# "10 Reasons Why a Beer if Better than a Black Man"...WTF!! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 27, 2003, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990 "2003-02-27T22:25:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/141 "2003-02-28T20:22:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by EasyPhil \* > \*\*How many people does it have to be? Let me ask you some questions **NightRabbit**. > > Have you ever been denied entry or service in an establishment simply you have a particular skin color?.. > I may not know **monstro** personally, but as a Black man I definitely understand where she’s coming from because I’ve lived it, I’ve seen it and I know far too many people that have as well and a few of them are White. \*\* I don’t see how people can even ask this question. COME ON!!! I’m white, and I live in an area with not a lot of black people, but even so, any halfway aware person can see it (that subtle or overt “reminder” from some people that people of color are “different”) all around. I went into the Air Force National Guard many, many years ago, same basic training is required for guardspeople as regulars. Even the black TI’s treated the black recruits differently. Even if a person is white, they have to have their heads buried in the sand up to their butts NOT to see that it (racism), both subtle and overt, is still going on!!! Perhaps the t-shirt ISN’T “the end of the world,” as someone so snottily said. Maybe it’s just one tiny snowflake in a blizzard, but add them all up and they can blind a person. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/142 "2003-02-28T20:29:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Biggirl \* > \*\*You’ve got it backwards \*_World Eater_, nobody extrapolated the ills from the t-shirt, the t-shirt is an expression of these ills. \*\* I think you know what I meant. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/143 "2003-02-28T20:36:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Perhaps the t-shirt ISN’T “the end of the world,” as someone so snottily said. Maybe it’s just one tiny snowflake in a blizzard, but add them all up and they can blind a person. Or they can cause tears of rage. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![SLASH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@SLASH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SLASH)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/144 "2003-02-28T20:42:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by trochai \* > [BReally, White America knows nothing about prejudice, aside from how to perpetrate it. And that’s coming from a white suburban boy myself. \*\* That was a very intelligent statement! ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/145 "2003-02-28T20:50:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rhum Runner \* > \*\*Ok, it’s pretty obvious who has the hang ups here. Where on god’s green Earth did “crack babies” and “youth crime” come into play? If that is the attitude you walk around with it is little wonder that you find such offense and feel that you’ve been forced to “live your whole life with everyone reminding you in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that you don’t belong” Perhaps the reason you don’t feel you belong has more to do with your paranoia than anything else. Increasingly that is my perception. Get the chip off the shoulder, it isn’t attractive. > > \*\* You obviously didn’t understand a word she said. She is not bringing up crack babies and youth crimes to just arbitrarily throw into the mix. She’s saying that the type of attitude you and others like you exhibit when saying “it’s not such a big deal,” is one of “oh yeah, if you black people are so concerned about racism, and so into proving what worthy people you are, why aren’t you doing something about the problems that reaaaaaaally matter, and not be little babies about such small things (like a “mere” tshirt)”. It has nothing to do with having a chip. Your post here just proved her point. Based on your posts, you are basically saying that people only have a right to be offended at, and complain about, that which YOU deem “rantworthy”. Otherwise they are just whining. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/146 "2003-02-28T20:57:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by World Eater \* > \*\*I think you know what I meant. \*\* Obviously I don’t. It looked to me as if you were saying that people were reading all these social ills into the t-shirt and I stated that the t-shirt was a symptom of these social ills. I could be wrong. That has happened. Once. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/147 "2003-02-28T21:07:25Z")
**monstro** -_It’s peculiar that you would think I was talking about myself._ I guess it was all the times you used the word “I”. But I guess I should just drop it. I think you have total right to your outrage. Personally I’d like to give the benefit of the doubt and think, as someone else suggested, that some idiot ad guy thought he would be “hip” to the young black woman market. I would like to think also that this: \*Despite all the racial pride talk that well meaning people engage in, in real world terms the average, everyday American black man is among the most reviled and spat upon creatures in the modern industrial world. \* ( **astro** is a little overstated. Okay, maybe a black male muslim. (j/k, please I wear glasses and I’m smiling when I say that ) ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/148 "2003-02-28T21:13:26Z")
I’m stupid, I said: I guess it was all the times you used the word “I”. Which is not why I thought you were talking about yourself, it was because you were saying you should expect different reactions from different people. And since you didn’t exactly “smirk and say a snappy comeback” I assumed you were the other candidate. And this is an incurable arguer “dropping it”. **Now** I’m dropping it. Sorry for my obvious misinterpretation. ---
**Author:** ![mister\_me](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cdc98d/32.png) [@mister\_me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mister_me)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/149 "2003-02-28T21:14:48Z")
I’m polish. I sometimes, during competetive games (cards, boardgames, sports, etc), call myself ‘The Polish Prince’ (just out of fun). I understand the stereotypes that are associated with different races, nationalities, etc. on a first-hand basis. I have friends who will often tell polish jokes to me. They’re doing it in good fun. I’m confident with myself and know that the jokes are just jokes. Just because they’re not polish and they’re telling the jokes doesn’t mean that they don’t like me orthat they’re predjudice. People need to learn to laugh at themselves. The world is filled with too many great and beautiful things and people to worry about the few people who hate. Learning to blow off things like a silly sterotype will only help eliminate the people who feed off hate. When people show that this type of thing (the shirt) bothers them, it only adds logs to the fire. ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/150 "2003-02-28T21:21:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by you with the face \* > \*\ ***CanvasShoes** : > If they were using this rationale, then they really are stupid. Your assumption is completely counter-intuitive given the setting in which the T-shirts showed up. These things were designed to be a promotional lure, so why would the guys in charge target the prize to only a relatively small portion of the student body (i.e. black women)? Wouldn’t it be more profitable to have a prize that appeals to everyone, regardless of sex and race? > > I think you are trying hard to see this as simply a bad judgment call when it was actually a little more than that. Yeah, it was a bad judgement call, but it was also racist and inappropriate, and not excusable with just a “oops, my bad”. When people are quick to call these kinds of things stupid as opposed to racist, I get annoyed. People have been doing stupid shit for hundreds of years. That doesn’t mean the shit ain’t racist, too. \*\* That was merely my opinion. And only in part. I personally feel that it was heinously offensive. Sorry, maybe I should have elaborated more on why I thought. I am not “defending” the promoters by my above opinion, nor do I think they were innocently and merely “stupid”. But the reason I posted what I thought of as them having merely made a bad error in judgment is that I can’t imagine anyone, particularly someone being sponsored by a nationwide credit card company, dumb enough to PURPOSELY foster that sort of racism. As in, even if the perpetrators were racist, surely they must know that someone would get wind of their stupid stunt and they’d be exposed, hence, I believe the best scenario, that of it having been a poorly thought out lapse of judgment. God, I hope I’m not wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/151 "2003-02-28T21:32:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Binarydrone \* > \*\*How about an apology for calling me a racist? Or for claiming that I have poor reading comprehension skills? Or for the general snide and condescending tone that you are taking? > > Here is the thing. I am **not** saying that we should go around treating people differently (or unequally). In principal, I think that this is a fine sentiment and applaud you for it. > > What I am saying is that I believe that the same joke (in this case why beer is better than…) has a different impact on different groups of people. That is all. \*\* I said that if you advocated treating people differently based on skin tone, then you are a racist. You have just specifically diasvowed this, so you’re not. Good. As for the reading comprehension…I said all of “X” is bad, and you went and asked if I saw a subset of x as bad as well. Perhaps you were merely being pedantic, but I thought I was being clear. As to the snide tone, this is the pit, and I haven’t even called you a monkey felching bastard yet! 😉 I agree that “the same joke (in this case why beer is better than…) has a different impact on different groups of people.” is often the case, I’m simply arguing that it shouldn’t be made in the first place about anyone, the term “less offensive” is meaningless. I think we’re in agreement here at last. Am I right? ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/152 "2003-02-28T21:33:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Biggirl \* > \*\*Obviously I don’t. > > It looked to me as if you were saying that people were reading all these social ills into the T-shirt and I stated that the T-shirt was a symptom of these social ills. > > I could be wrong. That has happened. Once. \*\* Gotcha. Let me put it this way. I agree with the war, but not with this battle. I find a few of the perceived implications of this shirt to be ridiculous, and I agree with a previous poster who mentioned that they were most likely trying to “africanize” it. Definitely in poor taste, but not offensive, at least to me. As with anything, YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/153 "2003-02-28T22:05:28Z")
Well, to tell you the truth, **monstro** , I experienced a great deal of racism when I was going to the University of Kentucky (about 90 miles from U of L). There were a lot of people who wouldn’t speak to me, who ignored my attempts to contribute to their discussions, and who flat-out told one of my best friends that she shouldn’t hang around with me because of the color of my skin. They were black. If Kentuckians don’t know a lot of black people very well, or have a low opinion of blacks, it’s often because the black people they’re exposed to refuse to associate with them. The problem tends to be a lot worse in areas like Louisville, where there’s a concentration of blacks. They form their own little enclaves, and white people are often _not_ welcome. In rural areas where there are very few black people, it tends to just not be an issue. So please, take your Yankee judgements of my home and stuff them up your self-righteous ass. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/154 "2003-02-28T22:25:56Z")
I must say i find the argument used by some on this thread -“blacks can be racist too, so monstro’s outrage is stupid” - to be a little narrow-minded. Just MHO. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/155 "2003-02-28T22:28:30Z")
I’m wondering a couple of things. One Maybe, just maybe the promo company had two different shirts. The one we see here and that was ment to be used at a black campus and a different one with just ‘better then men’ with a cartoon of a white woman and a white man. They brought the wrong box with them. (I don’t want any part of the debate of wether or not a black woman would or would not wear this shirt) Marketing agencies do have race specific ads and promotions. This was probably ment for a ‘black’ college. Indeed they may have handed it out at one. The other thing is that I’m pretty sure that it is too late to point out that People (white women, black women, white men, black men, ect) do drink beer and becasue they are drunk on beer these people have sex and get pregnant. People also get drunk on beer and yell and even beat their children and beer is part of that problem as well. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/156 "2003-02-28T22:57:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zebra \* > \*\* > The other thing is that I’m pretty sure that it is too late to point out that > > People (white women, black women, white men, black men, ect) do drink beer and becasue they are drunk on beer these people have sex and get pregnant. > > People also get drunk on beer and yell and even beat their children and beer is part of that problem as well. \*\* And some people have done the same things after sipping on Countrytime lemonaid, what do you mean by this? ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/157 "2003-02-28T22:57:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zebra \* > \*\*People (white women, black women, white men, black men, ect) do drink beer and becasue they are drunk on beer these people have sex and get pregnant. > > People also get drunk on beer and yell and even beat their children and beer is part of that problem as well. \*\* I’m sorry, but those two paragraphs affect [this](http://www.geocities.com/niisonge/icedtea.html) website how? ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/158 "2003-02-28T23:04:46Z")
Let me amend that, what do you mean by that in the context of the current discussion? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/159 "2003-02-28T23:17:55Z")
> [@](#): > > So please, take your Yankee judgements of my home and stuff them up your self-righteous ass. I know it says I live in NJ, but I’m not a Yankee. I’m a damn Southerner and proud of it. Actually, I’m more Southern than you, me being from Georgia–the Heart of Dixie. So stick THAT in your self-righteous ass. As for the rest of your post _yawn_. What a terribly lame post. Black people give you the cold shoulder and you want to whine about it like it’s a global problem. Like black-people-ignoring-white-people explains the deeply-entrenched anti-black racism in this country, not the other way around. You react as if I posted something contradictory to your ideas. You should be 100% agreement with me since you have first-hand experience being the “odd man out”. But no, you want to club me over the head like I said something like, “White people don’t know how it feels”. Stop reading more into my posts than what’s there. Stop ASSuming stuff about me! Oh yes…It must feel good being able to leave one of those black “enclaves” when you start feeling lonely or unloved. You have the rest of the country to turn to when you need to be validated as a person. Thank God **CrazyCatLady** doesn’t have to be the odd man out 24/7! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2003, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990/160 "2003-02-28T23:41:24Z")
My point, which I suppose didn’t come across too well, is that people who contribute to the problem, don’t have a right to bitch about the problem. Black people who refuse to associate with white people in a social setting voluntarily give up the right to complain that whites don’t understand them. People who don’t live in a certain situation (race, gender, sexual orientation, geographic area) probably don’t understand what it’s like, and they can’t unless we _talk_ to them in a meaningful way about it. **monstro** brought up how many black people the average white Kentuckian associates with. If the number is low, it’s not always because of white on black racism. A lot of the time, it’s black refusal to deal with whites. It’s no skin off my ass if they want to be that way, although it did hurt to see how these attitudes upset my previously mentioned friend. It just seemed (and still seems) like a terribly stupid, counterproductive attitude. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-reasons-why-a-beer-if-better-than-a-black-man-wtf/157990.md?page=9)