rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

I was at a park and had to grab onto a branch so I could adjust my shoe. I felt a crunch and looked to see that the entire branch was completely coated in lanternflies.

I made a new thread where we can discuss invasive species without being off-topic on the racism thread: Zebra Mussels, Honeysuckle, and Spotted Lanternflies! - Rolling Invasive Species thread

I know it's a parody but uhhh...Eskimo by The Residents??

Yeah, Not Good

handy that this thread popped up, maybe on a related note and i didn't want to butt in with my questions on the actual thread: the trailer for this new Rema Rema film makes a bit of play of what i assume was artwork from the time - decontextualised "anthropological" looking photos of African men, seems a bit awkward to me in 2023, maybe it flew at the time

are you calling leni riefenstahl racist

lol is that where it's from? ok i googled. cue film of bunch of white post-punk people furrowing their brows and explaining why it's not an ish

idk where it's from I just guessed

it actually is ffs

https://www.facebook.com/60SecondDocs/videos/apache-skateboards/316255613739266/

"I decolonized the skateboard industry"


... so are you a racist if you buy any other brand?

yeah probably

Eskimo by The Residents??

At the risk of being accused of naïveté, is this ameliorated at all by the fact that the band, being anonymous, doesn't code as white? How would the album seem if it were made by Inuit musicians?

the "lyrics" alone don't really help that argument. i guess you could argue it's all aimed at the naive-anthropological mindset but then it's still uncomfortably using those tropes

I think Eskimo may be a callback to this bit from the back cover of Meet the Residents:

Sankefinger returned to England to become a rock and roll star, and the Mysterious N. Senada, well, he just disappeared one day. The Residents have ventured to guess that he has probably gone to the arctic regions. He believes some musical link is hidden among the Eskimos of the frozen North.

(pardon the typos)

Yeah, look, I love The Residents and Eskimo in particular is an incredible album musically, but at best it is culturally insensitive. It's not racist in terms of them hating 'Eskimos' (itself an outdated term) but it is using the anthropological theme without any consideration for the peoples it refers to - it others and depersonalises them. Most people would consider that a form of racism.

otm, also thanks for that info crut

I guess the part that made me most uncomfortable is at the end where the people start spouting commercial jingles. On the one hand, it's an acknowledgement of the devastating effect of white culture (connected to the liner note that nowadays they spend "most of the day watching reruns on TV"), but it's also a hopeless denial that any resistance is possible.

At the risk of being accused of naïveté, is this ameliorated at all by the fact that the band, being anonymous, doesn't code as white?

well to me they clearly code as being from the South

is this more or less the same as groups like Sun City Girls or CAN dabbling in faux ethnography?

Basically all faux ethnography is super difficult to navigate imo. It can be illuminating in terms of how colonial history was manufactured, but who are you treading on to make your point? Whose real stories are you dismissing when you create imagined ones?

Putting "Injuns" alongside farmyard animals in that Old Macdonald's Farm thing they do on the b-side of "Diskomo" has always made me cringe.

sun city girls' name is bad enough

it refers to Phoenix AZ, ffs

lmao

oh

I assumed it was a big black type thing

it refers to Phoenix AZ, ffs

― obsidian crocogolem (sleeve), Friday, February 24, 2023 10:30 AM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Specifically, Sun City is a planned retirement community outside of Phoenix where elderly folks ride around on golf carts. Calling yourself "Sun City Girls" is a "joke" about that

What is the bad connotation of Sun City Girls?

sun city girls using their rich white dad's trust fund money to fly around to the middle east and north africa, recording radio stations and street musicians and releasing it for profit is a discussion to be had maybe. also one of the best bands of all time.

also im sure they didnt make much if any dough on those records but still

xp There is none, unless you believe they're named after the apartheid-era resort in South Africa, which they're not

What is the bad connotation of Sun City Girls?

― peace, man, Friday, February 24, 2023 1:33 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1200x675/p01gqz2v.jpg

sun city girls using their rich white dad's trust fund money to fly around to the middle east and north africa, recording radio stations and street musicians and releasing it for profit is a discussion to be had maybe. also one of the best bands of all time.

― kurt schwitterz, Friday, February 24, 2023 12:36 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah but the brothers bishop are half-lebanese and sublime frequencies was co-founded by a north african man. also lmao at the idea that sublime frequencies is raking in the "profit"

i know i said that!

right, fair. i just i think it's important navigate this stuff carefully, as emil.y says, but i think it's also dicey to reflexively assume or suggest that rock bands who do this must be shitty white appropriators. there are multiple identities, techniques, and motivations at work

true!

idk it's more about class for me - ime most anyone doing mystical third world-isms comes from some kind of privilege or remove from on-the-ground reality. don't think it makes the art invalid but it's absolutely worth acknowledging / keeping in mind imo.

that's overreaching and tone deaf probably, going to stop posting in this thread now ha

sun city girls using their rich white dad's trust fund money to fly around to the middle east and north africa, recording radio stations and street musicians and releasing it for profit is a discussion to be had maybe. also one of the best bands of all time.

― kurt schwitterz, Friday, February 24, 2023 10:36 AM (twenty-six minutes ago)

one of the guys (not a Bishop) involved in this is Iraqi, his parents are both non-white Iraqi immigrants and I don't think they are rich ... like, his dad owned a convenience store (or two) in the same suburban county where Negativland are from

well to me they clearly code as being from the South

― frogbs, Friday, February 24, 2023 8:15 AM (two hours ago)

they were/are a San Francisco band ... one of the current members is from the South, but he was not in the band at the time of that album which was made several decades ago ...

The giant eyeball with the blue iris scans as white to me

i mean ... before Eskimo they did Third Reich and Roll ... it's of a different era. If you want to apply contemporary standards to older artwork ... I mean, that's what is going on here.

Hey everybody. Go outside. The weather's nice.

oh i didn't know that, everything they do has that Southern drawl on it

xp

it's cold and dark here, this has been a pretty measured conversation, thanks for your contribution tho

lol it's 12 degrees and there's still 3 inches of ice on my driveway

oh i didn't know that, everything they do has that Southern drawl on it

― frogbs, Friday, February 24, 2023 2:39 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

They sound like Claypool, who is also from the Bay Area

the sun just came out here ... before that it was raining and much colder, thank you jackmyfruit

the drawl doesn't sound Southern to me ... like, I wish I had studied linguistics more so that I can explain more clearly ... but there is a difference