rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

sad thing is, my expectations are that after the FBI investigates, Zimmerman still won't be charged...A. because of the ridiculous Florida law, but B. because so much time has passed now since the incident.

I'm sure they'll find all kinds of evidence of neglect on the police department's end and will sharply rebuke them, as well as Zimmerman, but that's gonna mean a whole lotta fuckall . I'm really hoping I'm wrong though.

an unarmed boy on the sidewalk vs a man in a car -- i can't think of a single situation that would ever require the latter to defend himself. unless driving away unscathed is considered a defensive maneuver.

At the very least Zimmerman has been named and shamed in the media. Thats... some kind of rough justice at the least? No... it isnt, but you know.

There is a chance that, even if the Florida law makes state homicide prosecution impossible (and that is a large if), Fed investigation would lead to charges filed for violations of Trayvon's rights.

Given who posted it, this http://www.theroot.com/buzz/teacher-student-read-poem-blacker was probably gotcha-bait, but I do think it's worth looking at -- there's a fine-line between a genuine interest in dialect and being a dickhead who wonders why we can't have Amos n' Andy anymore. (More Than voiceover dude being one of those dickheads, goddammit.)

xp I bet there are a nontrivial number of people in his neighborhood and nationwide who consider him a hero now. America is actually just that fucked up.

Pretty sure the teacher who asked to read the poem "blacker" is an ignorant asshole.

there were definitely a couple of uncomfortable times in high school in which my teachers tried to match eye dialect

ah, there's nothing like fielding the "what do your people think of slavery?" question in a high school class

And yet, here you are on this thread.

in some ways, being a minority in America is a little like having a permanently itchy scab

"Is this bumper sticker racist? I know, I'll ask the person of color I know on the Internet."

what do your people think of slavery?
What the hell are you supposed to say to that? Christ!
Singling one kid out to be the group spokesperson for whatever group is just bullshit imo.

"Personally, I'm against it."

pplains u are surely the most enlightened ilxor of us all

Minnesotans?

"What do your people think of slavery?"

"Actually my people have a thread about that."

mordy, i'm so color blind that I browse ILX with my monitor turned off, just so I can't tell who's posting what.

I said, "we think it's bad" and looked at him like he was an idiot

Singling one kid out to be the group spokesperson for whatever group is just bullshit imo.

― Marilyn Hagerty: the terroir of tiny town (Abbbottt), Tuesday, March 20, 2012 5:33 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

otm

my US History teacher asked us to write "raps" about the imperial examination system under the Song dynasty. there was one black kid in the class and he was a really serious fan of hip-hop but the teacher didn't seem to like his performance. whereas me and my partner did some terrible rappin' barney rubble sounding thing and she was like "that was EXACTLY what I was looking for!" idk if that's really racist but it was definitely awful and awkward for everyone involved. I think this is where the teacher's logic broke down: asked us to write "raps" about the imperial examination system under the Song dynasty.

I just dry-retched

sorry too busy lolling to be outraged

Still the greatest
http://www.theonion.com/articles/shakespeare-was-like-the-ultimate-rapper,11161/

Singling one kid out to be the group spokesperson for whatever group is just bullshit imo.

this happened to me ALL THE TIME pre-high school

My father had a brief career as a high school teach in an inner city neighborhood in Memphis. He taught history. (circa. 1970 or so.)

He says that when they'd hit the slavery part of the curriculum, he'd divide the mostly black class up into owners and slaves. He'd put the football player on a box in the middle of the room and have one of the other students try to sell him like they're at an auction. When the "slave" balked at his treatment, my 22-year-old dad would say, "Hey, this is the way it was."

As time has passed since hearing these stories, they sound more and more ridiculous with each year. I finally asked him if he really put black students on boxes and held mock auctions, and he says sure did. Gave the kids a lesson to learn how far in civil rights they had come and how much more they had to go.

Sounds pretty heinous to me, but I never lived in 1970. It's all moot now anyway. Dad gave up being a teacher, moved to Arkansas and sold real estate for the next ten years.

he just loved auctions, i guess

uh speaking of this thread title:

http://www.theonion.com/video/sale-of-bet-to-white-supremacist-group-results-in,27660/

Sale Of BET To White Supremacist Group Results In No Changes To Programming

xxpost what did your dad do for the lesson on World War II?

goole, this line was even funnier: "and a little turtle gorges an entire raspberry"

Putting pressure on kids to 'represent their people' is obviously wrong. At the same time, i can see why teachers would want to try to make discussions of that nature as inclusive as possible and give people from minority backgrounds a prominent voice on topics that might be of particular personal importance to them. It's often done in a well-meaning but ham-fisted way.

On a related note, has anybody else read Baratunde Thurston's _How to Be Black_? It's his new memoir/how-to and fucking hilarious.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062003216

http://howtobeblack.me/htbborder

He brings up being the only black kid in your class, the only black guy at your job, etc.

xxpost what did your dad do for the lesson on World War II?

― ffun. (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, March 20, 2012 4:59 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well you see, there were hardly any Jews in that school anymore...

Putting pressure on kids to 'represent their people' is obviously wrong. At the same time, i can see why teachers would want to try to make discussions of that nature as inclusive as possible and give people from minority backgrounds a prominent voice on topics that might be of particular personal importance to them. It's often done in a well-meaning but ham-fisted way.

just FYI, the teacher who asked me for my opinion on slavery was the football coach who, 10 years earlier, had benched my all-conference running back brother during the parent's day game his senior year when my grandparents were visiting because he was trying to make a terrible white running back into something

he also told a story to the class about how racist his father was by saying he called Martin Luther King Jr an idiot, then held me after class to say "well actually, he said 'nigger'" when no one else was around

all this reminds me of that 2000 NYT story on upski

Tuesday dawned muggy. It started badly and got worse. Upski was addressing about 250 students at Evergreen College in Olympia, Wash. Maybe 10 weren't white.

He had gathered a panel of half a dozen students. One, Evelyn Aako, was black. Introducing her, he said: ''I don't know her very well, but she's black. And she's going to talk about issues of being black on campus.''

Ms. Aako gave him an arch look. ''That was very weird,'' she recalled thinking. ''Like I was a little dark object.''

As Upski began talking, the white audience got defensive. One student said: ''Why do we have to talk about race? Why can't we talk about how we're alike?''

Ms. Aako was getting disgusted. Finally she told Upski: ''I've been sitting here with an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach about how you introduced me. I felt tokenized and on display. This follows a tradition where black people serve as entertainment for white people. That's not what I do.''

Upski said: ''I screwed up. But what can we do? The world is screwed up.''

Some white students were looking irritated. One said: ''Can't we hear Upski talk? We can talk about race later.''

A black student said: ''What do you mean later? We never talk about race.''

Some whites left. Virtually all the students of color followed. Before leaving, Ms. Aako said, ''It's not my job to educate you.''

Later, Upski sounded no less confident of his ability to stimulate change. But perhaps, he said, he needed to refine his approach.

''I think the main thing that keeps white people from growing is they're afraid to look bad,'' he said. ''So I preach to mess up. One of my blind spots at Evergreen was that Evelyn wasn't going to trust me, that black people and white people, we're still at war.''

Wu-Tang Clan announces the name of their sixth studio album: The Imperial Examination System under the Song Dynasty

xxpost he held you after class to tell you that? ffffuuuu

our 7th grade social studies class did the "slave auction" thing too, like if you got "bought" you had to carry people's books around for the week.

the social studies teacher was the HS wrestling coach.

the weird thing was that he gave you fake monopoly money to "buy" your slaves with if you had been selected as part of the slave owning part of the class...but he used a photocopier to put Willie Nelson's head on the fake dollar bills where george washington would be

he was a really big willie nelson fan

looooool

im kind of glad i cant remember any racist shit my teachers did

I gotta go home, but I just found the best site:

http://celebrity-cash.com/catalog/images/willie_nelson.jpg
http://celebrity-cash.com/catalog/images/hank_williams_jr.jpg
http://celebrity-cash.com/catalog/images/oprah.jpg

sorry that wasn't US History obviously, that was World History

crucial difference

haha that's not far off, but it was a willie shot w/the iconic headband and braids i think

Given who posted it, this http://www.theroot.com/buzz/teacher-student-read-poem-blacker was probably gotcha-bait, but I do think it's worth looking at

WTF man

tip o the hat to you crut

fyi some ppl are saying the teacher in the Root article was black... Still racist?

feel like ANY teacher telling a black student he's not acting black enough for the class falls under the racism umbrella

omg you guys I just remembered

my high school staged The Wiz but did a "redneck" version instead of a "black" version because the cast was almost all white

it was as inadvisable as you could imagine

The Cheez Wiz

feel like ANY teacher telling a black student he's not acting black enough for the class falls under the racism umbrella

― Lester the Unlikely (crüt), Tuesday, March 20, 2012 3:33 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what if the poem is deliberately written in black dialect, and the teacher & student are both black? "racism" doesn't seem like the best word to describe the dynamic...

i would say the teacher had a poor choice of words

instead of saying "read more black" she should have just said "read it in the voice it's written in"

when the kid asked if the teacher thought all black people spoke that way she should have answered the question instead of telling him to sit down and shut up