Racist - The Bear and Badger

hunk

I luv KimChi. Pure genius with Korean BBQ.
But then again I also luv sauerkraut.

RedDave2

Diluted Dante wrote:

Kow wrote:

Sure, but you can't tell culture just by looking at someone. Saying that Polish, Irish, British etc are identifiable just by looking is nonsense.

Mullets.

Hahahaha.... true.

Kow wrote:

There are characteristics that are more prominent in certain areas. But that doesn't let you identify anyone really. Phrasing something as "they all look the same to me" is obviously unacceptable. But I couldn't tell you if someone is Korean or Chinese anymore than I could tell you if they are South Korean or North Korean. I don't have the knowledge to make a distinction, if there is one, but I don't think it makes me a racist not to know it.

Absolutely, hope it didnt come across as implying I was. But I think thats my point and I'd wonder outside of generalities how we think nationalities look (take the Irish as red haired and pale - fairly untrue if you are living in Waterford) most people would struggle. I wonder do Chinese spot the difference in say a Korean person over a Japanese person over a Mongolian for example? Probably in a general sense but there's always variations even in small areas. Someone from Newcastle will generally look quite different to a person who lives in Brighton (from my experience)

But also as I said - ethnic is not physical appearance. It can play a part (its likely a big part of being African American in the states and also, sadly, the White Supremacists cultures), but it is more about your social and cultural background than how you look in general.

I think the phrase "they all the look the same to me" has a justified negative connotation because it usually is used as an justification for lumping a load of cultures together in a way which is usually derogatory. But I think for many people, there are plenty of countries whose physical features we both assume and lump together in a way that isn't meant as demeaning.

Armitage_Shankburn

Minnesänger wrote:

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

I don't like kimchi.

Racist.

Was it you who told me the Chinese racist joke about Koreans?

Spoiler:

GooberTheHat

Gal Gadot as Cleopatra then, seems to be causing a bit of a stir.

Personally I don't really see the issues, considering Cleopatra was Ptolemaic, so of Greek/Macedonian origins, and also the Israelites were from the region anyway, so... Am I missing some context here or is it misplaced anger?

Armitage_Shankburn

Yeah but she's russian, probably

Armitage_Shankburn

Ok half Russian, half German. I'm being tongue in cheek but still, they could have cast an Arab, Turk, Greek, if you justify casting decisions by ethnicity (which you really shouldn't, come to think of it. Salma Hayek would have made a good Cleopatra, off the top of me head)

RedDave2

Just wait until they cast Adam Driver as the next black panther...

Kow

I hope she gets the Ptolemaic era Egyptian accent right.

LivDiv

As a straight white male I am offended and that is what really matters.

How can I be expected to comfortably watch this Hollywood movie and virtue signal?

I put a black square on my Instagram a few months back and now this.

RedDave2

Kow wrote:

I hope she gets the Ptolemaic era Egyptian accent right.

I hope the dialect is accurate.

Joking aside, I actually see both sides on this and I really don't know where I land opinion wise. I think acting is a craft or skill that involves you playing as something that you aren't.

The flipside is , especially with a historical figure, in an age of other cultures feeling white washed and pillaged, it makes sense that people would be miffed at thus.

Diluted Dante

I don't really get the calling to cast an African as a Greek, instead of an Israeli.

Kow

It's a political thing. Israel borders Egypt - there's not going to be much in the way of whitewashing.

Armitage_Shankburn

Diluted Dante wrote:

I don't really get the calling to cast an African as a Greek, instead of an Israeli.

Because Cleopatra was African, by that stage, (saying she's greek is like saying the queen's German) and is usually portrayed as dark skinned. No one knows what she looks like, the Roman sources just say she seduced Caesar and ensorcelled Marc Anthony. Coinage suggests she looked, well, Egyptian.

What a silly conversation to be having. I just wanted to ridicule the notion that a modern day Israeli was somehow a dead ringer for an Egyptian from over 2000 years ago by getting my cheap "oh so she's russian" gag out of the way. Now I feel soiled.

b0r1s

Akala breaks some of that here. Not Gonz’s joke.

It’s a few years old, but well worth a watch imo:

dynamiteReady

GooberTheHat wrote:

Gal Gadot as Cleopatra then, seems to be causing a bit of a stir. Personally I don't really see the issues, considering Cleopatra was Ptolemaic, so of Greek/Macedonian origins, and also the Israelites were from the region anyway, so... Am I missing some context here or is it misplaced anger?

These kind of arguments are always odd. I get it (fighting marginalization - In my lifetime, I can clearly recall racist caricatures of almost every ethnic minority on TV. If you were lucky enough to see any minority figures at all), but also hope for objectivity.

Can't really say much more than that, but this Wikipedia page is food for thought:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayum_mummy_portraits

Brooks

Based on those the biggest problem with the Gadot casting is that she's comparatively squinty.

b0r1s

I hope she tweets from her right phone this time.

Facewon

https://youtu.be/H94mfxMTmc4

This is really really good.

hunk

Now that's what dragging the (political) 'centre' to the fringe right looks like.
And most of the general public don't even realise it. Normal is 'normal', right?

mistercrayon

“White privilege” as a concept and why I don’t like it.
(Of course I can see where it comes from and what it can mean).

Firstly (but not least) my main issue with it is it defaults an opposition where none needs to exist. I think the concept sort of relates to structural problems but I think they exhibit themselves more likely at a personal level. I don’t see it as helpful in that context.

More specifically I don’t think this idea that white people are inherently privileged is good when it is manifestly clear that most don’t have any of the trappings of privilege nor have they necessarily earnt in a fair way any ire. Yet the concept automatically puts that person on a back foot. They are assumed to come from a either start from a place of humility or be called out on it if they express anything where they stand up for themselves. I’m not keen on any situation where a person has to start with no conscious reason to be on the back foot. I just don’t think it’s a healthy way for a person to live. In preference I’d have people making mistakes and work through them not assuming the worst or humiliating the person into feeling like a racist when they might not be.

I think additionally it feels like too much of a blunt instrument. From my own life I know dozens and dozens of people who have come to this country and have worked through their lives from very humble beginnings (ie our parents were all refugees). I’d find it extremely difficult to say to someone who worked at, for example, my school or cared for a relative that they’d had white privilege. So I wonder if i find it difficult to say that to someone how can I be on board with it?

And even further if they decide to stand up for themselves but by accident happen to be white is it right to admonish them with that blunt tool? I think this is how I perceive the phrase being used right now.

Maybe there is a subtler meaning to the term but I think if we are bandying such terms but we are implying subtlety then I think it’s the job of the term to reflect that subtlety. I think as it stands it is too much of a brutal weapon.

Hopefully that gets across why I feel uncomfortable with the concept.

Funkstain

It does. Fuck me.

Unlikely

Tin has written an excellent post on this elsewhere.

Be wary of making assumptions.

Unlikely

Those two sentences are unrelated.

b0r1s

mistercrayon wrote:

“White privilege” as a concept and why I don’t like it. (Of course I can see where it comes from and what it can mean). Firstly (but not least) my main issue with it is it defaults an opposition where none needs to exist. I think the concept sort of relates to structural problems but I think they exhibit themselves more likely at a personal level. I don’t see it as helpful in that context. More specifically I don’t think this idea that white people are inherently privileged is good when it is manifestly clear that most don’t have any of the trappings of privilege nor have they necessarily earnt in a fair way any ire. Yet the concept automatically puts that person on a back foot. They are assumed to come from a either start from a place of humility or be called out on it if they express anything where they stand up for themselves. I’m not keen on any situation where a person has to start with no conscious reason to be on the back foot. I just don’t think it’s a healthy way for a person to live. In preference I’d have people making mistakes and work through them not assuming the worst or humiliating the person into feeling like a racist when they might not be. I think additionally it feels like too much of a blunt instrument. From my own life I know dozens and dozens of people who have come to this country and have worked through their lives from very humble beginnings (ie our parents were all refugees). I’d find it extremely difficult to say to someone who worked at, for example, my school or cared for a relative that they’d had white privilege. So I wonder if i find it difficult to say that to someone how can I be on board with it? And even further if they decide to stand up for themselves but by accident happen to be white is it right to admonish them with that blunt tool? I think this is how I perceive the phrase being used right now. Maybe there is a subtler meaning to the term but I think if we are bandying such terms but we are implying subtlety then I think it’s the job of the term to reflect that subtlety. I think as it stands it is too much of a brutal weapon. Hopefully that gets across why I feel uncomfortable with the concept.

There's your white privilege.

Unlikely

Facepalm.

LivDiv

My penny's worth is that it absolutely should be taught in schools alongside all other major privilege or oppression that exists in our society.
Race, gender, class, creed, sexuality are probably the main ones but there are other more fringe things.

An individual's privilege or lack of is a formula not a shoutable catch phrase based on one aspect of themselves.

I think this might have been what Monkey was getting at earlier. It isnt to deny white privilege exists but to recognise there are other aspects at play.
So shouting "White privilege" at someone isnt going to get them onside if they are a white woman, lesbian, from a council flat, single parent upbringing. Their privilege from being white has been eroded dramatically by all the other oppression they face.

What needs to be taught is that these things exist but shouldn't and the only way to eradicate them is to stop judging individuals by these binary labels whether the outcome of that judgement is good or bad.

Roujin

Guys, I dunno. I was writing a long post but honestly for me, calling it white privilege is calling it what it is. When I see white people talking about how they don't feel privileged, they don't understand the concept and it's as simple as that. Someone should explain to them what it means, and if after that they still don't agree that they are subject to certain privileges that others don't get (like being able to go about your business without being randomly stopped by the police) then I have to wonder if their continual denial is actually just the mask slipping and a bit of their bigotry showing through.

As a cracker who has no rhythm and is genetically predisposed to apparently having a smaller penis that some other members of my biological sex, I don't think that it's a combative term, I think it provokes a strong reaction in some people, and rightly so. That defensive gut reaction of "I'm white and I don't feel privileged" is probably the cognitive dissonance someone is experiencing when they are confronted with evidence that "The UK is one of the most tolerant countries on the planet" is not the same thing as saying "The UK is a tolerant country" for the first time. Changing the name of it, to lessen the impact of the term, to me, makes it far easier for people to ignore and keep their heads in the sand and carry on acting like racism doesn't exist in the UK.

I just find it incredibly frustrating that white people continually take offence at the term. You can't help being born white, no one is saying you should feel bad because you're white or that you are responsible for the activities of your racist forefathers and the systemic racist society you now live in as a result. I find that people are a lot less angry about things like male privilege, or cis privilege, somehow it's easier for people to acknowledge that a patriarchal society run mostly by straight men for the entirety of human civilisation has created a system that treats a group of people differently than the rest, but applying the concept to the activities of white people as a society is somehow a bridge too far and isn't fair all of a sudden.

Tin's post was great, but I really feel like changing the language around these issues to make them more palatable for people (white people) to face up to makes it a lot easier to bury their head in the sand and continue acting like the UK is a great and fair country and isn't racist. To a greater degree I think than it harms the cause of human rights by using the word "privilege" and making it seem like white people are getting something over and above the bare minimum of what people should expect. Edit - I dunno what the fuck that last sentence even means reading this back. If you know, send your answers on a postcard. Oh wait I figured it out - I'm saying I think the damage done to human rights causes by allowing the word privilege to be used when talking about racially upheld basic human rights is probably not as great as the ongoing damage caused by allowing people to remain ignorant of the problem by giving it a more easy on the ear title to save the sensibilities of all us whiteys.

I have no idea what Crayon is talking about tbh it sounds like he hangs around with people who just use "white privilege" completely inappropriately, which is no wonder why people are getting admonished with it for some reason. Kind of hard to even get meaningfully admonished if you're part of the hegemony tbh. Although I think that's half the problem, a lot of white people don't like the idea of having to acknowledge they have certain benefits afforded them by the colour of their skin.

Roujin

oh wait this was a long post anyway.

Tl;dr I accept Tin's points but refuse to let my honky bretheren off the hook as easily as Tin does because he is a nice person and I am an increasingly angry guillotine salesman.

equinox_code

The term might lack nuance, but if they incorporate teaching of what white privilege doesn't mean then you clear up the need for having any debate around the issue.

Facewon

Facewon wrote:

https://whitehotharlots.tumblr.com/post/621555436263522304/privilege-theory-is-popular-because-it-is/amp?s=09

Best deconstruction of privilege as a lense I've read. I've generally been ok with it, despite issues, because I think it describes something real, however, there's a devastating passage in this around rights and dignity that is so on point.

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