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

[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.