rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

We already have a Tim & Eric thread, btw.

yeah i'm not reaching for some subtext like "hey wite ppl, let's hit the slopes; there's like one black family out here, at most." i'm just wtfing at the literal text and the blithely ham-fisted attempt to get it to suggest something like "grabbing some big air in the snow" or whatnot when the original denotation of "white flight" is just hanging out there.

also that board has no bindings he's gonna bite it hard when he tries to stick the landing.

x-posts

http://www.white-power.de/

Go ahead. Click. You'll be surprised.

Here's the story, as I understand it: there was a Dutch motorcycle tuner who was either a big ol' racist or a HAW HAW RACISM IS FUNNY asshole who started a company and called it White Power. The parts are very good, as it turns out, and the tuner gets rid of some of the Nazi iconography in their logos and comes up with a bullshit cover story for the company name (the parts were always colored white, so they said they named the company after the color of the parts). He sells the company and technology to KTM, who immediately renames it WP technology, although European motorcyclists still call the parts White Power parts. This German website is, I think, a fake distributor and only exists to get German skins &qu✧✧✧@white-po✧✧✧.d✧" e-mail addresses. Cute, huh?

in the UK there are a number of brands of strong flavourless cider which essentially exist purely to serve the needs of alcoholics and they have names which make them sound like NS skinhead bands such as

http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/25445_366571540305_4220065_a.jpg

and http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kqwmfwR5BS1qa6qi7o1_500.jpg

and my personal favourite http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-E-4q3Rqk0-w/TneisWDey9I/AAAAAAAAAIs/2mLO0sEKso8/s320/31012010245.jpg

years ago my friend swore he saw one called WHITE POWER but not sure my credulity stretches that far

first one is legit frightening

This one's an interesting one.

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/rowling-book-faces-backlash-in-india-over-sikh-slur-20121003-26yxx.html

So Rowling's new "adult" novel has loads of nasty characters in it, but:

The Casual Vacancy, released last week, has sparked criticism from readers taking exception to passages about a character named Sukhvinder, a surgeon's daughter who is teased about her looks and is described as a "hairy man-woman" and "mustachioed yet large-mammaried".

Now, my assmption (not having read the book) is the descriptions therein are from a bullying character in the novel, and not her personally saying she thinks that of Sikh women.

Seems obvious to me. Is it racist to have racist characters in a novel? Shirly not?

White Storm / White Strike both knock-offs of White Lightning, which has since been discontinued.

Lots of Sikhs in the novel, which I have not read, but have read this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/oct/02/sikh-protests-jk-rowling-misplaced

i was just going to say "maybe jk rowling needs to go to REDDIT for some TOLERANCE" but it seems the internet beat me to it

http://cdn7.wn.com/pd/e6/63/30252e21526e2ffaa85e1f5bc2d3_grande.jpg
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/12/29/1293645955098/Workers-protest-at-the-He-007.jpg

No, those are not racist.

Tread lightly on those bean signs, white people.

Did Heinz stop making white beans or something?

They found out that Lima was in Peru.

Can't see any way those signs are racist at all, that's from during the pay strike at Heinz in 2010 I think?

it's a WHITE STRIKE, good lord.

What about the Breaking Bad character "Walter White". That smacks of privelege to me.

Ha, we've already posted that article haven't we?

huh. gis for "White Strike" gets nsfw-ish for me on moderate.

So does "Reagan Gif", which I discovered earlier.

Oh, we're still doing that. With you now. xxp

http://gawker.com/5952341/local-new-york-city-white-lady-wears-afro-wig-takes-photos-with-black-people-becomes-enlightened

http://shine.yahoo.com/fashion/gap-pulls-manifest-destiny-t-shirt-gets-history-025900453.html

"I first learned of Manifest Destiny in American History in Junior High School. To me it has always meant that one could set goals, work hard, and achieve their dreams."

"Manifest Destiny" actually refers to the mid-19th century mindset that white Americans had a divine obligation to claim as much of the continent as possible for themselves, slaughtering and oppressing native people in the process.

"Manifest Destiny" actually refers to the mid-19th century mindset that white Americans had a divine obligation to [follow ur dreams]"

comment:
you said 'holocaust'. you are racist! Oops, I said 'holocaust'. i'm racist too now... :(

now i'm curious what this would look like if the shirt said HOLOCAUST

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=m63lNmAAEBc#t=87s

OH LOL WHOOPS http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/04/23/urban-outfitters-under-fire-over-holocaust-t-shirt/

Marc McMairy has used the slogan on his own line before, but the added exposure of having it sold in a huge retailer definitely raised enough eyebroes to push the controversy across a certain threshold that he was not able to handle. At the start of the backlash he doubled down and tweeted "MANIFEST DESTINY: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST" because he's even more of an idiot than anyone suspected

I mean if you're looking to prove you're not racist you might want to refrain from coupling a belief of divinely ordained white superiority with fucking Darwinism

they really really downplayed the racist aspects of Manifest Destiny in my grade school history classes

Gawd a'mighty! SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST isn't even real Darwinism; it's from Herbert Spencer. Charles Darwin was a lot narrower and more specific in his definitions of evolutionary advantage. That's because Darwin was a real scientist, as opposed to Spencer who was a popularizer and a somewhat better-than-average hack.

The thought that someone would sell a t-shirt with a slogan used to promote and encourage genocide is just baffling. Everyone involved with the production of that is a supreme asshole.

they really really downplayed the racist aspects of everything in my grade school history classes

It reminds me of one of the speeches at the H4mmond High '96 graduation. The theme of the speech was that now that we were moving on from high school we couldn't turn back. The speaker illustrated this concept by telling the story about how Hernan Cortes, upon arriving in Mexico, instructed his crew to burn the ships, so they couldn't sail back to Europe. And he made a sort of rallying cry out of this, every few minutes punctuating a point by yelling "BURN THE SHIPS!" To be honest, I think a large part of the audience just didn't get it and was mostly put off by his yelling. But there were definitely those among us who realized the racist connotations of the conquest of the Americas. We had all come up with the guy since elementary school. He was a super-sweet guy and it was apparent that he just hadn't thought the whole thing through. But there you go.

wait how's life were you from md?

did we go to the same HS/did we already have this convo

We had this convo once!

oh damn that was almost exciting

on this very thread!

rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

looooool

anyway yr story is reminding me of henry morgan, who has one of those freakishly long and detailed wikis that i got bored of reading a week ago. captain morgan rum is named after him and their recents ads have all played him out to look like jack sparrow/koolest dude, when actually he was just a privateer who pillaged caribbean islands at the behest of the british government

Well, at least they've moved on from "got a little captain in you".

i mean it's obvious mcnairy either didn't have the ability or the inclination to think this all the way through, and given his history of provocative slogans (he's made a bunch of accessories emblazoned with "fuck off" in loopy calligraphic script) he may have even wanted to blindly court a little controversy. but this product was being sold in the Gap & heavily promoted by GQ so it became very public. on the chance that anyone would defend that he was trying to 'reclaim' manifest destiny, as someone is likely to do, they're fucking stupid because it's not his to reclaim.

anyway in light of all this i've decided to stop production on my upcoming line of LEBENSRAUM t-shirts

Was that to be a plus-size clothing line? "Finally, a pair of jeans that give me room to live".

guilty lols

the designer is not even the only one to blame; someone from either GQ or the Gap should have spotted this and shut it down before it was even made

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/A5Wo_QpCAAEf1Vz.png

this fuckn guyyyyy