rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

dayo your dismissive "ok, fine" is hurtful towards my Norwegian heritage and, therefore, racist ;_;

norwegian crackers are dangerously flaky

Jeg beklager, her la oss ha en fred cracker ^_^

for real lolz at Stargate as "Norwegian Crackers"

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17sbe76ewwo75jpg/original.jpg

(Via.)

oh lord

all this white girls not racist

disclaimer: this is Utah

when you are it you will shit bricks

gah "when you see it"

fuck iphone

When you are it you will ask "what? there's women, there's color, what?"

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ASgAQ2KipIE/T_J35N8szGI/AAAAAAAARAw/rUFDxAbwCJY/s1600/3.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/9Q6HD.gif

That gif just sucked away most of my will to live

This should get you all the way to suicide, then.

http://static1.firedoglake.com/29/files/2011/01/bristol.gif

Flag waving's kind of a thing in her family, tho

You know what I love as an antidote to racism and people saying stupid shit is yoisthisracist.com. Did ilx do that already? Sometimes shit is way less complicated than I think and I like to be reminded and put back int the right head space.

it's 100% definitely been bigged up on ilx, 95% probably itt

takes way too long for me to show all msgs now though

i like yo is this racist mostly but i always want to write him really long emails when he answers questions about religion

one time i did write him a long tumblr question when he answered something about female circumcision and he responded to me personally but didnt publish it

that is a topic more suited for a site called "is this fucked up?" imo

His tone irks but he's usually right

I think his tone is joyous. It brings me joy.

john terry

http://www.morganspier.com/events-details.php?day=1343620800

Is this racist? Its this great new spot that opened up in Philly with great DJs and a great chef doing the food, etc, and they have a night called Jamaican Soul where they play roots, reggae, and Jamaican soul, and they also just started doing nightly food specials and that night it was $10 for really quality jerk chicken, fries, and fried plantains (and also a craft beer, whoo Philly)

Got into an argument with my boyf who says the name Jamaican Soul is racist, and that the whole thing fetishistic, and the idea of having a food special that correlates culturally w a DJ night is way problematic and wrong. I disagreed bcz from my (somewhat limited) understanding of Jamaican food/music, it seemed fairly authentic and not caricaturey (e.g. like tropical cocktails and Bob Marley and paper Jamaican flags everywhere and fake dreads) and they weren't billing it as like !!JAMAICA NIGHT!!, and it seems equally problematic to say "you cannot play music and serve food w the same cultural influence w/o it being racist"

it's only racist if they play "Dreadlock Holiday"

is the name supposed to be a play on "piers morgan," cuz if so, that's definitely racist

No it's not, it's just a dumb name. They do tons of different things (Todd Terry, Alan Braxe, The Juan Maclean, etc)

true story, my dad (among other ventures) opened a nightclub in the late 90s, there was a weekly r&b / hip-hop night and he actually thought it was a good idea to sell fried chicken and cornbread on that night. which was definitely racist (sorry, dad).

BUT re: your question, I don't think attempted authenticity is prophylactic against racism, i can see how it might play as a kind of ethnic tourism. i don't think the food / music pairing is not necessarily offensive but maybe promoting it as an 'authentic' 'Jamaican Soul' experience is maybe pandering to a sense of exoticism that's a little icky -- especially if there are no jamaicans involved (are there?)

Playing Julian / Damian Marley: Not racist
Ziggy / Stephen Marley: Borderline
Anyone w/out a career outside the Melody Makers: GTFO

Not sure why calling a night of reggae Jamaican Soul is racist. Jamaican Soul is a musical reference, no? At worst, the food special is maybe a bit tacky.

uhh this all depends how it's done

tbh I am more interested in learning more about DJs Bloodfaceman and Browner Jeff

tbh I am more interested in learning more about DJs Bloodfaceman and Browner Jeff

This!

^ elmo's post all otm, & the rnb/friend chicken analogy is troubling, but fwiw/for me, i would find it frustrating if the worth of the night was eclipsed by some of the baggage that any kind of venture like that is going to have. like i think a well-meaning thing that gives some kind of presence to jamaican culture, whether or not it's compromised in terms of authenticity or articulacy, is really valuable, partly as an amenity for the town & partly as at least some however imperfect representation of the wider world. you know? like yeah there are gonna be degrees of how to do it right and yeah it's gonna have to confront & hopefully avoid issues of stereotyping, but i hope there's some ground between the extremes of 'not engaging for fear of trespassing' & 'trashy cultural-tourism/theme nights'. i don't think the concept of pairing food & music is inherently troubling to me, but then i guess i could be proved wrong depending on what the pairing is, again cf cornbread or w/e (vague memories of ten thousand GOP CONGRESSMAN HOSTS THEMED BARBECUE- stories surfacing in my head as i type)

xp Oh yeah, totally, but there's too little info on the website to be able to judge either way in advance. If it promised an "authentic" Jamaican experience and had a picture of Bob Marley smoking a spliff and a tagline in patois then that would be different. Maybe Stevie D's boyf had a tip-off that it's going to be full of white frat boys saying "yah mon".

like, if you show me a picture of them and they look like Diplo and Switch, I may be agreeing with your b/f

Facebook stalking suggests Browner Jeff isn't a white guy, fwiw.

haha I didn't think he would be, I was just saying

"ladies and gentlemen, please welcome: DJ BROWNER JEFF!"

http://www.ring-rap.com/new/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Jeff-Hardy1.jpg

Local reggae DJ Whiter Jeff is getting _no_ work since that guy turned up :(

but anyway, to make this thread less like a scene from Airplane! I think you can't just call the mere existence of this night racist; it's entirely dependent on how it's done, as others have said

Looking forward to the electronica and brautwurst night featuring Brauner Jeff.

You know there are white jamaicans, Indian Jamaicans, Chinese Jamaicans, right?

Also, paramount to me is that the chicken is good, the plantain not too soggy and the whole event not just be some Red Stripe promotion thing.

originally thought you wrote "I think you can't just call the mere existence of the night racist" and i was trying to figure out what you meant by defending the nighttime from charges of racism xxp

You know there are white jamaicans, Indian Jamaicans, Chinese Jamaicans, right?

so by this logic, there wouldn't be anything weird/off about a white Jamaican calling himself Browner Jeff because he's Jamaican?

Wd be great & smart to have someone who is actually Jamaican consulting on this? Ime people who love and collect Jamaican music will have made friends w people from Jamaica, will have collaborated on things w them, will have been to Jamaica in search of records/history--generally are respectful of this thing that they love and benefit from but aren't the inheritors of.

Also if Jamaicans are involved then it can have the angle of being "the sounds and tastes of home" for ex-pats instead of straight tourism for outsiders.

You know there are white jamaicans, Indian Jamaicans, Chinese Jamaicans, right?

i am reminded suddenly of this hilarious old thread: Generic Rap Song

I'm not sure the involvement of Jamaicans made a lot of the stuff surrounding Major Lazer less offensive but, in general, having some level of understanding of the culture beyond the cliches is definitely pretty important in getting a night like this right.