Every Sunday Morning, a place where various things get thrown out, shot at, cut open, and dissected. Topics of interest: psychological, and medical anthropology, privatization, globalization, excess, language, humor, hip-hop culture, jazz, brain and mind, memory, urban space development, Los Angeles, the Chicago Bulls, UCLA Bruins, FC Barcelona, and mankind.
So, stop with the nonsense, like he conscious I'm just awake dawg, I'm doin' great dawg
He was talking about "conscious", meaning a state of knowing what's going on. He says being conscious is not really a state worthy of praise or congratulated for; it's just him simply being awake. By implication, this means he's noticing things.
Consciousness, specifically human consciousness was the main topic in the book the User Illusion by Tor Norretander.
The main thing I got from the book was that 80% of what we do is done unconsciously. Breathing, heart rate, thoughts, especially during sleep. Unconscious. We can sense a billion things a minute, but only a few bits actually enter our stream of thought and movement called our "consciousness."
I'm inclined to say that consciousness is about maintaining and exacting control. Consciousness acts so you don't go crazy processing every bit of information. It acts as yet another filter of information for the world around you.
It simplifies your life, your thought, emotion, movement process, the way that the User Interface on your computer simplifies your life as a computer user. You don't have to enter code just to do anything. You can click on your My Computer icon, the start button, which is nice, but there's so much work involved in making it look that easy. The binary coding, the programming language, the time it took to develop all that. That's all hidden.
Consciousness like that user interface that hides a lot of those details like the binary code and the programming language.
One thing I notice is that what you do become conscious of, you're probably insecure about. Which brings me to self-consciousness.
I'm conscious right now about my math abilities.
Kanye West says he's so self-conscious, but he's the only one to admit it.
It's a bad thing in this socio-cultural milieu to be "self-conscious" because it means you're too worried about what people think. You don't act the way you want to because you're trying to control what people think about you. Or at least limit the bad thoughts. When you become conscious, it seems like you don't really do anything, but you observe. The "I" part of you becomes active, but you cannot envision that "I" part of you committing to an action.
Basketball players, soccer players are said to be unconscious when they're making quick decisions with their respective balls. In those contexts, where timing is of the essence, you're not supposed to think, you're supposed to act. There is no room for pondering. There is no room for the "I" to perceive, and then decide to act because the moment is already over. Hesitation usually doesn't mean anything good in sports. The solution is to act before you think. Acting unconsciously.
Essentially, the book by Norretander is about how happiness tends to happen more when we are unconsciously acting. Unconsciousness means we act rather than let the consciousness creep in and instill doubt.
Then I thought back to what Mos Def said about consciousness.
So, stop with the nonsense, like he conscious I'm just awake dawg, I'm doin' great dawg
Even outside of Mos Def's context, we use "consciousness" a lot in youth hip-hop culture here in the US of A to indicate someone who seems to be thoughtful and knows about harsh realities. As opposed to someone who isn't conscious. By implication, a person who isn't conscious isn't thoughtful and skips over harsh realities.
There is even a demarcation of "conscious" hip-hop and non-conscious hip-hop. "Conscious hip-hop" is hip-hop that invokes thoughtfulness and harsh realities.
There seems to be a parallel between consciousness and harsh realities. Consciousness seems to recognize "harsh realities" all the time. With its recognition of harsh realities, it notices limitations as well. Consciousness by proxy notices limitations.
Consciousness. Realities. Limitations. Consciousness knows realities and knows limitations.
Acting unconsciously. Happiness. When you act unconsciously, you're generally happier.
Notice that we don't really care whether or not Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, or Paris Hilton are "conscious." I rarely hear that word used in any Hollywood Infotainment show. "Conscious."
It's probably because there's a kind of happy and upbeat discourse always surrounding them, regardless of what they actually are feeling. They live in an unconscious world where each of their missteps are exposed and judged harshly, yet anything positive they do, including losing 0.5 lbs of weight, is celebrated as an achievement. With the worlds they live in, they can fuck up royally,
When explaining why people are addicted to gossip about Hollywood celebrities, Danielle Fishel, formerly of Boy Meets World and apparently now a gossip host, said something to the effect of: "it's fun to follow their stories because their worlds are limitless." Limitless. Boundless. Unconscious. By implication, they have choices and can act on any whim, which makes their story more intriguing.
They get to act as unconsciously as they want.
Now that's something I wish I could do as a middle-class Filipino kid in America. I'm happy, but it feels like I have to walk on eggshells still. I have to carefully be something. I mean I wish I could just act ridiculous and stupid and then somehow bullshit my way into popularity. Or even something like the US presidency.
Only it feels like I can't. It feels like I can't just walk into a job interview and chum it up with old whitey. No matter the qualifications or knowledge I have, I have to match an employer's "comfortability, fit" factor (or maybe that was just me). The employer is usually somebody white. It feels like I can't just be an Eric Kandel from Vienna who studies literature and history as an undergrad, becomes a psychiatrist in training, and becomes a Noble Prize winning neuroscientists. My point is that it seems like everyone's doing something unconsciously, except me.
I'm just sitting here consciously, and observing.
Now this brings me to a question of whether or not I could act unconsciously on my way into something like the US Presidency?
Would I as a Filipino middle-class kid be able to George W. Bush/Sarah Palin my way through anything en route to the presidency?
It feels like I have to do everything by the book while other people, namely the white folks and asskissers of color get by on a steady diet of bullshit. I feel like I've had to do things at a higher and tighter level, so good just to get something that white people could get with just a minimum of effort.
The same I could say about Barack Obama.
Community organizer from the creme-de-la-creme, professor, organizer, awesome communicator matching up against an old guy who is respectable but is probably going to continue the Bush push, and some lady who came out of nowhere and prides herself on being a hockey mom.
It feels like this presidential "race" shouldn't even be a competition anymore. However, the polls are closee. He still seems to be walking on eggshells and is perpetually in doubt over the Bubba votes and the Bradley effect.
He's still defending against so many things: Reverend Wright, the unfettered linking of his middle name to Saddam's last name, the claims against his links to Islam.
All of these things shouldn't be issues, but have been made so, and he's had to straddle the line delicately to appease voters.
I think it took a lot of consciousness to play his positions the way he has. I do believe in his commitment to ALL working class folks. I really doubt he actually likes to support Israel, that he's actually steadfastly Christian, or that he's all for some kind of border security. Those seems like things in his form, his identity, that he consciously changed to make him palatable to broader demographics.
Not saying that's wrong, but that's how you win in politics --- more form than function. The right form to carry out the function. With the right form, the collective feels that it can unconsciously carry on with their functions.
Title of the News Story: "Miami Ranks Lowest in Volunteering"
Leads off with...
"MIAMI (July 27) - Blame it on the traffic. Or the number of new immigrants. Or the allure of the beach. Whatever the reason, Miami has secured the bottom spot -- No. 50 among major U.S. cities -- in new rankings of the percentage of adults who volunteer."
Blame it on...the number of new immigrants for low marks in volunteering. It's interesting how you can blame a whole swath of people tagged "immigrants" in the same way you can blame inanimate things like traffic and your desire to go to the beach.
Then expecting only the finest of scholarly thought, I looked over at the comments section to see how they would receive this article, and sure enough the Rhodes Scholars came out for this...
"No suprise here. The fact that people in Miami do not volunteer is a preview of what the United States is rapidly becoming. Not a unified nation but a collection of a few major immigrant groups interested in enjoying our economy not giving anything back to the culture. And it isn't just Miami that's the problem. Nor is it just Hispanic immigrants. Many recent immigrant groups from Asia are equally self-centered. Kiss the U.S. good bye and welcome the new two class economic system."
"Florida might as well be a different country now. It has a different culture, language, and mind-set than the rest of the U.S. Hispanic organizations have said they intend to take back the lands once controlled by Spain. The Reconquista Movement. It's working. California has a record budget deficit due to social services granted to all people in CA. The burden of recent undocumented immigrations is bankrupting them. They'll have no choice but legalize them and bring them into the tax base. One way or the other they will regain political control."
"South FL is basically a different country and different world. On the outside it's money dripping - huge yachts, fancy restaurants, expensive exotic cars, expensive stores, but there is a huge underworld non English speaking people. When we've been down there I feel like I'm in a foreign country with very little English being spoken and if it is, is usually spoken with a Hispanic or Caribbean accent. It is a fun place to visit, but would NEVER want to live there!!
"Okay..here's the deal in Miami...they're are alot of young kids running around trying to live above their means cus that's what most of them do there. They are too damn self absorbed to think of others in need.Then you can add in the immigration situation. Those that come to Miami...typically from Cuba...are too busy trying to find work and make enough money to help their familes that are still in Cuba.The organizations that need volunteers should use a gorilla warfare type of advertising. Mostly at night at the clubs, or outside the clubs...you might actually get a bunch of kids that moved from the higher states in ratings and convince them there are stilll people in need there."
There's nothing at all in the content of the report regarding immigrants, but that won't stop people from using it as a platform to vent their racism! Those who write up this wire report tell us that we have their permission to blame them anyway! Nope, we don't need to have a reason to blame groups of people whom you don't understand, you can just sort of...do it. Pretty cool, huh?
Peculiar is even the images to hammer this not-so-subtle racism either.
Another brown illegal hanging his head in shame for taking an American job.
Compared to images from cities with the most volunteers.
Good ole Austin Texas with the 'Murrican flag.
The nice old white families in Portland Oregon.
Surely, you won't find immigrants tainting the American spirit in Austin, TX or Portland, OR.
What's interesting is the fact that economic and city infrastructure is not targeted for questioning at all, and probably has more to do with volunteering than anything else.
The city of Vice, a city of vices, and a city built on Disney World, NY. They all seem to be built on corporation-operated, thrill-seeking tourist attractions. The first three especially don't strike me as cities with tight communal, familial, and spatial networks, and therefore, they aren't afforded the opportunity to volunteer as much. I would think people volunteer mostly through opportunity and strong personal networks and communities.
by B.J. on 6/23/2008 11:16:00 PM
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The Manhattan Institute's John McWhorter says that hip-hop is not a vehicle for positive change, but rather a destructive force for black Americans.
Another one of those "reformed" black guys who act as a vehicle to legitimate conservative, and moderate white America's history of racism and paternalistic, third-person omniscient solutions.
I generally can't get myself to like anyone who can easily dismiss something that is important to a chunk of the population. He seems to goes out of his/her way to hate on something he doesn't really understand, kind of like a spy...or...a stalker. He reminds me of Steve Bowman's piece "You know what's stupid? Everything I don't understand!"
However, upon reading more of McWhorter's material here and listening to an NPR interview, I can't help but feel sorry for the man. I truly do.
Why? Two things: He's a stalker and he's passive-aggressive.
1) Keeping true to that identity as a stalker, he doesn't actually speak to anyone to uncover any truth.
In his main article against hip-hop, he leads with an observation about some kids at a KFC. The kids are loud and annoying in a public or quasi-public space, behavior virtually unheard of from any group or subgroup of teenagers in America. So, what's to blame?
You guessed it! The ASSUMED soundtrack of their lives. These Black kids at KFC...must be that damn Hip-hop! A-HA!
In his radio interview, he mentioned that when he speaks, everyone has been supportive and no one has bothered him. No one, except maybe "one hothead" gets riled up at his talks, probably because he bores his supporters or would-be supporters and he passively aggressively hides from those who want to call him out.
2) When explaining his avoidance of opponents and potential detractors, he calls himself a "homebody", code word for divorced-from-reality, scared, linguist.
I feel bad for him mostly because behind the flowery high-falutin' language and the degrees from Stanford and Berkeley is just a scared, passive-aggressive stalker.
Even though the writer of these books and articles is kind of pathetic in his attempts to disparage hip-hop, what he says is essentially still the same stuff that critics of hip-hop from casual to extreme haters use, so its still worth a response.
I can agree with a few things he says:
-Some of the most promoted and commercialized are those without real positive messages. But I can see where it comes from and I don't think it goes anywhere. -I agree that we could do without the sexism and violence but they'll keep saying what they want to say -People do need to adapt to their life circumstances
Where he and I differ is that he seems bent on extracting the worst elements of hip-hop and subsequently, rooting it out based on that.
It's kind of like trying to ban Christianity because you don't like the KKK or Terry McVeigh. In each case, you're trying to look for the worst elements of something you don't like without fairly weighing its good elements.
From this vantage point, this attempt to extract the worst of the genre, his argument boils down to two things:
1) According to him, Hip-hop is responsible for the destruction of the black American.
You'd think that the arrival of hip-hop caused the destruction of the 'hood.
"The rise of nihilistic rap has mirrored the breakdown of community norms among inner-city youth over the last couple of decades. It was just as gangsta rap hit its stride that neighborhood elders began really to notice that they’d lost control of young black men, who were frequently drifting into lives of gang violence and drug dealing. Well into the seventies, the ghetto was a shabby part of town, where, despite unemployment and rising illegitimacy, a healthy number of people were doing their best to “keep their heads above water,” as the theme song of the old black sitcom Good Times put it."
He seems to operate on this romanticized and historicized viewpoint that the 'hood was a rough place but still a place where this "healthy number" of people were doing their best.
Healthy numbers?
I remember a talk with the LA Times Homicide Blogger, Jill Leovy where she said that the black man murder rate has always been staggeringly high from Jim Crow until now. Her point was that there's deep a history of homicide within the black community.
In 1976, before talks of handguns, gangs, crack stuff, the black male homicide rate according to the US Justice Department was still 7x higher than those of whites. In, 1960, according to the Centers for Disease Control, death rates for black man were 14x higher, and in 1950 black male death rates were 17x higher than those of whites.
So bad things were still happening before hip-hop. I think the only difference with hip-hop in the picture is that it gives people like him to pick at and justify structural injustices and hegemonies.
2) His conclusion: hip-hop is antithetical to "helping people help themselves..."
He takes aim at those who try to spread the positive messages. Cites the Dead Prez as an example of conscious hip-hop. He mentions that they're pretty good at noting the insufficient employment opportunities. But he criticizes them for advocating civil and social rights, i.e. standing on top of Capital Hill.
The classic pull-by-the-bootstrapping man, he advocates a personal anecdote to a social and structural problems. He says that plenty of UPS jobs and delivery boys do not require college degrees and they can live perfectly legit middle-class existences. Guess he missed the talks about the disappearing middle-class, here, here, and here.
McWhorts then goes on to criticize those who do try to make their money in the underground economy. I would've thought that he'd think the underground is the adaptive way of making money, and would've applauded them.
Ultimately, Dr. McWhorter's prescription for his fellow black man is a whole dose of mediocrity. He offers a hellvua lot less that than the rappers from the neigbhorhood with the money and the women. He's essentially telling them to become drones of everyone else while other people get their action.
In the end, rap and hip-hop is only a medium of expression. It's a piece of marketing, but it doesn't drive any widespread violence that wasn't already endemic. If people want to destroy, that's usually a highly personal decision. I doubt that people make negative life or death decisions based on what they hear from an artist.
Hip-hop is mostly a tool for empowerment because it breeds expression. It has the potential to inspire. A tool for empowerment because this is where people can find their strength.
But ultimately, it's only a tool, it's not going to be the only thing that will make or break a segment of the population.
by B.J. on 6/03/2008 08:15:00 PM
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"In 2000, journalists didn't incessantly mention that George W. Bush was seeking to become the 43rd white male president of the United States. No one even thinks in those terms. It's implied. It's one of the perks of dominance." - Gregory Rodriguez, LA Times Writer
Trapped in a state of being ignored and meaningless. "Trapped" meaning you cannot go anywhere else but. We're individuals too, we have our own choices to make, our own individual skills, but why does it feel like we still aren't achieving anything?
Maybe because the meanings of our culture aren't acknowledged at large.
Speak up, Filipino. Why is it that you can only get along with people your own circles, but when you stand up to a white guy you back the fuck down? Why you gotta act the way that human beings with no third legs or very small ones act like?
Perhaps sometimes being acknowledged, even if it is considered bad, matters much more than doing the right thing. The opportunity to be acknowledged for doing bad is much easier.
To being Filipino. MOTHERFUCKER, I'm Filipino. I'm proud sometimes, embarrassed, don't notice most of the time (thank god for LA yo). Growing up with other Filipinos, in Filipino culture. Am I going to do anything else other than be a Filipino?
Can I be a synthesis of Jared Diamond, a Robert Sapolsky, a Ben Gordon without being just a watered-down Filipino version of anyone?
Watching American Idol and seeing the clowns particularly that blonde who can suck it like a car wash vacuum and the mini-GQ-version of Joakim Noah made it in over Ramiele Malubay annoys me even more. I love that she, Ramiele, wanted so badly to be the first Asian American idol. It's all love for someone like her.
Truth is we as Filipinos don't have too many people in the media whose images we can masturbate to over and over again other than random youtube videos about prisoners dancing, HappySlip, Chad Hugo, Apl.de.ap, and watching Hook over and over again. I guess were on the come up, but the game seems so rigged.
I mean, I don't expect much from a mass-audience, audience-driven show in America, but still it's one little notch of annoyance that makes me want to throw a wrench in shit.
by B.J. on 4/06/2008 11:35:00 PM
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In an information overloaded age here in America where what you see on TV, radio is glitz and glam, I think what people of "minority" status whether in race, age, gender, ethnicity, etc. want for their causes is...recognition. Recognition of the obstacles still faced. Recognition of achievements. Recognition of specific in-roads and actions taken by their people. Ultimately, recognition as legit and equal powers.
The opposite of recognition is reductionism. Reduction is oversimplifying. Oversimplifying, which generally doesn't promote connective thinking and understanding. Oversimplifying, putting blood, sweat, and tears into cheap, digestable, words. Oversimplifying, to put in broad blocks without understanding the curves, grooves, and boundaries. Oversimplifying genocide. Think of how easy it is to dismiss the fact that there were over 10 million American Indians in this land before the arrival of Columbus. It's just as easy to say that Indians had it coming to them and it's their fault. What's worse is that it's easier to spread ignorance and hate than it is to think and debate.
It's easy to oversimplify the impact of slavery by saying that you never owned one. Oversimplifying the impact of years of Jim Crow Laws. Oversimplifying the effects of redlining, blockbusting, and steering, taking out the property taxes and slapping down your schools. Oversimplifying race issues to be just the black and the white. Oversimplifying the effects of the Chinese Exclusion Acts of 1905, The Natonal Origins Act of 1924, the Recission Act of 1946, the Immigration Act of 1965. Oversimplifying a group of unified, diverse people to be mono-thinking because its tiring to think of them as actually having opinions.
Cognition is a way of putting something into your consciousness. Recognition implies that you have thought of something before in your consciousness and now acknowledge it. Were at a point where there's been cognition but no recognition for our communities, no acknowledgment. What makes the difference between congition and recognition is that in cognition, you don't smell, see, hear, taste, feel the process, the patterns as you've smelt, seen, heard, and felt before. What everyone outside the communities sees as patterns is the oversimplified, square clean-cut version of history and as people. The problem is that if they only recognize those patterns of oversimplified, square clean-cut history, they expect only oversimplified, square, clean-cut answers. And when they expect only oversimplified answers, they get mad that when you begin to tell your stories of complexity.
..."How dishonest it is to portray Obama as the only candidate with a racial inheritance."
[On Hilary Clinton (but should also include McCain)] "One would think she is just any woman, colorless, race-less, past-less, but she is not.
She carries all the history of white womanhood in America in her person; it would be a miracle if we, and the world, did not react to this fact. How dishonest it is, to attempt to make her innocent of her racial inheritance."
"Raceless" and "past-less" are the key words, particularly in a context where individuality is put at a premium. Having a race and having a past means that your individuality is not valued. Why does that matter?
"Race-less" means that by virtue of being white, you carry this aura of "naturalness" and "universality." What applies for you as a white person, applies for everyone.
If it is good for the white person or people involved, it's usually good for everyone else. Example: slavery, land-stealing, killing Indians, bombing brown people and all the justifications for that. "Slaves were destined to be slaves. Look at their muscular features, the fact that they don't get sick, and their inferior intellectual abilities. They were manufactured for slavery." "Indians aren't really using their land. Look how many of them died! Its almost as if God is trying to tell us something!" "If we are to apply Darwin's laws, the Indians are a dying race anyway so I might as well get the last of 'em." "Were here to bring democracy!"
Conversely and more destructively for folks of color, if something is bad for the white person or people involved, it's usually bad for everyone else.
Speaking any other language and any other dialect than California Standard American English is frowned upon. Some pundits even argue that diversity has made the country worse. Even in a "progressive" field like feminism, the average white woman in America or Britain is likely to see the hijab and the practice of clitorodectomy as signs of oppression. As a result of their views, they've mobilized actions to ban the hijab and ban the practice of clitorodectomy.
This is the legacy of imperialism at work: 1) What works for me the white individual, works for everyone else. 2) What doesn't work for me, will not work for you, so stop it.
However, things are different for people of color. We don't usually get the opportunity to wield that "universal" or "naturalness" appeal.
What works for my race/ethnicity, only works for my race/ethnicity (unless there is money to be made, see jazz, hip-hop other art forms). African-American vernacular English (AAVE) is something seen as a "broken" version of a language. Lots of people, many white, many black do not think of AAVE as a "legit" language used to communicate with students. The language only works for black people, but not for most white people and select black people who are not linguistic anthropologists.
Conversely, if something doesn't fly for people in my race, it's only my race's opinion, and my race's opinion frankly doesn't matter. For example, the Confederate flag controversies. Most black people might find it offensive because of its racial connotations and symbolism of hatred. However, according to Georgia, the flag is a symbol of historical heritage! Yes, and so is the swastika, but no one holds it up as something to be proud of, unless they get that much a thrill out of hating people.
If you are a person of color or really any other kind of "minority", what applies to you just applies just to you and everyone who is a person of the same ethnicity or race, gender, religion. Especially if what you're dealing with is a problem.
It's "your" problem, you deal with it. "We" the people do not deal with it at all because it's "your" problem. It's something "you" ALONE need to fix. "You" implicating an entire segment of a population that has had its families broken through centuries of slavery, disallowed from living in certain communities, getting into schools, getting jobs, and only relatively recently has been given equal protections in law.
For example, AIDS in its early years was ghetto-ized as a black and gay issue. The logic was: It's "your" problem, you deal with it. "Your" presupposes that this is a problem YOU whether you like it or not "own" as a member of a community. You "own" it in the sense that because you are a certain race, you instantly gain this intrinsic power to fix "your" problem, its "your" responsibility to pick up "your" race.
The word "History-less" simply means that you don't have this baggage of "your" own problems to carry. Hilary and McCain can be seen as individuals and their individual records. They are at more liberty to choose with whom they can associate. Their associations with controversial people aren't as likely to be simplified or strongly associated with them or their race because their race is seen as universal and natural. Universal and natural that they are in power that it's not an issue at all.
McCain can have an endorsing pastor spouting how he thinks blacks and gays caused Hurricane Katrina to come down on them. He can do that quite successfully without being called a white supremacist or being accused of being only interested in advancing the cause of white people.
Being raceless and history-less, Hilary and McCain don't have to be associated with any and everything white. That advantage is something that the Clinton campaign tried to capitalize off of when Bill suggested that Obama's campaign ran parallel to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton's bids for the presidency.
It's pretty easy to be history-less if you're white. Just don't say anything against what good ole MLK said, and you're pretty much in the clear.
Conversely, you cannot be history-less if you are a person of color. Obama's had to play a balancing act while seemingly holding onto ideals he seems to have maintained throughout his career: he's had to prove at once that he's black enough and he cares about their empowerment, that he does care about progressive change for young, multiracial voters, and that he's not that black and will have a lot of other priorities. I don't think we've ever really seen a candidate achieve such a balance between differing points of views. Seems like he will have to be fulfilling lots of different people's expectations come January. And all I can say is that I hope he does it, and does it well.
Memory of the Civil Rights Movement in Real Estate
by B.J. on 4/02/2008 01:15:00 AM
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1 in the morning. Studying for a real estate midterm. Here is what I read in the section on Ethics, Fair Housing, and RESPA in a California Real Estate Book.
This the last part of the section on Civil Rights Act of 1870.
"Both the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amenment were largely ineffective inproviding equal rights for almost one hundred years"
This is what immediately follows that section.
"On November 21, 1962, President John F. Kennedy issued an order that prohibited discrimination i housing whereever feeral funds were involved...blah...blah...blah...Thus began the modern-day focus by the federal government to put teeth into antidiscrimination laws as they relate to civil rights and fair housing."
"The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made John Kennedy's 1962 executive order a matter of law and is considered one of the first of the modern civil rights acts. While not as cmprehensive as later acts, it prohibited discrimination in all federally assisted programs."
Reading these passages from our book without knowing US History, you would be lead to assume quite a few things: 1) that Kennedy was really the catalyst for change, and not the years, years of violent, and nonviolent struggle by folks of color that the laws were enacted out of one person's actions, 3) that everything tends to work out nicely and neatly in this nation of laws especially with regards to all types of discrimination
Even though I'm sure the Kennedys aren't the type of people to take full credit of something like the civil rights movement, how it is fixed to be remembered, at least in this book, is that it was the idea of JFKennedy. The book makes it seem as if prejudice was something American people knew all along and something we would've eventually "fixed."
I know that this is real estate class, and perhaps we don't need a complete lesson about Civil Rights, but this type of history completely obliterates any role played by regular people mobilizing and lobbying against stuff like blockbusting, like redlining and like steering. At least give us a case where it came up...some kind of picture as to why we need it. I don't see how it would hurt anyone to know a bit of context behind the abstractions of dates and acts like the "Civil Rights Act of 1968" thrown at us like bricks from a plane.
Those civil rights acts in particular always end up saying the same thing: "prohibits discrimination against race, sex, gender..." The only thing that changes is the year and where it is prohibited, according to this book. And so civil rights just by association becomes a mindless exercise in the obvious.
Perhaps I am being too critical of this one real estate book. Perhaps I underestimate what people know about the civil rights movement.
However, based on the dismissive nature of race-blind discourse, I think not.
It's been a week already and people are still talking about it. Every form of major internet media from Slate to the Christian Science Monitor to the LA Times has kept the speech fresh in our minds.
Some pieces have made me cringe, some have left me confused, most have made me indifferent.
Then there was one that dropped its big red bricks of dumbass on me. And one that got the neurons firing, the white matter connecting, the soul uplifting.
On one corner, a tired LA Times columnist with enough pomposity to fill a hot-air balloon.
The other end, a quick-rising, quick-rhyming Blue Scholar.
Pompous LA Times guy says that we already talk about race so much. After all, we have a Black history month, the movie "Crash", entire majors devoted to race, books about race, corporate diversity consultants. Apparently this is enough to declare that we've already talked to death the conversation about race relations.
He's saying there's no need for a dialogue about race because we've talked about it enough.
Essentially, he wants to cut off engagement and conversation before it even starts because he believes the conversation has already gone on.
In reality, it's been a very unhealthy passive-aggressive relationship between white folk and people of color.
What he doesn't realize is that those mediums have been one-way conversations --- each side doing its own thing. White people shit talk folks of color. Folks of color shit talk white people. Unless they agree to do it and/or happen to understand each others' humor, they just never do it in front of each other --- legacy of segregation, which is only about as old as Michael Jordan.
However, one side, the one that the pompous LA Times guy represents assumes that there isn't anymore race problems. Now that good ole MLK bravely fought against segregation, people of color are now just "creating or re-hashing problems." Talking about race issues in regards are dismissed as deliberate schemes to hustle billions of dollars from the good old American system. If it's a problem, one side, the one with majority people of color, is continually making it so.
In response to those responses, people of color do by and large stick with their own. They make movies like Crash, or do engage in studies like Chicano, Afro-American, Asian American studies to gain a sense of self-knowledge and dignity. If race was used to bring generations of us down, why can't we use it to bring us back up?
However, I do see that being involved too much into these studies can foster this sense of distance from white folks. We might be the experts on what being a person of color is in United States and know all the struggles, but how are we engaging folks not inside the discipline? Do we do just take comfort and refuge in these disciplines? A lot of the stuff that the LA Times guy mentioned was stuff that was FUBU...for us, by us. What do these disciplines, these objects mean if part of their reason in addition to empowering ourselves does not include bridge understandings between different groups? Do they just become academic-ized, new-age segregated fields of study where we completely do things our way however we define it?
So where do the two sides meet?
Prometheus Brown, the eminent Blue Scholar, makes the simple but poignant point: racism is everyone's problem. However, the subject of race is only mentioned in media with people of color, which gives the image that race is a one-street in which only people of color participate. Otherwise it's an issue that ceases to exist.
"Some people point to Obama’s successes as a sure sign that America has taken many steps forward in resolving its racial contradictions. But isn’t the fact that Obama gets singled out for his views on race a big red flag? Where do Clinton and McCain stand on this issue, and why haven’t they weighed in? Why is nobody asking them what they think about racism?"
The point I glean from all this is just that white folks and folks of color need to actually be engaged in conversation together about race, and not so polarized in their own circles discussing things. White folks reach out. Folks of color reach out. It's an easy common sense solution, but not so in reality. The question has been here way before Obama and will probably still be there after him, but the question is will there ever be any political or social will to ensure anything happens towards that dialogue?
In the American team sports that I follow both on TV and online be it the NBA, NCAA football, or the NFL, I see black, white, pacific Island, Spanish-speaking peoples emerging all the time. It's nice because I definitely didn't see much of that growing up, if at all.
Not seeing my culture, my people represented was the kind of thing that made me question why the hell I had to be Filipino. Why did I have to be a culture that no one's heard or talked about? Nowhere to be seen on ESPN. How the heck would I ever become famous or even get on a newspaper (where I wasn't being described as a murder suspect or an FBI wish list) with a name like I had? Delas Armas anyone? Could they even fit that in the back of a jersey? We used to joke that the last name Delespiritusanto on the back of a jersey would have to come full circle.
However, At least nowadays in sports, I'm seeing little trinklets of multiculturalism. More folks from different races and ethnicities in sports representing.
While that counts as a few steps forward, I ask myself what power do these people of yellow, black, brown-skinned identities hold?
When observing fans of all sports, I noticed one thing: people really really love the idea of the white guy as the head honcho, top dog, the leader. People will fight hard to have the white guy be the guy on top.
It's why a white guy like Kirk Hinrich, the Chicago Bulls' point guard automatically gets compared to players like Steve Nash, the NBA MVP and hall-of-famer John Stockton, despite not having any of their abilities AT ALL. Those guys were actually known for passing the ball, and making good decisions with the ball. Hinrich is known for dribbling around the basketball court, and panicking in the clutch. The man is nowhere near their class and basically has earned his prestige because he shares their pigmentation in a league where the pigmentation is generally much darker.
The guy is not even that good on this team. He's had his starting spot on the team saved for him ever since he's been a rookie --- he's the only guy in the Bulls backcourt who hasn't had to fight for playing time despite his lack of actual impact. Since he's not really that talented, people make stupid unquantifiable, highly subjective statements: "he's a 2-way player, he plays really great defense." Even more outrageous is that this guy has had one of the worst fall-offs, yet he's never involved in trade rumors or criticized nearly as much as his more impactful, higher-scoring, clutch counterpart Ben Gordon.
Ben Gordon is currently the team's leading scorer, despite being relegated to the bench, receiving a lowball contract offer, and being ignored on offense by Hinrich. However, when compared to Hinrich, it's his negative traits that are emphasized: he's undersized and one-dimensional.
The naturalness of a white leader is probably why people at Bruinsnation couldn't stomach the idea of a Norm Chow-Dewayne Walker-led team.
I think their distaste for those two as coaching candidates was not necessarily rooted in their race, but it seems that the fans at that site had a tendency to assume the worst with anyone outside of their fellow white folks.
Norm Chow, Chinaman, apparently had no personality to get the job done. They cited his lack of experience, wondering why a 61-year old Asian guy in a white and black league hadn't had a head coaching job despite having coached some of the most elite quarterbacks in college football history and having won a national championship. B
Because he was so old and still had no coaching experience despite those record book and national championship credentials, there HAD to be something wrong with him. There just had to be.
Dewayne Walker was a self-promoting Dorrell-holdover.
Together these two earned the derisive name "Choker."
No other coaching candidates (most of whom were even LESS qualified than these two) received such names. There was "Slick Rick", but that disappared once it was clear that Walker and Chow were being considered as coaching candidates.
Nothing personal against the new white guy at UCLA, Rick Neuheisel, I admit I like what Rick's been able to do so far as far as the working-togetherness of his hired guns and recruiting, but the same people who were pulling strongly for him initially balked at the idea of him becoming coach.
These people thought we had run a lackluster coaching search campaign.
It seems like they only really rallied around Rick Neuheisel NOT because he was a effusively qualified and overly strong candidate (he definitely brings that baggage of cheating with him) but only because he was NOT Norm Chow or Dewayne Walker. He was not the timid, stoic, cold white guy and he wasn't the self-promoting black dude who since he was black obviously was still attached to everything from the fired black coach.
In a twist of irony, when it was announced that Norm Chow and Dewayne Walker would be retained on staff, these same dumbass fans calling Chow and Walker, Choker were going apeshit over their hirings. They were most happy when it happened because in their own words,"it was Rick Neuheisel's choice" as if white people's choices are the only good decisions made. It was Rick Neuheisel's choice so it had to be good. Wonder what it would be like had it been the inverse in any way, with Neuheisel as a coordinator or something.
Funny how in this case like the case with Kirk Hinrich/Ben Gordon, they like to put people of color in specialized one-dimensional roles, but not leadership ones.
Leadership, colored people, never that. One dimensional scoring guard, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, as opposed to 2-dimensional player and head coach.
For years, people have talked about this issue, but it's probably been a "minor" issue or something just not talked about.
The paucity of black owners, black coaches, black quarterbacks in sports where the number of players who are black are high is not really a social justice issue, but I think it reflects some lessons about the way our society in the US of A works.
In general, it's become "natural" for white people to be "our" leaders. They need to be the decisionmakers because they're the ones with the experience, the education, etc.
What bothers me is that we don't ask why isn't that they're the ones with "experience" or why their decisions are better?
Without a white guy as leader, it's unnatural and odd otherwise, or so my dad implies when discussing how weird it is to have a president by the name of Obama.
"The Australian government has announced it will issue its first formal apology to Aboriginal people when parliament resumes next month."
It is aimed at the "Stolen Generations" - Aboriginal children taken from their parents to be raised by white families.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced plans to apologise after his victory in last year's general elections."
The move is a highly symbolic one marking a definitive break from policies of previous administrations, correspondents say."
"Thousands of Aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their parents and given to white families or institutions to raise between 1915 and 1969.
Indigenous campaigners have been seeking a billion-dollar nationwide compensation package for the policy.
But the government has ruled this out, instead promising to fund improved education and health care facilities for Aboriginal communities."
This article just highlights the universality of effects after the displacement and degradation of peoples, as of late having been orchestrated by the people in Europe. But at least actual power-holders in Australia acknowledge something.
It would take some real change before this happened in the US.
In the United States, the politician and the common-man's cultural memory (IGNORANT white, yellow, black, brown folk) and knowledge of history is one of denial.
There's always a justification for stealing indigenous land, and/or 400 years of slavery. And if they're in the mood to completely disregard anything that happened in the past, they will respond with "I never owned a slave, I don't owe anyone a thing."
by B.J. on 1/18/2008 11:53:00 AM
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"Border Patrol seeking black recruits in South; Effort aims to meet Bush goal, boost minority numbers," The Washington Times, January 12, 2008 Saturday, NATION; A03. Copyright 2008 The Washington Times LLC. All Rights Reserved.
The U.S. Border Patrol has begun an aggressive recruiting campaign across the Southeast for qualified black candidates as part of President Bush's goal of hiring 6,000 new agents by the end of this year.
Border Patrol spokeswoman Andrea J. Zortman said members of the recruitment team will be in the Southeast beginning this month to share their experiences while stationed at various regions along the border and to discuss opportunities within the agency. It is the first time the agency, working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and CBP Human Resource Management, has put together a recruitment team made up entirely of black agents.
Ms. Zortman said the team is looking for candidates who can successfully undergo a rigorous screening process, which includes a written examination, structured interview, foreign-language proficiency test, drug testing, medical examination, physical fitness test and a background investigation...]"
Seems like border patrol, the militaries, and prisons are the institutions that really really love affirmative action.
"Kelly Tilghman, the Golf Channel anchor who during Friday's broadcast from the Mercedes-Benz Championship said while discussing Tiger Woods' dominance that young players on the PGA Tour should "lynch him in a back alley," was suspended two weeks Wednesday for the remark."
Al Sharpton responded in a completely rational way (which of course wouldn't stop a lot of people from hating what he does anyway):
"If I got on this show and said I wanted to put some Jewish-American in a gas chamber, I don't care what context I said it in, the entire Jewish community would have the right to say I should be put off this show or my radio show if I said it there. Or if I said I wanted to see a woman raped. This is an insult to all blacks. Lynching is not murder in general; it is not assault in general. It is a specific racial term."
There was one response on the message boards that immediately caught my attention and I think it explains the experience and history behind the usage of such language in especially on a national public platform:
"I've read almost 2000 posts on this subject. I'm African-American and 38 years old...my mom told me stories about how growing up she wondered if the water from the white water fountain tasted different from the water in the black water fountain. She rode the back of the bus. My grandfather worked in a hotel that he was not allowed to stay in as a customer. He worked in the laundry room and never saw the rest of the hotel. I grew up hearing stories about how if a black male even made eye contact with a white woman in the south that his life was in danger. There was a very real risk that a group of men would come to his house and lynch him by hanging him from a tree.
When you grow up hearing true stories like this from your family, the association that you have with certain words is very real and very scary. So when you hear someone make a very specific comment, about someone that is african-american it can conjure up very strong emotions.
For the people that have posted that its "just a joke" and that "people should get over it" I can only say...you should be very fortunate that due to how you were born a simple word like this doesn't invoke the same emotions that it does for others. Seek to understand before you dismiss other's feelings as unimportant."
"but it is never 'just' talk. you simply cannot separate such words from the historical context that has shaped the way in which they are being used. africa (i lived in africa for six years) was once an exceptionally wealthy continent, few africans (or people of african descent) need to be reminded how and why that is no longer the case. you cannot just brush this off as 'history' that should be forgotten because thousands continue to benefit from this history, and millions continue to suffer as a direct result - it is not history, it is current events."
- evil allan of big soccer, FC Barcelona forum on the chanting of "negro" when Toure Yaya left the field.
"a diverse global society needs to learn and accept the multitude of realities, not opinions. some opinions don't need to be accepted, and should not be accepted." - same poster
We Hold These Rights Inalienable: the right to life, liberty, and the right to be Ignorant: Bridging Racially Ignorant and Racially Conscious
by B.J. on 11/23/2007 08:00:00 AM
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Nooses are everywhere nowadays. Not just in Jena. But also on teachers' office hour rooms at Ivy League schools. Sold at a store near you in New Jersey, Connecticut. Sold online. As Haloween decorations in a predominantly white neighborhood near you! Who says modernity has elipsed our good old fashioned family values? Were once again partying like its 1899!
People nationwide after the Jena 6 incident have been defending their right to display nooses when and wherever they want, particularly during the past Halloween season.
These latest incidents in noose-hanging are nothing but a platform for them to say what they've been saying since people of color first got civil rights in the United States.
Far as they are concerned, racism is over except for a few lingering isolated incidents and is actually instigated more by blacks. They say that blacks and liberals, and racial militants call everything racist. If asked to respond to someone they perceive as a liberal or racial militant, they counter that "racism is in the eyes of the beholder." They also complain about how society is so politically correct.
If you hear/read that someone believes that "racism is in the eyes of the beholder", for them they believe that racial militants will label anything racist. That statement is full of more bull than a carb-loading session before the Encierro. They think what racial militants do in noting racial incidents is arbitrary. They are generally skeptical when an act is argued to have racial undertones and racial implications.
To support this eyes of the beholder argument, they often speak of how complex it is to know what's racist and what's not.
With that perceived complexity in determining racism, it then becomes difficult for even the average person to know what wrongs they are commiting at any given moment. With that difficulty, it follows that they should just be absolved of any responsibility and most importantly that they don't get any of the consequences associated with doing something stupid.
So this is how they come to defend people who continually display their nooses as proud symbols despite the incidents at Jena, and Columbia University: they say those selling nooses and displaying them at their neighborhoods probably didn't know what they were doing.
In effect, ignorantly displaying nooses during Haloween was a way of getting a free pass for people to "express themselves." "Ignorantly" is the key word.
It's an effective way of breaking with what they perceive is a "politically correct" society. The logic goes: if you don't know that something is racist, then you should be excused because you just don't know better. I'm no law professor emeritus at the moment, but in any other field, if you don't know something, wouldn't it be considered negligence.
Following these types of comments for a while, even before these string of incidents, I've come to a realization. Those who argue for the freedom of expression by the noose-displayers absolutely hate the thought of being considered a racist (which I guess is a sign of progress).
I do think most of them do not want to be racist, but what they're fighting for in fighting FOR the free display of nooses is...the right to be ignorant. The right to be ignorant...of course without incurring any of its consequences.
There's an old saying that goes along the lines of "the less you know the happier you are." Elegantly stated this is the classic "ignorance is bliss" statement.
Ignorance in general is looked down upon, but in reality we all want it and think we need it as a form of release.
It's one of life's counterintuitive ironies at work...we want to be all-knowing, smart, and considered responsible but if that fails, in our less structured world outside of employment, we also want the right to let loose...to be ignorant stupid and irresponsible...without suffering the consequences.
Part of the appeal for non-stars like Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Nicole Richie, etc. is that it seems like they are allowed to act as stupidly and ignorant as possible and still get away with it. Most importantly they do it without much consequence, which is why it was so shocking and the same time, exciting for people to see Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie go to jail.
Plenty of Americans want to re-create part of that in their own vapid lives. They want to break away from all the information and understanding and caring. They want to break away from what they perceive is political correctness. Essentially they're fighting political correctness as part of a bigger societal need to just be ignorant.
Racial humor is one arena/space that fits this description perfectly: people can be ignorant and not care, and most of the time not incur any real consequence. Inherent in these incidents is that people want to feel something real, express something raw without feeling the consequences. They generally expect not to get called out. But when they do get called, they call people like me "too politically correct."
Whether it's printing up tired ass Busted T's t-shirt about Juan-on-Juan basketball or New Mexico being Cleaner than Real Mexico or displaying a noose these incidents are driven by a rebellion against the perceived politically correctness of society.
On online forums, millions of anonymous people can be as racist and stereotype as they want. Possibilities are endless. One look at an LA Times' online forum about immigration issues, homcide issues, would probably make you re-think your position of LA being some kind of hotbed of liberty, equality, and acceptance.
What promotes them to not care is that race probably isn't an issue for the people who so flippantly disregard incidents like Jena as child's play. If you think it's all in humor, consider that people probably think it's humorous too when they draw or graffiti a swastika.
For them race and ethnicity is not something that they are made aware of on a daily basis, so they can be as careless as they want. They actually once again puts them in a privileged position of being there only to make judgments, unless of course they get called out.
But for people of color who are likely made aware that they are different, that they are minorities, it's not so flippantly disregarded. By all means you can do it, but you're probably going to be called out for it.
As mentoned before, we live in a time and place of vast information exchange.
People use information to make decisions, including those people in power. We've learned in history how disinformation and stereotypes lying within power players and the public have continually hurt folks of color from gaining admission to schools, buying houses, and getting jobs.
People's perception of things count for a lot these days, especially when all it takes is a simple "bad feeling" about someone for them not to get a job, a house, a loan, etc.
We don't want people to be bringing these messages to people en masse: that it's OK to hang nooses, that's its OK to have racial stereotype theme parties, or even that it's OK to have these stupid ass orientalized, otherized, T-shirts. This is stuff that while you might get a kick out of, just reinforces people of color's less than human-ness.
We don't get much representation in politics and media, and it's disturbing that the only things that circulate widely is stuff that objectifies our cultures and distances us from other people. I really hope that fuckheads engaging in these kinds of acts aren't going to be decisionmakers, but it's inevitable that quite a few will.
We want to be seen as humans, eating, breathing, shitting, sexing just like you. The way people of color in this country have been disenfranchised has been through skin color (while another color has been promoted on that basis), and for liberal people our color, our ethnicity, our heritages are the the only thing that make us interesting in their eyes.
In all likelihood, those who did hang the nooses at Jena knew what they were doing, but they were secretly hoping that they get away with it. Their motivation is no different than various idiots who print Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirts about Chinese people, Busted T-shirts who print other ignorant bullshit about Africa --- to fight what they perceive is political correctness so they can have their space to act ignorant without consequences. Only they want to do it at the expense of people of color.
All this is like kicking someone in the shin underneath the table during a meeting and hoping that you can get away with it.
If we are getting our shins continually kicked, how would you expect us to respond?
by B.J. on 11/04/2007 05:57:00 PM
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Usually to prevent or buffer the tension after racial, ethnic, cultural incidents, employees undergo something called "sensitivity training."
I have a problem with this phrase for this activity. Why can't they call it something more rough and appealing like Getting-your-dumbass-educated Sessions?
I've never been through one of these trainings, but the name saps its importance and immediately attracts criticism by the same crowd who cries about the increasing "political correctness."
The phrase "sensitivity training" doesn't exactly inspire anyone to change their point of view because it doesn't sound very powerful or particularly enlightening. Makes it seem as if they're going to be at a park picnic table with flowers, over a cup of tea, talk, and learn the art of flowery ways of speaking. They're not going to have any important realizations, they are just going to be trained.
It's a triply tough pill for the hyper-testosterone politically incorrect-yelling rebels to swallow.
First the training itself, tells them to stop being dumbasses. Given what passes for news, I'm not sure regular people are ready to give up their right to be ignorant in public.
Secondly, the word "sensitivity" invokes feelings of softness. It's associated with femininity, which is associated with powerlessness. People are not going to want to or learn anything when they feel powerless or disempowered. In fact I think some people would be even emboldened to continue their ignorance or "insensitivity" after a "sensitivity training." It's their way to say fuck you to a training that in their minds practically threatens to chop off their politically incorrect kid holders. Males in general, don't really like listening to females. Males who hate political correctness definitely don't want to play what they think is a gender role associated with females.
Thirdly, the "training" part of the phrase exacerbates the problem. It's as if it's a rote activity to remember in case there's a test. It implies that you're only learning actions instead of substantial reasons behind the actions. The training implies you're not going to make any new revelations, which is probably what it would take to actually stop a way of thinking.
Taken together, "sensitivity training" implies a number of things. You will learn how to act, even though you still feel a certain way. On a deeper level you are being drilled on how to and what to feel. I'd imagine a self-proclaimed politically incorect person's instant response to a phrase like "sensitivity training" is that they're going to feel however they want to feel. In that sense they are right: You can never argue with yours or anyones' feelings. People will come in with a mindset already thinking that the way they feel about race, ethnicity, and other cultures is what it is and it's not going to be changed.
As a result, the content to be taken in during a "sensitivity training" comes off as something trivial and pointless, something people of many races can just get over to the convenience of the politically incorrect.
If this phrase weren't so disarmingly namby pamby, I'd bet you'd open up half the population to being more open minded about the training. If they framed it in terms of an education, I'd bet more I'd see more people advocating on its behalf.
I'd call it Seminars for highly evolved human beings.
by B.J. on 10/13/2007 10:34:00 PM
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Still damn funny and I like a good lot of their articles, but whenever they come across issues of race, they really never seem to get it.
They make it seem as if people who denounce racism do it illogically, and irrationally. Code words for stupid, and not worthy of opinions.
I like the Onion. I really appreciate their funny articles and videos.
The site has built its reputation on making everything seem like a news-worthy story, from weekend visits to your family-in-law to kids making fun of a social worker's car.
They make things up based on colloquial language like Bill Clinton's "National Get Your Shit Together Day." They make graphics and lists of things. Like what's marked SAVE on the blackboard, which is usually done in schools with different classrooms. It's very intuitive --- these are some things that do cross my mind, and they have the genius to make it seem like a real news graphic, a real story. They manage to be funny too.
Usually, my favorite articles are where they manipulate the language to make a scenario appear to be true.
Like the one about The Sports Team from My Area Will Humiliate the Sports Team from Your Area. The article deconstructs the sports male message board fan bravado using quasi-scientific, Shakespearean language instead of the usual "ur team is gay" pissfights.
Now they've just recently delved into the world of video satire, which is a bit harder to coordinate.
Still I've loved the satire in video clips such as "situation in Nigeria seems complex", "Gap Unveiling a For kids By Kids Clothing Line", and the report on how "Stabbing May Reduce Your Life Expectancy."
They present things the way news networks would usually present news, with the same subtle but hilarious exaggerations of anchors and reactions.
However, when they approach something African-American or anything race-related, something seems to be a bit off. They have a habit of making those who denounce racism seem stupid and overly-sensitive.
The only thing that's different from typical news stories is that black folks are responding to a It makes them seem irrational. And that's what we see in this first video.
The story for this: A blonde porn star getting fucked in the ass by a black person calls his cock the N-word. "Put that N-word cock in my ass."
Hm.
That's not the funny part. The comedy is supposedly to occur within the black community's reactions/overreactions. They even include a clip of Jesse Jackson, implying that the "leaders" of the black community are getting involved.
It seems like the thought process behind the production of the video went like this:
Gee, wouldn't it be funny to see black leaders reacting to a racial slur...in porno? Ha ha ha. Imagine, it's such an irony that the white woman is getting fucked this time around. Then, we can get clips of black people reacting to other race-related incidents and watch how funny it becomes when they're reacting to...a porno video!
Everyone knows that pornos are careless and shady businesses, and these reactions by blacks will look so silly! It'll be quite the joke! The irrationality and triviality of people denouncing racism is highlighted again in another video.
This video is tricky. I like how they overexaggerate the tech effects. Mimics CNN pretty nicely.
The thing that ruins this video is the last string of comments by DocChewey89.
Chewey text messages that their report on Asian immigrants is terrible. In quick, successive texts, Chewey notes that he is Chinese American, that he is offended, and tells the anchor fuck you.
Keep in mind that title of the Onion video is where we respond to the opinions of our uninformed viewers.Uninformed viewers, meaning irrational, stupid, illogical, incoherent, undeserving of an opinion (did I leave anything out?).The '89' in Docchewey89 implies that the user making the comments is some teenager born in 1989.
Once again, it seems to be a commentaryon what these Onion writers think: minority populations can be stupid times when they decry racism and they become offended way too easily. They make it seem as if minority populations often get offended at media and big corporations for no good reason.
They also have a third video, "African-American community enters 80th year of boycotting LL Bean." It isn't as obvious as the first two videos in making people of color who note racism seem irrational, but it's still there and still has an appalling amount of non-hilariousity.
It does get real reactions from real black people on the street, but of course they're not saying anything about boycotting, just that they're not going to buy anything from them. Why?
Because the company is so obviously not in tune with what we know as "African-American culture."
I guess that's where the funnies begin! The clip proceeds to show how outdoorsy and upper middle-class and whitesy the company is. They feature an ad with black people. The CEO makes an appeal to black folks, "Sorry for whatever it is we've done." Again, mesh that thread of irrationality of black people
I wonder how many people they had to interview just so they could say that the whole African-American community to write the headline that they "boycotted."
Maybe I am being too harsh on this particular segment, and it is a commentary on how companies automatically assume that they've done something wrong, but then why do they have to make it as if black people are instigating something without any logical reason? Maybe the reason they don't buy is not because their black, but because they aren't bourgeois rich folks. You ask Billy Bob Joe and Helga Mary Sue from Biloxi if they like those kinds of outdoorsy clothes too. It's not really a "cultural but really a class thing? They ever hear of Tiger Woods? They probably didn't need to turn it into a race thing.
Anyway, to sum it up, even though what the Onion does is satire, their jokes in the race department are a bit annoying. The reason I attack some jokes is that I do believe that there is a half-truth believed in every joke. Humor has the ability to unite, but it also has the ability to alienate. And alienate is what they've done more of at this point regarding people of color.
All I could do was wish that this guy would get his ass raped in prison because of what he did. Another white guy taking something from a brown person. A brown woman.
This was the kind of mundane thing that really momentarily ruined what was mi cumpleanos veinte uno.
As I was sitting down on the stairs in front of the magazine section at the Bruinstore waiting for the Bayanihan meeting, there was a couch with a pile of books on it. Clearly someone had occupied it, and so that's why I sat on the stairs adjacent to those couches. No big deal.
A few minutes later this 6 foot white guy slightly resembling Prince Harry with a quesadilla has the nerve to ask me if someone was sitting in that same seat with the books on it. I thought to myself, "well why the fuck do you think I'm sitting here", but instead I gave the "I don't know" kind of look because it's only assumed that people are sitting in a certain spot if they leave a pile of personal belongings such as a binder or books on a couch.
After looking around for about a minute, the dude decides to remove this pile of notebooks and binders from the couch and lay it on the ground. He plumps down and grubs on his quesadilla.
I was then thinking, "what the fuck makes him think that he's ENTITLED him to a seat, and not me ?"
About two minutes later, a little brown girl about 4 feet 11 walks back to pick up her belongings on the floor.
The white guy, with clearly no intention of moving from his chair, as he sits down eating his quesadilla looking like he can't be bothered instead of standing up and offering the chair he STOLE asks, "oh, do you want me to move ?"
The 4 foot 11 brown girl can only smile out of courtesy and say, "no it's OK."
That one faint OK, was all it took and it reinforced in the white guys mind that he's ENTITLED to sitting on couches that have their belongings on it.
I don't know him, but the dude and his actions reminded me of Harry Potter's obnoxious fat stepbrother who thinks he's entitled to everything of Harry's.
Hopefully next time, the couch this dude removes belongings from is some kind of long-haired psychotic killer's belongings, so that killer without thinking could slice (not stab, we don't want killing here) that jerkoff in the face. The jerkoff would have one diagonally-cutting scar across his face. That would really stop him from doing this again.
But back in the real world, I stared at the brown girl in 1/3rds disgust that she should do something, 1/3rds disgust that I should do something, and the last 3rd of me being disgusted at the manners this white guy displayed. I felt like I should've thrown my Newsweek at him.
But instead, I only walked away full of adrenaline from the anger I had built up watching this situation. I only meekly dumped the newsweek on the stairs, partly to signal that I was pissed off to this white guy. The white dude didn't even turn, and I only left work for the Bruinstore employees to pick up and put back my magazine.
No, what I saw wasn't blatantly racist on the part of the white guy. If anything, it was just a symbol of how helpless a little brown girl or even a little brown boy can often be in society's everyday functioning. I bring up race and size because I feel like it would've made a difference.
Would the dude have acted the same if it was another 6-foot white guy ? Or some sort of white chick ? Would he have gotten up ?
I don't know what he would've done, but I know the dude didn't even flinch about what he did to the brown girl. And here I am posting about it. That pisses me off like you don't know.
Add me to your reading list.
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