rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

I have been feeling shitty about the Redskins name for over two decades.

on the bright side, native americans are the only minority gwen stefani has apologized to, out of the half dozen or so she's dressed up as over the years

It's so embarrassing but it seems like this whole "maybe we should be sensitive to Native Americans" thing has only hit the mainstream like really recently (like the past couple of years)

Maybe nationally, but every few years it seems like there's a flareup surrounding a high school or college mascot. I remember frequent bullshit around Chief Illiniwek (University of Illinois mascot), all about "No no, the mascot is respecting and honoring Native American tradition!"

Same thing with my high school... the Boise Braves. Don't remember the name of the mascot but the school's old gymnasium used to have a mural on the side of it with a "brave" looking tough and holding a tomahawk. It eventually got painted over sometime in the late 90s.

And there's always the "Some teams are called the Vikings, but you don't see any Norwegians protesting!" people. (NB: my high school team was the Vikings)

My middle school mascot was the Trojans, but I see it has been renamed the Comets, no doubt due to protest from Turkish-Americans.

I was all about doing the tomahawk chop for the Atlanta Braves when I was 6.

tom a. hawkchop would be a good name

for a racist

lol

Yeah Tomahawk Chop was huge growing up. The Atlanta Braves mascot (Chief Noc-a-Homa) is pretty racist. But i really feel like it's not going away anytime soon cos it's so embedded in the Brave history. And now the Black Lips have a song about him and you see him on stickers at bars and stuff. Hipsters love their kitschy retro Native American racism.

http://bibliothecarianovella.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/chiefnocahoma.jpg

Is it racist to wear a traditional Indian saree or sherwani for an engagement photo when not Indian?

probably not if your partner is Indian, and you're having an Indian wedding.

Neither is the case....

what's the motivation for wearing the sari?

No clue, just seemed odd for a white couple to dress this way for an engagement photo. Friends of friends on FB. Bindis and everything, looks like a poorly casted Bollywood film still.

i think it's a little weird. when i saw rachel getting married i went through a mini-cycle of irritation, questioning and qualified acceptance about that kind of thing, though. like i could kind of see just taking a magpie approach to wedding customs and admiring the aesthetic of indian wedding clothes and incorporating them in your wedding, if i tilted my head and squinted. like i guess it's still cultural appropriation, but of the banal kind we all participate in daily to some extent--i ended up talking myself into viewing it no differently than my love of mexican food, or something. definitely depends on the execution--no one in the movie affects a comedy accent or anything.

i used to be more militant about this kind of thing (90s gwen stefani bindi shit) (harajuku girl thing is still unacceptable) but i don't know. i'm old and tired.

yeah that's racist imo

We were considering serving indian food at our wedding, is that racist?

no that is wise! did i congratulate you, Whiney? congratuations!

why didnt u

and what did u serve instead

Thanks shoe! I'm gonna have a tumblr post with all the wedding deets soon but... I loved the idea of Indian food because all our friends would love it and out parents would hate it hahahah.

We went with comfort food: short ribs, chicken, an squash ravioli

bindis seal the deal imo

whiney's original proposed wedding feast

http://thumbs.ifood.tv/files/images/editor/images/Subway%201(1).jpg

the Hare Krsnas catered our wedding. I had family gettin all nervous about it & pissed off too & then at the end of the wedding the pissed off ones personally told me "I have never had better food at a wedding"

the memory of the brahmacaris pulling up near the hall in their van and bringing in the food is very sweet to me it was way cool. The relationship of the Krsnas to Hinduism/Indian culture is problematic I think but the food they make is A+ imo

Krsnas do a damn fine meal, I love going to their vegan cafes in Melb.

http://ablwedding.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/mick-jagger1.jpg

Remember way up above in this thread when we were talking about 80s videos that in hindsight were pretty damn insensitive?

Well. I had no idea that all this time, I had been watching the "edited" version of this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG3PnQ3tgzY

See and the wierd thing to me is, as a kid in the 80s I would not have blinked an eye at seeing minstrels doing the "sooper dooper!" bit, I dont suspect. I mean they were still showing the B&W minstrel show on TV when I was a kid.

Is there anything Americans casually accept that Australians find incredibly offensive?

And I don't mean to imply that blackface isn't offensive to you, if it is. Just that you've got a culture where it's not so much a thing as it is here.

It's like how I'll come across a Confederate flag bumper sticker every once in awhile and think okay, this guy, whatever. But seeing something like that in Greenwich Village would shock the hell out of me.

I went back and watched the U.S. version to see how they took that crap out. It kinda creeps me out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmSqhi5l9_k

See those feet dancing? It's guys in blackface. See that oddly-inserted picture of Gary Cooper? Yeah, it's disguising some guys in blackface. It reminds me of those intense zooms in Fantasia that cover up some more minstrel activity. You'd never know if you didn't know...

Yeah it is something that interests me, because yr right, and I'm sure we must have some equivalents here, but shit, I'm racking my brains to think what, though. I know aboriginal people are offended by their dead being shown on TV/in photos, as its a huge cultural no no. Not that average joe whitebread would give a shit about that or know. Dunno if that counts really?

fitting, i guess, seeing as berlin's original lyrics were racist

The Aboriginal people... While I was down there years ago, an Aboriginal activist died. He was, from what I could gather, a national hero and had led the fight against Parliament and was on a first-name basis with some of the PMs, past and present.

But here's the thing, I can't tell you who this was because the big long obituary article I read about him never mentioned his name. The story itself included a drawn illustration of a man with his back to the viewer. As a pseudo-journalist, it baffled me.

Would that have been Eddie Mabo at a guess?

Very odd if they indeed didnt mention his name.

It would've been someone who died in 2004.

It reminded me of that movie they made about the life of Mohammed that never showed the prophet or mentioned his name.

It would've been someone who died in 2004.

this guy?

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

Taco is Dutch and his career was based in Germany, so yes the blackface is racist but no not quite in a way English speakers can easily articulate..

Seem to be an awful lot of comedy Mexicans in British TV ads these days

There's an exchange program between US and UK ad agencies: British come up with ideas featuring comedy Indians or Pakistanis which are unusable at home, they send them over to the US where that's cool. In exchange, Madison Avenue sends over its best comedy Mexican storyboards.

Globalising racism.

The Official Website of Duke Athletics

http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=22438&SPID=1832&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205726470&DB_OEM_ID=4200

Oh lord

If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend watching it otaaayyy!

http://image.cdnllnwnl.xosnetwork.com/pics32/200/NB/NBELTDBFFSEJTNT.20120928184002.jpg

Buckwheat, ladies and gentlemen. And she's from near my hometown.

damn girls name is on the post an everything.

this guy?

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

That was likely him. The date is accurate.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/orgs/car/images/GDjerrk.gif

He was awesome in Boogie Nights.

I don't understand what's outrageous about the Duke thing other than that she's young and kind of dumb. Would I need to know something about...the Little Rascals? Or white girls dressing as black artists?