SubJeff on 18/8/2013 at 08:45
Look again at the order of the statements, and yet to think for once.
june gloom on 18/8/2013 at 08:47
I did. Have you?
Yakoob on 18/8/2013 at 09:04
There's so many upset comments I could respond with to what you just posted, still being puzzled why you simply couldn't trust my word on it, but I agree to drop it, it's clearly not going anywhere.
Renzatic on 18/8/2013 at 09:16
Phil Fish, Roman Polanski, a transsexual, 3 bi people, a cisgendered white guy, a monkey, a Japanese businessman, a black woman who isn't sassy in the least, an Inuit, two lesbians very much in love, 16 Native Americans, a gay biker, a Swede, Orson Scott Card, Sloth from The Goonies, and a helicopter all walk into a bar...
...and suddenly we're all terrible people.
Muzman on 18/8/2013 at 09:21
Quote Posted by CCCToad
Yeah, but the point of all this when people pre-emptively assume racism is because throwing about accusations of racism allows them to destruct the entire conversation pre-emptively, before they have to actually discuss the topic at hand. In other words it's a trick that people who have no real power to "win" an argument by throwing a hate grenade into the conversation....it's trick typical of America's left and right wing extremists that has, unfortunately, spread from political discussions and is now used to fag up talk about every aspect of life.
Yeah, cultural osmosis exists. But I think you're misconstruing the 'leftist hand grenade' as you colourfully (lol) describe it.
The key disagreement between art school types and less philosophical folks is that norms don't see anything as 'racist' short of it being enormously overt: vocal abuse, legal and physical oppression, herding people into camps. That kind of thing.
Cultural theory is interested in far more subtle things than that and the definition is much much broader, down to behaviours that people aren't consciously aware of and their effects. There's also the media component and the relative influence of representation that fuels this stuff.
You can debate whether attacking people for such things serves any purpose in a given situation and sometimes it doesn't. But in general there's really no dispute that people exhibit prejudicial and exclusionary behaviour all the time, even with the most well meaning and race "neutral" consciousness they think they could have. Pointing this out to people over the decades, sometimes harshly, has changed our whole way of life. This goes to 'sexism' and 'misogyny' as well.
So while, yes, sometimes students at barricades and in internet arguments sling these words around a bit too readily, and the relative power of small cultural factors is sometimes held as high as the jackbooted murderous variety in ways that over do it. But people getting uppity about it and turning it around or insisting on the existence of a neutral position isn't much of a deflection, historically speaking.
I think about the earlier Shackleton example. It's not a good comparison to a fictionalised game about death in Ireland, but say they made a film out of it, they change a few things to make it cinematic; The boat gets crushed in some more exciting way. They don't shoot the cat. Hurley is an American. Shackleton doesn't leave them on Elephant island for a while. And one of the guys is black.
I'd take a bet on which tweak is going to get the most ire.
(oh, now I've ruined everything)
SubJeff on 18/8/2013 at 11:38
Who knows? For me the black guy would be the worst thing.
Not only would it be historically inaccurate (hello U571) but would also be a ridiculous alteration, and an implicit criticism of the time. Furthermore, shoehorning an "ethnic" in is dumb in and of itself.
If you ask people in the UK what percent of the USA is black most people think it's 40 plus. This is because of film and TV.
The worst thing about putting a black guy in the film would be that people like me, who would say it was silly, would be branded as racist by idiotic bleeding heart liberal arseholes.
Muzman on 18/8/2013 at 11:58
Perhaps. But if they did it for commercial reasons people would be vaguely grumpy, but if they said they did it for reason of promoting ethnic diversity in the media they'd be "cautauing to the politically correct, liberal white guilt, anti free speech nazi brigade!"
:erm: I think making CCC's point for him.
DDL on 19/8/2013 at 12:29
Personally I was amused by how "throwing a hate grenade" apparently has a tendency to "fag up talk".
Nice bit of political correctness there.
faetal on 19/8/2013 at 12:50
Can we all just get along (and never assume someone is prejudiced unless it's unequivocal)?
