rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

Thought we should have a thread that's a catch-all for any and all conversations that start like this, since we seem to have like five or six threads for it.

I'll go first:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPBbMbKSZrQ

I dunno if its racist but its certainly unlistenable crap

Oh dude, I always wonder about this one: "White Girl" by X. what the fuck is up with that? Has John Doe ever addressed it?

also, this thread is not just for songs, but commercials, movies, tv shows, jpegs, assorted anything.

Oh word, noticed this is on I Love Everything.

yeah I mean where the fuck is I Love Racism already

Oh dude, I always wonder about this one: "White Girl" by X. what the fuck is up with that? Has John Doe ever addressed it?

what do you think is racist about this song...?

Why's he talking about white girls?

for reference:

She's blonde,
She's blonde,
Comes along the sidewalk.

She's Blonde,
Leave a trail of blue and black,
Up to you fighting back.

She's Blonde,
Steel chains,
A noose of charms on our necks.

I find out nothing when we talk and sit,
Blue heart passion and watch the set.

Easy to fall, when part of your skull starts to break away,
Cheaters walk, down the block behind this evil street.

She's a white girl well I'm living with a white girl,
She's a white girl well I'm living with a white girl-

Nineteen,
Nineteen.. losing her man to an old girl.

Nineteen,
Drain every beer left over at home,
and listen to ghosts in the other room.

I Can't!
Why not? You're alone inside his keeping.

Oh I'll replace your drunk old man,
Sit in the parking lot and hold your hand.

Easy to fall, when part of your skull starts to break away...
Drugged and in love out at a club pulling me outside.

She's a white girl, well I'm living with a white girl,
She's a white girl, well I'm living with a white girl-

Easy to fall, when part of your skull starts to break away...
drugged and in love out at a club pulling me outside.

She's a white girl well I'm living with a white girl,
She's a white girl well I'm living with a white girl

having just finished re-reading We Got the Neutron Bomb my guess is this song is about the young lady that Exene moved out to California with, who was by all accounts something of a bitch who would pull white-supremacist provacateur type stuff to get a rise out of people.

blanking on her name at the moment.

Not racist. Someone else could make the argument for exploitative, but it's a stretch to say that the Kings of Leon have any hatred or intolerance toward black people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aENX1Sf3fgQ

Now apologize for making me watch a Kings of Leon video for two minutes.

Yeah, I guess exploitative and colonialist (is that the right word?) more than captial-R RACIST, but still like; who does a video treatment that;'s like "OK, you're hugging black kids for four minutes"

i think it's hard to call a music video 'exploitative' -- what are they exploiting these kids for? no one watches music videos. they have no impact, unless you're lady gaga

colonialist maybe, but remember that KOL are the most popular band in europe

racist, clearly not

would've preferred video featuring band being murdered by black kids

http://altreport.hipsterrunoff.com/2010/09/kings-of-leon-hires-choir-of-black-children-to-make-their-new-mp3-sound-more-soulful.html

It reminded me of a generic John Cougar Mellencamp video. Had they been white kids, it would've looked like 70% of the videos on CMT.

Still waiting for an apology.

Yeah, I guess exploitative and colonialist (is that the right word?) more than captial-R RACIST, but still like; who does a video treatment that;'s like "OK, you're hugging black kids for four minutes"

obv the answer is "the dude who directed the new Kings of Leon video, whose name somehow has not yet made it to the bits of the Internet you can hit within 5 minutes of using Google"

(that more than anything else is making me lol, like whoever this was basically went "I'll do this for you and it will be awesome! I don't want any credit tho" *waits for shitstorm*)

carles is slippin -- passion pit already did the "hire a choir of underprivileged minority youths" thing

he's not even listed on the mtv site, which is usually v good about putting directors up in there

gonna lol if it was Hype Williams

the video and song are both unmentionably terrible w/ stupid and retrograde notions about race but i don't think they are simply ~racist~

Sophie Muller directed it.

OK, how about this?

http://gawker.com/5643372/this-weeks-new-yorker-cartoon-caption-contest-winner-pretty-racist

more offensive for not being funny

http://www.bitterwallet.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/zBOSA-500x375.jpg

that was a fake

but it was racist because someone realized that they could spell "nigger" by a video game and they set up a soccer video game and took a photo of it and sent it all over the internet

so yes, racist

this isn't a thread for lol racism, fyi. keep that shit to "encyclopedia of racist products" or, like, 4chan

strictly concern trolling in here.

I figured it was some soccer thing. Wouldn't have been surprised if it had been real.

take it to i love footy

love the gawker update where they act like they understood the joke from the beginning

barf

http://i55.tinypic.com/25oxf7k.png

maybe LJ is right about ilx being the smartest message board

http://hipsterhitler.com/

gawker isnt a message board

ilx is my favorite blog

MIXMASTER
RACE

EASTSIDE
WESTSIDE
GENOCIDE

is anti-semitism racist or not, because this guy at the bar I frequent is convinced that Birth Of A Nation was produced by Jews & that the Jews control the media etc etc

I know it sucks either way just wanted 2 know ur opinions

Of course anti-semitism is racism. It's just that racism against Jews has acquired a term of its own, probably because discriminating them has been so prominent historically.

Where it gets tricky is when anti-Israel or anti-Zionist statements are equated with anti-semitism; of course some anti-Israel/anti-Zionist people are also anti-semitists/racists, but many of them aren't. But your case is pretty obviously racist because the target is Jews as a whole, not Israeli politics or anything.

are the finns a race?

Ca. 300 Finnish Jews fought in the War alongside the German Army[3][4]. The field synagogue operated by the Finnish army was probably a unique phenomenon in Europe.

Guess they didn't have Google then either.

take it to i love footy

― p.m.s.b. (pre-mall smoke bomb) (zorn_bond.mp3),

jesus way to zing an entire bord of innocents wtf

Subtle "Americans don't like soocer and aren't racist" undertones there

yeah really i'm getting some prety bad vibes offa this zorn character. bet he's norwegian/icelandic thor worshipper

zorn smash

is this chorus racist?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4s6H4ku6ZY&ob=av3n

?

http://dasracist.net/

Ruth bader have my money

table's autocorrect changes "the" to "gay" which is why his real username is "gay table is gay table"

I'm also just going to come out and say that as a white gay dude, I always thought that PG was precious and for the sort of white gay dudes who think they're "alternative" but are actually very middle-class and boring men who like buttsex

― it's like edging for your mind (the table is the table), Wednesday, March 3, 2021 10:49 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I was going to say "he's one of those dudes on Facebook with 850 shirtless white twinks and one Black woman he met at work in his friend list"

― Hello Nice FBI Lady (DJP), Wednesday, March 3, 2021 10:52 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

otm. i mean i'm somewhat middle class and boring, and love buttsex, but god i can't stand this guy's voice lol.

I'm also just going to come out and say that as a white gay dude, I always thought that PG was precious and for the sort of white gay dudes who think they're "alternative" but are actually very middle-class and boring men who like buttsex

A gay communist opera singers?

Let’s move away from literally shitting in someone’s face to metaphorical shitting in someone’s face:

🐦[DC got a new mural and I.......... pic.twitter.com/rfatnAeMfX🕸
— Tiffany Flowers (@MsFlowersTweets) March 3, 2021🕸]🐦

Here's a Medium article about that mural

https://medium.com/free-thinkr/rbg-goes-to-anacostia-e9ca99b1a164

I cant find a photo of it, but via the IndyStar

Rabble owner Josie Hunckler said she learned Thursday evening of a 2018 mural by Muck that depicts a chimpanzee sporting a gold tooth and a thought bubble filled by a marijuana leaf. Muck painted the chimpanzee near New Orleans' Lincoln Beach — a waterfront amusement park designated as an African American gathering place during the segregated 1950s.

...

"I admit ignorance, inability to see the big picture, inability to see other people’s viewpoints on it," she said. "I didn’t see. I missed it. I apologize profusely."

Someone painted over the New Orleans mural before Muck returned to do the task, she said. Although a photo of Muck with the chimpanzee mural no longer resides on her Instagram profile, a screencap exists.

"Yes, I painted a monkey," she said. "I had no association of that monkey with any race. I’ve never thought that way. I grew up in New York and Europe, and it just didn’t enter my mind."

Muck said ethnicity didn't factor in her choices of the gold tooth and marijuana leaf.

“I was putting gold teeth on everything at that time," she said. "That was my shtick.”

Regarding the marijuana: "I was trying to help a newly sober person. He was having a hard time with his friend smoking weed. I said, ‘They look like monkeys, they’re being stupid. Why would you want to do that?’ And we painted the painting."

A dear friend wrote this piece about being Black in the non-profit industrial complex. Pretty damning stuff.

https://tastefulrude.com/how-to-break-up-with-the-non-profit-pyramid-scheme-for-now/

Muck seems like a fun person to completely ignore at a party

I grew up in New York and Europe

Ah yes, the places where there isn't any racism

What is 'Europe'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw

I'm trying to imagine living near a giant Gaz Coombes mural and for some reason the picture in my mind has the terrible face tattoos from the RBG mural I linked

I mean, the resemblance is uncanny
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EvkFl0RWQAEmB12?format=jpg&name=mediumhttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/I_Should_Coco.jpg

zoom in on the even worse ruth bader 6ix9ine avatar of the screenshotted tweet

the what now pic.twitter.com/xDTkFeLpMW

— ALAB Series (@ALABSeries) March 2, 2021

well, tbh i can't say this is worse than the george floyd. no point in comparing.

I... what

what is wrong with these people

https://blog.timesunion.com/tablehopping/39028/wandering-dago-food-truck-we-were-booted-from-track-for-name/

Had to google that slur. I've never seen/heard anyone use it in Canada, including by idiotic teenagers who had no qualms about using, uh, synonyms.

I'd day it's pretty antiquated at this point. But have you never seen Fawlty Towers? That's my clearest memory of hearing it

Do the Right Thing is the place I know it best from.

Dago, wop, guinea, garlic-breath, pizza-slingin', spaghetti-bendin', Vic Damone, Perry Como, Luciano Pavarotti, Sole Mio, nonsingin' motherfucker.

Fawlty Towers is another thing I had to google a while back. Then again, my knowledge of TV culture is subpar.

Also, I should really wait for the coffee to kick in before posting. Language exceeds my grasp right now.

Wow that's a weird situation where it's tone-deaf at the very least but...they people who chose the name are from the affected group? Who imo? can't really be said to still experience significant marginalization from that identity? It's not my identity so I leave that question open.

Affected people have the right to reclaim language obv. This does seem like more of a hand-wave to how Italians aren't really at risk for discrimination anymore though. I'm curious now about who the "unnamed state official" was.

Do the Right Thing is the place I know it best from.

I had no idea it was used at all outside the UK.

Apparently it's American though.

oh yeah i wasn't posing "is it racist" about the dago thing, if she wants to call herself a dago i don't care. i was just struck by the horrible RBG avatar.

there's a couple places here that have dago in the name but they specifically sell dago sandwiches

I'd never heard of that before (I've only been to St Paul once). This article is p interesting: https://thetakeout.com/st-paul-s-hot-dago-sandwich-offers-no-apologies-few-1825333299

I mean, okay sure maybe can appropriate slurs against them but how many incorporated businesses out there in English-speaking countries use the word "nigga"

I need to find the photos I took at Cholo Tacos...in Helsinki, Finland.

I started googling and found this https://www.cholos.mx/

Yeah! Sure! I'm against the use of slurs generally!! The fact that it's the name of a well-known sandwich is another unpleasant new thing I just learned!

It's also my experience just anecdotally that Italian-Americans who strongly identify w their cultural identity like to emphasize their marginalization while also vociferously discriminating against literally everyone else.

ha yes, I have also experienced that

xp
oh yeah, it's a clear marker of the incorporation of italian-americans into whiteness, as much re-appropriated by the affected community as rendered toothless by that process.

Yes, thank you, rob, that's the rub: to me, the most offensive thing is using an outdated slur to portray themselves as victims of discrimination when it's really an acknowledgement of how they're part of the discriminating group now.

sorry, I read your post exactly wrong

Dago and Yankee are both slang based in first name si think.
Diego and Jan for Spanish and Dutch sailors respectively. Or at least taht's what I gather from things i've read over the years.

No worries, I wasn't very clear. rob put it better.

speaking as a half-Italian, nothing drives me more insane than when Italian-Americans rush to defend Christopher Columbus simply because a bunch of Italian immigrants swore their allegiance to America at one of his statues once.

This is the place I went to:

https://www.yelp.com/biz/cholo-helsinki

The food was good, TBF. And the cook might have been Mexican. He wasn't a Finn, at any rate.

It's also my experience just anecdotally that Italian-Americans who strongly identify w their cultural identity like to emphasize their marginalization while also vociferously discriminating against literally everyone else.

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Friday, March 5, 2021 7:19 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sort of the same with Irish people, too— so many working-class Irish like to bring up "wE wErE SlAvEs tOo" and I'm always pretty quick to smack that shit down because it's bullshit.

(Also I live in Philadelphia lol)

I'm slightly confused by the discussion of "cholo" here, tho— its strongest association is with Mexican-American street culture, most prominently in LA. I've known a few cholos, and it was never construed as a slur by them?

this is largely driven by me accidentally confusing "cholo" with "culo"

Spanish is not my forte

Columbus was sailing for the Spanih to celebrate the conquest of the moors in Al Andalus and I think to find a place to dispose of teh jews taht were getting kicked out of the kingdom . So lovely philanthropic gestures all around, noice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholo

Interesting. Sounds like tragic misunderstanding territory.

The article had someone claim that "dago" came from the day laborer immigrants, who wanted to be paid "as the day goes," which I had never heard before.

definitely seen ther derivation from diego explained before and seems to be the first thing popping up now,
also I thought it was a term usd in Britain at a time when those refered to would presumably have been at more of a distance tahnthe relationship with day labouring would suggest. Thought it turned up in naval terms though may be from the media I'm seeing things though being from hollywood

Yes, I was sure it was some British thing, probably naval, but not according to the internet. I cannot imagine anyone in the UK using that word and getting away with it these days.

Twas known as offensive "foreigner" slur in Norway in 1978 apparently, as that is when Hammerfest band Unit Five released "Polardego", about how South Norwegians view the North ("a bit more domesticized than last year").