rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

i dunno, i guess i'm getting hung up on small differences. we fundamentally seem to agree with one another.

bottom line, imo, is that people have a right to their feelings. if someone feels offended, then they have a right to have and express that feeling. it's important to remember, however, that just because a feeling is present does not mean that it has any automatic claim to virtue or correctness. to be offended is not necessarily to be in the right, nor is to have given offense necessarily to be in the wrong.

this is pretty much exactly what I said

^ but it isn't? i'm going out of my way to point out that being offended doesn't automatically grant anyone the moral or factual high ground. the only thing causes me to defer are my attitudes towards the responsibilities that attend power imbalances.

Well, sure, but if it's someone you're talking to and they're like "That's RACIST" then you can expand on what you meant and they can understand and drop it, but if they're insistent then there's no reason to tell them they're wrong or do some "oh, we'll have to agree to disagree" stuff, you just drop it.

Dropping it or just letting the point go doesn't grant anyone else the high ground, but really... there is nothing to be gained from arguing about how you weren't racist.

the only thing causes me to defer are my attitudes towards the responsibilities that attend power imbalances.

erg, subject verb. make that: "the only thing that causes me to defer is my personal conception of the ethical responsibilities that attend power imbalances"

xp - agreed

as a rule of thumb, allowing for situational variances...

The nearly complete silence on the question of Swedish culture -- which is a real thing, and Linde as an African Swede knew he was pushing particularly Swedish non-confrontational mores and the very Swedish thing of laughing and joking your way out of ugly and embarrassing situations -- is pretty striking. European racism works in very different ways -- often more bizarrely complex ways -- than American racism, and Americans commenters on this scene who reduce it to "white people laughing at black pain" are misreading it. The reality may be just as ugly, but it's a different ugly picture than that one.

"I think the point made by that Tumblr is more that it was an appropriation of an experience that wasn't his and presented in a manner almost guaranteed to be offensive and misunderstood, showing a profound lack of empathy for the issues meant to be addressed by the piece in the first place."

#cake2012

TWU, I don't even know how to google this Swedish non-confrontational culture. Can you either describe it more or pass on a few links?

This is all I could find, and I have no idea what it means except that Swedes are… shy?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YURgTndk4hg/T0QzUZcfL0I/AAAAAAAAAEw/PUf6kifq5Sg/s1600/Swedish+Bus+Stop+Joke.jpg

It's a little impossible to talk about without quickly getting into exaggeration and stereotyping (see how this works?) but it's a sort of extreme distaste for getting into other people's lives and business. If what you do bugs me, I will avoid you forever before I call you out on it.

USA: slavery abolished 1865
Sweden: slavery first outlawed in 1335

Of course, Sweden has close to zero percent minorities, yeah there's that.

As far as moral high ground goes, Sweden is pretty good about gender equality, invests heavily in the arts (even to a tasteless excess), and hasn't been in a military conflict in two hundred years. The US on the other hand fails to support art in favor of Money and Military culture. The US is the world's number one supplier of weapons, treasure, and political power to the dictators that allow FGM.

OTM on the culture differences. Being totally overlooked here.

I don't think we need to kick the US to note that Sweden is not like the States and that exploring context and using circumspection are always a good way to go.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=swedish+culture+non-confrontation

I have a great degree of skepticism about the malice of the ppl involved.

Has anyone read the TNC piece about the American right not understanding racism in the US as anything more than a means to trip up your opponents? It speaks to a part of the left, too, imho, and if you think this ought to be a learning experince for the Swedish, for that museum and the Culture Minister, that's fine. It may a good opportunity to learn something about Swedes, for some ppl, too.

Listen, Three-Word. Don't talk down to me like I'm from Finland.

Man that reminds me of the Swedish doctor in 'The Kingdom' who cannot quite contain his withering contempt for the Danes.

Just teasing. I'm not Swedish, so I can.

michael white OTM @ 3:05 pm PST

Good enough for a Fin, too damn good for a Swede.

Oh, man. This isn't where Minnesota Nice got watered down from, is it?

*lowers blinds*

The US is the world's number one supplier of weapons, treasure, and political power to the dictators that allow FGM.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), den 18 april 2012 23:58 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sweden is actually the world's number one supplier of weapons, if you count per capita. and constantly sell surveillance equipment and weapons to dictators, through government owned companies.

Why would you count per capita?

every Swede spends a few hours a day constructing and exporting weapons.

In between bites of cake, I suppose

Per capita's worth noting given that Sweden has about 9m people and the only countries who export more arms have at least seven times that.

Hmmm....did not know that. Per capita, of course.

Fwiw Sweden was the 1st country to legislate against FGM.

1st Western country

I still am not really seeing how the country's population correlates at all with its capacity/desire to produce weapons, or why that's an interesting statistic beyond "here is a list where Sweden comes first", unless you are looking at weapon manufacture in comparison with Sweden's other industries

bomb sweden

t's a sort of extreme distaste for getting into other people's lives and business. If what you do bugs me, I will avoid you forever before I call you out on it.

File under "things I have spent my adult life un-learning."

http://www.defencetalk.com/swedish-weapons-exports-on-the-rise-24690/

article on this from 2010. it doesn't say anything about sales relative to other countries tho.

Sweden's sixth in the world overall, after the US, Russia, France, China and the UK - all countries with traditionally much larger manufacturing industries and domestic armies.

at least in 2010, 80% of their exports went to the rest of europe. the bomb-basket of europe! like the danes and butter

I am not saying gross production isn't a useful or informative statistic; I am questioning the relevance/usefulness of per capita production in comparison with other countries.

That's really wild, i had no idea about that stuff.

Sweden = Saab Aerospace = fighter jet exports

bizarre thread where i inevitably find contenderizer's stances weasel-y & defensive

it may be that we're just not all that well suited to one another

http://sarahburningham.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Heartbreak_Cookie.jpg

http://www.hayibo.com/africans-shocked-by-uncivilized-antics-of-european-savages/

is that like a European version of the Onion or something?

It has a separate category (alongside Arts & Entertainment / Sport / Politics) for Julius Malema - I'm guessing not.

Oh ok I did not pay attention too much to any of the details

/the only thing causes me to defer are my attitudes towards the responsibilities that attend power imbalances./

erg, subject verb. make that: "the only thing that causes me to defer is my personal conception of the ethical responsibilities that attend power imbalances"
--yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer)

This is a pretty impressive way of saying "I tend to respect the experience of the offended party."

i knew i must have meant something

haha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOI2GGY1SeE

Sort of feel bad for this guy

I would love to believe that this was just a case of neighbors being suspicious of people in an empty house, but I know it wasn't.

The Newton County Sheriff’s Office is investigating why a couple was confronted at gunpoint by neighbors and then arrested and forced to spend the night in jail when they tried to move into the home they had just purchased, Channel 2 Action News reported.

The Kalonji family had just closed on a foreclosed home and were told by their real estate agent they should go over to the house and change the locks.

But when Jean Kalonji and his wife, Angelica, started working at the home, an armed man and another person who appeared to be the man’s son allegedly confronted them.

“He say to put the hands up and get out from the house, otherwise he would shoot us,” the husband told Channel 2.

The neighbors didn’t believe the couple when they told them they had bought the home and called the Newton County Sheriff’s Office. The Kalonjis didn’t have the closing papers with them, so deputies arrested them, charged them with loitering and prowling and took them to jail.

Yvette Harris, the couple’s real estate agent, said they never should have been arrested.

“They rightfully own this house,” Harris said.

Kalonji, who grew up in the Congo, said the experience brought back painful memories.

“There, they put me down with the gun to my head, and come here, the same,” he said.

Mark Mitchell, spokesman for the Newton Sheriff’s Office, said authorities are “looking into it, exactly what occurred, why it occurred.”

A person at the neighbors’ house said no one wanted to talk to Channel 2 about the incident.