rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

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

Residents afaik were originally from Shreveport, Louisiana.

Which if true makes sense. Louisiana "southern" doesn't sound like other southern.

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

― young sussy (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, February 24, 2023 1:44 PM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah good point

yup - they began in Louisiana but have been in the Bay Area since the 60's so that makes them Bay Area

Just like Steve Miller & Boz Scaggs

people's accents don't magically change upon moving to the Bay Area ... so I think Dan wins.

er frogbs wins

there are people who have been here for over 20 years who still use the word "the" to refer to freeways ffs

a long time ago I was playing this song in my car without really thinking much about it other than that I liked it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmV3jrVXZ1o

and a friend got in and was like "I think this is racist"

and now after reading this convo and being reminded of that time, when I just looked up to see if they were attempting an actual cover (which they do with a bollywood track on the same album) or just making approximate noises I've found a thai version featuring a thai matishyahu type ska-reggae rapper w/ a handlebar moustache, and yeah it seems like they're just approximating sounds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzKyvHk4DU4

I'm snowed in rn btw

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 ..

Homer Flynn is from Louisiana, Hardy Fox was from East Texas. Those two were the main Residents. Jay Clem and John Kennedy were from Louisiana too and ca. "Eskimo", these four made up the Cryptic Corporation. Although they used various musicians over the years there's absolutely no doubt the core members of the Residents were from the South.

If you've heard any of them interviewed then I think any doubt that they are from the South would soon be dispelled!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5sXoo0N_0I

I assumed it was a big black type thing

― your original display name is still visible (Left), Friday, 24 February 2023 17:33 (yesterday) link

Albini itself translates as small white or white diminutive doesn't it? So always wondered if the bandname was a pun on that.

Albini himself also is white diminutive so ... fitting name lol

Not so much "Is this racist" as "Look at this fuckin' racist," but Scott Adams has just had Dilbert dropped by a bunch of papers because of this

Scott Adams going full racist.

Wonder how many newspapers will be running Dilbert comics on Sunday? pic.twitter.com/E0ZZMbmRTv

— AskAubry 🦝 (@ask_aubry) February 25, 2023

good riddance