rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

Michelle wouldn't be a problem in a french speaking province.
It's Mo'Nique. They insist on the apostrophe and use the accent. I was fine with it until I realised it wasn't a particular hommage to Mo'Nique.

if the naming has more to do with racial caricature than francophone africa than yes, def racist imho

the "I was fine with it until" sentence is killing me. good work.

I get annoyed by people who name their cars, but that's more for the irrational thread than this one.

Great racist car names corner: in the distant 1980s, a relative's brown Mercedes-Benz 240D, which did 0-60 in about 18 seconds and was named Steppin Fetchit. Took me about a decade to figure out that that was extremely uncool.

Care to explain so we don't all have to wait a decade? I have no idea what that name means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepin_Fetchit ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepin_Fetchit

I hope they had personalized plates and frequently broke down in mixed neighborhoods.

STPNFCHT

I get annoyed by people who name their cars, but that's more for the irrational thread than this one.

If that's irrational, then I don't want to be rational.

Here is some Stepin Fetchit. His work has to be seen to be believed; I also think it's worth knowing that this was mainstream Hollywood once up a time, and he became a very rich man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10OFvL75Ww0

According to Wikipedia, he was the first black millionaire; he also eventually declared bankruptcy with a net worth of less than $200 dollars

wikipedia incorrect there, i know ernest hogan was a millionaire well before that
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hogan

The Fetchit wiki says first black actor, while Hogan appears to be a song-and-dance entertainer. Maybe they're differentiating that way.

surprised we're not talking about Palin's "shuck and jive" comment ITT

Everyone knows that was racist

yeah, no question.

Sarah Palin makes me feel ill. She is a creepy, evil person.

I don't know that Sarah Palin necessarily had a racist intent with that! I just think that she is:
a. clueless
b. doesn't understand that racism isn't about intent, it's about effect and perception
c. doesn't get the idea of institutional racism giving her words greater weight and context

but, upon judging her reaction:
so this "well, it wasn't racist when.." crap that she's being totally clueless on just leads me to the fact she'll never, ever get b&c so is probably personally racist

i don't think you need racist 'intent' to actually be racist. like you can be a lot of things despite your intent. 'intent' is an awful big compliment in itself to give to certain people, because sometimes it seems like they don't have intentions at all so much as passing spasms of neural activity that appear purposeful from a distance.

racism isn't about intent, it's about effect and perception

for all intents (heh) and purposes, her stance is that she doesn't need to watch her language or apologize, so she's pretty much in the "I can say whatever I want" camp

I don't think Sarah Palin is clueless. She does this calculated dog-whistle shit all the time, only this time it's well within human hearing range.

Probably. I kind of feel that sometimes it's a self-reinforcing thing where every time someone is rebuked for saying something racist that they think is just how normal people speak, they make a point to firm up their language to include more of that shit. Not so much dog whistling as just being an asshole in the attempt to get other assholes to join your side.

"I'm not an asshole, I just use old-fashioned folksy language my community uses, just like they used it 50 years ago to oppress black people."

I’ve been known to use the phrase most often when chastising my daughter Piper to stop procrastinating and do her homework. As she is part Yup’ik Eskimo, I’m not sure if this term would be deemed offensive when it’s directed at her or if it would be considered benign ... Just to be careful, from now on I’ll avoid using it with Piper, and I would appreciate it if the media refrained from using words and phrases like igloo, Eskimo Pie, and “when hell freezes over,” as they might be considered offensive by my extended Alaska Native family.

we were talking earlier about cases where the word "privilege" is useful

i have been cogitating on that last phrase for a while, not sure if i'm missing some note of racism in it or if that's just the 100% bonkers moment in her response

tbf, Palin probably has the privilege of seeing virtually zero black people in Alaska

falls into the same crap as that Trump thing imo, definitely racist bullshit

Trump, that guy. Pretty sure he's made a net of zero dollars, inflation factored in, from his inheritance. Among other travesties.

mh, i disagree. racism isn't just about effect and perception. it is about being a genuinely horrible and prejudiced specimen of humanity who is actually racist and actually discriminates. you just dont have to 'intend' to be that to pull it off.

That is what I said! No intent necessary.

Your intent means shit when your background is 100% privileged horseshit. You just spew garbage, no intent necessary.

look is there any possible way at ALL she would have used that term about a white person? not worth giving her any benefit of the doubt at all.

sarah palin is basically an IRL racist non-musically talented versh of a face in the crowd, except her "oops mic is on" moment was resigning as governor.

We're forgetting the gossip about Palin referring to Obama as 'Sambo' during the 2008 primaries? Probably true IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozajnqh4V8M

I've heard this song for the first time today.

lol @ the idea that sarah palin is not personally racist. i mean, s. clover otm, but still.

seriously

she can be racist and an idiot, come on, guys

never attribute to malice what can be explained by idiocy

then again, she's a malicious idiot, I am so on the fence here

The way she plays the 'I can't be racist, because I'm married to someone not totally white' card? What a crass bit of whataboutery.

I don't know firsthand, but this Palin's husband's part Eskimo sounds like how everyone around here who has a grandmother who was a quarter Cherokee.

you too?

p. sure you mean inuit, racist

xp

palin thing's like the manifest destiny thing in that, while i can actually believe that sarah palin is uneducated enough to not know what "shuck and jive" means, her reaction to having it explained to her isn't "oh shit i had no idea i'm sorry" but an ultrasarcastic version of "fuck you liberal p.c. police for making a big deal out of something which as far as i can see totally doesn't matter at all, i will not consider the feelings or experiences of others and i certainly will not learn any history, stop telling me i can't say and do whatever i want all the time. next you'll be saying we can't talk about low temperatures amirite haha buymybook."

manifest destiny guy was a designer by profession and not a culture warrior so his version of this was more benignly phrased (who knows what words mean man, i have my own meaning and it resonates with me) which is less obnoxious but not really any better.

all of that is obv yes racist.

anyway i liked hill's comeback here a lot: http://mediamatters.org/video/2010/05/26/oreilly-to-marc-lamont-hill-say-youre-a-cocaine/165373

(i guess it'd be better if he didn't laugh as if this was all just friendly japery but whatever it's nervewracking being on tv and coming up w "you look like a cocaine user" in the allotted time is plenty fleetfooted enough)