard multiple times that "black people can't be racist since we don't stand to benefit from such a system." Shageletic posted:Whenever a white person is racist, they're not just talking with their own voice, but an entire system centered around the immutability of that fact. That's the difference, and why your post is nonsense. Amergin posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8UTj8lQJhY Quorum posted:It's a collision of two different vocabularies, and it comes off to anyone not "with it" as totally preposterous because black people can, manifestly, be racist, in the common sense. So it appears like disingenuous reframing of the discussion for little benefit. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3744252#post450807346 quote:I'm not racist, and I'm a good person. If you are, you're a bad person. Got a problem, whites? Perhaps if you are referring to someone’s racism as a barb aimed against their character, then you should specify that they are, like, a Racist-racist?
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Dec 1, 2015 19:08
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If you have to ask, the answer is "yes, it's racist".
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Dec 1, 2015 20:32
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white people are experts at racism
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Dec 1, 2015 20:34
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You can't codify social interactions. There are no rules that you can write down about what is and isn't racist or what is or isn't pornography or what is or isn't offensive etc. Everything is dependent on a constantly shifting social context that is unique for every situation.
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Dec 1, 2015 20:36
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Not to mention the historical context of, well, everything.
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Dec 1, 2015 20:37
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PC Police just trying to put you down for speaking your mind. But yes, that's racist.
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Dec 1, 2015 21:26
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Phyzzle posted:Geography: Should retail workers be able to complain that people from southern India keep coming in and trying to bargain down the marked price of goods, without being called out for racism? Is "I don't like Canadian customers because they're disrespectful and demanding" racist? What about when you combine that with the fact that white racists often use "Canadian" as a code word for "black", a practice particularly prevalent in the restaurant industry? Incidentally, unless you're having a deep conversation with those customers about their childhood, how are you supposed to know where they came from? You have no way of knowing whether that driver who just cut you off learned to drive in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, or Cinncinati - so if you're saying anything at all about where they learned to drive, then you must be assuming it based on the color of their skin. Is "they are Asian and a bad driver, they must be a bad driver because they're Asian" really less racist than "they are Asian and a bad driver, they must be from Beijing which makes them a bad driver"? quote:Archaic terms: Unlike racial slurs, Asian Americans I know don’t seem to take the term ‘Oriental’ seriously. It’s a lot like an Israeli getting called ‘an Israelite’. He is more likely to find the other person ridiculous than to be offended. Tell us more about which racist terms aren't offensive because your Asian friends said so. Couldn't you have gone the extra mile and trotted out a black friend to defend "archiac" centuries-old slurs like "Negro"?
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Dec 1, 2015 21:43
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Blahsmack posted:white people are experts at racism Well we have had plenty of practice, since you bring it up. Main Paineframe posted:If you have to ask, the answer is "yes, it's racist". This is usually the correct answer.
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Dec 1, 2015 21:47
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Main Paineframe posted:If you have to ask, the answer is "yes, it's racist".
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Dec 1, 2015 21:52
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I could have sworn we had this conversation six months ago and we agreed to not play AOK as Saladin without the proper headress.
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Dec 1, 2015 21:53
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I have to agree that some racial epithets are so dated they're almost comical. I guess this is more appropriate to black epithets since they've generally had a lot more history in being discriminated against in English so there's a rather bizarre situation where there are actually archaic slurs, which is pretty crazy when you think about it. I guess you can sort of accurately determine the level of knowledge someone is operating at based on what choice of language they use to denigrate a black person. It seems to be linked to how long and how visible a particular group of people tend to be in the larger culture. I'm Roma, and Roma have generally been around a long time, but we've not been a hugely visible in the way that, say, Asian or Black people have, so there's not a huge amount of slurs labelled at us because it generally doesn't crop up much. It might make for an interesting study, but I'm not sure who would fund it.
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Dec 1, 2015 21:58
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Phyzzle posted:While the white guy is less likely to have expertise in the area, nobody’s perfect, and it may be impractical to hunt for another person of color to explain that service dogs are not, in fact, racist. (This came up when a black man demanded that another patron’s dog be removed from a restaurant, insisting that “I don’t care how many permits you show, there’s no way in Hell a black person would ever be allowed in here with a dog.”) Main Paineframe posted:Tell us more about which racist terms aren't offensive because your Asian friends said so. Couldn't you have gone the extra mile and trotted out a black friend to defend "archiac" centuries-old slurs like "Negro"?
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Dec 1, 2015 22:09
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Ddraig posted:It seems to be linked to how long and how visible a particular group of people tend to be in the larger culture. I'm Roma, and Roma have generally been around a long time, but we've not been a hugely visible in the way that, say, Asian or Black people have, so there's not a huge amount of slurs labelled at us because it generally doesn't crop up much. Main Paineframe posted:Tell us more about which racist terms aren't offensive because your Asian friends said so. Couldn't you have gone the extra mile and trotted out a black friend to defend "archiac" centuries-old slurs like "Negro"?
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Dec 1, 2015 22:17
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If your 80-something grandpa never got away from calling black people "negros", that's one thing. If you're a 20-something trying to do it, you're not really being honest about your intentions. It's like niggardly. Yes, it's not racist and is completely unrelated to "friend of the family". However, you're not fooling anyone if you insist on using it, as it has been a rather obscure word for a while. I don't feel the same about the mistaken belief of "picnic", however. (Or "Turkey in the Straw" being used as music, or "cakewalk", or other things.) "Negro spirituals" is a lot like the NAACP having "colored people" in it (Or more exact, the United Negro College Fund). The terminology was made at a time that was widely different, and now would probably have a different name. This sort of euphemism creep happens all the time in language, and it's not some evil gotcha game, it's just how language works. There is arguably no plain English word for penis, because "penis" is originally Latin for "sword", and even slang terms like "cock" are references to other things. Basically, part of the problem with racism is that we have successfully made the most overt aspects of it incredibly unacceptable, while not generally ensuring the original white supremacy that backed those actions have been removed. It's the same thing that happened when Reconstruction was given up, and it comes as a general rejection of actual reparative justice as being a necessary part of solving the problem. (Mind you, it's not a simple solution.) So yes, you may roll your eyes at microaggressions, but that's just how racism is practiced today.
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Dec 1, 2015 22:45
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White people who proffer opinions on what is and is not racist are probably racist themselves. --white people, mostly Calling other white people racist in a desperate attempt to wash our hands of a colonialist past is part of white culture and we'd appreciate it if you didn't appropriate it, thanks. Quorum fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Dec 2, 2015 |
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Dec 1, 2015 23:57
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Racism is a European invention, first created by Diego San Martin in 1438, please do not appropriate it it is our culture. Namaste.
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Dec 2, 2015 02:39
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The endless obsession over what might or might not be offensive is one of the most obnoxious things about the left in the US these past 10 years or so.
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Dec 2, 2015 03:43
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-Troika- posted:The endless obsession over what might or might not be offensive is one of the most obnoxious things about the left in the US these past 10 years or so. Yeah and the blatant racism is the most obnoxious thing about the right in the US these past 239 years or so.
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Dec 2, 2015 03:46
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nutranurse posted:Yeah and the blatant racism is the most obnoxious thing about the right in the US these past 239 years or so. And misogyny, homophobia, and various other assorted bigotries, etc.
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Dec 2, 2015 03:52
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The answers btw are: Contextual, Contextual, Contextual, Yes, Yes.
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Dec 2, 2015 03:53
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nutranurse posted:Yeah and the blatant racism is the most obnoxious thing about the right in the US these past 239 years or so. / 
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Dec 2, 2015 03:55
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Main Paineframe posted:If you have to ask, the answer is "yes, it's racist".
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Dec 2, 2015 03:59
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Main Paineframe posted:If you have to ask, the answer is "yes, it's racist". Main Paineframe posted:Incidentally, unless you're having a deep conversation with those customers about their childhood, how are you supposed to know where they came from? Main Paineframe posted:You have no way of knowing whether that driver who just cut you off learned to drive in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, or Cinncinati - so if you're saying anything at all about where they learned to drive, then you must be assuming it based on the color of their skin. As in, "My friend should not have bought another car. He is a bad driver. Probably because he's from China" "Whoah Whoah pal - what does his race have to do with anything?" rudatron posted:The answers btw are: Contextual, Contextual, Contextual, Yes, Yes. For #2, how about In the context of a hypothetical Boston Transit Strike? Would it become a Yes? Constant Hamprince posted:Racism is a European invention, first created by Diego San Martin in 1438, please do not appropriate it it is our culture. Namaste. Oh dear, Namepaste is appropriated from Hinduism before our very eyes.
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Dec 2, 2015 07:02
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Off the top of my head "cultural appropriation" seems like the dumbest one to me. My sister is black and straightens her hair and uses a weave. I'll be sure to tell her she's appropriating white culture by straightening her hair. Neither I nor anyone I know could possibly give less of a poo poo if some white girl wants to wear dreads under a rasta hat and write lovely poetry. The other one I always thought was dumb was, "white people can't experience racism". If I had to guess, I doubt most white people are all that hurt by being called honkey or whatever but one of the elementary schools I went to when I was a kid only had a few white kids and I remember they got teased and bullied pretty mercilessly because of it. Anyone can be made to feel lovely under the right circumstances. And I really don't see the need or the point in insisting that racism is something that white people can't feel. It just seems childish, petty, and yet another in a long list of distractions from actual important issues. There's only 24 hours in a news cycle so there actually is a hard limit on "multi-tasking" And there is a mountain of other far more impactful race issues that need to be addressed before we even begin to start thinking about this kind of ridiculous minutiae.
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Dec 2, 2015 10:27
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Not sure the point of this Byrd photo? Southern Democrats are right wing as gently caress (as Byrd was a classic example of). Edit: Hell, Strom Thurmond was a Southern Democrat that felt that there wasn't enough racism and started the Dixiecrats, then went to the GOP. Horseshoe theory fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Dec 2, 2015 |
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Dec 2, 2015 10:32
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foobardog posted:It's like niggardly. Yes, it's not racist and is completely unrelated to "friend of the family". However, you're not fooling anyone if you insist on using it, as it has been a rather obscure word for a while. Context: British usage is different to US, as is cultural context. "Niggardly" is used infrequently in the UK but it has no racial overtones. So if a British person uses it in the US then it isn't being used in a racial way. "Whilst Yanks are so niggardly with their holidays that a chap can have as little as a fortnight, the Brits are much more generous." Ask Benedict Cumberbatch for clarification. E: Whilst you are apportioning blame and applying group labels to individuals you personally dislike (hmmm, sound familiar?), you might consider the vast amount of cultural and linguistic context you have to know about the speaker to morally police that person. Josef K. Sourdust fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Dec 2, 2015 |
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Dec 2, 2015 10:35
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foobardog posted:It's like niggardly. Yes, it's not racist and is completely unrelated to "friend of the family". However, you're not fooling anyone if you insist on using it, as it has been a rather obscure word for a while. If the person has already given you plenty of reason to think they're a racist rear end in a top hat, and they are weirdly using this word an awful lot, then yes it is probably a safe to assume they are doing it in the course of being an ordinary racist dickface. Stop hanging around racists. If on the other hand someone who you have no reason to think is racist uses this word, and you proceed to make a federal case about it, then you are the dickface even if they dig in their heels in response to your ignorant bullying. I mean you mentioned picnic as a counterexample, but censoring one of these words is just as dumb as censoring the other.
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Dec 2, 2015 11:01
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Honestly it's weird that Oriental has picked up a negative connotation, because it has an actual inverse, but one without any connotation at all - Occidental.Phyzzle posted:For #2, how about In the context of a hypothetical Boston Transit Strike? Would it become a Yes? You cannot conflate rate increases that target captured groups (that enrich the owners at the expense of the minorities) vs. workers fighting for their rights - they aren't the same. Getting a fair wage is not morally equivalent to price gouging. How do you tell the difference? Use your brain. Come on, you already know the rules by now.
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Dec 2, 2015 13:21
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Kilroy posted:No this is stupid. If a person has to "insist" on using it, that assumes that someone has already called them out for using it in the first place, which shouldn't have happened. No, everybody has to bend over backwards to make sure nobody precious, precious feelings ever gets hurts.
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Dec 2, 2015 13:55
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I agree, it's a huge imposition to not shout racist abuse at people. Next they'll be asking us to stop flinging handfuls of our poo poo at people. It's political correctness gone mad.
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Dec 2, 2015 14:03
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Ddraig posted:I agree, it's a huge imposition to not shout racist abuse at people. Next they'll be asking us to stop flinging handfuls of our poo poo at people. Yes. a word like niggardly is exactly the same as shouting racist abuse.
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Dec 2, 2015 14:04
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rudatron posted:Blaming transit workers for striking as racist is just absurd. No, it's clever. You pit one set of downtrodden people against another, so that they can fight each other instead of banding together against the 1%.
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Dec 2, 2015 14:07
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Kilroy posted:No this is stupid. If a person has to "insist" on using it, that assumes that someone has already called them out for using it in the first place, which shouldn't have happened. Actually context matters a lot and there is a context that picnic is a super common word that people use all the time and niggardly is a word that nobody ever uses so clearly you're going out of your way to troll people if you use it in casual conversation.
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Dec 2, 2015 14:44
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Salt Fish posted:Actually context matters a lot and there is a context that picnic is a super common word that people use all the time and niggardly is a word that nobody ever uses so clearly you're going out of your way to troll people if you use it in casual conversation. More common than "miserly" until the mid-seventies or so. I agree context does matter, and that's why I'm saying that if it's a person who is strangely using the word a lot, or seems to be searching for reasons to use the word, then you can probably peg that person as a racist dick. However if a person just uses that word as a one-off, and you have no other reason to think they're a racist, and especially if that person was born before, let's say 1960 or so, then calling that person a racist for using the word just makes you a stupid loving bully and you should knock it off.
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Dec 2, 2015 15:01
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Computer, give me "whiteness microcosm"Phyzzle posted:I’ve been wondering where the line is drawn when deciding if something is racist or not. Some examples of controversy that keep coming up: thank you computer (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 2, 2015 15:05
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This is a serious question to Ddraig. The British media have started to use the term "travellers" in general reports. I can see that this is due to a wish to avoid the term "gypsy". However, "traveller" in British usage can mean Roma, Sinti, Irish traveller or hippy/counter-culture traveller. That covers a very wide range of groups/individuals. Do you (and the people you know) have strong feelings about being called "Roma", "gypsy" or "traveller"? And for outsiders it is hard to distinguish between the Sinti and Roma. Is at acceptable - when you don't have more exact information - to refer to individuals from either group as "gypsy"? Automatically going to "Roma" seems to be inaccurate. Is "gypsy" an acceptable substitute?
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Dec 2, 2015 15:15
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rudatron posted:Honestly it's weird that Oriental has picked up a negative connotation, because it has an actual inverse, but one without any connotation at all - Occidental. rudatron posted:Blaming transit workers for striking as racist is just absurd. Just because strikes inconvenience you as a consumer, does not mean that they are necessarily a bad thing. Unions are the ones on the front lines , protecting workers and fighting for stuff like a higher minimum wage, they deserve respect. The only possible exception are police unions, because they tend not to fight stuff like higher minimum wages, just protect officers from litigation (even when the officer has clearly done something wrong). Transit strikes don't just inconvenience consumers - they endanger the employment of people who can't afford cars. Getting a fair wage is not morally equivalent to price gouging, but is it morally equivalent to getting a quality local school? I'd say they are roughly morally equivalent. So is it also absurd to blame people who vote for school funding inequities as racist?
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Dec 2, 2015 17:25
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whiteyfats posted:No, everybody has to bend over backwards to make sure nobody precious, precious feelings ever gets hurts. What exactly does being called racist get you besides hurt feelings though? If words can't hurt people, that goes both ways.
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Dec 2, 2015 18:10
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Lyesh posted:What exactly does being called racist get you besides hurt feelings though? If words can't hurt people, that goes both ways. Being called a racist, or more specifically being accused of racism, carries potentially huge personal secondary effects well beyond any similar effects caused by being hit with a racial/gender/etc slur. Depending on the region it can carry more damage than an unprovable accusation of child molestation.
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Dec 2, 2015 18:35
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Kilroy posted:No this is stupid. If a person has to "insist" on using it, that assumes that someone has already called them out for using it in the first place, which shouldn't have happened. I don't disagree. Basically it works like this. A black person overreacts. They're human after all. Part of the overreaction comes due to awareness of poo poo like "Canadians". Derogatory terms have the same drift. Most people roll their eyes and move on. A certain class of white people realize they have a new term to tweak black people. They begin using it harshly. Black people see what's happening and complain about it. Then other white people wade in and act as if they are responding to the original use rather than this new use. The idea that black people complain for no reason and their concerns are not worth listening to is enshrined. There's a long post making fun of a former D&D personality who had a way of derailing conversations with completely unsupported bullshit, and when attacked on it, someone missing the entire thread, attacks the attackers. This is the black experience when talking about issues affecting them. Nation of Islam is shown as why black people shouldn't be taken seriously, but white nationalists do not do the same for white people. They are their own thing.
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Dec 2, 2015 18:49
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