Another Race Thread

[Dr. Cheese]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/op...ml?ref=opinion


I think this essay makes an important point.

[jrthebassguy]

The article does bring up some very interesting points, and unfortunately this article hits very close to home.

I know some people who by all accounts are great people for the most part, except for the very fatal flaw of their racism, some of whom can hide it very well.

My father has taught me just about everything I know on this planet and has been absolutely great to me, but unfortunately is very secretly quite racist at heart, which terribly saddens me. We've gotten into very heated arguments on the matter. The same can be said of my older brother.

[MJ5150]

In light of the historical inaccuracies you pointed out in Captain America, how does this quote from the article make you feel Dr. Cheese? "It is unfair to the filmmakers and cast to expect a work of fiction to adhere to the standards of authenticity we would want for a documentary."

I wanted to see the movie, but decided against it figuring it was just a bunch of white folks making a movie to try and make themselves feel good about the past.

-Mike

[Kruton]

Or perhaps it was meant to simply be an entertaining story

[colcifer]

You really don't have to title your OT threads at this point; they're fairly well monothematic.

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

Originally Posted by Kruton

Or perhaps it was meant to simply be an entertaining story

Not allowed.

[Munjibunga]

I haven't seen the movie, but does it depict at least one possible set of circumstances that existed in that period? More than one? Many? It's a movie. While it may be thought-provoking, it's still intended to entertain.

[jp58]

My grandfather is a well to do man. Self-made, owns a company, is a church deacon (or was up until the divorce), etc. He is very racist though. And I don't mean the occasional slip up that old folks have. And he isn't just talking about the people you see on tv with their pants on the ground and toting guns.

It actually makes me sick to hear him speak that way, and while the argument makes a valid point in saying that being middle or upper class doesn't make them racism free, I still feel like those of us that are not racist are held captive by those of us that are.

[Dr. Cheese]

Originally Posted by MJ5150

In light of the historical inaccuracies you pointed out in Captain America, how does this quote from the article make you feel Dr. Cheese? "It is unfair to the filmmakers and cast to expect a work of fiction to adhere to the standards of authenticity we would want for a documentary."

I wanted to see the movie, but decided against it figuring it was just a bunch of white folks making a movie to try and make themselves feel good about the past.

-Mike

I don't see a contradiction. In as much as I was talking about a movie featuring a ficticious superhero, I clearly did not want Captain America to be a documentary. I did think that showing the military as integrated was way too much of a stretch.

As for the essay that I linked in the OP, I liked it because it stressed the fact that once a custom is banned, there is a temptation to make it appear as if only the ignorant supported it. This is very inaccurate and even dangerous when talking about the history of segregation. The truth is that some of this country's most brilliant leaders and thinkers supported segregation or slavery, like Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence and was the third president of the USA. Senator William Fullbright of Arkansas who was a great leader on foreign policy and who developed the Fullbright Awards, or William F. Buckley, who was a major figure in creating the modern conservative movement, all of them supported segregation of one form or another. Only Buckley, who lived through the Civil Rights era, moved from his early support of segregation.

I bring this up, not to attack anyone, but to show that support of segregation was not an extreme position for much of US history, and that it really took a revolution to change it. That is one reason why there is now a memorial to Dr. King and a African American Museum on the National Mall.

[sandmangeck]

One of the things I've noticed, raised in Indiana, and relocated to the South for 6 years is that: People in both places are racist. BUT. The people in Indiana hide it better. It's behind closed doors. The people in North Carolina I encountered were much more open about it.

[burk48237]

John McWhorter at New Republic has a different take:

But I suspect more than a few Americans—many of them black—are coming out of The Help asking their companions “Um, was that movie really racist?” The answer, simply, is no—and the absence of bigotry in the film ought to be apparent to anyone watching it with an open mind. Unfortunately, many people obviously aren’t.

In media criticism, this world view manifests itself in the pedantic dismissal of nearly all commercially viable depictions of black people as stereotypes, insults, and other evasions of that eternally withheld “acknowledgment” of racism. Though it is presented as a form of pride, this studiously joyless way of taking in films and television is actually a lack of self-sufficiency and independence of mind. In that way, black pundits’ reflexively hostile take on The Help is a more articulate testament to the depredations of racism than anything in the movie itself.

We dishonor black people of the past in assuming that they spent their entire lives fuming at the white man and suffering his abuse. As human beings with a survival instinct, they carved meaningful existences out of what they had been given. This included laughing and good times and, yes, some of it was between whites and blacks.

Put Differently | The New Republic

[sneha1965]

Originally Posted by sandmangeck

One of the things I've noticed, raised in Indiana, and relocated to the South for 6 years is that: People in both places are racist. BUT. The people in Indiana hide it better. It's behind closed doors. The people in North Carolina I encountered were much more open about it.

I think you make a good point. I knew racists in CA, a supposedly liberal, forward thinking, state. In fact, there's not a person I know, that if I truly get to know them does not have discrimination in their hearts. This is not bound to race alone, but gender and age as well.

Not to get off topic but look how older men are treated in the job market as they hit 50+. You can see it in the adds of 20 year olds advertising for their band when they say only apply if you are under 25.

[Phalex]

Originally Posted by sandmangeck

One of the things I've noticed, raised in Indiana, and relocated to the South for 6 years is that: People in both places are racist. BUT. The people in Indiana hide it better. It's behind closed doors. The people in North Carolina I encountered were much more open about it.

I used to work with a salesman here that grew up in MS. He said that he actually preferred the Southern variant of racism because you could always tell "Who the enemy is". I guess that the covert Yankee style racism can make knowing who to trust a bit confusing.

[Roscoe East]

Originally Posted by Dr. Cheese

William F. Buckley, who was a major figure in creating the modern conservative movement

Quoted for... well, no, wait. Nevermind.

[sneha1965]

Originally Posted by Phalex

I used to work with a salesman here that grew up in MS. He said that he actually preferred the Southern variant of racism because you could always tell "Who the enemy is". I guess that the covert Yankee style racism can make knowing who to trust a bit confusing.

The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know.

[Dr. Cheese]

Originally Posted by burk48237

John McWhorter at New Republic has a different take:

Put Differently | The New Republic

This really has nothing to do with what interested me about the essay I posted.
I was interested in what the author had to say about the portrayal of white women in the film.

[jmattbassplaya]

Originally Posted by Phalex

I used to work with a salesman here that grew up in MS. He said that he actually preferred the Southern variant of racism because you could always tell "Who the enemy is". I guess that the covert Yankee style racism can make knowing who to trust a bit confusing.

+1

The same goes for stupid people acting a fool in public. They are much easier to spot and avoid.

[sneha1965]

Originally Posted by Dr. Cheese

This really has nothing to do with what interested me about the essay I posted.
I was interested in what the author had to say about the portrayal of white women in the film.

I hear what you're saying. Back to the topic. I think the pendulum sometimes needs to swing far to the opposite side so that the culture can move moderately in that direction. I don't think that the culture will ever embrace entirely the despicable view portrayed of white (southern) women. Although I know of some where the shoe fits.

[AfroCubanFunkMa]

Originally Posted by Phalex

I used to work with a salesman here that grew up in MS. He said that he actually preferred the Southern variant of racism because you could always tell "Who the enemy is". I guess that the covert Yankee style racism can make knowing who to trust a bit confusing.

I have to agree with your friend on this one.. It's well behind closed doors up here in MA and I sometimes long for people to be more up front about it just so I know where I stand and especially who they are.. Incidentally, I did run into a pretty racist conversation at a friend of my wife's 40th last weekend.. Guess they didn't see me coming so I got to hear how they really felt for once.. It was a bit awkward to say the least but at least now those folks are filed-off as the close-minded racists they displayed themselves to be and I know to treat them as such..

[aborgman]

Originally Posted by MJ5150

I wanted to see the movie, but decided against it figuring it was just a bunch of white folks making a movie to try and make themselves feel good about the past.

-Mike

I think you mis-spelled "money".