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/

along with the CRT stuff the UK right has gone all in on any and all opposition to racism being "marxist" (and also inherently antisemitic for good measure). this is obv a classic r/w tactic worldwide but it has become so fucking intense here lately and the centrist pieces of shit who make up the left wing of UK media and politics are sufficiently racist and spooked by marxism that they've happily dropped any pretence of caring about black lives. you can really sense the relief

right, the labeling gives them an easy way out, but only when people fail to question what's being targeted and instead quibble about the meaning of "marxist".

guess what the white left prefers to do most of the time

well yes, that's why I'm complaining about it

had an uncomfortable moment the other night, out with a new friend at a bar for one of the first times since last year, and for some reason awkward early bus ride memories was the subject. for me, that brings up thoughts of this kid in my grade who would always tickle me and give me a big "snakebite" on the arm every morning, it was horrible. but as i told it, i didn't say "snakebite", because i hadn't heard of it until i looked it up when i got home. instead, i said "every morning he gave me a horrible indian burn-- uh."

it's not a term i've heard in a long time, but everyone i ever met called them that without second thought. but in the context of an extremely white rural area that belonged to native americans a few centuries ago, perhaps it refers to making the skin red, like native americans.

it's common parlance in big portions of the the united states still, i think, but as of 2012 there were lots of other terms for it:

..."buffalo skin" in India, "policeman's glove" or "hundred needles" in Hungary, "barbed wire" in the Netherlands, "needles" in Bulgaria and "Brennessel" ("stinging nettle") in Austria, Switzerland and the southern parts of Germany, "thousand needle stings" in the northern parts of Germany, "thousand needles" in Sweden, "Nettle" in Latvia, Poland and Russia, "French Cuff" in Denmark, "kuuma makkara" (hot sausage) in Finland, "manita de puerco" (split pigs' feet) in Mexico

I grew up in Boston and that was familiar term there as well

that's what it was called in 80s northern Illinois too. we also had "indian summer" which I would like to learn a better term for as it happens p regularly in Montreal and my partner and I calling it "racist summer" doesn't really work outside of the house

i'd like to hear a beat happening version of that

I think it's called a Chinese Burn in the UK? Or is that something else?

that was a mid-90s Curve single IIRC

Chinese burn is the same apparently, seems to be based on the notion that the Chinese are an evil bunch who enjoy torturing people.

yeah it was definitely called a chinese burn in scotland in the 90s, probably still is judging by what so many people there still call chinese and indian takeaway restaurants/corner stores

I wonder about what terms we use today which will become off-limits in the future.

Don't get me wrong. It's not a curiosity based in WHAT ELSE WILL POLITICAL CORRECTNESS TAKE AWAY FROM US? It goes without saying that some words and terms should be looked at, recognized, and perhaps removed from the lexicon. We just haven't gotten around to them yet.

I hope "guru" fails to make the cut one day. Not because I'm overly offended by the popular use for the term usually reserved for a reverential Hindu dispeller of darkness, but only because I'm tired of hearing about web gurus, sports gurus and spreadsheet gurus.

I think ‘ex-pat’ might be in with a chance for removal…That woolly term that isn’t quite immigrant or migrant, and already conjures up images here of lobster-red brexit voting Brits drinking ice cold lager in English style bars on the Costa Brava.

ninja hopefully

I think guru and ninja both speak to the degree casual orientalism/anti-Asian racism are acceptable now. People saying "namaste" as a joke, the popularized uses of terms like karma and zen, there's tons more

tbf, I also think of pplains' larger point when I read young people saying things like "I can't watch any TV made before 2015"

xxp Like how the fans of Insane Clown Posse (aka Juggalos) refer to each other?

2xp surely not things like this
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51tYHW4%2B9iL._SY500_.jpg

i think there is a pretty fertile ground for reevaluating ableist slurs bc theres a bunch of them and they permeate our language. i will confess to not consistently checking myself on using them privately.

the namaste stuff tends to present itself as making fun of white liberal orientalism and appropriation which deserves mockery but it's clearly a thin line. was it racist to mock those trudeau-in-india photoshoots? probably some of the mockery was but the shoots themselves also felt kind of racist. idk what the best approach would have been to that

i wish people would take ableist language more seriously but i rarely challenge it unless it's egregious since it just gets treated like a joke or as PC extremism if i do. i hope that changes soon but the backlash against requests to stop using the r-word - which is what i mean by egregious - suggests that phasing out the less obviously grautitous stuff is going to be hard work. i still recommend trying to avoid the language since it forces you to think carefully about why you actually dislike thing/person instead of just assuming stupid idiot etc speaks for itself

yeah, i teach my son to think of that and finding other words to express what he's thinking or feeling.

when i think about people things that ive called stupid, it's never about a lack of intelligence. it could be arrogant foolishness, carelessness, animus, cowardice, bigotry, whatever. i think ableist slurs are so common bc of our collective emphasis on Personal Intelligence as capital (human, social, or otherwise) which is a vestige of eugenics (which brings us back full circle to white supremacy, hurray thread title)

yes and it's interesting that everyone i've ever spoken to who believed in IQ as an objective measure of intelligence/worth (telling conflation in itself) has also had very strong views on things like whether rap counts as music, or whether some people are natural athletes

i still recommend trying to avoid the language since it forces you to think carefully about why you actually dislike thing/person instead of just assuming stupid idiot etc speaks for itself

this really gets at the heart of why this is so worthwhile imo. it teaches you to really think through your negativity and start to possibly re-route your values.

I use those words a lot, typically to describe Republicans or my parents who just won’t listen. I know I shouldn’t, and sometimes I pause before typing them. Fools? Stubborn? Obstinate? Unyielding? Brick walls? Liars? I don’t know. Sometimes I get fed up and just call them fucking i*****

wait, stupid is ableist?

i try not to use terms like "crazy" or "insane" any longer. same with phrases that use the term "blind"

yeah, intellectual disabilities

The problem with "blind" is that I feel like it is the most apt metaphor for most cases where you'd use it, and it isn't always meant negatively. "Blind study" for example - I'm not sure what you'd say instead? But I am absolutely willing to listen to the blind community on what to do in those situations. I also think "stupid" and "idiot" are going to be hard to remove, as they're so embedded in the language. But "dumb" and "lame" are definitely gone from my lexicon.

I'm still constantly confounded by how many people think "spazz" is okay (and I can think of at least two songs I love that feature it heavily so it's not like it was super-easy for me to get rid of it, but it's just... not okay).

i still recommend trying to avoid the language since it forces you to think carefully about why you actually dislike thing/person instead of just assuming stupid idiot etc speaks for itself

this really gets at the heart of why this is so worthwhile imo. it teaches you to really think through your negativity and start to possibly re-route your values.

― Linda and Jodie Rocco (map)

I do think this is spot on, though. It doesn't help instinctive moments but it's absolutely a worthwhile practice to get into.

Lego Police Highway Arrest
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81PLN-9BvPL._AC_SL1500_.jpg

similarly: Ralph Breaks the Internet has visible minorities as the murderers in Slaughter Race, while the rest of the characters in the movie are mostly white.

Duke Detain

omg

vito risked all that for $100 and a...calculator and a baseball?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EnpW8H9UcAAe9GN?format=jpg&name=medium

as an Italian-ilxor, I can attest I have definitely been pulled over by a Lego Cop before, and it sucks

I went to a cute out of the way airshow of vintage planes last week, and one of the major bits of theater was the pretense than there was an escaped convict on the loose, dressed in striped prison PJs, evading the police. In the course of pursuit the man (thankfully played by a white person, it's not that kind of story at least) would, in desperation, grab onto a plane wing and be carried up in the air, only to be SHOT DOWN out of the air by the police, to the approval of all.

...

I wonder if that part of the skit hits different after Afghans died falling off planes? I'm not sure the organizers have that much awareness, sadly. But regardless of current events it was also very troubling to see shooting a prisoner normalized & celebrated.

It's true, once you see things with open eyes you can't enjoy a lot of things. I'm not lamenting that I'm just saying--people who think I'm some kind of killjoy have no idea how many things I'm *not* saying.

yeah any fun had at a "convict" or "criminal"'s expense is gross to me, including if the convict is white and it's just an old timey gag. you just know the laughing people are enjoying the idea of some poor person who is not them being hurt. maybe it reminds me of one of my favorite books i am a fugitive from a georgia chain gang in which the striped prison pjs were not such a fun time. and a lot of counties still make people wear those things!

"calculator and baseball" are probably the front of a safe. the piece is called a mailbox front.

that makes a lot of sense, and i know it's right.

but come on, that's a calculator + baseball

Looks like an ATM that was ripped out of a wall.

why was there a box of fish in the middle of the road

grip the baseball like a curveball in order to access checking

it was planted there earlier so duke detain could use it in pursuit

https://i.imgur.com/QqMQKOS.png

fish basket is the g-rated version of https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BabyCarriage

yeah the fish thing is very very confusing to me

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-M1-V6-sV014/TP2roxpZeQI/AAAAAAAAGCo/kAP7vbr2CR4/s280/LewZealand_and_Fish.jpg

"thug" - racist 99% of the time, right?

i have conservative family members who have discovered the joy of using "thug" lately. needless to say they're now blocked on my phone.

depends on context. plenty of people call police, feds, and/or right-wing militia boneheads thugs. or at least i do. but i'm guessing you're asking about a context where the answer is "yup"

tbh i don't think "thug" is ever a good word

i prefer sadist or bootlicker