rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

there's a heavy exhalation after the t tbf

i think this is probably v common when -- i dunno, non-black people or just people who don't speak AAVE -- quote black ppl who speak AAVE. entirely standard pronunciations are transformed. it's like the old white man who seriously thinks young black men say "yo" multiple times every sentence, except it's really just young people rapping along with their favorite kanye song and making him sound less suburban

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0

to be fair, he does punch out an alien

had never heard of the mcgurk effect ty for that

http://www.thewhitefacelodge.com/

well I know what I'm putting on if I ever visit there

swim trunks?

and a cap!

http://oi43.tinypic.com/15me9ti.jpg

it doesn't help that it looks like she's laughing into a cellphone

and that it looks like a mashup of two stock photos

Is it racist that a white Pitchfork writer asks a black rapper "Chicken or shrimp?"

http://pitchfork.com/features/guest-lists/9217-2-chainz/

iirc doesn't the cookbook included in the CD version have both recipes for chicken and shrimp?

real question is does it have recipes for BEEF

i think it's mostly chicken and shrimp and veggies

I think one has a sausage though

2 chainz has a cookbook now?

did u ghostwrite this whiney? u can tell us.

i have a serious "is this racist?" entry for discussion:

can we talk about the rick owens ss14 women's show?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOn6HLx0YHM

is this a demonstration of radically inclusive diversity, both in terms of race and body type? or is this an illustration of racist tropes about black aggression conceived as a type of shocking, antagonistic "anti-beauty"? can it be both these things? I've read versions of both takes in the past week. what's going on?

fwiw i support these models / dancers and think they are amazing, i am not criticizing their participation one bit, but i am extremely skeptical of owens' motivations in using them

anyway

I can't watch the whole thing due to Youtube being a dick right now, but the little bit I did see basically makes it seem like the type of context juxtaposition Tyra wishes she could do on ANTM but can't because the women she casts aren't capable of that type of show.

I think Rick Owens is one of the 'good guys' and I totally LOLed at the one white dancer as comment on who usually walks in Paris Fashion Week...

...HOWEVER, there was a lot of self-congratulation in the reactions of white, skinny fashion people following the show which made black colleagues of mine do a little sickie to themselves, especially if the people banging on about how amazing this was were not exactly known for creating opportunities for people of colour at work. They're annoyed by any example of Fashion Shows How Much It Cares, whether it's representation or pretending to give a shit about poor people, because in the context of the industry today, black people are used in the show/editorial context to make powerful white people feel better about themselves. Two of my colleagues are amongst the most eminent black people in the fashion industry (one's a fashion director, the other is a beauty director) and the former feels he still has to spell out to brands he works with and publishers how much people of colour spend on fashion, and how much the marketplace needs to reflect that. There was also a debate on a stylist friend's Facebook page where a black blogger linked to by her was castigated by an angry fashion gay for being 'Midwestern' because the blogger noticed the power dynamic Elmo mentioned, so we all piled on him because his go-to was basically 'what does this bitch even know about fashion?' About half the comments (from a diversity of people) said it was a great way to zhuzh up an otherwise mediocre collection, not Owens' best.

I love Rick Owens, but his shows haven't been the most diverse. He's not exactly JPG when it comes to his casting.

Your comment reminded me of PPQ doing that show with all black models that one season (which got them a lot of attention) & immediately reverting to the usual 95% white casting the very next season.

rad as hell

and yeah, nice cover for an iffy collection

Another stylist friend got into shitloads of bother a few years ago when a designer decided a day or two before the show to cast heavier models in the name of diversity. My friend, who is Asian and did not have a problem with this concept, nevertheless quit because the stupid production designer didn't think 'wait a minute, maybe it would be an idea to put the models in non-sample size underwear and clothes' and after friend's departure, wound up sending the larger-sized models out in too-tight underwear and sample knits. These poor women looked wrong and the production designer tried to blame my friend for dropping them in the shit while congratulating herself and the designer for deigning to include these women.

not Rick Owens fault but Jesus:

"They came onto the stage stomping their feet, beating their chests, snarling their lips and growling like wild, wonderful beasts..." - Wallpaper

oh dear lord

wtf

i mean there was a lot of mean-mugging sure but "wild wondrous beasts" woah woah woah what

its pretty radical just that the models are moving and doing so much. i like this show, but the critiques and concerns expressed above are otm too

Hopefully those not on academic networks can read this:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full

Science journalist (ie the high impact journal Science) writes a paper based on falsified data & submits to a number of pay-to-publish journals in order to expose poor peer-review processes at these journals. There was a lot that I found questionable about this whole exercise, but this stood out:

The fictitious authors are affiliated with fictitious African institutions. I generated the authors, such as Ocorrafoo M. L. Cobange, by randomly permuting African first and last names harvested from online databases, and then randomly adding middle initials. For the affiliations, such as the Wassee Institute of Medicine, I randomly combined Swahili words and African names with generic institutional words and African capital cities. My hope was that using developing world authors and institutions would arouse less suspicion if a curious editor were to find nothing about them on the Internet.

What I found most depressing was that Aline Noutcha didn't have a credit card. Nigeria is hardly the poorest of African countries. Also, pay to publish?! Really?

Yeah that's becoming standard practice these days for open access journals

Should also add that paying to make your paper open access is also a common option for high impact journals.

Weird business model...

Scientists want their work to be widely available. Publishers want $$$$$ for the doubtless valuable service they provide. Paid-for open access does make a kind of sense if you buy into the idea that commercial academic publishers should exist in the first place.

http://www.suntimes.com/23168076-418/chicago-man-to-harvard-pay-me-more-for-rare-documents-or-ill-burn-them.html

i feel like if he had gone public with his statement about harvard's insulting offer and wanting his kids to go to college with the money, that that would have been powerful enough to shame them into increasing the offer without the threat of destroying the documents. harvard's offer does seem pathetic.

http://blackinasia.tumblr.com/post/64363259939/one-of-my-followers-asked-me-to-post-this-on-their

Good lord, her post in defense of her Africa-themed party has this gem "If anything this was to celebrate the amazing country and people."

Had no idea the Klan had made it to Africa.

that's a ghost costume

I do like her little "how could I, I never" apology in the face of the picture of the Klan costume with a dude who was in the picture commenting underneath it "only a little racist, lol"; like, try a little harder ffs

I can't even

i want to go teach english in the beautiful country of africa

bullseye

Jesus Christ. That's..... next level

The Pan-African dream lives!