Race- Privilege, Relations, Racism, etc.

That old saying about squeaky wheels? Yeah, pretty much the only reason we hear about those cases is because the press make mountains out of molehills and present the problem as an "epidemic" built upon xenophobia that unfortunately a sizeable amount of people lap up.

I mean, it's the same reason why people view certain dog breeds as inherently dangerous (you would never hear of a Poodle attack on it's owner in the papers, despite the fact that poodles can be quite vicious if agitated)

edited 20th Apr '14 1:03:49 AM by PippingFool

Yeah, the spouse absconding with your kids is not limited to mixed-culture marriages. But mostly, it's that places like that are perceived as being No Womens Land where the men are allowed to do that because mothers have no rights.

Similarly, I've been told that Japanese man/Aussie woman doesn't work out because in Japan foreign wives have no rights and are not respected (I have a friend going to teach in Japan, which is why the topic came up).

^The girl I'm currently seeing is from that part of the world and she is certainly of the opinion that is the case. It's part of the reason she came to Australia.

That's pretty creepy.

A new poll from National Journal and its partners finds that black and Hispanic Americans feel better about their local schools, and their ability to prepare kids for college, than do whites and Asians.

Stormfront is a dangerous fucking website.

no shit.

I hadn't heard of those specific cases but I'm pretty sure nobody is surprised by this. Stormfront is one of the biggest Neo-Nazi dens on the net.

edited 19th Apr '14 8:57:37 PM by Kostya

Dammit, I wanted to be the first guy to post a snarky reply to Radical Taoist's comment.

It's a pretty good counterargument to the old 'it's on the Internet and therefore harmless' chestnut, though.

We keep hearing that the gov't needs to spy on everyone in order to keep us safe. How hard is it to keep track of anyone who posts there?

Do you mean legally or legally?

Beats the shit out of me, I certainly can't see them keeping a wiretap and a surveillance unit on every storm force posters on the off chance that might decide to pull something. Nor would it really be justified. They probably do lurk the threads and red flag anyone who posted Unabomber manifestoes.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that states have the right to ban the consideration of race in the college admission process, dealing another defeat to advocates of affirmative action.

It was a 6-2 ruling.

edited 22nd Apr '14 1:55:15 PM by DeviantBraeburn

Avril Lavigne just put up a music video yesterday for her new song called Hello Kitty. People have called it racist because of the stereotypical portrayal of certain Japanese people as seen in the video, as well as the whole "cultural appropriation" thing, similar to the reaction to Katy Perry using geisha costumes and imagery in one of her live performances. Avril's response? Well, it's here:

To decide for yourself if it's racist or not, you can watch the video here, if you can stomach the music:

edited 24th Apr '14 12:31:09 PM by Nettacki

I don't see anything racist about it. If anything all she did was tap into the latest otaku craze of the kawaii genre.

To me that isn't much different from a country music song talking about cowboy boots or a rock song about skateboarding.

I don't get how this is supposedly racist but when Gwen Stefani made her Japanese themed music, it was considered an homage.

It seems that some people consider it racist because they view it as cultural appropriation.

Then the Japanese are racist for their cowboy clubs and 1950's motorcycle greaser clubs.

This isn't cultural appropriation. This is fad service. She tapped a trend.

Musicians do that a lot. Even the Japanese pop singers use English occasionally in their music because they think it sounds good.

Maybe they're reacting more to Avril doing this than Gwen because Gwen is a more respected artist than Avril? That, and maybe the social justice crowd simply had a larger presence than in Gwen's time (which admittedly wasn't too long ago).

There are better things for them to go after than a cheesy pop song who's references to Japanese culture are just as cheesey and actively exported by Japanese companies, making them a lot if money.

It seems like she made a video targeting a segment of her fans with help from the people of the culture she's talking about. It's not even cultural appropriation. It's more of cultural guest staring.

Does it count as cultural appropriation if it is actively exportet by the "appropriated" culture? Japanese culture has entered "Western" culture to such a degree that it could be considered part of it in my opinion.

All I know is, even if it's not an example of cultural appropriation, the music itself still makes me cringe. And that's coming from a guy that kinda digs anime and some aspects of Japanese culture.

Most things that are culturally Japanese are that way because the Japanese declared it "theirs" and thus defend and preserve the crap out of it to stay "Japanese".

It's kind of like how Black culture may "adopt" something and declare it "Black".

edited 24th Apr '14 4:37:03 PM by KingZeal

It also seems like in doing so (appealing to a different set of fans), she has continued to alienate the fans that stuck with her during her tomboyish Sk8er Boi era. But that's another issue entirely.

It probably still is, considering that it's still expressing certain racial stereotypes of Japanese culture, to some degree.

edited 24th Apr '14 5:09:02 PM by Nettacki

The he'll do people mean by cultural appropriation anyway? I usually see it when.someone's pissed about something but they can't call it racist.