abaya

Analog: YES. On both points that you made.

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And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

dirtyrascal7

I find this statement highly ironic because this is the exact point that I believe squeeb was trying to make in the OP, yet you chose to take his words extremely literally and judged him before asking for the proper context or clarification, thus breaking your own rule.

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"Tie yourself to your limitless potential, rather than your limiting past."

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analog

I hope this thread can level off a bit, it's trending towards ruin with a lot of high emotions. If we can all just make the points we set out to get across and spare the personal touches, which aren't helping anything, we'll all be able to talk about this for a lot longer.

Lasereth

I think most people don't even know what it is to be a racist. Seriously...a racist is someone who honestly believes that a race is not as good as another race or that their race is superior.

Let's break it down:

I drive past a part of town that is known as slumville. I see a black man wearing sweat pants with a dirty wife beater on. His pants are down to his thighs and he's walking with a distinctive strut. His right hand is in his pocket. I think to myself, "look at that drug dealer."

Was that racist? No. This is my mind saying, are most drug dealers in my city black? Yes. Am I in a bad part of town? Yes. Is he dressed grungily as if his lifestyle is in shambles? Yes. So he is probably a drug dealer. Racism: thinking one race is superior to another. Was I racist or did I make a simple observation?

I'll say that 75% of boisterous, rude people in public are black in my area. I can't go to the theater because black people ruin the experience. Am I being racist? Racism: believing one race is superior to another. I go to the theater and every fucking time a group of black people yell and scream and clap throughout the movie. If anyone says anything to them they immediately act like they're being suppressed. Observation or racism?

I know someone who works at social services. They're social services for the whole county which is not comprised with a black majority. A huge majority of this person's clients are black. They don't have jobs and they do not go to college. When asked why, they reply with "why would I go to college or get a job when it would make my free money go away?" Now when I see a black person walking around my city, I think, they don't have a job because their free money would go away. Is that racist, or coming to an objective conclusion about data that has been presented?

None of these incidents have ANYTHING to do with racial superiority. They're about raw facts and experiences.

This halloween thing is absurd. If the hanging dummy had a sign on saying "stay out of my yard fucking niggers" then I could see it as racist. Otherwise it's jackassery.

People use the term racist waaay too generously now. Anytime there is a negative comment made about any race the racist term is thrown around. News flash: observing a specific race behaving in a particular manner is not racist.

abaya

Not trying to be personal here, but since you addressed me, I'll reply directly: I don't understand how that was his point at all, so I need your help on that one. To me, the OP said loud and clear, "black people need to lighten up," and other iterations of that idea. The OP did not say that people (of all skin colors) should look at the local context in which this scene took place (a particular area of the south) and evaluate it based on those factors. At least, clearly, that was my understanding. Hmm. I guess we have another misunderstanding here, because words ARE literal... I mean, unless we're writing poetry or something, which would make them metaphorical. I honestly don't know how else the statement "black people need to lighten up" could be interpreted, really. It was unequivocal.

As I said before, all I have to go on are people's words here. What else am I supposed to react to? His facial expression? I can't see that. I have nothing against squeeb as a member on TFP, really. I've generally appreciated his contributions; this is not personal. If *anyone* here had opened a thread with a statement like that, yes, I would have laid into those words with just as much energy as I have here.

And, as I said earlier, I would have done the same with a student paper, or newspaper article, or any other piece of writing submitted for evaluation/displayed in public, and I'd expect people to take me to task for the same error, if I committed it myself. Words, as a part of human language, are symbols; they have power. As someone in a privileged position, with the ability to influence others (through my education and work), I cannot ignore those facts.

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--Khalil Gibran

Byrnison

Abaya, I believe that Squeeb's original point was that the context *also* includes a very particular date with a very particular history of celebration. I see several houses around me right now with hanging bodies...I can remember such displays of hanging figures from my youth 30+ years ago (damn, I'm old gah) and I have pictures from my parent's era (1930s) with similar displays in their front yards.

You are right about the context at any other time of year, but again, on Halloween? That is why I believe that issue is being taken.

dirtyrascal7

First of all, abaya, I'm not trying to make this a personal, either. I don't have anything against you, I just don't really understand your thinking at the moment.
I suppose to be completely politically correct, he should have listed every person who took offense to this by name, because perhaps not every member of the NAACP interpreted the situation as it being racist. That is really the only way to avoid making any generalizations... but having to do that also seems rather ridiculous, don't you agree?

I agree with you that his phrasing should have been revised before posting, but I don't think that he deserved to be attacked for choosing poor wording. And I think the quote below clearly does demonstrate the true meaning of his post, that people should look at the context in which the situation took place (Halloween) and evaluate it based on those factors.
___________________

I'd rather not get into an argument regarding semantics because that isn't what this thread is about. However, if you are going to take everything so literally, why did you not lay into filtherton when he said, "All you fucking jews need to knock this shit off."? Like you said, you can't see his facial expression... so what else is there to react to besides the literal meaning of his words?

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"Tie yourself to your limitless potential, rather than your limiting past."

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mrklixx

Isn't the point of Halloween decorations (if not the entire "holiday" itself) to display and glorify things that generally offensive? Murdering psycopaths, mutilated bodies, decaying corpses, satanic/evil images are all things that most people find unpleasant.

So, do I see racism in this story.

You bet.

According to the article:


So this means that the preacher and the "black community leaders" are OK with the depictions of a murdered human, but the depictions of a murdered [b]black[/i] human are blatantly offensive and somehow more important than some ol' white guy takin' a knife to the gut.

Sounds like racism to me.

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Seer666

the thing that makes me laugh about this whole thing, if it was a black family that hung a white ghoul, no one would have said a damn thing in the first place. And if someone did, everyone would have taken the view that whoever it was that got offended was over reacting. Interesting double standard, I think.

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Baraka_Guru

Yeah, two parts which can be inverted aren't always equally balanced.

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Willravel

Where was the NAACP when Spider-man 3 came out? Spider-man becomes black, turns into a prick that thinks he can dance, loves white chicks, and is more athletic? And is a villain? Give me a fucking break.

Baraka_Guru

Don't get me started on Darth Vader, will.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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Cynthetiq

I am in agreement with you but I take it yet a step further. I believe that the "context" that you are talking about bringing is also in fact part and parcel to the whole. I'm continuing to state that it doesn't change.

So thus in my example, a black person taking offense in Spain is him bringing that baggage with him. In a courtroom setting the judge and jury look to see the defendants intent to deem whether or not the actions were right or wrong. For most situations, these people are only screaming about the end and hardly looking at the intent.

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Plan9

Yeah, his light saber was got bigger when he went over to the dark side.

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Menoman

quoted for genius-ness and truthiness!

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xepherys

Jenna, you are saying ghouls are too "human-like" and therefore must be put under political correctness policies? What of elves then? Elves are humanoid. If I have a black elf (pointy ears) hanging, that would be racist. But he can be a green elf. However if I have a cookie-monster looking creature that happens to be black, that is okay?

I don't really understand why people push so hard to draw such ridiculous lines. Political correctness is a weakness. While the principal is valiant, it's just not a plausible setup.

Halx, what you said is pretty much true. I'm not racist. Well, no more than the fact that I hate people in general regardless of skin color. But what you said is also true. Here, where I'm at, two of my favorite co-workers are black. They're great soldiers and great guys. Having grown up outside of Detroit, though, I can agree with your qualification wholeheartedly. Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. Whitetrash/rednecks really DO put furniture out on the lawn, not take care of their shit, have rowdy children and are generally as dumb as a floating turd. Rich folk are generally white, generally cold/calculating (not always, mind you, GENERALLY), and fearful of the lower class. Asians generally ARE smarter, better students, better musicians, worse drivers and are more likely to play role-playing games if they're gamers. Hispanics (especially Mexicans) generally are close to their families, travel in large packs of friends and can load 20 people into a Pinto (though the Mexicans I work with have been shamed by the Afghans ability to cram DOZENS of people into a truck). On that note, black people generally are the ones to be noisiest in a theatre, create a scene about an innocent comment and get butt hurt over an unintentional slight.

People are who they are. There is no American culture, there is only the culture of subgroups within America, and each are vastly different, for better or for worse. Just like white people in the UK are different than white people in America, so are black people. In England, black people don't talk with a specific accent (no, not all American blacks speak Ebonics, but it's fairly common in urban areas). In fact, in England the only difference, generally speaking, between black people and white is the color of their skin. In the US, that's not the case at all. The culture is different, the social issues are different, the language is different.

Frankly, this topic is one of my hot spots, in case anyone can't tell. First of all, I didn't enslave black people. As far as I know, my relatives didn't either (most came from Ireland or the Ukraine <100 years ago). Does a pissed off black teen with racial angst bother to ask me before spitting out racist slurs? Of COURSE not! Even if my ancestors DID own black slaves, so the fuck what? That's not me. That's not my parents. Black people who get all crazed about racism are happy to point out that the white man keeps them down (when not every white man does), but gets bent out of shape when a white person counters with the black persons ineptitude at gaining social status or "breaking the cycle" of poverty. They're both racist. Period! Do I dislike black people? Nope! I have, however, had far more racial, uncomfortable or just really BAD experiences with black people, than with people from any other race. Still, I maintain a positive outlook and judge people individually.

Hmmm, stream of thought, sorry about the jumble. Just annoying as hell! The racially bent black people in the US want to be equal, but want to be different. It's just like women. You can't have quality while trying to maintain inequality. It'll never work for ANY minority group, ever, anywhere on Earth. I assure you all! I'm not sexist! I think women should be able to work whatever job they want, have no glass ceiling and get equal pay. I think that's fucking GREAT! I also think they need to understand that sexist jokes might be told at the office, that guys talk about tits and pussy around the water cooler and that guys, in the office or outside of the office, will occasionally look at their asses when they wear that tiny skirt. Black people should be able to have all those things, too, but they need to understand that they have to work just as hard as we do to stay out of poverty, they have to put down the gold teeth and spinners and pay for college instead and learn that talking like a fucking retard will make people treat you like a fucking retard (again, regardless of race). When people start owning their piece of the equation, they'll find an equal footing. As long as they keep dropping the ball, anywhere along the way, they'll find their climb to the top hard indeed.

Are there self-made wealthy black people in the country? Women? Yes and yes! So it CAN be done! Quit fucking whining, take responsibility for your own shit and be another equal human being.

Okay, I'm gonna go take a Valium now...

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Manic_Skafe

What amazes me much more so than any aspect of this entirely absurd subject is the manner in which this forum gives birth to this same discussion every 2-3 months.

I may not be pushing the envelope with my every post but I honestly can not understand how anyone can get seriously involved in one of these threads and feel as if they've contributed anything truly significant. Especially when all of the finer points of this thread go without saying.

And while one glance at my avatar might lead you to some conclusion as to how I may feel about the subject at hand, all that I can honestly say I feel after reading 3 more pages of this is: exactly how is any of this the evolution of anything?

em·pa·thy [em-puh-thee]
1. the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.
2. the imaginative ascribing to an object, as a natural object or work of art, feelings or attitudes present in oneself: By means of empathy, a great painting becomes a mirror of the self.

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abaya

Yeah, I had to do that last night too, and now I'm done with this brick wall of a thread... and the other two racial threads that cropped up before this one (Manic_Skafe is right).

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And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Baraka_Guru

Except his genius-ness overlooked the truthiness of prejudice.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Fast Forward

”Black people”? Hmmmmm.

I’ve been completely around the world, on my own steam, twice and I’ve met people of all shades of colour. So I can’t really agree with you. I understand what you’re talking about but I just can’t side with you. Not really.

But you probably really didn’t mean “all blacks”. You were certainly talking about “American blacks”. So maybe I can agree with you after all. I’ve met lots of those too. All you need to say is something like, “I think Cassius Clay (Mohammed Ali) was a loud mouth.” Or, "Colin Powell wasn’t as good as everyone says.” Yeah. You can list a hundred Black Americans who you admire but you only need to dislike one single one and the Black American (in most cases) will call you a racist. Such people make up 98 percent of the Black Americans that I have met and they don’t deserve two minutes of my time.

Jamaicans and Gambians fall into the very same category.

I think it’s normal and healthy. I don’t think that the subject has ever really been thoroughly “aired”. That’s the problem and that’s why people still feel a need to talk about it.

It is natural for people to talk about anything that is of interest. Often, unresolved problems are the most interesting, and deep feelings of injustice leave people understanding that true justice has yet to be realized. It is equally natural, therefore for people to make an expression that they feel will clear up the problem, “once and for all”. But then someone steps in and cries “absurd subject” (no offence) and tries to stifle the subject altogether - or a real racist will jump in with a stream of nasty comments and get everyone’s feathers ruffled so that no intelligent exchange of ideas/feelings is possible. So the subject is shut down before any headway is gained.

So the subject pops up again further on down. It’s never really been discussed properly without interference from insincere (or well-meaning but ….. ) individuals so I guess we’ll have the subject on our platter for a long, long time to come.

The_Jazz

My result are notably different and have a much lower number (roughly a factor of 10).

It sounds like you are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy for the behavior of others.

One thing I've found is that if you have valid reason for not liking someone (i.e. Eddie Murphy because he sold out and isn't funny any more), the vast majority don't care. If you don't offer a valid reason, you leave it to the imagination of the listener, and with the history of racism in America, it's not hard to understand why many African Americans imagine the worst.

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flat5

So you people think that hanging a figure of a black man in your front yard should not be offensive to black people.

I am SO GLAD I don't live near you "people"!

Fast Forward

That's the catch-all "cop out" that's been employed by american blacks ever since Martin Luther King's dream was lost - or forgotten - or tarnished. That "cop out" is also the reason why the subject has never been poperly discussed and why no solution is in sight. There's not even a stategy or a game plan.

The "hole" or perpetual loop-hole in your statement is that you can never supply "a valid reason" to someone who's not interested in the solution. They prefer calling you a racist. And in so doing keep frustrations high and the true subject of American racism at arms length.

Racism was incorporated into America by way of the white racist but it thrives (today) by way of the black racist.

If mere colour were so important to reality then you'd be arrested for not washing "the figure of a WHITE man hanging in your front yard" as soon as it gets dirty.

You see, Manic_Skafe - it IS an interesting subject.

The_Jazz

I think that I can say as a natural-born American raised in the South speaking to someone who's just visited and never lived here that you don't know what you're talking about.

There is a hole in my statement. I acknowledged it when I made it in the very first paragraph of my response. My experience with racism in the US, which is by its very nature more comprehensive and complete than yours, is that the folks that cry racism first are a much smaller number than the 98% that you claim. My experience is that those folks are about 10% of the total, and that it's not always the same folks that make the claim.

Racism thrives today everywhere. Perhaps you only choose to see the Black against White racism, but it's there between Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, Indians and Pakistanis, Blacks and Koreans, Whites on Mexicans and any number of other groups that I could point out if I chose to think about it longer than the 10 seconds I devoted.

As far as discussion of the problem goes, what the hell do you think this whole thread is about?

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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
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Jetée

Over-reaction—and why it serves no purpose to concentrate an entire tumultous history into an ordinary situation but to have something to scream about.


Learn to eschew the blinds that such scenarios create because of the up-in-arms discussion some people choose to bring forth to make a tangential that point that is not there.

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Jenna

I don't know what it looked like, what if their ghoul looked distinctly like a black man hanging in the tree? I'm not saying it's human like because I don't even know what the damn thing looks like.

squeeeb

see, that's the thing. IT WASN'T A FIGURE OF A BLACK MAN. it wasn't a figure of a man at all. it was a "ghoul". monster. dead guy. HOLIDAY DECORATION. *you* need to lighten up. and by "you", i mean you.

__________________
onward to mayhem!

dirtyrascal7

There's a picture of it in the article, not to mention the copy of it that Ustwo posted in this actual thread (post #19).

And no, it looks nothing like a black man. In fact, there isn't even a noose around the "man's" head... it looks like they strung him up so he would appear to be running away from the zombies who are grabbing onto his ankles and trying to eat him.

Edit -- I just now saw the second link in the OP, which is actually a different article with a different picture... where the figure is actually hanging from a rope. You can't really tell what color "skin" it has though, it is simply dressed in dark clothing.

__________________
"Tie yourself to your limitless potential, rather than your limiting past."

"Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him."

Jenna

Which is why I said that it would depend, if I could see the face. If it distinctly looked like a black man hanging in the tree, then I could understand the NAACP's side. However, if I could see that the face was a ghoul looking figure, which happened to have black skin, then yes, I would think they were over-reacting.

flat5

..

roachboy

there are two unrelated stories linked in the op.
it is baffling that this would have confused folk.

there is an interesting subtext tho--the pseudo-objectivity of photographs-- the meanings assigned to particular decoration schemes are situationally driven----what of that situation do you see reproduced in a photo?
anything?

if nothing of the situation that drives interpretation is present in the photographs, then how are the photographs accurate depictions of what is happening in either of these places?

and if they are not accurate because they do not and cannot reproduce the environment that shapes meaning-assignment, then they are pretty worthless as a basis for arriving at judgments about that situation.

the only way that the photos can function is as evidence of a most fragmentary nature: they show that at a particular instant, the arrangement of objects within and around the frame was this way.

meanings do not reside in objects. meanings are made by framing objects, linking them to other phenomena. that process--which is basically how we live in the world--does not photograph.

but you know this, if you think about it.

passivity with respect to information is not pretty: it is not smart, it is not interesting----it is abject.

but maybe at some unwitting level, making of this stupid thread an exercise in abjection is a good thing.

i really cant imagine anything more abject than the argument--which persists--that the problem with racism in america and its history is that it makes you feel maybe self-conscious about costume and decor choices for halloween.

this just makes the abjection explicit.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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filtherton

White people. Advice: perhaps you should take your own advice- lighten the fuck up. On a macro scale, the advantages of being in the majority generally far outweigh any possible slights that may or may not be inflicted upon you by either the individual or the collective will of those in the racial and cultural minority.

You will survive. Don't be oversensitive to the oversensitivity of others. Most nonwhites aren't out to get you, most nonwhites don't depend on intercultural disharmony for their livelihood, most nonwhites aren't responsible for you not getting that job, and most nonwhites aren't responsible for your nephew not getting into brown.


Everyone. A question:
Where does this reactive hypersensitivity on the part of some white folks come from? Is it just a tit-for-tat kind of thing, are they/you being oversensitive because it looks like fun? Who cares if somebody found a halloween decoration offensive and tried to raise a stink about it? Are they/you, in all their/your self righteous whiteness, a member of that community? No? Sure, it could be an over reaction, but why do they/you care? Do they/you get all huffy when a reverend of any race raises a stink about holloween decorations because they are satanic? No? Why does it matter? What exactly do they/you have on the line here?

Halx

Man is frustrated.
Man makes hastily-worded statement.
Audience is angered by semantics, despite understanding frustration.
A stupid debate is born.

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*Nikki*

Does this mean I have to take down my black bats?

Lasereth

Is being prejudice really a bad thing? Or is it human nature? Coming to a preconceived notion about something is simply your mind making an educated guess based on collected data. If I'm at work and someone calls and says their printer doesn't work I immediately think to myself that a print job is stuck in the printer queue. Am I prejudice towards the printer by thinking that it's queue is jammed? I don't even know how the word prejudice came to be negative. It's basically another word for educated guess based on observation.

Plan9

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Bill O'Rights

Hell yes!! It's degrading to Vampire Americans. How insensitive can you be?

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Plan9

Werewolves, zombies, vampires!

*gets sued for placing Vampires last*

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Infinite_Loser

Some of the latter comments in this thread disturb me.

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Plan9

The fact that the world is really like this disturbs me, man.

...

"Racial superiority is a mere pigment of the imagination."

...

Racism: How many generations will carry this crap in their heads?

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."