Race- Privilege, Relations, Racism, etc.

When I visited Ghana one thing that stood out for me were the gangs of begger children. Almost all of them wanted me to agree to become their email penpal. Every one of them had an email account they wanted to share with me. Developed world or developing world problem? You decide.

Another thing that bothers me with "first world problems" is that I've seen a lot of conservatives say things like "Why are you complaining about being poor! You have the internet!"

How is that related to the idea of the "first world problems" meme/joke? That just seem like standard issue right-wing hating on the less fortunate.

See also, the idea that having a flatscreen TV means you're not poor. They don't even sell CRT televisions any more, do they?

They tend to be more expensive now because almost no one makes them.

Lawyer and former government secretary has gun pointed at her, is violently frisked and called ‘neguinha’ by Military Police; black colonel calls it an isolated incident

DUNN GETS LIFE!

The batshit asshole who thought he was justified for unloading a handgun into an SUV of black teens because their music was too loud got life! Whoot!

Good things to happen occasionally, yay!

Shame that good thing was justice being done and not the bad thing not happening in the first place.

At least I can have comfort in knowing in the chance I am wrongfully murdered for talking on my phone there's a chance I might be avenged.

Okay, I am being overly negative, I'm happy that something right happened because there was no way to get around what happened.

The Nod: A Subtle Lowering of the Head You Give to Another Black Person in an Overwhelmingly White Place

LOL, I've done that.

There's also been occasions where me and the only other black man in a location gave each other "daps".

.. Oh God, this is a race thing? I thought it was just a quick and polite way to say hello or you know, good morning. There's a habit I have to get out of now. Damn you humans and you're unspoken codes you somehow universally understand.

Also, the heck is a "dap" and is that supposed to be English?

Dap can refer to simply fist bumps or elaborate handshakes. Also has anyone here ever watched the new ABC show Black-ish? They had a whole episode about the nod, where the main character was upset because his son didn't do it with a new black guy. That's when I knew the show had to have at least 1 black writer because white people have no clue.

Oh. I just called those elaborate handshakes. This terminology continues to confuse me.

<—-Ahem. As well as apparently black people.

edited 17th Oct '14 2:58:11 PM by MousaThe14

So a friend of mine told me about the Tulsa Race Riots back in 1920 and I just wanna know if anyone has any more info on that?

Like it's the first time I've ever heard of it. Bombing black communities from the skies, big white lynch mobs storming Greenwood. The entire situation sounds so fucked up it's almost unbelievable.

I didn't even know about it until fairly recently myself.

I'd read about it a few years ago in a book called, An American Insuurection, about James Meredith, a black man, enrolling in the all White University of Mississippi in the Sixties, prompting segregationist to go up in arms and the president eventually calling in the army. It just mentioned it in passing though, and said the hundreds of dead were so horrific that people just blotted it out of the history books.

Ferguson is not about poor blacks rising up against an evil white oppressor, like the media says.

I'm willing to concede that there's more to the Ferguson incident than we think, but considering how it's not just the media, but rather the people that are there spouting the same things, maybe they're onto something.

Anyway, in other news, Snoop Dogg has put out some misogynist posts on Instagram against Iggy Azalea, but as this article points out, even though Iggy is a victim of sexism, it doesn't excuse the other shitty things that *she* has done in the past, nor does it excuse the fact that people only really reacted "sexism" to Snoop when a white woman was involved.

I crossposted this in the Women's Issues thread because it's relevant there as well.

edited 25th Oct '14 12:58:58 PM by Nettacki

Is it terribly dismissive and male-privileged to say that they're both wastes of perfectly good oxygen and I couldn't care less about either of them?

Regarding the article: either feminism is for everyone or it isn't. Iggy Azalea doesn't "not get" to complain about her own abuse because she doesn't meet the author's standard of how she should be acting given her position. Bringing up Azalea's old skeletons, if indeed they are that, would seem to be beside the point, and something that feminism as a whole is about moving away from. The implication seems to be that Snoop Dogg's tweets are somehow less heinous, and Azalea's offence less authentic, because she's done something the author disapproves of.

edited 25th Oct '14 12:39:21 PM by Achaemenid

If the thing the author disapproves of is "ignoring the plight of women of color just because they're not her and only caring about sexist comments when it comes to her doorstep," then maybe she has a point. Similar concerns were raised when the daughter of one of the guys behind Proposition 8 was revealed as gay and wanted to marry another woman, and how that guy came off to some as selfish because he only really had a change of heart about homosexual relations when someone close to him got involved.

Also, I don't think her point is that her disapproval of something Iggy did in the past lessens the heinousness of Snoop's Instagram posts. Whether or not Iggy did those things, even the author points out that what Snoop did and has done in the past was still horrible. It's just that in his case, he's been doing this sort of thing for years throughout his career, only towards black women, and it wasn't until he said those things to a white woman that somehow everyone in the general public raised their arms against him.

edited 25th Oct '14 1:02:47 PM by Nettacki

Yeah, pretty much.

What point? That Azalea is a hypocrite? Even if it's true, that doesn't mean she isn't deserving of sympathy when she is victimized herself. The author seems to suggest that Azalea isn't an authentic victim of abuse because she didn't speak out when it happened to others (if indeed she didn't - I'm not an expert on the rap industry, but the author seems to draw a fairly tenuous link). I think that's nonsense. The whole point of social activism is to protect everyone, even those who don't want or seem deserving of help. When someone is abused, why on earth would you put up a "you must be this feminist to be supported" sign.

Also its an impossible standard to meet anyway - you could accuse literally anyone of "not doing enough" by moving the goalposts all the time.

Agreed.

—

Of course, this is academic, since I couldn't give a shit about either of them. I'm sure Iggy and her $6m net worth will get over it somehow.

Partly Azalea being a hypocrite, partly her fanbase and the general public also being hypocrites for reacting more to her plight than the plight of her fellow female rappers (that are black). The key thing here is that in the end, she received more sympathy for similarly (or less) horrible things happening to her than others because she's a white woman being put down by a black rapper guy who's been doing the same thing for years towards other black women with little consequence.

On top of that, she hid behind her executive producer/rapper T.I., who himself is guilty of saying some particularly misogynistic disses towards Azealia Banks, thus making Iggy look even more like a hypocrite.

edited 26th Oct '14 4:29:28 PM by Nettacki

Black heroes make zombie movies more interesting. Though I confess to not having seen or played either of the two examples used in the article.

I've not played the game but I love the original Night of the Living Dead. Romero wasn't really trying to make racial commentary in the beginning, but he's not stupid. He realized what was going on and went with it. I respect him for that.

And yes, Ben is a badass. It reminds me a lot of the first Purge movie, and it's actually enough maybe it was an homage.

I think the Purge was trying to say a lot, but they may have been trying to say too much at once because it wasn't very clear compared to Romero.