that thing white ppl do when they disparage 'white ppl'

Be more specific, max, because you guys say that pretty frequently.

bamcquern = Vision?

I guess when I do this I'm basically just annoyed at the self-satisfied mediocrity of white middle-class identity.

Talk about the generality, then. And which ones am I hating on (for their being generalities)? I mean, do you disagree because I'm WRONG or because I'm OBVIOUS? Or both? And if both, you sort that out for me.

mordy asks "what does white mean" in this instance which is uhhhh a pretty relevant question and youre all "pretty obvious to do that" when like 10 posts prior you were all "were all racist man" which is... true on some insanely broad level? i guess? but not exactly a truth bomb into our brains

What wrong with saying obvious things? You don't get extra points for contrarian obtuse bullshit.

i dont even "disagree" with you because i cant even figure out what youre SAYING except that like... there is racism

sorry to bring this up again but before yall go any further into being annoyed at the self-satisfied mediocrity of white middle-class identity i just wanna make sure you've signed the dream act petition first kthx :)

I didn't have a problem with Mordy's post when I figured out he was being sincere. No, wait, I hedged in my orig. response to him, in case he was being sincere. But in case he intended to deconstruct "white," I thought that was already implicit in everything we were saying - that we were all on the same page.

One thing I really hate is when white people insist that others spend all afternoon carefully explaining why they are misguided. Bugs the shit out of me.

Then it's for being obvious. There is racism. I'll leave it at that.

syntactically weird, suzy

tbh, this doesn't really happen ever around my friends/acquaintances. i don't think i've ever participated in a conversation where we just hung around and disparaged the wrong kind of white people (unless it was hyper specific, like tea partiers, or people at Palin rallies). so this could only exist in some iconic, decontextualized way -- like it's more like something Liz Lemon would do in a 30 Rock episode than real people IRL. (Or I could be totally off-base and there are loads of people who do this.)

it's that "insist that others" - not syntax, word choice.

its also for throwing around statements about 'black culture' and 'black youth culture' and 'black majority' without any kind of qualifying explanation of what you mean! xxp

A BRIEF STORY ABOUT RACE IN AMERICA:

last fall I was in a modernist lit class where we read Cane by Jean Toomer, a dude of super-mixed creole descent who had assumed various racial identities throughout his life (went to both all-white and all-black segregated schools as a child, to give just one example).

several people were misled by the author's name and the prominence of female characters into thinking that Jean Toomer was a woman; when they learned that he was not, they expressed surprise and admiration for his ability, "as a man", to write complex/compelling/'realistic' female characters.

then, when it came time to talk about race, those same people didn't hesitate to assert that Toomer was CLEARLY black, regardless of what he himself might have to say about the matter; it's all right there in the text, "you can just tell" -- no white person could have possibly written about the lives and experiences of black characters with that degree of insight/sympathy/understanding/whatever...

it was sorta frustrating

i read cane in my modernist lit class too! did you guys read nightwood too?

You don't get extra points for contrarian obtuse bullshit.

can we just hold up a second while I process what this claim, if true, means for the lie that I have constructed as my life

xp
yup!

college!

seriously can't get through like 2 pgs. of nightwood over here

I'm right here. No need to throw around all those xxps. Well then start there.

Black majority - most of US blacks. Not a lot of money. Lots of them in jail.

Black youth culture (of the black majority, I said) - visit an 8th grade classroom of black kids - this would be - Being smart is gay. Mainstream rap & r&b. "White" dominant culture, when appreciated, is seen as exotic nonetheless.

Black culture - an interplay of how blacks and whites perceive "black culture"?

Trying to participate in a fast-moving conversation.

Black majority - most of US blacks.

hilarious

lolwat?

I get...zero points for contrarian obtuse bullshit

fuckin'

man oh man

well now i just feel silly being on this thread

i read cane in my modernist lit class too! did you guys read nightwood too?

― max, Friday, April 23, 2010 12:05 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

Tired. You can engage if you disagree. Maybe noise dudes can't?

re: black majority

Wtf else could it mean? Oh, wait, I see what's wrong with that. Is that quoted out of context? Didn't I add a couple of sociological qualifiers.

I get...zero points for contrarian obtuse bullshit

fuckin'

man oh man

― brad whitford's guitar explorations (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Friday, April 23, 2010 1:10 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well, u know, being smart is gay--ask any black youth

bamcquern, why u want to troll + breaked mine <3?

THAT COMMENT WASNT DIRECTED AT YOU IT WAS DIRECTED TO THE FUCKING POSTER WHO HAD JUST BEEN WRITING ABOUT THE BOOK CANE

1000TimesYes Can't believe there's enough boring white ppl in NYC to make High Violet a trending topic. Come back #Beiber, all is forgiven about 1 hour ago via web

When you say things like "black people select entertainment that paints them in a negative light" without acknowledging:

- the history of the entertainment industry in which they are working, which was controlled for years by white people only interested in negative depictions of black people and, to a large degree, still is controlled mostly by white people;

- the fact that depictions of negative situations such as crime, gang violence, poverty, etc in entertainment are not de facto tru-life stories that are directly analogous to experiences in the lives of every black person (I have not looked at statistics recently so I can't authoritatively say whether these experiences impact a majority of black people, but I can say through anecdotal evidence from my extended family of teachers, firemen, banker tellers, parole officers, lawyers, architects, football wives, nurses, engineers, bus drivers, sommeliers, etc. that more of them live crime-free lives than not, and those that do are all concentrated in one city, pointing more towards an issue with an urban area than an intrinsic issue with black people);

- black people are more than just brown and furthermore all people who would likely be classified as "black" in America don't necessarily identify themselves as being part of the same group (see, for example, the kerfuffle in Major League Baseball over African-Americans versus black Hispanics);

... when you start adding these things into the mix, you're talking in empty, useless platitudes with a bunch of ingrained, unchallenged assumptions that I, personally, as an upper-middle-class Ivy League-educated black man who has never been in any real form of poverty or danger yet still considers himself just as much of an African-American as the next person, find immensely dismissive of the fact of my existence and borderline offensive.

xp: okay yes, like that "definitions" post of yours is almost exactly what I'm talking about; I don't really care if you are like "your experience is different" because it is, but there are a significant number of people out there who have had experiences like mine, plus not everyone in the situations you describe react to them the same way, plus talk to any group of white 8th graders and they will ALSO tell you that being smart is gay

like I really don't want to be in a position where I'm defending Tyler Perry but...

wait, I haven't refreshed, but I'm sorry, max, for that engage comment, because I didn't read that whole interaction.

barnes shorts are better, btw

lol this thread

anyway I would say that the phenomenon the thread-starter is discussing is probably just another example of the whole "cynical distance" thing that my man zizek argues is an essential part of any ideological formation. but in general I wish americans would worry less about race and more about class (which would probably also help them arrive at 'better'/more progressive views about race)

dude, max, was correcting my error, mr caps

anyway I would say that the phenomenon the thread-starter is discussing is probably just another example of the whole "cynical distance" thing that my man zizek argues is an essential part of any ideological formation. but in general I wish americans would worry less about race and more about class (which would probably also help them arrive at 'better'/more progressive views about race)

that is fucking super OTM

my man zizek

Daniel, Esq to thread? jk.

1000TimesYes Can't believe there's enough boring white ppl in NYC to make High Violet a trending topic. Come back #Beiber, all is forgiven about 1 hour ago via web

that's the sort of thing i had in mind when starting this thread....

yeah whiney loves to talk about white ppl

Dan, that's all true and well-said, but my orig complaint was not with black people, it was with the structural problems in place that lead to those phenomena. Which is why upthread I mentioned the structural v. behavioral.

when people start thinking about class don't they do the same thing though - everybody looking down on "bourgies" when they themselves are dictionary-definition bourgeoisie - and thinking they're somehow excluded from that definition because they like to talk shit about the category - cf. also "hipster"

text:"white people" AND displayName:Whiney G. Weingarten

which is to say, "this thing people do when they disparage groups to which they belong" is a broader category maybe? and "white" is a red herring here?

that's because people don't know what the word bourgeoisie means

And my original comment was an offhand thing that I guess I figged would be overlooked because it leaned toward the obvious, but instead it was interpreted as, what, lol black people?

- black people are more than just brown and furthermore all people who would likely be classified as "black" in America don't necessarily identify themselves as being part of the same group (see, for example, the kerfuffle in Major League Baseball over African-Americans versus black Hispanics);

Others still are Africans or non-hispanic blacks from the Carribean or Brazilians... So what are some commonalities amongst native African-Americans in the various states and cities?

plus talk to any group of white 8th graders and they will ALSO tell you that being smart is gay

Yeah, but they're just copying the black kids. ;)

& you, Dan, highlighted those structural problems. I didn't meant to elide that fact in my post.

like it's more like something Liz Lemon would do in a 30 Rock episode than real people IRL. (Or I could be totally off-base and there are loads of people who do this.)

i did this last night. :/ a friend asked what i was reading and i told her it was the 33 1/3 book about neutral milk hotel, so that i could talk to my white friends about music. "white friends" meaning some of our specific mutual friends who obsess over indie rock (which i don't really listen to).

xxxxp

So what are some commonalities amongst native African-Americans in the various states and cities?

1. They were born in the US.
2. ...