Quote:
Originally Posted by rubecube
I don't know. You could maybe say it was anti-white bigorty (I think it's just satire), but it's missing the systemic element that's really the biggest component of racism. It might sound like semantics, but it gets tiring when people bring up White Chicks as an example of the horrors of racism faced by white people. It's so inconsequential that it really has no business being brought in to muddy the waters of any discussion of racism, and comes off as incredibly disingenuous.
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No one is claiming it's a "horror of racism faced by white people", I don't feel hurt by it. But it's discriminatory at best, regardless of the color.
My point is that if we are to be above this stuff, you can't pick and choose which cultures are allowed to be satirized in this way. If there is ever going be any forgiveness or cutting of tension in these regards you either have to accept it as all OK, or denounce all of it as not OK. there can't be an inbetween regardless of issues of the past (and yes, I fully recognize that there are plenty of people who still adhere to racist ideologies).
There a lots of straight actors who have played gay as a stereotype. Is that OK? Is it OK if they have gay friends that are accepting of it, even if there might be a subsection of the gay community fully against it?
It could also be confusing to people new to our society, specifically kids. A kid isn't born racist, but a group white kids who sees White Chicks and think it's funny (ugh), maybe think it will be just as funny to do a Black Girls spoof. These kids may have no idea that what they are doing is wrong, and when you tell them it is, it's a fair question to ask about why it's ok for the opposite to happen. And yeah, that's the time to teach them about the historical context, but they could still be of the opinion of "well I don't hate black people, I wasn't a slave owner, I'm just trying to be funny like my hero comedians." You're instilling in those kids that there is a separation there, when that's exactly what we're trying to get rid of, isn't it?
A story I like to share WRT this stuff is when I was in Swift Current at a skateboard park a few years ago. I was just watching my brother zip around, and there were these 10-12 year old white kids that were fooling around on bikes and what not. They were calling each other n***** when something cool would happen. I was about to step in and tell them not to use the word, but then I though, is it OK? They obviously have no idea what the word actually means, and through their listening of music and everything seem to just think it means how black people use it (brother, friend, etc..), because that's there only exposure to it. Isn't that what we want? To quell the original, hateful context of these words? Or are these kids using the term now racist? They are obviously not. They just don't know.
Looking back, I probably should have said something. I coach 13-14 year olds so f*g is pretty prevalent in their language and I do my best to stop them from using it, and they seem to be receptive when you explain how hateful it is, and that they could be offending people around them. But they don't seem to use n***** very much or at all, probably because they know where it comes from now, even if it is prevalent in their music.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rubecube
Do you really think one movie where two black guys spoof Hollywood's use of blackface by dressing up as white women is equivalent to decades of exclusion of black actors and the degradation via blackface of black people?
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Do you really think that fighting racism with more racism is the way to try and rise above this stuff? Again, none of this offends me or hurts my feelings in anyway (nor should it for any white people). I just don't see how that makes it any less racist, or how it helps race relations at all.
