First thing's first: KEEP. THIS. SHIT. CIVIL. If you can't talk about race without resorting to childish insults and rude generalizations or getting angry at people who don't see it your way, leave the thread.
With that said, I bring you to what can hopefully be the general thread about race.
First, a few starter questions.
- How, if at all, do you feel your race affects your everyday life?
- Do you believe that white people (or whatever the majority race in your area is) receive privileges simply because of the color of their skin. How much?
- Do you believe minorities are discriminated against for the same reason? How much?
- Do you believe that assimilation of cultures is better than people trying to keep their own?
- Affirmative Action. Yea, Nay? Why or why not?
Also, a personal question from me.
- Why (in my experience, not trying to generalize) do white people often try to insist that they aren't white? I can't count the number of times I've heard "I'm not white, I'm 1/4th English, 1/4th German, 1/4th Scandinavian 1/8th Cherokee, and 1/8th Russian," as though 4 of 5 of those things aren't considered "white" by the masses. Is it because you have pride for your ancestry, or an attempt to try and differentiate yourself from all those "other" white people? Or something else altogether?
edited 30th May '11 9:16:04 PM by Wulf
I'm still interested to hear your version of a Soviet Superman.
< shrug > Aside from what the comic has already covered, I don't really have much to add. I think that hypothetical narrative is important for American audiences because it would illustrate how Superman's qualities are incidental when compared to the country he was raised in. If nothing else, it would be a thought experiment on how national exceptionalism is basically bullshit.
Superman isn't any better or worse because he's an American or because he's a member of the Soviet Union. As you know, the USSR Superman depicted in the comic is a totalitarian who uses state-mandated mind control to pacify the population into a utopia while also using his super-hearing to keep people in a perpetual surveillance state. The American Superman that already exists actively participates in proxy wars, extrajudicial counter-insurgencies and "diplomatic" missions on behalf of the White House under morally dubious pretenses.
He's still the same guy for all his faults and good points, and having him alternately written as a Soviet-era communist would only highlight that.
@ Vandro: It seems like you're intertwining your personal preferences with a prescriptivist argument about what Batman is fundamentally supposed to be. My entire point is to challenge those fundamental assumptions, especially since comic book continuities are notoriously mutable. I don't think Batman's iconography would be compromised all that much by the hypothetical Arab American switch chiefly because there's not much about him to change to begin with.
Going back to the above example, Superman does not have to be American, although many detractors insist that if you changed him to a Bolivian or a Jewish Frenchman, he wouldn't be Superman anymore. To me, one of the major points of Superman Red Son is to challenge that very notion, and that is essentially my reasoning for Batman being an Arab.
edited 2nd Mar '15 2:51:02 PM by Aprilla
The Wanderer
10 ways white people are more racist than they realize
edited 4th Mar '15 12:50:42 PM by rmctagg09
Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.
Eclipse the Moon
"He's a god. He's not even human. He's a freaking god..."
"But Vikings were white?!"
True this is a very good statement, but on the converse, you get people saying that "Gods of Egypt" ain't whitewashed because "they're long forgotten gods so it doesn't matter".
(The only Egyptian god who should be white is the red-headded, pale skinned Set as the patron god of foreigners [Set was considered to be Libyan, and many Egyptian and Greek sources describe some Libyans/Proto-Imazighen as being pale skinned with red and blond hair.])
edited 4th Mar '15 2:13:23 PM by PippingFool
I'm having to learn to pay the price
A nice butterfly
Egyptian gods could also be furries!
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Shop Owner
It's not really personal preference, Batman, being an arab american would mean what exactly for the idea of batman as he appears to criminals? It may be my foreigness speaking, but Batman using the same iconography and being ethnically arab would not register to me as arab batman, because Arabs look caucasian to me.
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Marvel did give themselves some useful leeway with Thor by making Asgard a whole alien planet. That means that racial diversity isn't just an easy sell, but the more obvious outcome.
What's precedent ever done for us?
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I've already explained this...
Could you imagine Batman having enemies that want to shut him down not just because he's a vigilante but because he's suspected of terrorism? His surveillance operations throughout the city would certainly heighten that tension just as the prospect of a Soviet-raised Superman raises some bone-chilling questions for Americans about what it would be like to be on the receiving end of a superpowered alien's intervention.
Setting aside the fact that Bruce Wayne would A.) have certain loopholes he couldn't abuse as easily as an Arab and B.) have to deal with criminals who, in fact, know his secret identity and would use that to his detriment, what I'm basically talking about (as I usually do) is reader response analysis.
In other words, it's not even so much how the characters respond to a Soviet Superman or an Arab Batman, but how WE respond to said characters as part of a thought exercise. As part of reader response theory, a USSR-raised Superman intentionally evokes fear and paranoia in Americans because it illustrates how other countries would likely feel about a world superpower having a nigh-invincible alien in their arsenal. Same for Batman. Mask or no mask, readers who are well aware of 9/11 are probably going to have more pronounced reactions to an Arab with his own private surveillance system and billions of dollars in other crime fighting hardware. note
So yes, maybe it is the fact that you're not American, but it doesn't mean you can't understand it. Which reminds me of Call of Duty Ghosts and its implications regarding a South American note invasion of the US. Have any Central and South American tropers played that game? What do you think about the Federation?
edited 4th Mar '15 4:30:17 PM by Aprilla
The superhuman one kind of bugs me. They said they showed two faces, one black, one white, but they didn't mention anything about the general build and musculature of the two. There's just something about the methodology that seems like it could be tighter, and it's forcing the respondent to assign superhuman abilities to at least one race.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Uh, wrong thread, I think.
Shop Owner
Well, Noriega sued, so hey, something something racism. I never got the time to play it, though.
Hmmm...
shimaspawn, I don't know what you're responding too but [[sincere it sounds really interesting.]]
The Wanderer
How the Diversity Argument in the Nerd Community Chases its Own Tail
edited 4th Mar '15 8:12:35 PM by rmctagg09
Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.
HGW XX/7
Text of the Justice Dept. Report on the shooting of Michael Brown and Ferguson PD.
TL;DR: Darren Wilson's account of the incident is probably reasonably truthful, but FPD is still racist as hell.
edited 5th Mar '15 2:45:10 AM by Achaemenid
Schild und Schwert der Partei
The Wanderer
#BlackOutDay: Trending Twitter Hashtag Celebrates Black People, Fights Negative Stereotypes
House Lewis: Sanity is Relative
Regarding the frat thing I am not surprised. I honestly hope this punishment actually lasts. I know at my school the chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha (? We just call it Pike I think that's the full name but I'm not sure because there's also one called Pikapp) got expelled for some transgression (allegedly for roofieing a couple girls)....only to come back a few years later and get their own new frat house...just to get banned for another 4 years.
V
Why not ban the whole concept?
Keep Rolling On
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
Because money
Oh really when?
A nice butterfly
What concept? Chapters and sororities and fraternities?
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
V
Yep.
A nice butterfly
I am not sure.
I understand it forms part of tradition. Didn't dear ol' Dubya form part of one that was important enough?
Also just because they would be "disbanded" it would not mean that they would dissapear: social circles and aggrupations would still exist anyways.
If they serve an economical (beneficially economical, that is) thing for students then I'd say that might be worth keeping, if under more stringent conditions (Such as srsly guys. Stop it with the racism.)
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
http://news.yahoo.com/ou-fraternity-close-racist-video-posted-online-040106571.html
Check out the colourful comments.
I honestly don't think banning frats would do anything. People are still racist/sexist/what have you regardless of if they're in a frat or not. The frat doesn't make people racists.I say that because if you go to a frat at a completely different school you wouldn't see that type of behavior.
Mob mentality is a huge thing with Frats though and that can be a breeding ground of racism even if unintended by most of the members individually. Just a few ruin it for everyone, especially when hazing and such is so common.
edited 9th Mar '15 8:33:08 PM by Memers
Gamboa resort and hotel. And yes, lots of housing.