rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

IDK I think DJP is right, it's a little o_O to have a rolling museum of random internet racism thread

*wins Not-That-White-Guy game*

okay, how about this for "is it racist"

what if you're trying to point someone out of a crowd. can you say "he's that black guy" or "he's the asian guy over there". pointing out a guy by race feels wrong but it also feels like a dumb white guilt thing to intentionally avoid pointing out someone's race when you know it's the best way to explain who you're talking about

michaeljacksoneatingpopcorn.gif

"Which one is Colin Powell?"

IDK I think DJP is right, it's a little o_O to have a rolling museum of random internet racism thread

*wins Not-That-White-Guy game*

― Scott, bass player for Tenth Avenue North (Hurting 2), Friday, May 4, 2012 1:59 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bullshit, I invoke sumai.

it's better, tho, than the ilx culture when i first got to ilx and posters said and did really reprehensible things to one another.

― Mordy, Friday, May 4, 2012 2:58 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well

okay, how about this for "is it racist"

what if you're trying to point someone out of a crowd. can you say "he's that black guy" or "he's the asian guy over there". pointing out a guy by race feels wrong but it also feels like a dumb white guilt thing to intentionally avoid pointing out someone's race when you know it's the best way to explain who you're talking about

I am not gonna lie, watching people bend over backwards to avoid describing someone by their race in wholly innocuous conversations is one of the funniest things to me

i have been called "the guy with the guyabera" in a crowd of black dudes which prompted another guy in the crowd to say "you mean white boy?"
i'll take either

smug bomb, but don't sweat it, lots of people confuse the two

― 10. “Pour Some Sugar On Me” – Tom Cruise (contenderizer), Friday, May 4, 2012 2:54 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't think you get that what DJP is talking about is in part the inherent smugness of constantly pointing out people who are less enlightened than you on the subject of race

yes, that's the beautiful irony of it

"i am more enlightened than people who feel the need to point out how much more enlightened they are. checkmate!"

in seriousness, I would probably get kind of grossed out after a while if the "is this anti-semitism" thread was always on the new answers page with obvious anti-semitism links.

contendo it's not about continuing the cycle of superiority, it's about acknowledging how this thread being kept on New Answers with new awful links every day for a fucking year straight is not making us better or more enlightened or even more entertained people

ny post dude responded to the backlash

Such obvious, wishful and ignorant mischaracterizations of what I write are common. I don't call black men the N-word; I don't regard young women as bitches and whores; I don't glorify the use of assault weapons and drugs. Jay-Z, on the other hand.....Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N---ers?

Jay-Z profits from the worst and most sustaining self-enslaving stereotypes of black-American culture and I'M the racist? Some truths, I guess, are just hard to read, let alone think about.

Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N---ers?
Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N---ers?
Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N---ers?
Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N---ers?
Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N---ers?
Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N---ers?
Is he the only NBA owner allowed to call black men N---ers?

actually it's more like "I'm tired of watching people on this board use actual racist incidents that they likely will never be subjected to as playing pieces in an escalating game of moral one-upsmanship against people who aren't even playing with them, particularly when a twist of fate is all that separated me from the people who are the actual targets of this bullshit and I've experienced shit like this in the past"

like, try thinking for a second that there's at least one black person around here that you guys haven't chased off yet before you post this shit

chased off? whoa!

as to frogbs question: yeah, it's weird. i remember when i was a kid, early teens somewhere, reading constantly, getting annoyed by the fact that non-white people in the novels i read (most of them written by white americans) were always described in terms of their race, while white characters were just, well, people. the implied normalcy of whiteness started to really bug me once i'd noticed it.

but what do you do in response? describing everyone in terms of their race is just as weird as never using race as a descriptor. at best you calibrate it to the situation and treat everyone equally. but it's hard in a race-conscious culture not to feel weird or get it wrong sometimes no matter how good your intentions might be, especially if you're inexperienced and/or prone to self-doubt.

don't ny post dude is long for that paper

yeah i mean i don't mean to hijack your point to make a somewhat tangential point or misrepresent what you were saying, there's definitely that too (xpost)

like, try thinking for a second that there's at least one black person around here that you guys haven't chased off yet before you post this shit

who do you imagine you're speaking for, or to?

let's just lock this thread and be done w/it

Is the Post guy revealing the word one letter at a time, Wheel of Fortune style?

that "escalating game of moral one-upsmanship" is in your head. you may imagine that it's what motivates others, but ultimately you have no way of knowing. i see the posting of racist shit in this thread as reportorial, and yes, not without a moral component, but there's nothing wrong with that, imo.

deadspin wants everyone to know that this is in fact racist
http://deadspin.com/5907754/oh-look-phil-mushnick-wrote-something-racist

Don't lock the thread just because people can't figure out what there's a question mark in the original question and that repeating racism ad hoc to get "get a load of this!" reaction is nagl.

so like, on a pitchfork scale of 0.0 to 10.0, where 10.0 is a lynching, and 0.0 is Martin Luther King Jr. enjoying a cup of coffee while making breakfast, in his pajamas, humming a soft song to himself, where would the MacBook Pro thing fall? where does this comment fall?

I think this thread, while started with the noblest of intentions, has been a failure. And the reason I believe it has failed is that we (as a society) are so resigned to simply declaring something racist or not, as if it's binary, instead of attempting to quantify exactly how racist something really is, using numerical scales.

― del griffith, Tuesday, September 21, 2010 2:23 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i mean i don't mean to hijack your point to make a somewhat tangential point or misrepresent what you were saying, there's definitely that too (xpost)

no, your point is valid and part of where I'm coming from; the reason it's being expressed is because of my self-quote expressing a breaking point in tolerance for this shit

that "escalating game of moral one-upsmanship" is in your head. you may imagine that it's what motivates others, but ultimately you have no way of knowing. i see the posting of racist shit in this thread as reportorial, and yes, not without a moral component, but there's nothing wrong with that, imo.

okay lol, thank you socialist daughter from Native Son for explaining to me how I, as a black person, should respond to a thread that started out as a conversation about ambiguity in racism and quickly turned into "Hey, this is racist! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this! And so is this!" etc etc etc

"this is how I feel about this"
"oh no, you're confused; THIS is how you should feel about this"
"thank you! finally a white person explains to me how I should engage with racism *sets down heavy load*"

yeah i mean it'd be one thing if we were talking about one or two things worthy of discussion every couple weeks, but this thread has just become a daily fountain of garbage. i picture people browing comments sections and excitedly pulling up the bookmark to this thread to cut-and-paste.

*jumps out of thread*
*deploys parachute*

I predict that this is going to end well

*browsing

contenderizer perhaps consider taking a break from this thread

I mean, at least the NRO thread has the context of "this is the line of thought in a prominent segment of our political sphere"; this is just "oh hey, here's something else horrible and demeaning to non-white people, let's post it and cluck our tongues"

this is the 4th largest newspaper in the country and 'lots of people on the internet talking about it' increases the chance of him losing his job

I'm not calling myself a hero,

elvis was a hero to most

talking about it' increases the chance of him losing his job

Are you guys still talking about the Post? It might help him keep his job from what I've seen about in that soi-disant newspaper.

LOfuckingL if anyone believes that "talking" about someone racist (who works for Rupert Murdoch) in this ILX thread is going to have one goddam thing to do with whether or not he keeps his job.

my comment ruled

4th largest newspaper --- does that mean I should start spitting up screen captures from the No. 1 cable news network every time they report something racisty?

Maybe I should, but it would definitely belong in a completely different thread.

okay, i give. i accept that the accumulation of racist bullshit - and the accompanying gasps of polite horror - are troubling. if i've behaved offensively, i apologize. it's just hard to know how to parse this shit sometimes.

okay lol, thank you socialist daughter from Native Son for explaining to me how I, as a black person, should respond to a thread that started out as a conversation about ambiguity in racism and quickly turned into "Hey, this is racist! And so is this! And so is this!

i honestly didn't intend to tell you how you should or shouldn't feel. just how i feel, that i don't view other people's motives in the same way that you do. but i don't think i've been thinking or expressing myself terribly well here, so i sincerely apologize for the approach i've taken in this discussion.

yes I've said like 3 times 'sorry wrong thread' I don't think this story is 'not worth talking about' but at this point I definitely don't think this story is worth talking about wtg ilx xp

http://www.sevilla5.com/activities/seasonal/capirotes-2.jpg

Is this racist?

Yes. All Spaniards are racist.

Their starches are also much cleaner and long-lasting.

this was the thread I was most interested in when i asked about the longest threads on ilx yesterday. it is constantly at the top of sna and i'm always clicking on it just because it's always RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF MY FACE and about half the time I'll bookmark it purely out of bookmarking habit and then FUCK there it is I'm reading it again (and participating in it).

one of the things I liked the least about ethan is how he'd bring the subject of racism into so many threads all the time (in my perception at the time at least). Like that was my chief beef with the dude and nowadays it's like ilx's #1 passtime.

The thing I find amusing (perhaps not the exact adjective) about the Klan uniforms was that these troglodyte racists screaming about American liberties were, like many of their fellow 19th century Americans, getting together for the zany ceremonies of the Brotherhood of Odd Knights or whatever and aping European confraternities like the Nazarenos, burning crosses (I'm sure Jesus digs that) and calling each other 'knight' and 'wizard' all in the name of Washington and Jefferson and Lee and Jesus. I have this feeling they weren't all that bright.