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.)
― Mordy, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:01 (fourteen years ago) link
it's that "insist that others" - not syntax, word choice.
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:01 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― max, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:02 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― INSUFFICIENT FUN (bernard snowy), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:03 (fourteen years ago) link
i read cane in my modernist lit class too! did you guys read nightwood too?
― max, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:05 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― brad whitford's guitar explorations (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:05 (fourteen years ago) link
xpyup!
― INSUFFICIENT FUN (bernard snowy), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:06 (fourteen years ago) link
college!
― max, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:06 (fourteen years ago) link
seriously can't get through like 2 pgs. of nightwood over here
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:08 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:09 (fourteen years ago) link
Black majority - most of US blacks.
hilarious
― goole, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:09 (fourteen years ago) link
lolwat?
― Mordy, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:10 (fourteen years ago) link
I get...zero points for contrarian obtuse bullshit
fuckin'
man oh man
― brad whitford's guitar explorations (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:10 (fourteen years ago) link
well now i just feel silly being on this thread
― 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.
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:11 (fourteen years ago) link
― 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
― max, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:12 (fourteen years ago) link
bamcquern, why u want to troll + breaked mine <3?
― Mordy, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:12 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― max, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:13 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― HI DERE, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:14 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:15 (fourteen years ago) link
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)
― INSUFFICIENT FUN (bernard snowy), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:16 (fourteen years ago) link
dude, max, was correcting my error, mr caps
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:16 (fourteen years ago) link
that is fucking super OTM
― HI DERE, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:17 (fourteen years ago) link
my man zizek
Daniel, Esq to thread? jk.
― Mordy, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:17 (fourteen years ago) link
that's the sort of thing i had in mind when starting this thread....
― nakhchivan, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:18 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah whiney loves to talk about white ppl
― max, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:19 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:19 (fourteen years ago) link
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"
― brad whitford's guitar explorations (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:20 (fourteen years ago) link
text:"white people" AND displayName:Whiney G. Weingarten
― max, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:20 (fourteen years ago) link
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?
― brad whitford's guitar explorations (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:21 (fourteen years ago) link
that's because people don't know what the word bourgeoisie means
― Mordy, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:21 (fourteen years ago) link
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?
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:21 (fourteen years ago) link
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. ;)
― Il suffit de ne pas l'envier (Michael White), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:21 (fourteen years ago) link
& you, Dan, highlighted those structural problems. I didn't meant to elide that fact in my post.
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:22 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― emotional radiohead whatever (Jordan), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:22 (fourteen years ago) link
So what are some commonalities amongst native African-Americans in the various states and cities?
1. They were born in the US.2. ...
― HI DERE, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:23 (fourteen years ago) link
these friends emailed me this morning about the national btw
― emotional radiohead whatever (Jordan), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:23 (fourteen years ago) link
2. back in 8th grade they thought being smart was gay
― max, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:24 (fourteen years ago) link
I still think, despite the gay point you make, Dan, that with most black youth (another generalization), there's an unhealthy societal pressure on them to be "black" as a means of fitting in and boosting self-confidence that's not as striking as pressures that average white kids face.
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:25 (fourteen years ago) link
Jordan, did you mean it, or were you uncomfortable about reading a book about a band you felt had a very narrow cultural audience and it was a joke to elide that? (Whether or not that discomfort was appropriate or not.)
― Mordy, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:25 (fourteen years ago) link
com on ppl now smile on ur brother :)
― am0n, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:26 (fourteen years ago) link
the latter
xp
― emotional radiohead whatever (Jordan), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:26 (fourteen years ago) link
lol "gay point" - I mean point about white 8th grade kids also thinking smart = gay.
― bamcquern, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:26 (fourteen years ago) link
re: crime stats: I read a pretty recent (2009 I think?) book which, IIRC, gave 1 out of 3 as the proportion of young black males (I forget exactly what the age range was for this statistic) currently in jail, on parole, or on probation. just in case anyone was curious.
― INSUFFICIENT FUN (bernard snowy), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:27 (fourteen years ago) link
(Punishing the Poor by Loic Wacquant, if yr interested)
― INSUFFICIENT FUN (bernard snowy), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:28 (fourteen years ago) link
why did thread about white ppl disparaging other white ppl turn into a thread about "black culture" and now crime statistics?
― Mordy, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:28 (fourteen years ago) link
― bamcquern, Friday, April 23, 2010 12:25 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark
ok, what's your point?
― iiiijjjj, Friday, 23 April 2010 17:29 (fourteen years ago) link
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Franz_Xaver_Winterhalter_King_Louis_Philippe.jpg/210px-Franz_Xaver_Winterhalter_King_Louis_Philippe.jpg
King of Bourgies
― Il suffit de ne pas l'envier (Michael White), Friday, 23 April 2010 17:29 (fourteen years ago) link