rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

my computer's working fine, Dan, and i feel the same way

yeah, what stevie says.

It appears to me that two things are happening simultaneously:
1) That it is becoming more acceptable to say certain types of racist things publicly--that blatant racism is on the rise.
2) While it is publically agreed upon that racism is bad, what racism means has narrowed or become ill-defined--the goal posts have moved--i.e. some people making clearly racist statements seem to be genuinely convinced they are not racist and take offense at the label.

The political stuff around reverse-racism and the race card, etc, goes a long way to explain this trend, and obviously a lot of the butthurt around being called racist is deflection and disingenuous.

BUT

My question: are things actually moving in this direction, or am I just noticing stuff that has always been there?

the latter

it's stuff that's always been there, but now the magic of the Internet can wire racism straight into your home

yeah, that sounds about right

I'm thinking mostly about the stuff I see on the teevee.

2) While it is publically agreed upon that racism is bad, what racism means has narrowed or become ill-defined--the goal posts have moved--i.e. some people making clearly racist statements seem to be genuinely convinced they are not racist and take offense at the label.

it's way more extreme than this. there isn't a single racist person alive who thinks that they're racist, even WHITE POWER WNs with swastikas tattooed on their foreheads. i've probably said it in this thread before, but being racist is considered to be much less offensive than being called a racist.

i mean, people like this: https://twitter.com/#!/antidarkskinned
are everywhere on the internet, and they all insist that they're not racist

that's not true, my boss will outright say in private "i am racist against black people".

he's also the kind of guy who when forced to work w/ a black person, will ultimately see they are a good person but say "yeah but he's different"

"yeah but he's different"

this drives me batshit and a lot of my extended family members are guilty of this. they just can't make the leap in logic when they say "well, he's one of the GOOD ones" about every minority they interact with. does that tell you something about it maybe being YOU and not "THEM". argh.

Bouncing back between az and hi, gr8080, you must see some really weird examples of racism.

the first time i visited AZ after SB 1070 was a thing (and after defending Tucson as "not a racist place" to all my friends) i went straight from the airport to a friend's house, then drove to downtown Tucson, parked on a street near a lot of college bars, got out of the car, and immediately encountered a bearded white guy in his 50's or 60's, meandering down the sidewalk shouting "I FUCKIN' HATE MEXICANS! I FUCKIN' HATE MEXICANS!" over and over

that man was the mayor

You don't understand, "I FUCKIN' HATE MEXICANS!" is the name of my dog

when you reach 1070 SBs you get banished to Arizona

suggest banished

the “Yu Dog” is a deep-fried, wonton-wrapped hot dog with teriyaki beef and seaweed salad. It was reportedly being served at the Captain Morgan Club in center field with chop sticks, a fortune cookie, and french fries fried in sesame oil on the side.

http://i.imgur.com/1ORa7.jpg

Weird racial thing, but I am inexplicably drawn to this food item.

would eat through the guilt

Really dreadful attempts at grease-infused novelty cuisine aren't racist, but they are kind of nauseating.

I think tying it explicitly to a player by name is racist.

sesame oil fries sounds revolting

aimless do you know who yu darvish is??

sesame oil is not good for deep-frying btw - low smoke point. hopefully they are just drizzling sesame oil onto the fries afterwards

I don't follow baseball at all, so no, I've never heard of Yu Darvish. Knowing this, I'd say you have to figure the recipe came out of the originator's deeply ignorant stereotyping of east Asians. Abysmal ignorance and revolting food do not make a pretty picture, no matter how many innocent good intentions may have been at work.

Unless, of course, someone spoke with Yu beforehand and he said, "Gosh, you know what I'd really love to eat??? A deep-fried, wonton-wrapped hot dog with teriyaki beef and seaweed salad! Yum! And I'd be honored if you created this and named it after me." <-- Very unlikely scenario.

if u think abt it, it's sort of racist against americans to calumnize their proud tradition of tokenistically syncretic food-trash

Like, lets say they actually got the foods from the fucking country he's from correct. Would that still be racist or just reductive?

Part of me thinks like if they made some pizza dog for an Italian player or a gyro dog for a Greek player, that would be kind of fun (and delicious).

it's actually kind of ironic cause the american fortune cookie may actually have had been inspired by a japanese pastry

Part of me thinks like if they made some pizza dog for an Italian player or a gyro dog for a Greek player, that would be kind of fun (and delicious).

idk man

At least Yu was born in Japan as opposed to Jeremy "fortune cookie ice cream" Lin who was born in CALIFORNIA

Everything I know about contemporary sports is about racism :(

'Sports are racists, racism is a sport, - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

Roundeye Ranger Fan
Wow, give me a break. I was at the game and all the Asian people were having a ball. There was clearly nothing mean spirited going on with anything Japanese themed. I'm assuming you'd be offended if Josh Hamilton was playing for a Japanese team in Japan and the fans there wore cowboy hats and they sold hamburgers and french fries there? What's racist is instantly jumping to find anything that fits into YOUR stereotypes of other ethnicities. The girl with the "Love Yu Long Time" sign was Vietnamese for Pete's sake. Also, Tom Grieve has been around baseball longer than anyone. Google "chinker" or look it up on Wikipedia and you will see that it is an actual baseball term (A blooper; a dying quail; a bleeder.). What a waste of time.

fucking kill me

So out-of-touch am I with the ways of racists and meat-eaters that "round-eye" always strikes me as some kind of steak or something.

The girl with the "Love Yu Long Time" sign was Vietnamese for Pete's sake.

http://hvstatic5.hypervocal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/We-Love-Yu-Long-Time-Heart.jpg

I'm convinced.

"So out-of-touch am I with the ways of racists and meat-eaters"
http://holestoheavens.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/do-or-do-not-yoda.png

yo, don't lump my cheeseburger eatin' ass with those fools

if u think abt it, it's sort of racist against americans to calumnize their proud tradition of tokenistically syncretic food-trash

― The term “hipster racism” from Carmen Van Kerckhove at Racialicious (nakhchivan), Saturday, April 14, 2012 11:56 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haaa yes

also iiinteresting in all this (i don't rly know what to make of it) is that the iranian part of darvish's background is like nowhere

I guess it's the fact that he's a japanese citizen and got famous playing in the japanese leagues?

I saw a store in Savage MN called Groceries of the Orient

http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=23300734

get some chicken

._.

I've listened to more rap music than any living human at Urban Outfitters and I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out what the fuck that even means

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiYO3cLgubQ

I know the shirt is just Racism Classic™ but personally my primary association btwn rap and "chicken" is cocaine refs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHT3Ns8YWH8

the guy whose idea it was to put "Lyrics (tight)"

how many grandchildren does he have

also what kind of rapper would brag about 16-bar verses smdh

16 is p standard I thought