As a Grumpy Old Black Guy living in White America, I’m constantly reminded of the vast chasm that separates “The Law” from “Justice”, and I’m exhausted.
In Arbery death case, possible jurors question hate crimes
BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — Several potential jurors in the hate crimes trial of three white men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery said in court Tuesday that they believe problems with racism in America are exaggerated and questioned whether there should be special charges or punishments for crimes motivated by race.
One jury pool member was asked by the judge and attorneys why she wrote on her juror questionnaire that “hate crimes are damaging to society as a whole.”
“I just think it doesn’t matter what the race is,” said the woman, identified in court as juror №156, whom the judge ultimately deemed qualified to remain in the jury pool. “If it’s wrong, it’s wrong.”
Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves and chased Arbery in a pickup truck on Feb. 23, 2020, after spotting him running in their Georgia neighborhood. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the pursuit and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael blasting Arbery with a shotgun.
Allegations that the killing was motivated by racism are at the heart of the federal case in U.S. District Court, where the McMichaels and Bryan are charged with violating 25-year-old Arbery’s civil rights and targeting him because he was Black.
I’m so damned tired of the white people who go on and on about how they “don’t see race”, because more often than not they’re the same clueless white people who never see “racism” either, in spite of the evidence staring them directly in the face.
“The very serious function of racism is distraction,” the poet Toni Morrison said. “It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being.” The white people who “don’t see race” engage in these useless and ridiculous debates that never get to the point because it makes them uncomfortable and it’s easier to dismiss the brutal reality of racism when you refuse to take ownership of the truth. It’s impossible to pick the lock of a closed mind because it only opens from the inside.
Robin DiAngelo, a writer and affiliate associate professor of education at the University of Washington, hits the bull’s-eye when she explains the internal struggle of white people in the United States whenever they encounter racial problems:
“Racism is a white problem. It was constructed and created by white people and the ultimate responsibility lies with white people. For too long we’ve looked at it as if it were someone else’s problem, as if it was created in a vacuum.”
I’ve run out of patience for the dishonest white people who play these stupid Jedi Mind Tricks on me. It’s not just absurd; it’s offensive. And whenever they spew nonsense like the murder of Ahmaud Arbery had “nothing at all to do with race”, it immediately pisses me off because not only are they lying to me, they’re lying to themselves.
I think what’s going on is that all these white people who “don’t see race” just want “those people” who happen to be of another race to go away. Forever. I bet they’re the same white people who lose their shit about Colin Kaepernick, rap music, CRT, Michelle Obama and dreadlocks.
By the way, do you believe there are fanboys out there who are outraged by the new “Lord of the Rings” TV series because they’re committing the heinous crime of including niggers characters of color in Middle-Earth?
But not everyone is set on the casting of the elves. When the studio originally released a photo of its multicultural cast, Amazon was immediately met with vitriolic online trolling, as fans took to social media to slam certain roles.
“Obviously there was going to be push and backlash,” Tolkien scholar Mariana Rios Maldonado told Vanity Fair, “but the question is, from whom? Who are these people that feel so threatened or disgusted by the idea that an elf is Black or Latino or Asian?”
And when these racists asswipes get called out for their bullshit, they’ll get upset and talk about the imaginary black “friends” they have. Sigh. Hopefully they won’t be jurors the next time a hate crime happens.
Bottom line, the white people who “don’t see race” want the “White Only” signs to go back up, and they’ll gratefully vote for the other white people who will do it for them.
Eggbert
He beat the shit out of him because he was wearing a red hat.
He beat the shit out of him because he was African American.
Hate crime laws increase penalties for the latter.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Well, be reasonable, man. We all know that if all these Black people and race baiters and poverty pimps would just stop complaining about racism, racism would magically disappear! Why do you hate America?
On a serious note, why are all these master race people always the most pitiful specimens on record?
A Ghost to Most
Christian supremacists come in all shapes, sizes, and shades. White Christian supremacists are the problem. Jebus blinders are as powerful as projection. YMMV.
MisterForkbeard
What, we didn’t want to mention the people who insist that because Biden is choosing a black woman to be on SCOTUS he’s actually insulting the candidate?
“Why couldn’t he just have chosen on qualifications?”, say the people who just happen to be white.
Baud
While I don’t disagree with your post, the quotations that AP selected for the article are odd. The first one on its face is something I would say: “hate crimes are damaging to socieity as a whole.” Of course, that’s why I would say those crimes should be punished. The second quote is a little more ambiguous as to meaning, but it’s not wrong on its face.
I can only assume that AP correctly used these quotes because the context would show that what these jurors opposed was hate crime laws. But in the back of my mind, I’m always a little wary of the media using spin to trigger us for clicks.
Miss Bianca
@MisterForkbeard: Wait till you find yourself telling people like that that white supremacy has acted as an affirmative action program for mediocre white men to sit on the SCOTUS and achieve other levels of power, wealth, and influence that their merits alone could never have won for them. Oh, the butt-hurt screeching that will ensue!
Geo Wilcox
I grew up with a total MAGAt father (thank dog he died long before that shit existed or I’d have had to disown his sorry ass). He was one of those “go back to Africa” types. I did not absorb his hideous lessons. I confronted him once and told him that every single black person alive in the US had ancestors here long before his first generation American ass was born to a pair of immigrants from Czechoslovakia. I suspect that is the same for most of the MAGAts around today.
Eolirin
I just want to say, since I haven’t said it to you yet, that I’m really grateful to have your voice here.
germy
Dorothy A. Winsor
Every single thing you said needed saying
Kalakal
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
There was a German joke in the ’30s that the perfect example of Aryan manhood would be
‘As blond as Hitler, as tall as Goebbels, and as slim as Goering’
By and large they’re a bunch of ambulant health insurance rejects
germy
@Eolirin:
Agreed. An excellent writer and addition to the front page roster
Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan
Well said, TTBD.
Once again I’m grateful you’re a frontpager here. You say what’s on my mind except, you know, coherently.
narya
While it’s unlikely that I’ll end up seeing the AmazonTolkien (because I loathe Amazon), I have to admit that having a more varied cast makes it sound WAY more interesting to me.
Baud
Amazon should have gone all the way and made the orcs white and wearing red caps.
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: I hear what you’re saying, but I think whenever I hear white people say things like that, I’m thinking, She’s already made up her mind. It’s no different than the NFL saying how color-blind that are, so we don’t understand why we’re having such problems hiring a black head coach.
Ruckus
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
Because they are the most pitiful specimens on record.
They NEED to feel superior to someone. They obviously can’t be superior to someone they look like, can they?
Also, history of humanity shows many peoples have been afraid of those they don’t look like. This is the semi modern version, black and white.
One might think we could actually get over this stupidity, this illogical concept of hateful idiots being better than non idiots, that hate is superior to reality, that they are so inferior in their own minds that they have to make up a bullshit superior/inferior line – and then put themselves on the wrong side.
This is humanity, in one of it’s failings. It can be changed but change only happens when those needing to change, recognize and want to change. And the ignorance and teaching of ignorance changing depends on that ignorance being replaced by better and that takes a long time to correct. It’s working but. But those that need to change the most are the hardest to change, because they fight the losing battle until they no longer can.
This is about survival. It doesn’t make sense, it isn’t correct or right, it isn’t realistic. It is barbaric. It changes when those that need to change get a fucking clue, which they are often completely incapable of. It’s a human failing, the change is one human at a time and that takes effort and time and will fail, likely as often as not.
narya
Thanks, Duke (if I may call you that). I’m really grateful to have you on the front page; thinking seriously about what you write, and your framing, helps me educate my self, and I appreciate that.
Miss Bianca
@narya: I just read a couple of the linked articles and I have to say I’m intrigued. Photos of the cast looked great. I’ll have to wait a few years for the series to come out on DVD tho, because fuck Amazon.
narya
@The Thin Black Duke: I don’t care about football–but I saw Flores on Chris Hayes’ show, and DAMN.
The Thin Black Duke
@Miss Bianca: Problem is, I’m afraid DVDs are going into the void where cassettes and VCRs have gone.
Poe Larity
I’m glad that you are here too in this not-post-racial era.
But I am bummed LotR is being remade, unless the Orcs are all fat white guys wearing MAGA hats.
Nicole
Dollars to donuts, I bet a lot of the same people who are complaining about black and Latino actors cast to play Middle Earth elves proudly proclaim to their other White friends that they don’t see race. In which case, how did they even notice the casting of the elves?
The Thin Black Duke
@narya: You know what sucks? I love football. The playoff games this year were absolutely incredible. Joe Burrow is a wonderful story. The odds are good that the Superbowl might actually be good. And then the Brian Flores story explodes. Damn it. P.S.: Thanks for the kind words, folks. ‘Tis a honor to be here.
MagdaInBlack
@The Thin Black Duke: I listen to Sankita Jackson on my morning drive. They have been discussing the Flores lawsuit all week. It sounds like the suit makes some interesting reading, as it lays out the history of discrimination in the football leagues.
The Thin Black Duke
@MagdaInBlack: The great Warren Moon had to go play football in Canada in his early years because the NFL wasn’t ready for a black QB.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Thin Black Duke: Have you gotten your honorary “Fuck off, you don’t know what you are talking about” yet?
Starfish
I don’t know if you saw the thing about the FedEx driver in Mississippi, but they point out that these dudes were copying the folks who killed Arbery. I am glad FedEx got shamed into paying for this man’s therapy.
They were only arrested, once the news story blew up. I am expecting the trial in this case to be ridiculous as well.
opiejeanne
@Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan: Your posts are coherent, but I agree and am glad he’s posting these essays.
Miss Bianca
@The Thin Black Duke: Le sigh. That’s my fear as well. Yes, someday, I’m sure but (adopting Aragorn voice): Today is not that day!
debbie
Great post, but please tell me those jurors were excused? Please?
Kalakal
That’s beyond pathetic on so many levels. How far gone do you have to be to be outraged about the complexion of an imaginary creature?
You said it perfectly. That way they can happily claim to be against racism, they would never be, why some of their best friends are… etc etc ad nauseam secure and happy in the knowledge they’ll actually have to live up to their vapid mouthings. They may claim to be against racism, instead they’re propping it up. It’s a particularly vile form of Nimbyism
The Thin Black Duke
@Omnes Omnibus: No, I didn’t, and it’s pissing me off that I’m not pissing them off.
debbie
@narya:
Did they cover Flores’s phone call with Bill Belichik? What a dick.
Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan
@opiejeanne: Well thank you. Guess I’m my own worst critic.
Kathleen
@The Thin Black Duke: I too am glad you are here.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Thin Black Duke: Fuck off, you don’t know what you are talking about. Better now or was I phoning it in?
Lyrebird
@The Thin Black Duke:
Hello TBD!
Thanks so much for another excellent piece.
Thank you for the added bonus of the Roy Wood video. When I was a teenager, I got into some arguments, probably did no good, but I got so fed up hearing white news reporters say “oh Public Enemy, NWA, so terrible, and how dare Ice T make that song about killing cops!” So when I could, I asked people who said stuff like that, did you ever listen to Stevie Wonder? “yeah!” Like “Living in the City?” (sorry if I got the title wrong). “uh, I don’t know…” Ever heard of Nina Simone? Maybe if more white people had made some changes hearing their songs, maybe Mr. Ice T would not need to make his? Hmm?
Doesn’t seem like we have made much progress. But it did make my heart glad to see that clip. Will forward all this to others.
Brachiator
Uggh! I can imagine the Idiot Supreme Court using this as a justification to overturn some current laws in this regard.
narya
@debbie: Yeah. and IIRC there were a lot of statistics provided as well. It’s shocking . . . but not surprising. Hayes also said, you know, I have friends who’ve said they were in interviews where they just had the sense that a box was being ticked, that they had no real chance of getting that job, and situations like Flores’ experience are confirmation that they are not, in fact, imagining things. There’s rarely a way to prove anything like that, so this is a BINGO moment.
MisterForkbeard
@Miss Bianca: I did this, and it caused enough heads to explode:
“There are literally thousands of ‘qualified’ people for SCOTUS. There are always other considerations, like when Trump said he’d nominate a woman, when Thomas was selected to follow Marshall, and even Reagan did it. Or when the entire Republican Party vows to find someone who will strike down election and punish democrats, like Kavanaugh and Barrett who are pretty terrible justices but still ‘qualified’ because they’re white and because they had republican party views at heart.”
Biden selecting a black woman because we’ve never had one and that’s a great new perspective on law is much less fucking radical than “I’m going to pick justices that believe indefensible things and have to hide their opinions because they’re going to overturn precedent”.
Baud
A smidge of good news.
narya
That is . . . both funny and exactly right.
The Thin Black Duke
@Lyrebird: Ron Wood is a comedian who deserves a bigger stage than he gets. I actually prefer him to Dave Chapelle these days because he hasn’t fallen into the narcissistic trap of believing his own hype.
Lyrebird
@Poe Larity:
Hey did you ever watch the Ralph Bakshi LotR? His orcs were people in costume, combined with animation for the main characters. Pretty spooky effect. Your suggestion would totally work.
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: Thank you. That’s fabulous news.
Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan
@Baud: I just finished reading that story. Gratifying that they got it sorted, MASSIVELY disappointed that they got it that wrong in the first place. A bit of good news for my state though, I’ll take it.
Eolirin
@The Thin Black Duke: Give it time. :)
CaseyL
Thank you for an(other) excellent post, and I hope you don’t mind your nym being shortened to TBD, as I’ve seen in a few comments.
“I don’t see race” is a lie, a disingenuous lie, a bad faith lie, an insult-to-intelligence lie.
I’m a white person, and I’m so gd tired of Caucasians. (To say nothing of how gd tired I am of the human species, of which I am also a member.)
Omnes Omnibus
Exactly. Once a potential nominee passes the “qualified” test, then other factors come into play. Same as admissions to elite schools. There are only so many slots and there are hundreds if not thousands who meet the objective criteria for acceptance. Selecting for diversity and inclusion is a valid and (I think) proper way to choose from among the objectively qualified.
tokyokie
A guy with whom I graduated high school said on Facebook after the election something to the effect of “No one can deny that blacks [I don’t think he upper-cased it] have never had it better in this country.” Oh, so that justifies your voting for a unapologetic racist? And how you define the Black experience when you’ve spent your 65 years on Earth as a white male? Assessing a Black viewpoint from a white perspective is itself racist. The guy’s not stupid, but gesu cristo in bicicletta, he’s willfully ignorant. The New Testament commandment of “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” implies that empathy is a necessary component of a well-lived life. Funny how so many white folks are devoid of that quality while bellowing their devotion to JC.
Cameron
How many years has it been since somebody (I forget who) had a fit on Fox News over the idea that Santa Claus might not be white? It was some time ago, and it was moronic even then.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Thin Black Duke: Chappelle just threatened to pull money out of Yellow Springs, OH, if they went ahead with a low income housing project.
MagdaInBlack
@Cameron: Megyn Kelly.
Stevie
It’s nice that they wouldn’t have been a nazi in world War 2 but the good guys fought against them! The good guys, not just the soldiers but the red cross volunteers and the kids who collected scrap and the people who joined Civil defense and millions of other people in millions of other ways did everything they could to fight against them. Just like the good people in this pandemic. I’m glad if they aren’t among the bad guys but…
Ella in New Mexico
These guys clearly decided they had the right to pursue and detain Amud because he “didn’t belong there” being a young black man who was “suspicious looking” in their minds–and then the idiots escalated the confrontation resulting in his execution.
if the law is written well–with specific criteria a defendent has to meet in order to have committed the crime–I don’t see where these jurors personal opinions make any difference: they are obligated to vote to convict if they met the criteria of having committed a Hate Crim. I’m surprised the judge didn’t tell them that, much less let them stay on the jury TBH.
I’ll be interested to see how the prosecution handles this because if they stick to presenting evidence that meets the criteria of the law, the jury will have to vote to convict.
Kirk Spencer
So I’d love a discussion of non-white racism. I believe there are great opportunities for lessons looking at racism in places like Japan and comparing to ours.
But I don’t and I won’t. Because pretty much every time I try the whites around use it as an excuse to say see it’s not just is and everyone else assumes I’m doing it too. Which as TTBD notes is hurtful and harmful.
Mo MacArbie
OK, now I want to see gospel Elf music.
A-ha-a Elbe-he-re-he-e-e-ee-e-a-ee-eth
Glitho-ho-o-o-o-oo-o-o-oo-oni-i-e-e-el
Omnes Omnibus
@Mo MacArbie: Elf rap
Kalakal
@Lyrebird: I went to see that and enjoyed it. I thought the Nazgul were great. Sadly very few other people did so he never made the 2nd half
gwangung
@Omnes Omnibus: From what I read, that “low income” project was anything but. What they considered “affordable” was above the mean housing price for that area. Apparently that was why Chappelle and at least one other black woman voted against the project.
Raoul Paste
@Omnes Omnibus: The backstory on this is that the project would be adjacent to his 39 acre farm and he would be staring at i t Also, if I read today’s story correctly, the low-cost housing would cost $300,000
Mind you, I’m not advocating one side or the other
Omnes Omnibus
@gwangung: Interesting.
Villago Delenda Est
As we said back in the 60s and 70s, right on!
While I was serving in the Army, while I was aware of race, my basic attitude was “I only see green”. Still, because we’re living in a racist context, you can’t dismiss race out of hand. It’s just not possible to do it and “only see green”. It has to be compensated for. My first REAL first sergeant was a black man, and my first platoon sergeant was a black man, who mentored me as a fresh out of the refrigerator butterbar. SFC Gates, wherever you are, thank you!
The Thin Black Duke
@Kalakal: I love Jackson’s LOTR, but the scene where the hobbits encounter the Nazgul in the woods is a shameless ripoff of Bakshi’s version.
billcinsd
@Baud: How many white joggers had these dudes chased down and shot? Race was absolutely the reason for this crime, and as something we should be looking to end, this crime should be treated more harshly
Almost Retired
Great post, and I’m delighted to have your voice here. I read your post just after I finished reading an article about a recent survey of Republican voters. Evidently, they overwhelmingly think we’re living in a post-racial society. And worse yet, a substantial percentage of them (especially of the evangelical flavor) think that whites are now the real victims. How can they possibly be sharing the same planet with us and come to this conclusion? I wish I could say something more eloquent and insightful about these people than “fuck off you ignorant, hateful and miserable sots,” but that’s all I’ve got.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kirk Spencer: South Korea (can’t speak to the North, only visited it for 30 seconds in the conference room at Panmunjom) is as racist as all hell, against blacks.
Ella in New Mexico
@Kirk Spencer:
My Korean-American daughter-in-law has taught me a lot of history regarding intra-Asian cultural racism, eg. Chinese vs. Japanese, Japanese vs. Koreans, etc. A lot of genocide and human rights crimes amoung groups who see them selves as the “superior race” has happened in Asian history. A good example today: Look what is happening to the Uyghers under China.
@Villago Delenda Est: This is true, sadly, from what she tells me.
Villago Delenda Est
@Almost Retired: Fundigelicals are always repressed. It’s an essential component of their tribal gestalt.
tokyokie
@Kirk Spencer: Having spent time in Japan, I can attest that Japanese attitudes towards Blacks are pretty heinous and largely learned from white people. Their interactions with Blacks are too limited to have developed such attitudes without other influences. Conservative Japanese tend to look down on other Asians (despite Japanese culture having synthesized a lot of Chinese and Korean influences), especially Koreans. (When Korea became a Japanese colony in the late 19th century, Koreans were brought to Japan essentially as slave labor, and the descendants of those unwilling immigrants still do not have full Japanese citizenship, and they largely work in segments of the economy that Japanese feel are beneath them, like running pachinko parlors.) But if one watches any Korean or Chinese movies, the Japanese are ALWAYS the bad guys. However, I think the Japanese have a grudging respect for (white) Americans because the United States defeated Japan in a war.
Starboard Tack
@gwangung: Thanks. That makes more sense than what I’ve seen in YouTube clips.
Baud
@billcinsd:
I’m a little confused on the whole hate crime angle. These guys already got life for murder under state laws. This is the federal case for deprivation of civil right in account of race. To my mind, the federal civil rights statute is not classified as a hate crimes statute.
WaterGirl
@Lyrebird: I learned about Nina Simone and also a lot that I hadn’t known about other black musicians on the Winds of Change podcast. (episode 3) It was eye-opening.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
I believe they’ve worked out a compromise: The development will be allowed to continue, but they won’t let poor people move into it.
debbie
@debbie:
bjacques
Thanks for this post. It regrettably took me until well in adulthood that it’s easy not to see race when you don’t have to. Trump made me more acutely aware that I’m half Honduran.
I’m almost sorry I don’t have friends who’d object to EOC (elves of color) anymore than they cared that Idris Elba played one of the Norse gods (Heimdall?) in one of the Thor movies, because then I could point out that Middle Earth definitely has Jews in it and ask if they have a problem with that.
smintheus
This is what it is all about. The racists’ behavior is pretty much straight out of the abusive personality’s playbook: insistently refusing to accept or respect the standards, norms, rules, requirements of others; persistently encroaching upon them; professing innocence and underappreciated good will in the face of unreasonable standards and excessive demands that are impossible to meet – which therefore need to be subject to constant renegotiation and some vaguely defined “compromise”. All of it done evasively, always in bad faith, with no timeline for stopping the abuse, no promises however trivial ever honored. IOW, a constant demonstration that the wishes and needs of others have no meaning for the abuser. The point is not to persuade because the persuasive techniques are always a blatant charade; the point is to frustrate, so that the aggrieved party ultimately acknowledges that nothing they do to restrain the abusive behavior ever has a meaningful effect.
The racist playbook is not that different in kind from, say, the stalker playbook.
WaterGirl
@CaseyL: I guess we need to know if TBD or TTBD or The TBD is the proper form of shortening. :-)
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: From what I have read, the original project was going to be mixed use and have expensive and low income house. Not that it has been killed, the developer is looking at putting in single family houses, which it is zoned for, so no further local government involvement is required. Yellow Springs is a strange place.
Villago Delenda Est
@tokyokie: Jesus was a dirty commie hippie.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, that’s what I thought The Thin Black Duke was about to reference.
It’s another episode of “what the fuck is wrong with these people?” but I have to say I never expected that Dave Chapelle would be in that group.
edit:
@gwangung: Oh, yay, I am so happy to know that Dave Chapelle might not be in that group after all.
schrodingers_cat
Who gets to decide what is racist/offensive and what is not? Who gets to gaslight?
VOR
I remember people freaking out at the casting for the character of Tuvok on Star Trek Voyager, that you couldn’t have a black Vulcan. And when Idris Elba was cast as Heimdall in Thor. And a black woman as Hermione in the Harry Potter play. And Halle Bailey, who is a talented and gorgeous young woman, as the Little Mermaid. Always something to be outraged about with the very idea that a fictional character might be portrayed by a person of color. Especially absurd when the character isn’t even human like a Vulcan, Asgardian, elf, or a mermaid.
WaterGirl
@Ella in New Mexico: After reading the information up top, I don’t have much confidence in this judge.
Kirk Spencer
@Villago Delenda Est:
@Ella in New Mexico:
@tokyokie:
So, what can we learn from these or other places that helps us work on the problem here? At a minimum how do we make conversations like this digression quit being the fallback position for the “see no color” racists?
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: British protocol say that it should be “Your Grace” initially and then Duke thereafter.
As Another Scott says, happy to help.
Villago Delenda Est
@MagdaInBlack: Megyn is moronic about everything under the sun.
Starboard Tack
@Omnes Omnibus: I haven’t been there since I saw Poco at Antioch way back. It seemed like a whitetopia then.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kirk Spencer:
Well, just because it happens elsewhere doesn’t make it acceptable comes to mind.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: Please note that George R.R. Martin stole “Your Grace” from real life and substituted it for “Your Highness” when addressing monarchs.
Benw
Thanks for this post, Thin Black Duke. Spot on.
debbie
@Starboard Tack:
Mostly old hippies and students.
WaterGirl
@debbie: Please tell me that’s snark and not for real. sigh.
Brachiator
This nonsense has been around for a while, but it has intensified recently on the Internets.
The idea that mythical characters have a defined “race” is absurd.
But it comes down to the sick idea that some people don’t want to see nonwhite actors ruining their fantasies when they watch TV or go to the movies.
When I try to have more lighthearted discussions about this I note that some people absolutely require that Romans in costume epics be played by Brits with posh accents.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kirk Spencer: I think the point is that it’s not just a problem for wipypo. It’s a human problem. Race is a social construct. 130 years ago “Germans” were a “race” as were “Italians” and “Englishmen”. Later that was refined a tad to “Aryans” and “Slavs” as being more catchall. The Nazis went out of their way to declare “Jews” as a “race”, not a religion. Even though they could blend in with “Aryans” pretty much at will.
Baud
If I changed my nym to Your Grace, then everyone who replies to my comments would be addressing me as royalty.
Hmm.
Omnes Omnibus
Because everyone knows that Brits with posh accents should be playing WWII Nazi officers.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator:
Then they can fucking well stay home.
SFBayAreaGal
@The Thin Black Duke: I am so glad you are a front pager.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ha. You beat me to it.
Citizen Alan
@Kalakal:
Didn’t we go through this almost 30 years ago when ST Voyager had a black Vulcan and the same pitiful nerds raised the same pitiful complaints?
narya
I grew up in a mostly white small town. I went to Oberlin partly because it was the first college to educate men & women and blacks & whites side by side. And I’ve lived in multiracial cities since then. I am excited to see movies (tv shows, books, etc.) that show the world as I’ve experienced it more recently, not as I experienced it as a kid. And, in particular, I want to see characters who bring the experience of the body they occupy to the role–not the Gay Best Friend, or the One Black Crew Member, or whatever. I want entertainment to help me see the world in different ways, not just confirm some idealized (literally) whitewashed version of the world.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator: Well, Oxford and Cambridge attempted to repress American “freedumb” in the 18th Century. So it carried over to swords and sandals, even in unquestioned classics like Spartacus, in which Kubrick deliberately made it a thing to set the Romans apart from those they enslaved. In the MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, the Imperials have noticeable OxBridge accents.
Sister Golden Bear
“I don’t see race” = “Not my problem.”
@The Thin Black Duke: And thank you for saying what
shouldn’t need to beneeds to be said.@Kirk Spencer: as a Californian, it’s always frustrated me that our national discussions about race are…. well, so black and white. Which is definitely not about letting white folks off the hook, rather that:
Racial dynamics are complicated. California’s 19th century systematic racism was more anti-Asian in particular, as well as anti-Hispanic — probably because there weren’t a lot of Black folks here — plus of course Native American genocide.
Non-whites can not only be racist,* but can (and sometimes do) also engage systematic racism within sub-spheres where they the power to do so.
Intersectionality isn’t just for feminism, it comes into play when looking at racism as well.
*I’m aware of the arguments about the distinction between “prejudice” being individual animosity and “racism” requiring systematic power, but here I’m using “racist” in its colloquial meaning as most lay people use it.
Kalakal
@Baud: And your personal pronoun would be we
Villago Delenda Est
@Citizen Alan: Aye, we did, as noted a bit earlier in the comments. As it turned out, Tim Russ is a good actor and did the Vulcan thing very well.
gwangung
@VOR: Oh, one of my mentees (Asian American actor) was cast as Ariel in The Little Mermaid, and it was in the news stories about the hate she got for playing her.
And just this month, the local big musical theatre got a note praising the acting in their Beauty and the Beast, but condemning that they “ruined” it by casting it with Black people.
CaseyL
@Brachiator: Considering that the Roman commanders and centurions were likely to be from the subject provinces, and the common soldiers from the lower classes at home and abroad, it would be HILARIOUS to see an “authentic” Roman army, complete with wildly varied, and not-posh-at-all, accents.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kalakal: Excellent point. As in “We are not amused!”
VOR
Which is utterly ahistorical, since the Roman Empire spanned North Africa, a fair chunk of the Middle East, and Turkey. There are plenty of people living in those areas who were part of the Roman Empire and hence considered themselves Romans.
gwangung
@WaterGirl: Oddly enough, that was what Fifth Avenue Theatre told the patron complaining about their Beauty and the Beast.
Heh.
Villago Delenda Est
@CaseyL: You can say “Biggus Dickus” in a non-posh accent, but it’s not as hilarious that way.
Starboard Tack
@CaseyL: Wasn’t one of the incentives to join the Roman army eventual citizenship? From what I’ve seen the Romans didn’t think of race like the modern ideas.
Baud
I can’t wait for the conniptions that will happen when Disney makes Snow White with a black lead.
bjacques
@VOR: and don’t get me started on an immortal space wizard who can have two hearts but not a vagina.
White people perverted reason and science to “prove” black people were inferior. Even the Imperial Japanese, who considered everyone else subhuman, didn’t try to put any such gloss on it. So, yeah, for all intents and purposes, white people literally invented racism.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: You just made me startle the cat.
randy khan
When someone says “I don’t see color,” my first thought is that it’s a lie because the people who say it almost always do.
But my second thought is to wonder what else they “don’t see.” Do they actually treat everyone exactly identically? No consideration for age, wealth, education, disability, personal history, etc.? If so, that’s a terribly selfish way to live, since it means you don’t think about anybody else’s needs or concerns at all.
Kalakal
@Brachiator:
I like to see an epic about Marcus Aurelius with the main character played by a Hispanic actor. That would have the benefit of making heads explode and be historically accurate
The Thin Black Duke
No, I didn’t know about the “low-income” housing fiasco yet. I mentioned Chapelle as an example of a smart celebrity who becomes increasingly more isolated from what regular folks are like as they become more successful. It’s harder to hear contrasting viewpoints when the applause from your loyal fan base drowns it out.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
No, and it’s not surprising. Up here, there’s a lot of “mixed housing” being built. My hope is that there will be an analysis at some which compares the promises of affordable housing with how the developments finallly turned out. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out very little promised was actually delivered.
sab
@Eolirin: Secondedl
debbie
@Baud:
They’re already ticked off. Disney’s promised no dwarves.
Baud
@debbie:
I looked it up and the actress will be Latina.
ETA: I didn’t see where there wouldn’t be dwarves, just that it wouldn’t be offensive.
scav
Just been reading about the genetic study of Vikings and how muddled and often non+blondy fairskin they are. (ScienceDaily Smithsonian The Irish Times for the pictures) I’m sure the don’t see race headcases will have embraced these findings with whimpers of “but of course!” much as they greeted the reconstruction of Cheddar Man.
sab
@bjacques: As a white person who spent her childhood in the 1960s South I thought I was aware of racism. But now that I am the white grandmother of black grandchildren, I had no idea how relentlessly present it is every time they venture into public.
Brachiator
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ha! Yep.
tokyokie
@Kirk Spencer:
I think all one can do is examine one’s attitudes and try to rectify them to the best of his/her ability and constantly recalibrate them. My mother (and her father) were pretty much stone-cold racists. (Hell, my maternal great-grandmother was named “Wade Hampton.”) I learned to reject my mother’s attitudes, and my oldest brother has as well. But it requires several generations to change prevailing sentiments. I have no children, and I believe all my oldest brother’s three children and two of the three children of my middle brother have more enlightened attitudes. Unfortunately, the one niece/nephew who is pretty much unenlightened (because being otherwise is of no utility in his/her everyday life) has about seven children, more than all her cousins combined. So it’s a very long slog.
SFBayAreaGal
@Ben Cisco, MSCIS Padawan: Add me to what Opie said. Also, as soon as I saw my favorite captain’s name, from my favorite Star Trek series posting, I knew this was going to be good.
debbie
@Baud:
Peter Dinklage has been pushing for the change. Disney’s dissembling response:
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: That is so weird. He is starting to sound like Mike DeWine. The Yellow Springs he grew up in apparently isn’t the Yellow Springs he wants.
Kalakal
@Omnes Omnibus:
Brits with posh accents became the default baddies a couple of decades ago. It had several advantages for the movie industry
I remember hearing Jackie Chan lament that he always wanted to play a villian but couldn’t as he always had to a chinese role model. This was in his Hong Kong pre Hollywood days.
Mart
Saw a long saw screed on wife’s Facebook feed that boiled down to the January 6 attack on the capitol was caused by white people learning it was OK to riot from Black Lives Matter protests. Figure they got that from watching OAN.
Spent a lot of time working in South America and Mexico a couple decades back. Racist as hell. More Spanish blood higher class – more likely better educated and in management. Darker the skin lower the class. Indigenous people at the bottom. In Argentina I asked where are all the slave descendants? The response was we got rid of them.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: When Peter Dinklage was approached about playing Tyrion in Game of Thrones, he was at first really hesitant because he feared it would be like something out of Lord of the Rings. Turned out that Tyrion was a human who was small. Much like Dinklage. Much more in tune with Dinklage’s worldview. Not the “dwarf” stereotype of Disney or Tolkien.
la caterina
I was getting ready to remind a commenter that the use of the n-word, even with a line through it, is unacceptable, but now that comment seems to be gone. Thank you to whoever removed it.
Quaker in a Basement
Could someone please carve this in stone and put where everyone can see it?
“It’s impossible to pick the lock of a closed mind because it only opens from the inside.”
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: That is so weird. He is starting to sound like Mike DeWine. The Yellow Springs he grew up in apparently isn’t the Yellow Springs he wants.
Suzanne
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
I have long had this question, too, and I read a book that came pretty close to answering it. Plenty of people cling to whiteness and their American nationality as markers of high status, because they don’t have any others. They aren’t wealthy, smart, educated, good-looking, successful, in good health, and often not in any functional relationships. Being white and American is literally their only flex.
Status threat.
bjacques
@Brachiator: and Brits can play such a variety of Nazis!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U_Z6tv7cQmM
Quaker in a Basement
@Villago Delenda Est: My wife tells me Dinklage has a production of Cyrano DE Bergerac coming out. Sounds promising.
Brachiator
@sab:
This is a wonderful and thoughtful observation.
It underscores how some people who say that they don’t see race or thought that everything is happily post-racial don’t see how messed up and complicated racial issues still are.
Villago Delenda Est
@la caterina: I always use the Blazing Saddles trope: ni*CLANG*.
Matt McIrvin
Well, they tell me they don’t have a racist bone in their body so it must be a soft-tissue condition.
Mart
@debbie: Disney stating “dwarfism community” sounded wrong. Quick Google – “Although preferred terms vary by person and community, according to the Little People of America website, many people who experience dwarfism prefer the term “little person.”
James E Powell
@Villago Delenda Est:
Kings & queens of England were addressed as “Your Grace” for many years. I’m not sure but I think it was Richard II that started demanding more important sounding titles like “Your Highness” and “Most High” and I think it was Henry VIII that required “Your Majesty.” There’s got to be an out of print English book that documents all this.
la caterina
@Kalakal: The use of the n-word is unacceptable. I thought it had been removed.
sab
I loved LOTR books, but squeamishly because they always seemed pretty racist to me. The paler a character was the better their soul. I’ll be happy to see casting and writing that alters that picture.
Baud
@la caterina:
It’s a quote from The Duke’s post up top.
Villago Delenda Est
@Quaker in a Basement: Oh, he’ll be fantastic in that. The man can act all the way into the next millennium.
Villago Delenda Est
@James E Powell: I learn something new every day. My only knowledge of “Your Grace” was addressing Dukes.
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
I always thought that this was something carried over from Shakespeare productions.
Villago Delenda Est
@Matt McIrvin: The ugly goes to the bone.
James E Powell
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well, the Plantagenets were a long time ago.
Cermet
Orcs, at least in Tolkien, were elves (but twisted and tortured into being evil.) Hence, orcs would be the skin color of elves.
Suzanne
@sab: I took SuzMom and the Spawns shopping last night. Youngest was full of energy and at one point I asked her to hold onto the bag of stuff I bought so I could grab Spawn. So SuzMom was struggling a bit with the bags, because she doesn’t have great balance. A very polite youngish Black man came over and asked her if she needed help. She politely declined because other Spawn came up at that moment to help, so the young man went on his way. A few moments later, two youngish white dudes came over and asked her if she was all right, if there was any problem. She got so pissed. They didn’t come over to help her when she genuinely needed it, but they implied that a Black man must have been aggressing on her. She was pissed off all night, thinking about how this shit is still so fucking real and constant and everywhere.
Quaker in a Basement
@Kalakal: NO! Not even when quoted and struck.
Can a mod please clean this up?
narya
@sab: As a (very-)long-time LOTR fan, I missed that for DECADES. But then, when I had a stepson, I explained to him why I didn’t like some of the movies–specifically, the way Jackson made the battle scenes so long and central–and then I said that it was okay, because it was like all stories. That is, different people experience the same “event” in different ways. And I’ve come to the same conclusion about skin color in LOTR. After all, Tolkien was telling a “history,” so his perspective, as a white man, would be to see it through a different lens than a person of color. Okay, that’s a bit tongue in cheek, but not totally. That is, having a variety of races (and not in the way Tolkien meant it) is telling the story from yet another point of view. If that makes any sense.
la caterina
@Baud: I am white. I don’t quote Black folks’ use of the n-word. That’s their prerogative, not mine. Of course I don’t know the race of the commenter.
Baud
@la caterina:
Ok. I’m fine with whatever The Duke says about it.
WaterGirl
@gwangung: Is it too much to hope that they conveyed the sentiment in clear language similar to what I used?
The Thin Black Duke
@la caterina: I used the word because I wanted to make the point that even thought some “polite” white bigots would never use that racist slur, if you’re engaged in racist conduct, that’s what’s stuck in their heads. I’m black, but unlike some brothers and sisters out there, I never use the word in public, because I think it perpetuates a hateful mindset that needs to be extinct and to use it keeps it alive. I hate when “edgy” white clowns say that word but I’m disgusted by their black “friends” who give them the permission to use it.
Miss Bianca
@The Thin Black Duke: Seeing that that was the best part of Bakshi’s movie, I have a hard time faulting this decision, personally.
I remember going to see the Bakshi version in the movie theater in Detroit when I was in high school, along with my best buds, all of us Tolkien fans. During that very tense scene where the Black Riders are getting closer and closer and all of us are holding our breath, suddenly a childish treble rings out in the hushed theater: “HORSIE!”
The entire theater lost it laughing, us included.
That’s probably contributed to why that’s the only scene that really sticks in my memory after 40+ years. I remember really hating the rest of the animation compared to the Black Riders, tho – it just looked so jarringly flat and, well, cartoonish, compared to the techniques Bakshi used with them.
Which may have unfairly impacted my memory of the movie, tbh.
sab
@James E Powell: I thought this was from mid-twentieth century movie productions. Romans were Brits, the various colonials were from Brooklyn NYC.
Just One More Canuck
@Lyrebird: The 70’s era Soviet version of Lord of the Rings is weird beyond belief. A comment I saw referred to the eagle that carried Gandalf looking like a seagull that drank aviation fuel.
I sounds gloriously awful
Obvious Russian Troll
@The Thin Black Duke:
That’s not entirely accurate, though. Moon was afraid he’d be a low round draft pick (although race probably did play a factor in that) and signed with Edmonton before the 1978 draft. This was the same draft, though, where Tampa Bay took Doug Williams.
Doug Williams took a disproportionate amount of flack for his skills at QB, but he threw four touchdowns in the Super Bowl against Denver, he started Tampa Bay’s first playoff wins and after he left Tampa Bay didn’t make the playoffs for 15 years.
la caterina
@The Thin Black Duke: Thank you. Just to be clear, I was taking umbrage at comment #32, not your post.
gwangung
@Mart: Colorism. Salient topic in communities of color.
The Thin Black Duke
@Miss Bianca: Bakshi’s caricature of Sam never would have been able to defeat Shelob. He was pathetic.
The Moar You Know
@Villago Delenda Est: so are China, Japan and Mexico.
I know from personal experience that the Japanese consider whites and blacks to be pretty equal: both subhuman scum. That was a bit of an eye opener first time I went there.
The Thin Black Duke
@Obvious Russian Troll: Although I’m originally from New York, I’m a Philadelphia Eagles fan because of Randall Cunningham. The battles between the Eagles and the Giants were classic.
Brachiator
@James E Powell:
RE: When I try to have more lighthearted discussions about this I note that some people absolutely require that Romans in costume epics be played by Brits with posh accents.
Don’t think so. Theater tradition is not quite the same as movie tradition.
Maybe American movie moguls thought that Brit speak classed up the joint.
But in Shakespeare’s day you would likely have lower class Romans, Italians and Greeks use lower class English accents.
Miss Bianca
@Just One More Canuck: I think I’ve seen scenes from that one floating around the Intertubes. It is as gloriously, awfully weird as you might imagine.
gwangung
@WaterGirl: They were blunt as hell. Essentially said, “Stay home. This is the future of theatre.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@sab: I once heard a speaker comment on writers who say they just won’t say what race their characters are. She said if your character goes out into the world every day and doesn’t have to think about race, your character is white.
WaterGirl
@Kalakal: @la caterina: @Quaker in a Basement:
I removed that word from Kalaka’s quote and the reply to the quote still makes total sense.
UncleEbeneezer
@The Thin Black Duke: Speaking of football, did you see Bomani Jones’ explanation for the problems of the NFL? Nailed it!!!!
sab
@narya: It does to me. Partly Tolkien was sort of following in the Europe v Asia crusades point of view. But he had a childhood in South Africa which makes my antennae go up in startlement.
But there is no reason not to slightly alter the casting of the story to fix that.
OT When Tolkien described Aragorn, and then implied throughout the book that Aragorn was handsome I thought at the time “Give me a break.” Then they cast Viggo Mortenson who looked pretty much like Aragorn’s description in the book, and I had to agree that Tolkien had a point.
gwangung
For discussion, here’s a take from Facebook:
“I just read an article about a woman who has an extra chromosome in her eyes so she sees 100 times more colors than most of us. She talked about how she was just totally blown away all the time about how beautiful the world is. Then immediately I saw this post and while they are talking about different kinds of color, I think it’s so interesting to consider that leaning into seeing as many colors and shades and nuances as we can makes the world more beautiful and interesting. Strong metaphor there.”
Major Major Major Major
Thank god jurors aren’t just chosen by lot.
@The Moar You Know:
This is not particularly true, but at any rate you might as well include all the former members of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in that tier. There’s the Japanese (minus the Burakumin), and then there’s everyone else.
Matt McIrvin
@sab: The LOTR books are racist but in an odd way that suggests to me that something in Tolkien’s spirit was struggling against it. He has the swarthy Southron races of bad-guy humans going over to Sauron’s side, but he always has to emphasize that they were deceived and that they’re worthy of salvation. He had to invent entirely nonhuman species to have villains who were truly beyond redemption, and there, he again uses these racist markers of physiognomy to emphasize how scary they are (and some of that carried over to Jackson), but he also stresses that they’re distinct from Men. They were made from corrupted Elves because the idea that evil could not be truly creative, but could only twist and pervert, was very theologically important to him.
Major Major Major Major
I walked past an ad for Denzel’s Macbeth today. Wondered if people got bent out of shape by that. They did, didn’t they?
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke: Totally fine of course that you used it, but I did remove the word from the block quote in Kalaka’s comment in response.
That seemed reasonable to me, let’s talk by email if you prefer a different approach?
Kalakal
@la caterina: It’s a direct quote from the headline post by TTBD. Happy for it to have been removed
The Thin Black Duke
@UncleEbeneezer: Thank you. The brother hit the nail dead on its racist head. And the silence from the white coaches and players is deafening.
debbie
@Mart:
Forgot to link to the article, which was in The Hollywood Reporter.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My husband talks frankly about race with our oldest granddaughter, because they are that close. I never would because she and I are not as close as they are. She has other grandmothers who have not failed her, but not so much grandfathers.
I think she needs both, but I want our home to be a place safe from that space. Maybe I am wrong.
She isn’t mixed race, but all her younger sisters are. That complicates life for everybody if we want it to.
WaterGirl
@gwangung: Excellent!
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: I’d take it a step further and say that “I don’t see color” does far more racist damage in the US than overt acts of racism. It may, as an attitude/perspective be the single most effective thing holding up our system of White Supremacy. It’s the reason the Voting Rights Act was gutted and Affirmative Action will likely be ruled unconstitutional very soon. It is the mentality of the vast majority of white voters (especially but not limited to the GOP). And I’m not alone thinking this. I believe Ibram X. Kendi said as much in Stamped From The Beginning: that of all the racist ideas in history, color-blindness might be the one that can do the most damage by justifying a whole swath of racist policies and doing so under the false claim of “fairness.”
Kalakal
@WaterGirl: Thank you.
Kirk Spencer
@Miss Bianca:
Хранители (nominal pronunciation Khraniteli) is in two parts on youtube. It probably wouldn’t hurt to suggest you look up Khraniteli on Wikipedia first just for a touch more warning before you go to them.
Part one
Part two
sab
@Matt McIrvin: That was my moral compromise also.
Kirk Spencer
@UncleEbeneezer: Yes.
Obvious Russian Troll
@The Thin Black Duke: I’m originally from Detroit but even I was disappointed when the Cunningham-led Vikings lost in the championship game to Atlanta. That team was a lot of fun and Cunningham was always an exciting player.
sab
@Sister Golden Bear: Agreed. My multiracial family has the whites and blacks, but also a lot of Chinese- Americans and Japanese-Americans that we white and black people think of as white, but they certainly don’t.
Matt McIrvin
@sab: I always thought Aragorn was supposed to be not particularly physically handsome but having some kind of indefinable True Kingliness that increasingly shines through (a very English sort of idea, one that Terry Pratchett liked to parody).
JimV
About the lady jurist who said something like, “Wrong is wrong, regardless of what color those involved are.” I myself would not have disqualified her for that alone. I would have disqualified her for her previous statement that hate crimes are bad for society, assuming she meant that there should be no such thing as hate crimes as a special provision of law.
Hate crimes to me mean crimes motivated by hate, rather than greed or justifiable fear or personal revenge. As they say, the first step in solving any problem is to acknowledge and categorize it.
I’m re-reading Steven Erickson’s series of novels “The Malazan Book of the Fallen”. Several of the main and favorite characters are described as black-skinned. Nobody attaches any importance to that, in the books. Of course, it takes place in a fictitious universe. As do Tolkien’s books.
sab
UncleEbeneezer
@The Thin Black Duke: You’re very welcome. Great post. Couldn’t agree more. And just to highlight how common the Color Blind bullshit is, I’ve even heard it in variations in some of the most dedicated anti-racist spaces. I know a guy who is married to a Black woman, and back during the Freedom Summer, stood watch all night with a shotgun in Fannie Lou Hamer’s home while the Klan circled outside. EVEN HE has said shit that falls into this line of thinking. He was quickly corrected and apologized, learned etc. But my point is that it is heavily internalized in all white people. And it’s really easy to slip into.
phdesmond
Megyn Kelly. the Guardian covered the incident.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/video/2013/dec/13/santa-white-jesus-white-fox-news-megyn-kelly-video
sab
@Matt McIrvin: Maybe, but Mortenson looked just like the description and wasn’t half bad, so that was fine for me.
Dunnett’s Thorfinn was actually seriously homely. Arogorn wasn’t.
persistentillusion
@Cameron: It was Michelle Malkin, I believe. She’s such a toxic piece of self-loathing crap.
ian
@Brachiator:
@CaseyL:
@VOR:
@Starboard Tack:
The Romans had Black African Emperors, Lucius Septimius Severus and his two sons Caracalla and Geta.
sab
In 1st century Scotland there were more Africans than there were whatever is there now. Since I am an American descended from whatever is there now, I find that fascinating. Apparently the Picts did badly.
Dopey-o
i tell my RWNJ brother that he can use the n-word when he’s as funny as Richard Pryor.
Still waiting…..
Ruckus
@The Thin Black Duke:
Keep trying. Please.
Ruckus
@Lyrebird:
The human race has made a lot of progress. But there are billions of us and changing a mind only changes one of them. IOW it takes time, even if that time is limiting. I’ve seen a lot of change in my life. Not even close to enough, more like a smidgen of change. But humans and their good and horrible points live for decades. And in many cases the brains that operate those humans are dysfunctional towards others, some massively so. The bottom line is that it takes time to restructure a society. It also takes effort and desire to change. And that don’t come easy.
sab
@Brachiator: Thanks. As a white person I am always reluctant to comment because this is not the world I live in although it is the country I live in.
CROAKER
Thin Black Dude – Fantastic!
My first of yours – going to correct that today. Sorry I need to go through the others below.
The Whiteness is a huge issue. Wake up white – see white, surround oneself by white = the white way.
The idea that maybe it’s not is so traumatic. So much so that – we live in a post racial society, oh I have a black friend, oh my grand-daughter is black, “African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans” , meanwhile …grrrr… – I didn’t say blah and on on on on…
The question I would raise or ask one is do they truly know or understand or care to know.
I do care to know, want to learn and grow. So thank you.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
I had a guide like that, long before I was in the military.
My dad would hire anyone with the skills to do the job or the desire to learn the skills. He didn’t care about your skin color or gender. One day when I was maybe 13 he hired a black man of about 35 or so. Richard taught me things I, and every human need to learn about being an actual human. Six decades later I still think about him and can picture him in my mind. I wish I could meet up with him and thank him. I’m not sure if my father knew what Richard did for me but I think that he would have been delighted.
Ruckus
@randy khan:
By George I think he’s got it, the definition of conservatism.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: So true.
Miss Bianca
@Matt McIrvin:
@sab:
I always figured Aragorn for a handsome dude. I mean, shit – first Arwen and then Eowyn goes for him. Granted it could just have been due to his sheer warrior awesomeness, but I always figured that he was probably a looker on top of it.
Interestingly, Viggo Mortensen looked pretty much exactly how I always pictured Aragorn. But somehow even more so, if you know what I mean. (I hope you know what I mean, because I’m not sure I do!)
narya
@Miss Bianca: Yeah, I’m with both you & Sab on that one; when I re-read, I “see” Viggo in my head, and that doesn’t really happen with the other characters. Galadriel, maybe, but that is mostly because of the specificity of her hair color. I’d really love to see a version where the “essence” of the type of being (elf, human, dwarf, etc.) trumps skin color. Make Frodo Black and Sam white, if you really want to send people into a spin.
Mo MacArbie
Hell, I figure they get one more shot at making one as Tolkienesque as possible. Make a series that can go even longer than the movies just to fit everything in in its proper place. After that, go full Shakespeare-in-the-Park and make versions set in pre-revolutionary Cuba, or whatever.
Kathleen
@The Thin Black Duke: I’m not a big football fan but I read about the business practices and policies and impacts on players’ health. Of course this weekend I am a football fan (I can see Paul Brown Stadium from my condo!) That being said, I have always had the sense that Black quarterbacks are subject to more ridicule. Black coaches as well. I felt Marvin Lewis was criticized more vehemently than his predecessors (as was Dusty Baker when he managed the Reds). I’m sure they both made mistakes as all coaches/managers do but I always feel there is a sharper edge to the criticism. Marvin did so much for the Cincinnati community and I was sad when he left, but he obviously felt it was time to move on.
Dan B
@smintheus: Well put.
My in laws are like that. Our concerns as gay men are wrong because we have been granted some rights. We are awful because we are not grateful. Crumbs, some of which are big, are what we should expect. I haven’t seen them in years, much to my partner’s dismay. But he understands.
Their racism I don’t know but she is related to the Koch family and is descended from family in, and owns property in, a very white part of Georgia. He went to a school with a largely black student body and got very racist according to my partner.
Dan B
@randy khan: That would be accurate since being concerned or interested in other people’s point of view would be a sign of weakness or at least a sign of inferiority. These people don’t just dislike democracy they disdain community, see: Maggie Thatcher, “There is no society.”
senyordave
https://slate.com/business/2022/02/dave-chappelle-affordable-housing-ohio-yellow-springs.html
The above is a good analysis of the Yellow Springs “situation” regarding affordable housing. It wasn’t perfect, but now there will be no affordable housing component. And now the developer can jack up the asking price for the single family units because there won’t be those icky lower income people around. Beware of any details that come from Chapelle’s publicist.
Bottom line is that Yellow Springs literally changed public policy to accommodate Dave Chappelle. This proposal was basically a negotiated proposal between the town council and the developer. The town council voted against their own proposal at the insistence of Dave Chappelle.
Maybe Chappelle can endorse JD Vance in the Ohio senate race.
JimBob
@The Moar You Know:
@The Moar You Know: From personal experience? What’s your sample size? were you a waiter at Tokyo xenophobes and Outspoken Jerks club? Please share your thoughts on The jews, or The Irish or The Whomever. As a very non racist Japanese person once told me, one shouldn’t essentialise people.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Suzanne: maybe but please don’t make the mistake of believing that upper middle class or rich white people can not be racists, granted the are more subtle about it but there are rich, powerful, politically connected, attractive people who are racist as hell at heart. And so are some of their kids.
LiminalOwl
Well said, as usual, Your Grace.
I’m still curious, though: I’ve only ever heard “I don’t see color” rather than “I don’t see race.” How has my experience been so different?
LiminalOwl
@Villago Delenda Est: Nitpicking(because I don’t disagree with the rest of your comment) : Jewish men were not able to blend in with “Aryans” at the time, at least not if required to undress. And even lacking that distinguishing feature, many of us (women of Jewish ethnicity) are somehow identifiable. Happens to me pretty frequently, without any clues from my language/behavior/attire.
LiminalOwl
@WaterGirl: Heat, hear!
LiminalOwl
@LiminalOwl: Too late to edit, of course. I had written “Ashkenazi Jewish ethnicity,” dropped the first word, and think that the dropping was an error. Of course “Jewish” refers to both a religious identity and an ethnic identity, where Ashkenazi is a particular subset of the latter. It’s the subgroup that seems to be visually identifiable by many in the USA, but I did not intend to erase Sephardim or any other groups, nor individuals.
LiminalOwl
@Sister Golden Bear: and
@UncleEbeneezer: Thank you both for educational posts. And I’ve been meaning for quite a while to read “Stamped from the Beginning “; guess I need to prioritize better.
WaterGirl
@JimBob: Your first comment has to be manually approved, but after that they should show up right away.
Welcome!
LongHairedWeirdo
I wish I hadn’t been writing other stuff, because I’ve got a bit I’m working on about how morally *AMAZING* Black people are, in America. Today, they still demand justice. Oh, they’ll talk hundreds of years of back pay, building wealth that never earned them more than the lash. But they aren’t ready to burn down buildings. No, not even those who think Black lives actually, you know, *matter*.
Would whites be as good? We know the fricassee well what the answer to that question, and it can be summed up in one word: Apartheid. No, wait, don’t help me, don’t help me RECONSTRUCTION.
They are just so *similar*, see? My disabilities can cause me to briefly confuse two words during a minor flare. And, yes, they were. Unless Apartheid was much, much worse than I imagined, or, obviously, maybe not quite *as* bad. Reconstruction was the construction of a brand new system of oppression, and the reconstruction of the attitudes that Black lives *did not* matter.
NOW do you see why I get angry?
JimBob
@WaterGirl: Thanks