Racist! Really?

[Angilion]

[..] You may think that way. Personally, i think most are actually just scared of it all happening again. Lets not forget, only 60-70 years ago Serena would have been forced to sit in a black only part of a bus because of her colour in America. Its horrible to think that is still so recent. Unfortunately, there is still therefore this understandible sensitivity to what may or may not be racist.

This does sometimes go slightly over the top though, i agree. However i still think on the whole, the intentions come from a good place and it isnt as bleak as you make out.

Obviously, I disagree. I think it's driven by people who think the same way as those who drove the past racism in the USA. I think their intentions don't come from a good place at all. It may be true that many of their followers have good intentions, but that was also true in segregationist USA. It seems bizarre today, but many pro-white racists of that time and place had good intentions. They really thought they were doing the right thing. Good intentions are not the same as good actions. So much so that it's led to the famous saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".

The idea that a person's "race" is their identity, that it's what defines them, is just a modern phrasing of the founding belief of racism and other irrational prejudice - "they're all the same". Combining that idea with support for discrimination on the basis of "race" (and sex and whatever else) is the problem, not the solution. It makes things worse, not better. At best, you get a transition period between different strains of irrational prejudice and discrimination and increasing resentment from people being targetted for prejudice and discrimination for being the wrong "race", sex or whatever and then being blamed for it. Victim-blaming is a very common part of irrational prejudice and discrimination, especially when it's organised to any extent.

I prefer to go with a person you may have heard of, who lived in the time and place you refer to and who was a particularly good public speaker who gave a strong voice to a beautiful dream - "not judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character".

It's a shame that modern fashionable racism is ******* on Martin Luther King's memory while still using him. Disgusting behaviour.

 

[Angilion]

After so many pages of this stuff, all I can say is: how sad it must be to live your life constantly looking for tiny points of detail on which you can accuse people of being hateful - obviously with an agenda of discrediting the author's character and promoting the idea of basically ostracising them from society.

I thought we were all trying to get along here but IMO modern identity politics is doing the complete opposite and driving people apart. Since I was a teenager I've been convinced that we are all regressing and I'm starting to think that my naive thesis is coming true.

When did we all become so pathetic? I have Indian and Jamaican mates who find the modern political arena extremely ******* awkward because everyone seems obsessed with pointing out the fact that we are all so different. Isn't that the complete antithesis to abolishing racial discrimination? [..]

Yes, it is. Because the people doing it are either racists who want to increase racism or useful idiots for those people.

 

[Narj]

So you apologise to them on someone else's behalf?

I am not literally apologising, just saying that I'm sorry that the scenario exists. Let people speak their own mind without politicised individuals feeling that they can speak for others based purely on assumptions they have pulled out of their anus.

Anyways I'm out. This has got silly now and I'm rambling on.

 

[LabR@t]

21 pages over a cartoon ?


Jesus wept.

 

[dl8860]

Of course this is racist. Foucault uses the term ‘prestructuralist semantic theory’ to denote the economy of substructuralist art, something the artist of this racist trope simply wouldnt consciously recognise. Many materialisms concerning racist caricatures may be found in pretextual theory, but it states that the law is elitist, and cannot differentiate between what newscorp post on twitter and what the Artist truly means. The figure/ground distinction which is a central theme of this racist trope is something that Derrida unpicks and unravels in his magnus opum. Its disgusting tbh.

Is it possible to be racist and accurate? Is it racist to draw an accurate portrayal of Serena?

 

[Gixer]

caricature
ˈkarɪkətjʊə,ˈkarɪkətʃɔː/
noun

1. 1.
   a picture, description, or imitation of a person in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque effect.

That's what I see in the picture. The racist card is played far too often and for the wrong reasons these days. It seems to me like some spend their life looking for the tiniest of details so that they can shout racist on behalf of others and then try to amass as many followers as possible onto their own bandwagon just to feel good about themselves. I've skimmed the thread so this may have already been answered but has Serena made a complaint about the cartoon herself?

 

[Jean-F]

Of course this is racist. Foucault uses the term ‘prestructuralist semantic theory’ to denote the economy of substructuralist art, something the artist of this racist trope simply wouldnt consciously recognise. Many materialisms concerning racist caricatures may be found in pretextual theory, but it states that the law is elitist, and cannot differentiate between what newscorp post on twitter and what the Artist truly means. The figure/ground distinction which is a central theme of this racist trope is something that Derrida unpicks and unravels in his magnus opum. Its disgusting tbh.

I thought I was out, but they pulled me back in.
Idly perusing this thread, after publicly declaring that I was out, I came across this post from R F.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with it, nothing in it that I would argue, should, or shouldn’t have been said, (were I intelligent enough to understand it), but as I was painfully admitting to myself that despite having heard of Foucault, I was also unsure if he was a physicist or a philosopher, and Derrida could have been a drummer in a rock band for all I knew, and still published a Magnus opum, (opus?), it dawned on me, that R Fs words sounded like the ramblings of Gideon Soames, the architecture expert in The Fast Show, characterised so ably by Simon Day.
This should not be interpreted as a slight on R F, that is emphatically NOT my intention.

 

[Skunkworks]

I assumed he was sarcastically commenting about the amount of over-analysis of a caricature, but it's hard to tell sometimes. I see plenty of comments that, at a glance, seem like excellent parodies of SJWs, then I see the username and realise that they are totally serious.

 

[aardvark]

After so many pages of this stuff, all I can say is: how sad it must be to live your life constantly looking for tiny points of detail on which you can accuse people of being hateful - obviously with an agenda of discrediting the author's character and promoting the idea of basically ostracising them from society.

I thought we were all trying to get along here but IMO modern identity politics is doing the complete opposite and driving people apart. Since I was a teenager I've been convinced that we are all regressing and I'm starting to think that my naive thesis is coming true.

When did we all become so pathetic? I have Indian and Jamaican mates who find the modern political arena extremely ******* awkward because everyone seems obsessed with pointing out the fact that we are all so different. Isn't that the complete antithesis to abolishing racial discrimination? I actually find myself apologising to them about the knob heads who feel offended on their behalf on the internet sometimes.

well said

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I am not sure what is worse - the cartoonist getting offended about Serena Williams in a match,the people being offended about the cartoon being racist in their view,or the people being offended by the people who got offended by the cartoon,who had to start a thread to show how much they were offended.

 

[Jean-F]

I’m dropping out of the Serena cartoon thing, it has run its course, and is going round in circles now, but I’ll throw this one in the ring, for you to make of it what you will.
A senior Scotland Yard Metropolitan Police officer could be facing dismissal according to today’s London Evening Standard.
He could face an internal investigation for gross misconduct, the most serious disciplinary offence.
His “crime”, was that in addressing his colleagues about the need to be faultless and above reproach in carrying out their inquiries, he said that they needed to be “whiter than white.”
The Met later received a complaint about his comment, and passed it to the police watchdog for investigation.
If the Mods feel that this should be a separate thread, could they do that for me please.

 

[aardvark]

i guess i better stop buying whitening toothpaste

 

[Jean-F]

A separate thread has been started for the Police Officer “whiter than white” remark, thankfully.

 

[Mark A]

Why is Osaka white with blonde hair ?

She wasn't.. If you look closely you will see that he used the exact same skin tone for both girls. Also the girl had her hair dyed blonde. People are just seeing what they want to see in order to get offended.

Edit: I see it has already been pointed out.

 

[tang0]

 

[dowie]

Nice response from the cartoonist

 

[V F]

21 pages. Damn!

I just had to say, what is it about any sort of story like this J.K. Rowling is always there. I never knew of this cartoon story until now.

 

[mmj_uk]

The backlash against the comic has basically distracted from the fact that Serena Williams got caught cheating by coaching, denied it despite clear evidence to the contrary and an admittance from her coach, demanded an apology from the umpire, told the umpire he'd never be on one of 'her' courts again. Then had a temper tantrum smashing her racket, verbally attacked the umpire for penalising her for racket abuse and was penalised for that as well, said she was a mum as if it's an excuse, claimed it was all sexist conspiracy even though her female opponent who didn't break any rules and therefore wasn't penalised for anything, ruined what should have been her young opponents happiest day ever on court.... and despite all that she believes she is a good role model for professional women.

 

[Rifte]

A great tennis player but a vile woman who tried to use the sexism card to shadow the allegations of cheating.

All she has been successful in achieving is diluting the gravity of gender discrimination ensuring that more and more people don't give a **** about it when it is alleged.

I have serious doubts if a white female tennis player would have been given the same audience and media compassion if they had made a similar allegation.

 

[Caracus2k]

A very good rebuttal to his critics.... None of whom I suspect could actually answer the question of how he could have, in their eyes, caricatured Serena and her actions without it offending some racial and or gender based sensibilities they hold.

And then of course the corollary question of whether anyone should be caricatured as there is always the risk that some features, more common in certain ethnic groups, will be included or is it only *certain* groups that cannot be caricatured and if this is the case isn't that in or itself racist/ sexist etc ?