rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

Sheidlower seems cool

He's totally cool.

But again, this is (1) not a grammar error and (2) not even technically an error and (3) never used in writing ANYWAY

So, again, is it racist?

just be safe and say yes

- " So then my manager had the nerve to axe me if I was going to stay late to work on the papers he could've given me a week ago!"

- "It's 'ask', by the way, but go on."

- "Oh, I'm sorry. Did they not include Beowulf in your high school curriculum?"

racists are lower in the food chain than prescriptivist grammar pedants, but a combination of the two really makes me see red

'Aks' - thought it had a class rather than a race element eg. bridge'n'tunnel/Working Girl typing pool; there's also a Jennifer Belle novel where the protagonist needs a job, winds up selling real estate in NYC and knows she has ~crossed the great divide~ when she catches herself saying 'aks' to a client.

grammar nazi

word supremacist

yes its racist

it's racist but also like, something more than racism

it transcends racism

it's post-racist

It's new RacismPLUS (tm)

with a brand new whitening formula

Just put this together, but bond trader slang for things you really want to buy/sell is an "axe" and people will have lists of "axes." It's got to be because this is simply easier to pronounce and remember (and sounds a bit more macho than?) "asks".

Just axe the Askis.
He knows everything man.

I have always hated it when people say "aks" instead of "ask" but in recent years I have heard people say that they do so intentionally because "ask" sounds too much like "ass" and they don't want to curse

that unspeakable curse-syllable, "ass"

Thank you for reminding me that the business-speak people in my office sum up problem-solving meetings by saying, "So what's our ask?" to mean, What requests do we have as a result of this discussion?

In the (frankly batshit) conversation where the cursing thing came up, J pointedly asked the dude who said this nonsense, "When you have a headache, do you aks if anyone has any apsirin?"

<3 <3 J

racists are lower in the food chain than prescriptivist grammar pedants, but a combination of the two really makes me see red

― these albatrosses have no fear of man (La Lechera), Wednesday, September 26, 2012 2:19 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there are studies to be done about the correlation imo

but yeah criticizing AAVE for being AAVE is racist and particularly creepy when it's presented as like, librarian porn

and my favorite thing about futurama was how they use axe instead of ask, just as a way to deal with a thousand years of language change

oh god why am i reading the comments to the ta-nehisi interview

there are studies to be done about the correlation imo

― zachylon (zachlyon), Wednesday, September 26, 2012 3:54 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but yeah criticizing AAVE for being AAVE is racist and particularly creepy when it's presented as like, librarian porn

― zachylon (zachlyon), Wednesday, September 26, 2012 3:55 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark

i mean right?!?!

I think I've mentioned this before, but years ago I was looking at a copy of an old Finnish newspaper from the beginning of the 20th century, and it had a list of the short movies a local movie theatre was showing, and apparently back then most movies had really descriptive titles, as the names of the movies were basically summaries of their plot. Anyway, one of the movies advertised was an American short called...

Negroes Being Chased by Ghosts While Stealing Melons!!

It's amazing how they managed to fit three different racist stereotypes into the title alone! I wonder what the actual movie was like?

Sort of mumblecore avant-la-lettre sounds like.

Pretty sure that film is The Watermelon Patch. From one of the reviews: "In The Watermelon Patch, some black men steal watermelons. They're chased by two white men dressed in skeleton costumes, who were pretending to be scarecrows." There were quite a few racist watermelon films back then, though.

That's my next band named, then.

http://www.defunkd.com/product/FA1344384051/vintage-1980s-op-ocean-pacific-snowboarding-white-t-shirt

That plot summary on imdb.com is certainly restrained:

Several men slip into a watermelon patch, intending to carry some of them off. They are surprised and pursued by two other men who had been hiding, but they still manage to get several melons. Soon the men and their families are enjoying themselves, but meanwhile others are trying to trace the missing watermelons.

Runtime: 11 mins.

http://www.defunkd.com/product/FA1344384051/vintage-1980s-op-ocean-pacific-snowboarding-white-t-shirt
― slugbuggy, Monday, 1 October 2012 10:35 (6 hours ago) Permalink

I doubt this had any racist intent behind it, although you could certainly read one in (i.e., guess who mainly snowboards: white people of the same ilk who fled cities)

that's kind of a stretch.

Several men slip into a watermelon patch, intending to carry some of them off. They are surprised and pursued by two other men who had been hiding, but they still manage to get several melons. Soon the men and their families are enjoying themselves, but meanwhile others are trying to trace the missing watermelons.

Runtime: 11 mins.

Leaning towards yes.

So now you're dipping into silent films from the 1900s to look for racism? Jeez do we have to debate the merits of Bosko cartoons next?

White people sure were uptight about their watermelons back in the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-eitsutpOc

^ not an "is this racist?", just apposite to the discussion

We already have a Tim & Eric thread, btw.

yeah i'm not reaching for some subtext like "hey wite ppl, let's hit the slopes; there's like one black family out here, at most." i'm just wtfing at the literal text and the blithely ham-fisted attempt to get it to suggest something like "grabbing some big air in the snow" or whatnot when the original denotation of "white flight" is just hanging out there.

also that board has no bindings he's gonna bite it hard when he tries to stick the landing.

x-posts

http://www.white-power.de/

Go ahead. Click. You'll be surprised.

Here's the story, as I understand it: there was a Dutch motorcycle tuner who was either a big ol' racist or a HAW HAW RACISM IS FUNNY asshole who started a company and called it White Power. The parts are very good, as it turns out, and the tuner gets rid of some of the Nazi iconography in their logos and comes up with a bullshit cover story for the company name (the parts were always colored white, so they said they named the company after the color of the parts). He sells the company and technology to KTM, who immediately renames it WP technology, although European motorcyclists still call the parts White Power parts. This German website is, I think, a fake distributor and only exists to get German skins &qu✧✧✧@white-po✧✧✧.d✧" e-mail addresses. Cute, huh?

in the UK there are a number of brands of strong flavourless cider which essentially exist purely to serve the needs of alcoholics and they have names which make them sound like NS skinhead bands such as

http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/25445_366571540305_4220065_a.jpg

and http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kqwmfwR5BS1qa6qi7o1_500.jpg

and my personal favourite http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-E-4q3Rqk0-w/TneisWDey9I/AAAAAAAAAIs/2mLO0sEKso8/s320/31012010245.jpg

years ago my friend swore he saw one called WHITE POWER but not sure my credulity stretches that far

first one is legit frightening

This one's an interesting one.

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/rowling-book-faces-backlash-in-india-over-sikh-slur-20121003-26yxx.html

So Rowling's new "adult" novel has loads of nasty characters in it, but:

The Casual Vacancy, released last week, has sparked criticism from readers taking exception to passages about a character named Sukhvinder, a surgeon's daughter who is teased about her looks and is described as a "hairy man-woman" and "mustachioed yet large-mammaried".

Now, my assmption (not having read the book) is the descriptions therein are from a bullying character in the novel, and not her personally saying she thinks that of Sikh women.

Seems obvious to me. Is it racist to have racist characters in a novel? Shirly not?

White Storm / White Strike both knock-offs of White Lightning, which has since been discontinued.

Lots of Sikhs in the novel, which I have not read, but have read this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/oct/02/sikh-protests-jk-rowling-misplaced

i was just going to say "maybe jk rowling needs to go to REDDIT for some TOLERANCE" but it seems the internet beat me to it

http://cdn7.wn.com/pd/e6/63/30252e21526e2ffaa85e1f5bc2d3_grande.jpg
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/12/29/1293645955098/Workers-protest-at-the-He-007.jpg