rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

god i feel guilty right now for wanting to say "incidentally, DJP, I've been meaning to ask you..."

hahaha

ugh someone recorded video of the banana suit incident. i feel sick. http://bit.ly/1Efd60

probably said it a million times on ilx but I always remember re: ignorant college students this guy who lived down the hall from me in the dorms who was talking to the one black guy on our floor and said, looking at his hand, "You know, you black people are funny. Your skin is darker, but your palms are really pink!"

big old dumb farmboy dude

stuff like that really makes me feel like parents who act all 'colorblind' and don't talk to their kids about race or racism before sending them out into the world are some of the biggest assholes

there are studies out there that back that assertion up

(I should really track down a primary link to the study)

Soon as I saw BYU in big letters, I knew I was in for a traet.

BYU ideas

talking to the one black guy on our floor and said, looking at his hand, "You know, you black people are funny. Your skin is darker, but your palms are really pink!"

Reminded me of :36

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uguq0u1ARUo

I work in an office of about 75 people, and we've got one black dude who works here. I always feel bad at him on the retreats because inevitably, assholes get drunk and want to play "Ask a Black Dude".

And hey, that's Darrell up there in the screen grab!

I could be selectively remembering, but I don't feel like I was that race conscious until sometime in the middle of elementary school. I went to a school that was mostly white but had a handful of black kids in each class, and, for reasons having to do with DC demographics, most of the teachers were black. When I had black friends in kindergarten or first grade I don't remember it occuring to me that blackness was a significant attribute. I certainly don't remember thinking it about teachers, since it was taken for granted. There was definitely some threshold in elementary school where suddenly it seemed like, "oh, those kids are black," but I can't pinpoint it. I'm sure media had an effect too -- until at least third or fourth grade I don't think I had any significant exposure to things like hip-hop, and the primary media representations of black people I had seen really were through stuff like sesame street and the cosby show.

There are a lot of things to be depressed about in that study—the parents’ resistance to talking to their children about race, the naivete of the colorblind crowd—but it was really encouraging to see these results:

And, for all six, their children dramatically improved their racial attitudes in a single week.

The thing that drives me nuts about liberal whites who subscribe to this idea of colorblindness is the willful ignorance of how colorblindness is used by modern racists to deflect criticism and to justify institutional racism and racist actions and beliefs.

I understand *wanting* to believe that children, left to their own devices will automatically develop positive attitudes around race, but there are all sorts of lessons you teach your children to help guide them into making right choices, because you know they will often make horrible choices and develop bad habits, and weird ideas that seemingly come out of nowhere. Why would you believe race would be any different?

Before like kindergarden, my only exposure to black people was the Little Rascals and I remember distinctly thinking that when they get chicken pox, it makes white spots instead of dark ones. :/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHKzn8aHyXg

I was in my late teens before I realized that watermelons don't really cause sickle-cell anemia.

Before like kindergarden, my only exposure to black people was the Little Rascals and I remember distinctly thinking that when they get chicken pox, it makes white spots instead of dark ones. http://i.imgur.com/zi7hd.gif

― dave cool, Thursday, February 9, 2012 11:27 AM

I was in my late teens before I realized that watermelons don't really cause sickle-cell anemia.

― pplains, Thursday, February 9, 2012 12:11 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if this is a joke i'm going to repost it to the "Is This Racist?" thread oh wait

It's not a joke.

I was in health class and had the worst kind of "waaaiiitt a minute…" re-evaluations ever.

When I was younger, my daycare crew ate some watermelon on the front porch. Our baby-sitter told us not to eat too much or we'd get sickle-cell anemia.

I didn't know what that was and certainly didn't know that it was a disease that affected mostly African-Americans. It didn't come up again until years later in that health class and fortunately for me, I was able to accept my discovery silently in my head. (Instead of raising my hand and completely embarrassing myself.)

holy crap

holy hell

O_O

heh, that reminds me of when my old landlord took me and my sister aside when we were ten to explain to us why there were so many black people in prison. he just wanted to make sure we were properly informed.

did he give you a somber chat about the grim realities of institutionalized racism?

no but one day he did inform me that i wasn't a country boy until i squished some cowshit between my toes

he was right on the latter i guess.

I do that all the time and I'm not a country boy

great start though

and Austerity Ponies OTM

I know Dave (who did the BYU video), and he's actually a really good and smart and funny guy. It's worth noting that a good number of people who know him and know these things about him have called him out on the ill-advisedness of this most recent endeavor (which, from my perspective, is more a result of his high rate of production superceding his good judgment than anything else).

oh well, if you say he's a really good guy.

hey i know Deric W. Haircare, he's a really good judge of character.

"You know, I hate racists as a whole, but on the level individually, I can get along with them 'alright."

I do think it's kind of important to consider the "fight ignorance with ignorance" stinger at the end of this video

"I mean, if Apocolypto's on Encore again, I usually stick with it for a half hour or so."

i couldn't make it to the end of the damn video

"i've had lots of convos with dude and everything points to the fact that dude seriously likes rap music."

Yes, congratulations to you all on your reading comprehension.

thank you!

y'all being some serious dicks to deric

in the face of a public video i'm not sure what relevance he's actually a really good and smart and funny guy is supposed to have

dave not cool

Horseshoe, I'm just saying that it'll be really unfortunate if this particular video winds up being the thing he's most well-known for, as it's not indicative of him as a person to the extent that I know him or of his other work.

Anytime you make a race video, that is the thing you will be most well-known for.

Horseshoe, I'm just saying that it'll be really unfortunate if this particular video winds up being the thing he's most well-known for, as it's not indicative of him as a person to the extent that I know him or of his other work.

― SNEEZED GOING DOWN STEPS, PAIN WHEN PUTTING SOCKS ON (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, February 9, 2012 2:16 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah it's really unfortunate that he made the choices he did!

But then I knew going in that defending anyone in the 'Is this racist?' thread was going to be a losing battle whether you disapproved of the questionably racist work in question or not, so...whatever.

I forget that things are always either black or white.

Wait...is that racist?