And in other news...

[cyrano]

So the Don Imus thing has once again brought people out of the woodwork saying stupid things. From my position of white privelege, there are two things that bug me that don't seem to be covered by other, smarter people.

First, Snoop Doggy Dogg's comment about why he can call women hos and bitches and be an artistic force because of it while Don Imus is just ignorant and misogynistic. "First of all, we ain't no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel." So the idea is that since Snoop's commentary on 'hos in the hood' is coming from his mind *and* his soul, and it's relevant to how he feels, then it's cool. Which would mean that if some crusty old white supremacist complains about those selfsame hos, it would be okay so long as it came from his mind and his soul and was relevant to how he felt.
Mister Dogg, I respectfully disagree here. A male employee in my work environment feels pretty comfortable tossing around the words 'slut' and 'whore' when talking about women. I am so torn between punching him in the mouth and going to my manager and complaining about a hostile work environment that the indecision essentially means that I keep doing nothing. I'm fairly certain that this is coming straight out of his soul, and it's relevant to how he feels about women. I'm also fairly certain that this is no excuse for being a hateful ignorant thoughtless turd.

The second aspect--the discussion about racism and the idea that 'racism == prejudice + power' and thus only white people can be racist. I must again disagree here, as I don't know why racism gets a different benchmark than any other -ism. I have friends who are communists. They are not members of a communist government, nor high ranking party members with power. They're still communists. I have friends who are feminists. They are not members of a ruling female class, they do not live in a society that systemically and categorically degrades and devalues men because of their Y chromosome. They're still feminists. Ice Cube, Korea still thinks you're a racist. I think the formula would be best represented as 'racism == prejudice with a racial bent'.

There. Now I've said *my* stupid things. I only have one last thing to say. Curses. Foiled again.

Comments

[sararainmaker.livejournal.com]

Very well put.

Playing devil's advocate for a moment, I believe what they are trying to say is that being black, or being a women means that they have more of a right to say those words because it's taken more as a jest and self defacement rather than something hostile...

However I heard something the other day that was very very true. Freedom of speech is the freedom to say whatever you want, whenever you want about and to whomever you want. It is a given right from the wonderful men who created our constitution... BUT (and this is a very big but) It does not remove any personal responsibility from saying those things and does not remove having to pay the consequences for saying them. Whether you are black white, yellow, red or green, whether you are male, female or androgynous, people must realize that what they say can and will effect other people.

I am not justifying all of the crap that has happened since this Don Imus fiasco, nor am I justifying what he said himself, since both are pretty horrific in my eyes... Shit, I don't know what I am justifying if anything.

I guess I think all the media whores (uh oh, I said it) should go back under their rocks and wait for something real to come up, because this whole thing, to me, smells of rotten milk.

I mean, I know there are still some pretty nasty white racists out there... but there are starting to be some really nasty black racists out there as well, and unlike the KKK, who is shunned and publicly humiliated, they are being cheered on and encouraged to speak out.

I dunno... I'll shut up now. rofl.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I certainly believe that the combination of racism and a position of power to enforce it creates a far more dangerous and harmful situation.
And there have been nasty black racists around since before I was born. Kill Whitey is not a new slogan.
And as regards 'waiting for something real to come up'... Dear fucking gods, I went to the gym last night and they had CNN on everydamnwhere (as they usually do) and since they had to constantly talk about the shooting at VT and also since there was no actual, you know, *news* left to report about it, they were doing that cable news channel thing where they talk about anything they can possibly tie in to The Current Big Thing. Larry King, by the way, is apparently a morbid son of a bitch. "So, did you see anybody die? What was that like? I mean, I imagine something like that would be with you for the rest of your life."

[sararainmaker.livejournal.com]

It really makes you wonder what it is they AREN'T reporting, doesn't it? And people wonder why I am so paranoid. We live in a world with violent human beings all over, we have war, famine and many other nasty news ridden things to look at, we even have happy things like art and music and marriages... and the media takes one event and spins it until we all die.

I remember in grade school, sitting in front of the television watching as hundreds of times the Challenger blew up in front of me... Something sad, yes, something newsworthy, yes... but there is this little traumatized girl still inside me that watched those people die over and over and over again.

What is with the human infatuation with watching a tragedy occur over and over again?

[bipolygrrl.livejournal.com]

Mister Dogg, I respectfully disagree here.

This made me laugh.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Oh good. That was the ameliorative 'funny bit' to make my polemic more palatable, because the rest of it was awfully full of bile and self-righteousness.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I like your Dandelion Break icon. Also, I wish more people understood the importance of the Dandelion Break, and how good it can be for the soul.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Ironically, I made it because I couldn't find a digital image of the graphic on yours. (:

[jholloway.livejournal.com]

Of course, many of the most prominent voices calling for Imus's head are long-standing critics of misogyny in hip-hop.

But yes, it is more offensive when a white person addresses a black person as "nigger" than when a black person addresses another black person in the same way, for reasons which should be obvious.

And while you don't have to be in a position of power to be prejudiced against people of other races, you kind of do in order for it to matter a damn. Which is why, to borrow a phrase from Andrew Rilstone, it is worse for a white person to call a black person "nigger" than for a black person to call a white person, er, some equivalently-offensive term which mysteriously doesn't seem to exist in English.

Racial discrimination by black people against white people is not, as far as I can tell, a significant problem in the US or Europe. Zimbabwe, yeah, probably.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I don't know why one hate is more more offensive than another. Is it because a black person who hates a white person is more justified in that generalized hatred? Or just because that hatred without a social apparatus to enforce it is impotent? Or a third option I have yet to mention?

I'm not always good with obvious.

[jholloway.livejournal.com]

It's because a white person's animosity toward a black person is part of a complex of behaviors with actual negative effects. You think you'll ever see four cops beating the living shit out of a WASP? Maybe if he's gay or a communist or something, I guess. If black people hate white people, why should you or I, as white people, give a rat's ass? It isn't real likely to have any effect on us. That's not universal; anti-Semitism in the black community is worryingly acceptable. Similarly, you mentioned prejudice against Koreans (look at the portrayal of Koreans in Boyz N The Hood just for one example).

But, generally speaking, we're talking about the same reason that "faggot" is a more offensive term than "breeder." it's intimately related to the fact that gangs of gay guys don't go around "straight-bashing."

But note that my first example, the obvious one, was actually that it's much more OK for Snoop Dogg to say "nigger" than it is for you to say it, for the same reason that I can call my mom a bitch but you oughtn't to.

But yeah, I'm willing to admit that black people are frequently prejudiced against white people in basically unimportant ways. But if it's currently limited to "saying rude things about white people on hip-hop albums," then white America needs to shut the fuck up and take its medicine, because it's not like American pop culture hasn't spent about eleventy-billion years making fun of the funny, funny black man and his hilarious poverty and oppression.

By contrast, Don Imus is a racist douche who got the equivalent of booed off the stage. Good. We need to cut one of these assholes down to side from time to time, pour encourager les autres. And I'd just like us all to be able to contemplate on that fact for a few minutes without having to turn the conversation, once again, to how white people are victims of racism too, you know?

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I like having smart people on my flist who don't neccessarily agree with me.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

American pop culture hasn't done that in decades, and if we're going to all agree to a standard, we have to hold to that standard the most strongly when it's most tempting not to. Black people cannot be allowed to be more racist than white people. If they are, it makes impeachable, it makes vulnerable to accusations of hypocrisy, the fight against racism.

Racism anywhere supports racism everywhere; it gets transmitted along the same wires that make other kinds of Americans care at all about African-Americans: the links all Americans share by being that.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

That word wouldn't be "honky" or "ofey"?

[jholloway.livejournal.com]

Are you seriously claiming that "honky" or "ofay" are as offensive as "nigger?" Because I can see how you might claim that they ought to be as offensive, but in fact they're not. And it's worth you considering why they're not.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Quite seriously. It's true that there are far fewer black people than white here and therefore one doesn't hear it often. It's also true that many white people have other consolations. But that's only a matter of palliating it afterwards, not of how offensive it is in the first place. "Acting white" is, yes, a phrase as offensive as "nigger."

It's a matter of a person facing a person, and on an individual level like that the relative numbers of white and black people in America don't matter.

[phoenix-heart.livejournal.com]

I would disagree with your previous friend about black animosity towards white having less negative effects. They might be less obvious, but they are still harmful.

In one way, the black animosity towards whites seems to me to have an accompanying effect of sanctioning within the black community a rejection of anything seen as "white"--which, as I have understood it (from several conversations with black friends) includes success, stability, education, intelligence, etc. Whether these things are actually part of white culture (and one can certainly argue that they are not) is irrelevant--they're seen by many as 'white', and therefore are hated. So it increases racial divisiveness, and in some ways, can help fuel prejudice going the other way (ie--if a white person is confronted with black hatred of them just 'because they're white', it won't take long for them to develop a hatred the other way).

Two wrongs don't make a right. And less obvious hatred can still be dangerous--in many ways, MORE dangerous, because no one's looking out for it in the same way as the obvious ones. Race relations are complicated. And the way to fix prejudice on anyone's side is not to advocate a double standard. It might work ok in the short term, but it will come back to bite everyone in the ass in the long term.

Imus is an idiot, and shouldn't have said what he said, but the cause of fighting racism isn't done any good by the overreaction to him. In many ways, it actually makes it worse, I think. And Snoop Dogg *certainly* isn't doing the cause any good by rationalizing his own hypocritical actions, I agree.

Not my most eloquent explanation, but I'm still a little caffeine-deprived.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Someone said in a newspaper, recently, that white racism cuts more deeply than black racism. The point I made is that if that's so, black racism must cut more broadly because it affects so many more people.

[phoenix-heart.livejournal.com]

Good point. :)

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Mister Dogg, I disrespectfully disagree here. Don Imus should only wish he'd been born black, if obnoxious black racists like you can get away with Imus's kind of crap. I have no respect for black street culture like yours.

I agree about racism. But it means, also, that we have to apply it across the board and call even well-meant racism racism, like affirmative action. Simply say either, "some racism is OK" or "we know this is racism and it's not OK but we're going to do it anyway as a short cut to helping the descendants of the victims of past racism get a real stake in society."