rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

'ringtone' is the preferred term

Lenny Kravitz apparently an apostate Jew, I think I am racist against him now

the reaction to the lenny kravitz casting makes me hate people, but the reaction to the rue casting is mindboggling. she's very clearly black in the book.

OK, I didn't realize this, but I've only read the first one.

she's only in the first one! i guess people sort of skim YA sometimes. district 12 is evocative of Reconstruction-era south black sharecroppers. district 11 is reminiscent of Appalachian coal miners.

I never know when people are supposed to be black in books unless the book says "this character is black". "Dark skin" doesn't register for me as "this character is some sort of futuristic black person".

Haven't read hunger games

district 9 is an apartheid allegory

i do watch books like a hawk for race markers

lol shut up jho i am clearly invested in the hunger games for some reason

do you even realize what an amazing joke i made, do you?!!

I have never heard of Hunger Games.

But I'm still appalled that there are black characters.

gonna do a phd on this brb

recently saw a glenn ligon exhibition and holy shit the white people who were walking around and looking at the work and talking about all of it were just so fuckin racist, I mean museum chatter is prob some of my fav shit to overhear in the world but I was leaving rooms just to get away from people

why you gotta bring markers into this

so this isn't about romans.

come come there's lots of acceptable bigotries in ireland!

Well, yes, here too. I meant acceptable amongst liberals/leftists who would oppose any other kind of prejudice. People here who would oppose any other kind of prejudice or racist language are more than happy to complain about 'gypos' or 'tinks' etc.

*masturbates furiously to pic of lenny kravitz, rids self of last vestiges of racism*

http://www.baltimoremd.com/images/anim/eyes.gif

I never saw the Battle Royale movie but the book was SUPER ENTHRALLING

the movie is pretty good, the book is better. I have no interest in Hunger Games, sounds like a stupid ripoff designed to appeal to um people other than me.

I was kinda shocked to see Battle Royale in a children's book store the other day. Like, really this is appropriate for 12 yo or whatever? (tbf it was on the same shelf as Tolkien/LOTR) I guess I read some gnarly shit when I was 12, I just remember this book being particularly brutal...

http://i.imgur.com/jWkZ0.jpg

Racism isn't even the biggest problem I have with that.

yah it begins sarcastically and then is plainly moralistic, that sort of stylistic miscegenation suggests the internet isn't even trying to raise its young content farmers

lol all the guys taking cell phone pix

maybe she has a hilarious tramp stamp

one guy has the im totally gonna put this on my tumblr look in his eyes

i got your dam district 9 joke, icey

~7 hours later~

haha i am shaking my fist irl

thanking u

she's only in the first one!

Oh, duh. :)

i guess people sort of skim YA sometimes.

Possibly true.

district 12 is evocative of Reconstruction-era south black sharecroppers. district 11 is reminiscent of Appalachian coal miners.

I think you have these reversed?

yes, you are right

district 12 has enough references to the pale merchant families and the darker seam families for there to be a few theories about katniss's background/appearance. also, the lyrics to the hanging tree also seem to reference lynching: http://thehungergames.wikia.com/wiki/Songs#Lyrics_2

This is like the opposite of when I read the first three HARRY POTTAR books and thought Hermione was black and was hella confused when I saw the movie poster. OR IS IT??

http://www.observer.com/2012/01/gawker-blogger-fired-racial-slur-01052011/

Seems really odd to me that this happened at all considering like Gawker and TMZ are like dually responsible for the internet outrage culture of "Once potentially a racist, always a flaming contemptible racist." I figured dude should be like hyper aware of shit like this

I would not be at all surprised if the uproar was over making fun of Kanye's dead mother rather than any allusion to a racial slur, considering the linguistic limbo over the difference between "-a" and "-er".

the joke was really offensive and i do think calling a black person the n-word is a straight up fireable offense but i was more rankled by his no-stakes apology. "sorries all around!" is like an apology from that girl from ucla that made that video about asians in the library.

also feel like writing a post on gawker about DONDA and not knowing that donda is the name of kanye's dead mom is a fireable offense in of itself.

it was totally about the n-word and not about kanye's mom

that is one statement I am happy to be wrong about

at first I didn't think it was that bad, then I thought if someone made that joke in front of me it would be pretty horrific.

the fact that he had to say "dis" instead of "this" to make the hacky acronym joke work makes it even more offensive

whiney, what do you think of all the "shit ______ people say" youtubes that are popular now

feel like you would like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylPUzxpIBe0

whiney, what do you think of all the "shit ______ people say" youtubes that are popular now

― dayo, Friday, January 6, 2012 10:24 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

The Stuff Girls Say with the dude in drag was pretty disgusting on some basic levels.

A lot of the "Stuff White Girls Say To Black Girls" seems more like "Stuff White Girls Say When Black Girls Aren't Around," which makes the whole YouTube sadder if it's accurate.

i think most black girls have had that stuff said to them by white girls in their lives. i think most black guys have had the gender equivalent stuff said to them by white guys in their lives. white americans are really stupid about race

except for me, im really smart about race

i have tons of bleaugh friends

but ur last name is 'racist' iirc. max racist.

The Observer has just learned that Gawker blogger Seth Abramovitch was dismissed after a post that invoked a racial slur many considered to be in generally poor taste.

Gawker used to have such tasteful racial slurs, what happened?