I find the way that some people understand what is and isn't racism mystifying.
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Some of their racism is so off the charts that it fails to register with me. It's just nonsense to me and I don't even feel offended since I can't make sense of what they are doing. It kind of fails to be hurtful and just looks goofy.
Maybe that's what bothers them?
@futurebird I have no clue.
The description reminds me of my impression that... consensus reality doesn't exist? Like, there are so many people who do not want to look at the real world and real people and understand things; they have their ideas of reality and everything that contradicts them must be fake.
It's very disturbing. -
It certainly is, but it is in a more perverse way than "I hate black people".
It's "I hate foreign black people" - you are absolutely right to be totally riled up by that as a US black woman (and to understand that you're next if they can get away with it), but still it's less obvious racism than the Obama picture.(I totally agree with you, just trying to answer you're "what's wrong with y'all" question)
@lienrag @futurebird It may be more perverse, but the “I don’t like super-obvious racism but tolerate the rest” crowd is more insidious. They are, I think, more numerous and mostly surrounded by other white people who won’t challenge their biases. So they don’t vote for “racism” but they vote for “tough on crime” and won’t believe there’s no difference.
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Well on one side you have a video, on the other you have Trump himself saying "eating cats and dogs" with his own ugly lips out loud.
With the video he can say "someone posted that not me not me"
He *said* that other BS. And before the election. Everyone heard it. A bunch of people didn't care so it's odd to me that now they do care?
Because it's what? Obama? I thought Ya'll hated him.
@futurebird@sauropods.win I'm not saying it's right or that it's less/not racist, I'm just saying I think it's a better explanation for why some people can see it in one but not the other.
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I find the way that some people understand what is and isn't racism mystifying.
TO ME? Saying (lying!) about Black Haitian immigrants "eating cats and dogs" is wildly racist and probably worse than putting the most powerful and untouchable Black American couple in a racist video as apes?
Like both are bad. But the "eating dogs and cats" thing whew! Stinky.
And yet there are these people who were shocked by the video and unmoved by the "cats and dogs" line?
1/
Is it that (white) people cannot (don't want to) think about racism for themselves.
They have _already_ been told that comparing people to apes is racist, and so can recognise the pattern.
But talking about "eating cats and dogs" is a novel form of racism, and does not get pattern matched
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I do not worry about the Obamas. The Obamas are fine. It's hard for me to feel sad or bad about anything that's said about them. A Haitian working two jobs and living in Ohio having to try to prove that they don't eat cats is MUCH more upsetting to me.
I mean it's all ignorance and very embarrassing.
@futurebird this is exactly what I feel. They threatened the safety of people who dont have unlimited means to shield themselves from harm. That is what made it scary on top of the racism.
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For some white people with racism it's like they have a check list. The following things are racism... and NOTHING else:
1. The n word IF said in a MEAN way.
2. Monkeys
3. Watermelon
4. Segregated Water Fountain Signs.Show them a sign that says "No Blacks Allowed" on a changing room at a store and they are like "well that's different... maybe there is a good reason? People steal"
It's is buck wild. Why even pretend that you care about racism at all?
Some of ya'll are so damn strange.
@futurebird And that's without mentioning *everything he's done in office*.
Literally one of the first things he did after he got sworn in was mandate the end of anti-discrimination (DEI) programs in the US federal government.
He's spent the past year cutting the funding of any organisation that has anti-discrimination programs.
He's spent the past year threatening any corporation that has anti-discrimination programs.
Within days of being elected, museum exhibits recognising black scientists and veterans were being taken down.
He's cancelled the visas and deported students who have spoken out against his government's policies.
He's pushing to end birthright citizenship for non-white people.
And that's without mentioning the small matter of his governments agents *SNATCHING PEOPLE OFF THE STREET*, including US citizens and people with valid visas, solely on the basis of their ethnicity.
Systematic discrimination, including racism, isn't just an individual moral failure. It isn't just a series of bad words (they're a symptom).
It's a system of discrimination against people, in this case on the grounds of race or ethnicity.
And no recent American president has done more to actively strengthen that system of oppression than Donald J Trump.
And his whole politics is built on strengthening systems of discrimination. Not only racism, but transphobia, and misogyny, and oligarchic capitalism too.
So.
After 12 months of ICE raids, and deportations, and detentions, some white Americans are only *just now* realising that Trump supports systematic discrimination against people on the basis of their race or ethnicity?!
Just now?!
Seriously?! -
@futurebird this is exactly what I feel. They threatened the safety of people who dont have unlimited means to shield themselves from harm. That is what made it scary on top of the racism.
I think about the little Haitian American school kids and what it has been like for them walking to school or in the lunch room.
The most powerful man in the world is talking pure trash about people like you.
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For some white people with racism it's like they have a check list. The following things are racism... and NOTHING else:
1. The n word IF said in a MEAN way.
2. Monkeys
3. Watermelon
4. Segregated Water Fountain Signs.Show them a sign that says "No Blacks Allowed" on a changing room at a store and they are like "well that's different... maybe there is a good reason? People steal"
It's is buck wild. Why even pretend that you care about racism at all?
Some of ya'll are so damn strange.
I get the point being made, agreeing not questioning it or anything, but what's the thing with watermelon? Does it have something to do with Palestine or?
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I get the point being made, agreeing not questioning it or anything, but what's the thing with watermelon? Does it have something to do with Palestine or?
@futurebird @Nocta_Senestra there is whole racist cliché in US culture around black people and watermelons, the association with the Palestine flag is very recent.
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@futurebird @Nocta_Senestra there is whole racist cliché in US culture around black people and watermelons, the association with the Palestine flag is very recent.
@riff @futurebird Okay, I've never heard of it, you learn every day
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@futurebird "Racism is bad. I am not a bad person. Therefore I cannot be a racist. Therefore what I do isn't racism." Many other things can be put in place of racism there, of course.
@RogerBW @futurebird You've just summed up my father's response to any low-key racist comment of his I point out.
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I get the point being made, agreeing not questioning it or anything, but what's the thing with watermelon? Does it have something to do with Palestine or?
@Nocta_Senestra @futurebird I wondered that myself, but from what I've seen over the years it seems that foods like watermelon and fried chicken, in the American psyche, are seen as "stereotypical things black people eat". Of course to us, Europeans, that makes no sense as to us there is nothing "ethnic" or "race specific" about eating such things, but it's good to be aware. Another example: "mammie". To the Irish in Ireland that is literally just what you call your mother. Not in the USA.
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For some white people with racism it's like they have a check list. The following things are racism... and NOTHING else:
1. The n word IF said in a MEAN way.
2. Monkeys
3. Watermelon
4. Segregated Water Fountain Signs.Show them a sign that says "No Blacks Allowed" on a changing room at a store and they are like "well that's different... maybe there is a good reason? People steal"
It's is buck wild. Why even pretend that you care about racism at all?
Some of ya'll are so damn strange.
@futurebird People from outside the state kept telling me there wasn’t racism in California, I must be mistaken. What???
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@futurebird there's an aspect of how white people react to racism which is more about class signifiers than about justice.
For people like this, racism is crass and impolite and low class. "White trash talk like that. Educated people don't" .
They tend to focus on stereotypical and specific examples of racism, like using certain words or sharing certain images.
They don't challenge the underlying assumptions that create racism.
I think that's why many white people react so badly when you point out their racism.
"you're saying I'm one of *those* people and actually I'm educated and polite! "
@Zumbador @futurebird 100% this. I grew up affluent and liberal, so to realize as an adult that I was juuuuust as much of a participant in racism, that the “I would never say _that_” was just a fig leaf and a cherished class signifier, and that I was and continue to be the beneficiary of the misery machine… that was (and is) rough.
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@Nocta_Senestra @futurebird I wondered that myself, but from what I've seen over the years it seems that foods like watermelon and fried chicken, in the American psyche, are seen as "stereotypical things black people eat". Of course to us, Europeans, that makes no sense as to us there is nothing "ethnic" or "race specific" about eating such things, but it's good to be aware. Another example: "mammie". To the Irish in Ireland that is literally just what you call your mother. Not in the USA.
Watermelon
In the south sometimes black kids would steal watermelons to eat. Because they were hungry. This was a nuisance to the plantation owners and they thought that hungry kids eating watermelon fast was funny.Fried Chicken
It's a way of making inexpensive meat more tasty and nourishing. You can't afford a steak or pork but maybe some fried chicken.These are things that brought poor black people joy so they made fun of it.
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Watermelon
In the south sometimes black kids would steal watermelons to eat. Because they were hungry. This was a nuisance to the plantation owners and they thought that hungry kids eating watermelon fast was funny.Fried Chicken
It's a way of making inexpensive meat more tasty and nourishing. You can't afford a steak or pork but maybe some fried chicken.These are things that brought poor black people joy so they made fun of it.
@futurebird I knew about the fried chicken but not the watermelon, thanks for educating me
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@futurebird People from outside the state kept telling me there wasn’t racism in California, I must be mistaken. What???
@superflippy @futurebird California (spits) ought to call themselves the Hypocrites State.
"We're progressive!" The Californians cry, while maintaining the largest, most violent, racist prison system in the country.
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@futurebird I knew about the fried chicken but not the watermelon, thanks for educating me
It's really more about the kind of imagery used in cartoons and minstrel shows to make fun of black people for... really liking two of the objectively best foods around?
But also turning any joy into shame. Ha ha ha you like eating food. How embarrassing.
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It's really more about the kind of imagery used in cartoons and minstrel shows to make fun of black people for... really liking two of the objectively best foods around?
But also turning any joy into shame. Ha ha ha you like eating food. How embarrassing.
@futurebird Yeah
Could be a dogwhistle too in some contexts it's always good to be aware
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For some white people with racism it's like they have a check list. The following things are racism... and NOTHING else:
1. The n word IF said in a MEAN way.
2. Monkeys
3. Watermelon
4. Segregated Water Fountain Signs.Show them a sign that says "No Blacks Allowed" on a changing room at a store and they are like "well that's different... maybe there is a good reason? People steal"
It's is buck wild. Why even pretend that you care about racism at all?
Some of ya'll are so damn strange.
@futurebird I think too many people think of racism as something you are, rather than something you do. If you point out to someone that something they said is racist, it’s taken as an attack on the fundamental nature of their character; you’re saying they’re A Racist and a Bad Person. There’s no room for the possibility that, having been raised in a society that systematically devalues people who aren’t white, you might have some unexamined ideas that are, in fact, racist, even while you honestly and sincerely reject the concept of racism.
