why do people seriously conflate criticizing people who happen to be Black with making racist-intoned statements? the article's offensive to me because it assumes that the other people on the bus said nothing because the lady was Black and they were afraid of breaking this imaginary taboo, and not just...Genovese syndrome.
(srsly, watch any situation where someone's being physically abused in public, and all people generally do is stand around, murmuring, and confused as to what they should do).
― Bo Jackson Overdrive, Sunday, 11 March 2012 16:05 (twelve years ago) link
To clarify my first statement...I'm questioning why the article writer thinks there's this imaginary forbidden zone where we can't offer a personal criticism of someone who is Black, when people do it all the time without being called "racist". Huge difference between yelling at a lady for beating her kids and saying something like "man, what is the deal with you people".
― Bo Jackson Overdrive, Sunday, 11 March 2012 16:07 (twelve years ago) link
if he wasn't a racist reaganite (looooooool show me this money we're "throwing" at any urban areas) and arguing in bad faith i would point him to the "myth of the underclass" chapter in adolph reed's stirrings in the jug but i kind of feel like to take rants like that at face value is to play oneself.
also if he's advocating taking kids away from poor black parents en masse he should just come out and say it like carl paladino did when he was running for governor of new york. nice company to be in, btw.
― horseshoe, Sunday, 11 March 2012 16:17 (twelve years ago) link
anyway, yes, that's racist
― horseshoe, Sunday, 11 March 2012 16:18 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.phillymag.com/images/uploads/articles/37370_article.jpg
^^ d. herbert lipson
― max, Sunday, 11 March 2012 16:22 (twelve years ago) link
like a racist Mr. Feeny
― Bo Jackson Overdrive, Sunday, 11 March 2012 16:38 (twelve years ago) link
it's at least highly fucked to actually write that those children will have damaged (and in his mind "TYPICAL BLACK") lives because their mother hits them. and it's a million times more fucked (and racist) to blame the problems of the black inner-city community on mothers hitting their children.
― if you ever leave me peggy, leave some propane at my door (zachlyon), Sunday, 11 March 2012 17:26 (twelve years ago) link
"if only Yo Gotti had gotten more hugs..."
― Bo Jackson Overdrive, Sunday, 11 March 2012 18:01 (twelve years ago) link
i think he's making a generally valid point (broken homes & families do make broken people, not always, but with depressing predictability, and this can become a self-perpetuating cycle), but doing it in a way that at least edges into outright racism.
― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Sunday, 11 March 2012 18:34 (twelve years ago) link
I think a teeny tiny valid fact about early childhood development is just a briefly glimpsed mile marker on the way to his racist conclusion.
― drawn to them like a moth toward a spanakopita (Laurel), Sunday, 11 March 2012 19:50 (twelve years ago) link
otm
― catbus otm (gbx), Sunday, 11 March 2012 19:56 (twelve years ago) link
The children that Victor saw on the trolley are going to have miserable lives. They will do poorly at school. They will abuse drugs and commit violent crimes.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_C-J2golFlhk/Sc_NWIU8NGI/AAAAAAAAAI8/yWCfyonEExw/s400/crystalball_468x317.jpg
― buzza, Sunday, 11 March 2012 20:01 (twelve years ago) link
We’ve been throwing money at the problems of our urban poor for more than half a century, with terrible results. Facing the truth about inner-city life instead of dancing around it would be a start in a much better direction.
Using the deplorable plight of two black kids to call for spending less money on programs like Headstart is despicable. Or, wait, is he really calling for government to step in and put all black kids in foster care? Or, is he calling for a moon-landing program to make poverty and ignorance disappear? Or, what the fuck is this guy's point, anyway?
― Aimless, Sunday, 11 March 2012 20:16 (twelve years ago) link
I think a teeny tiny valid fact about early childhood development is just a briefly glimpsed mile marker on the way to his racist conclusion. --drawn to them like a moth toward a spanakopita (Laurel)
Yeah, like abused kids turn out fucked up, but why does he think black people have a monopoly on hitting their kids?
― kony indie fuxx (Whiney G. Weingarten), Sunday, 11 March 2012 20:36 (twelve years ago) link
the rhetorical way in which he injects race into the issue - midsentence, or via the totally shitty passive clause "who happen to be black"
like he knows exactly what kind of territory he's entering and is very explicit about that, but still tries to hide the ball
― flagp∞st (dayo), Sunday, 11 March 2012 20:42 (twelve years ago) link
whiney otm. it's not really crystal-ball territory to say "if your mother abuses you in public, you're going to be fucked up," though, you kind of have to be stupid to not already know that
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 11 March 2012 20:44 (twelve years ago) link
OTOH to say "here is how they'll be fucked up" is where he really steps up his racism game - there's a thousand ways those kids might deal with the damage they're getting
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 11 March 2012 20:46 (twelve years ago) link
exactly. he could have made the same point by saying, "hey, all you black people: stop hitting your kids," but didn't have the guts.
― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Sunday, 11 March 2012 20:47 (twelve years ago) link
I think 'increases the likelihood of you being fucked up' or some such is preferable to 'you are going to be fucked up'. Pedantry, I suppose, but the latter statement seems to reduce people to simple cause and effect.
― windborne grey frogs (dowd), Sunday, 11 March 2012 20:48 (twelve years ago) link
well, we're into personality & style differences here I guess, but I'm perfectly ok with "if your mother abuses and berates you publicly, you are going to be fucked up."
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 11 March 2012 20:49 (twelve years ago) link
and buzza OTM, the predictive/condemnatory "are going to have miserable lives...will do poorly at school...will abuse drugs and commit violent crimes" bullshit is inexcusable. maybe those kids will survive their upbringing, maybe they won't. either way, withdrawing funding from inner city aid programs probably won't help.
― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Sunday, 11 March 2012 20:51 (twelve years ago) link
he's not really talking about any of those kids' lives, he's invoking the specter of the inner city welfare queen mom as symbol of the degenerate moral character of the black underclass, that hoary old chestnut. maybe he's written an editorial extrapolating from the penn state scandal that rich old white dudes who coach athletics are destroying the moral fiber of this country and their offspring are going to rob you and rape white women, but i doubt it. funny how this rhetorical move seems completely superfluous as american political culture veers further and further from any kind of commitment to the public sector, thanks to his rhetorical ancestor, ronald reagan. i guess this discourse has just settled in for the long haul.
― horseshoe, Sunday, 11 March 2012 21:53 (twelve years ago) link
i realize you guys were actually trying to engage the words he wrote in good faith but it all reads like code to me.
― horseshoe, Sunday, 11 March 2012 21:55 (twelve years ago) link
ha well yes it is true that reading everything as if it were being said in earnest is sort of my involuntary specialty
― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 11 March 2012 21:59 (twelve years ago) link
it's also true that i read everything that includes the phrase "throwing money at the urban poor" through a paranoid lens.
stirrings in the jug is a really good book btw
― horseshoe, Sunday, 11 March 2012 22:00 (twelve years ago) link
just because i'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not after me racist
― horseshoe, Sunday, 11 March 2012 22:02 (twelve years ago) link
looks like the entire underclass chapter is on googlebooks
― horseshoe, Sunday, 11 March 2012 22:03 (twelve years ago) link
is it racist that insurance company More Than puns on Morgan Freeman's name and impersonates his trademark voice-overs but uses a white Morethan Freeman to sell insurance?
e.g.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8X4rST4YvY
― A BIG JOE JORDAN TYPE OF POSTER (onimo), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 13:19 (twelve years ago) link
i'll say no
sorta dumb tho.
― goole, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 15:28 (twelve years ago) link
probably couldn't do it in the US tho, the thought of which is kind of making me rethink
― goole, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 15:29 (twelve years ago) link
Yes.
― Three Word Username, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 15:29 (twelve years ago) link
is it just coincidence that our best-loved and most dignified african american celebrity, the star of glory and driving miss daisy, is named freeman DO YOU SEE
― the late great, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 17:05 (twelve years ago) link
More of a personal affront to MF than a racial one, imo.
― Aimless, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 17:12 (twelve years ago) link
Read something to the effect that he gave his permission but isn't exactly a fan
― Number None, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 19:44 (twelve years ago) link
struggling to see how it's in any way racist, assuming the guy in the ads is also the voice actor?
― Streep? That's where I'm a-striking! (darraghmac), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 21:24 (twelve years ago) link
this all Compare the Meerkat's fault basically (were those racist?)
― Number None, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 21:28 (twelve years ago) link
i think they might be, yeah
― Streep? That's where I'm a-striking! (darraghmac), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 21:33 (twelve years ago) link
Accent. Verbal blackface.
― Three Word Username, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 21:45 (twelve years ago) link
okay, really?
― thuggish ruggish Brahms (DJP), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 21:58 (twelve years ago) link
Well, *I* find it creepy and tasteless, and that's what I come up with.
― Three Word Username, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 22:05 (twelve years ago) link
morgan freeman's voice is neither an "accent" nor "verbal blackface"
― Sexess - Sexual Success Or; Successful Sex (crüt), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 22:10 (twelve years ago) link
he has a very slight twang because he's from Memphis
― thuggish ruggish Brahms (DJP), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 22:12 (twelve years ago) link
That is not Morgan Freeman's voice, and the attempt to sound like him is based primarily on accent and very little on the other aspects. And that is not simply regional.
― Three Word Username, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 22:13 (twelve years ago) link
his voice is much more distinctive than his accent, which imo is quite soft?
― Streep? That's where I'm a-striking! (darraghmac), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 22:20 (twelve years ago) link
...and it's the other way around for the voice-over guy, which is my point, and I hope someone not on a gotcha quest knows what I'm talking about.
― Three Word Username, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 22:21 (twelve years ago) link
gotcha
― Streep? That's where I'm a-striking! (darraghmac), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 22:25 (twelve years ago) link
I wouldn't say the accent is particularly over-the-top or more pronounced than the "I am imitating Morgan Freeman" part of the voice
where are you from, TWU?
― Sexess - Sexual Success Or; Successful Sex (crüt), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 22:30 (twelve years ago) link
We don't agree. I'm from the Baltimore/Washington area.
― Three Word Username, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 22:34 (twelve years ago) link
So anyone doing an impression of Darth Vader is guilty of verbal blackface?
― pplains, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 23:19 (twelve years ago) link
No.
― Three Word Username, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 23:26 (twelve years ago) link