rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

Putting pressure on kids to 'represent their people' is obviously wrong. At the same time, i can see why teachers would want to try to make discussions of that nature as inclusive as possible and give people from minority backgrounds a prominent voice on topics that might be of particular personal importance to them. It's often done in a well-meaning but ham-fisted way.

On a related note, has anybody else read Baratunde Thurston's _How to Be Black_? It's his new memoir/how-to and fucking hilarious.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062003216

http://howtobeblack.me/htbborder

He brings up being the only black kid in your class, the only black guy at your job, etc.

xxpost what did your dad do for the lesson on World War II?

― ffun. (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, March 20, 2012 4:59 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well you see, there were hardly any Jews in that school anymore...

Putting pressure on kids to 'represent their people' is obviously wrong. At the same time, i can see why teachers would want to try to make discussions of that nature as inclusive as possible and give people from minority backgrounds a prominent voice on topics that might be of particular personal importance to them. It's often done in a well-meaning but ham-fisted way.

just FYI, the teacher who asked me for my opinion on slavery was the football coach who, 10 years earlier, had benched my all-conference running back brother during the parent's day game his senior year when my grandparents were visiting because he was trying to make a terrible white running back into something

he also told a story to the class about how racist his father was by saying he called Martin Luther King Jr an idiot, then held me after class to say "well actually, he said 'nigger'" when no one else was around

all this reminds me of that 2000 NYT story on upski

Tuesday dawned muggy. It started badly and got worse. Upski was addressing about 250 students at Evergreen College in Olympia, Wash. Maybe 10 weren't white.

He had gathered a panel of half a dozen students. One, Evelyn Aako, was black. Introducing her, he said: ''I don't know her very well, but she's black. And she's going to talk about issues of being black on campus.''

Ms. Aako gave him an arch look. ''That was very weird,'' she recalled thinking. ''Like I was a little dark object.''

As Upski began talking, the white audience got defensive. One student said: ''Why do we have to talk about race? Why can't we talk about how we're alike?''

Ms. Aako was getting disgusted. Finally she told Upski: ''I've been sitting here with an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach about how you introduced me. I felt tokenized and on display. This follows a tradition where black people serve as entertainment for white people. That's not what I do.''

Upski said: ''I screwed up. But what can we do? The world is screwed up.''

Some white students were looking irritated. One said: ''Can't we hear Upski talk? We can talk about race later.''

A black student said: ''What do you mean later? We never talk about race.''

Some whites left. Virtually all the students of color followed. Before leaving, Ms. Aako said, ''It's not my job to educate you.''

Later, Upski sounded no less confident of his ability to stimulate change. But perhaps, he said, he needed to refine his approach.

''I think the main thing that keeps white people from growing is they're afraid to look bad,'' he said. ''So I preach to mess up. One of my blind spots at Evergreen was that Evelyn wasn't going to trust me, that black people and white people, we're still at war.''

Wu-Tang Clan announces the name of their sixth studio album: The Imperial Examination System under the Song Dynasty

xxpost he held you after class to tell you that? ffffuuuu

our 7th grade social studies class did the "slave auction" thing too, like if you got "bought" you had to carry people's books around for the week.

the social studies teacher was the HS wrestling coach.

the weird thing was that he gave you fake monopoly money to "buy" your slaves with if you had been selected as part of the slave owning part of the class...but he used a photocopier to put Willie Nelson's head on the fake dollar bills where george washington would be

he was a really big willie nelson fan

looooool

im kind of glad i cant remember any racist shit my teachers did

I gotta go home, but I just found the best site:

http://celebrity-cash.com/catalog/images/willie_nelson.jpg
http://celebrity-cash.com/catalog/images/hank_williams_jr.jpg
http://celebrity-cash.com/catalog/images/oprah.jpg

sorry that wasn't US History obviously, that was World History

crucial difference

haha that's not far off, but it was a willie shot w/the iconic headband and braids i think

Given who posted it, this http://www.theroot.com/buzz/teacher-student-read-poem-blacker was probably gotcha-bait, but I do think it's worth looking at

WTF man

tip o the hat to you crut

fyi some ppl are saying the teacher in the Root article was black... Still racist?

feel like ANY teacher telling a black student he's not acting black enough for the class falls under the racism umbrella

omg you guys I just remembered

my high school staged The Wiz but did a "redneck" version instead of a "black" version because the cast was almost all white

it was as inadvisable as you could imagine

The Cheez Wiz

feel like ANY teacher telling a black student he's not acting black enough for the class falls under the racism umbrella

― Lester the Unlikely (crüt), Tuesday, March 20, 2012 3:33 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what if the poem is deliberately written in black dialect, and the teacher & student are both black? "racism" doesn't seem like the best word to describe the dynamic...

i would say the teacher had a poor choice of words

instead of saying "read more black" she should have just said "read it in the voice it's written in"

when the kid asked if the teacher thought all black people spoke that way she should have answered the question instead of telling him to sit down and shut up

and the poem IS deliberately written in *a* black vernacular, not *the* black vernacular

I remember heads turning towards me once in fourth grade when the Holocaust got mentioned and I was the only Jewish kid in class. My teacher, who was black, expressed sympathy, and recalled the same thing happening to her when slavery came up.

So yeah tokenization sucks. Though perhaps it didn't help that for years my parents came in to class around the holidays so we could explain Hanukah to people. Though on the other hand I had to put up with Christmas carols being sung in class like everybody cared about that holiday as recently as 11th grade.

Ok back to actual racism instead of me perpetrating the War on Christmas.

What so I should read "Ulysses" in a comedy oirish accent then?

when the kid asked if the teacher thought all black people spoke that way she should have answered the question instead of telling him to sit down and shut up

Sadly I had a lot of teachers with exactly this attitude, ALL the time.

Not the black thing, the "dont question me, stfu" thing.

i've always had trouble spotting the lines between simple insensitivity, prejudice and racism

luckily there's usually a helpful white person around to sort it out for me

What so I should read "Ulysses" in a comedy oirish accent then?

It's probably a sign of my inner malignancy that I think this is a hilarious idea.

Jakers! meets Ulysses

Re the redneck Wiz:

I played Harriet Tubman in a third grade school play. The two black girls in my class played slaves whom I helped to freedom. One teacher suggested I do this in blackface but somebody thankfully intervened. This play aired on local television.

trayce only the Stephen parts are read that way, leopold should be done in Mel brooks' voice

comedy Shane McGowan impression also acceptable

jakers otm

shane mcgowan has a london accent iirc but i mean who can tell tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSahS9k9zqw

he just loved auctions, i guess

― less of the same (darraghmac), Wednesday, 21 March 2012 08:58 (56 minutes ago)

booming p btw

:)

What so I should read "Ulysses" in a comedy oirish accent then?

No. Only Shakespeare should be read in a comedy oirish accent.

Singling one kid out to be the group spokesperson for whatever group is just bullshit imo.

― Marilyn Hagerty: the terroir of tiny town (Abbbottt), Tuesday, March 20, 2012 5:33 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxp2fzAqAJ1r9zsizo1_500.jpg

BIG HOOS w/the tumblr white perspective

bam

Suddenly I am very embarrased to own that tshirt >:|

blame the glasses imo

Why do you have a shirt asking for Black perspective on that proposal?

hahah I know I was kind of , whoa Tracye, on that at first

that's like the 00s version of wayne and garth

the reboot if you will

Guy on the left is p cute; I'm going to assume he was never asking a dumb superimposed question.

on of my coworkers has started using the term 'canadians' when referring to black ppl. i know it's racist bc he does it when he wants to say something racist about black ppl, but i don't know where it comes from. is there some piece of popular media he got it from or is this his own invention?

Derived from Geoffrey Canada, maybe?