It just hit me that way.
What say ye?
How? Because a black woman complimented a white man’s ass?
I’m confused as to how that could be considered racist in any way? Do you think that somehow he was saying that she couldn’t be his girlfriend because she is black? If so, I think you are seeing something that simply isn’t there.
I say :rolleyes:. Why did it “hit [you] that way”?
ETA: This thread serves as a good reminder that it takes two to tango as far as racism is concerned. A person can view an event and determine that one of the actors is a racist or something that happened proves that racism still exists, when another person can view the same event and not determine that.
You must be looking *really *hard. I saw nothing racist.
I don’t see it. I did, however, like the close-up of Mike Rowe’s butt - hubba hubba!
Now that I think of it, it is kind of sexist. 
Maybe I was. His comment just seemed to imply that there was no way she could be his girlfriend.
Not a big deal but it seems like he could have just as easily made it sound like she’s not my girlfriend darn it.
Racist? Not at all. Not even racial.
It’s not “she’s not my girlfriend, omigod I hope you didn’t I’d have a romance with a black woman!” It’s “[one gal is checking out my butt] my girlfriend says they make my butt look good [and as for this other gal who checked out my butt even closer and complimented it] she isn’t even my girlfriend!” Point being, ALL women, not just his girlfriend, think it looks good.
Hell, there’s probably more significance in one being blond and the other brunette than in skin tone or ethnic identity.
You should contact the NAACP, Cow Pie. I hope these racist fucks burn.
Nope, not imo.
I didn’t catch any racist undertones in it at all. I guess someone really looking for some would see them and would have seen them if it had been the blonde who’d complimented him and been the subject of the “not my girlfriend” remark. (hey, why couldn’t the Black girl have been the one to do so? An assumption that she’s of a different race and so off the radr completely in that respect?):dubious::rolleyes:
ETA, the implication to me was simply that not ONLY his (biased) girlfriend but a random woman on the street found his ass attractive in the jeans. Nothing more sinister.
BTW, I have a serious crush on this guy, my daughter and I both being huge fans of Dirty Jobs. 
p
I’d get dirty with him any day.
Good Fucking Grief.
Some people have to invent hateful shit in their heads that isn’t there.
This thread is more racist than that ad.
I saw the potential racism, but only because the OP primed me to look for it. I think at worst, “She’s not my girlfriend :eek:” is just an awkward attempt at a punchline.
Besides, Mike Rowe is the man and I refuse to believe he’d willingly involve himself with anything racist.
If the ad people were aiming towards the racist crowd, wouldn’t it have made more sense to have the actress be, I dunno, less ambiguous-looking? I had to adjust the tilt of my monitor because I orginally couldn’t even tell that she was black. And I’m a certified blackologist!
I was more annoyed with her touching him like that… If you reverse the genders, that little tug would be creepy.
The implication is that he’s a little embarrassed that a random woman grabbed him and complimented his butt. He’s a little embarrassed at the hands-on-attention but not actually complaining. He’s trying to be modest while suggesting that lots of random women will like your butt, too, if you just buy these jeans.
ie: not racist. (Except that they almost certainly, deliberately, cast the lightest-colored person-of-color they could find to say the line. But that’s a different thread.)
I agree that it’s not racist, but I don’t think that it always takes two to tango in terms of racism. Sometimes, something is objectively racist and it doesn’t make the viewer racist to see that.
OK, I just watched it again and I see the failed punchline that I missed before.
But I gotta say I’m surprised at the vitriol I’m getting. It was just a question… it’s not like I started a pit thread about it.
Nay.
Well, I started a GD thread on what the term “racist” means and it go nowhere, but I will once again enter the breach with this post.
To me, a racist is a person who believes that at least one race is inherently and irredeemably inferior than at least one other race. And a statement (or commercial or anything) is racist if it tends to show that the person making such statement is a racist.
So, I said all that to say this: the determination of whether a statement is racist is inherently subjective. The question is “would someone who is not a racist say that,” and reasonable people can differ on the answer to that for many statements.
Therefore, it does take two to tango. It is not possible for a statement to be objectively racist. It is possible for a statement to be such that no reasonable person would differ on whether or not it was racist.
I think a lot of us are tired of those with a hair trigger on their “THAT’S RACIST!”