rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

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.

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.

otm

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

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?

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?

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

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

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

Yeah, like abused kids turn out fucked up, but why does he think black people have a monopoly on hitting their kids?

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

i realize you guys were actually trying to engage the words he wrote in good faith but it all reads like code to me.

ha well yes it is true that reading everything as if it were being said in earnest is sort of my involuntary specialty

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

just because i'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not after me racist

looks like the entire underclass chapter is on googlebooks

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

i'll say no

sorta dumb tho.

probably couldn't do it in the US tho, the thought of which is kind of making me rethink

Yes.

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

More of a personal affront to MF than a racial one, imo.

Read something to the effect that he gave his permission but isn't exactly a fan

struggling to see how it's in any way racist, assuming the guy in the ads is also the voice actor?

this all Compare the Meerkat's fault basically (were those racist?)

i think they might be, yeah

Accent. Verbal blackface.

okay, really?

Well, *I* find it creepy and tasteless, and that's what I come up with.

morgan freeman's voice is neither an "accent" nor "verbal blackface"

he has a very slight twang because he's from Memphis

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.

his voice is much more distinctive than his accent, which imo is quite soft?

...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.

gotcha

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?

We don't agree. I'm from the Baltimore/Washington area.

So anyone doing an impression of Darth Vader is guilty of verbal blackface?

No.

I just don't get then why doing an impression of Morgan Freeman is considered such.

because morgan freemans face is black and under the mask vader is white

http://www.cinemaqueer.com/movie%20images/chasinghooper.jpg

I thought the white guy in the ad and the guy doing the voice impression were different guys and that More Than could have had anyone playing Morethan Freeman but chose to have that guy who bears no resemblance to the guy we normally associate with that voice.

I don't necessarily think that's racist (that's why I'm here, it's what this thread is occasionally for) but if he isn't the voice guy I would be interested in More Than's reasons for casting him.

hmm, i'm only assuming it's the same guy because, well yeah, why else.

If we were to find out that the actual voice actor was asian, can we lock the thread?

nah it's this guy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbIqL-lN1B4

yeah i've just been searching. as you were.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Robert_Thompson

I don't really think it's racist tbh but this thing of turning a terrible pun on a company name into a crap ad character has to stop