Sure. I’m sure racist people world-wide think the shirt was a laugh-o-riot.
Funny, though. I got the link from a black message board I participate on, and none of us were laughing. In fact, all of us were feeling quite pissed. I guess we just want to feel that way. It sure is FUN FEELING PISSED.
Fuck all you piece of shits who defend offensive material because it doesn’t negatively affect you. Fuck all of you creeps who think racism is just a figment of people’s imaginations. Fuck you to the infinity power.
It’s funny that you see criticize my OP as being berating but you don’t see anything wrong with a T-shirt that berates others.
And how is the OP any whinier than your post, akennett?
How dare someone who belongs to an ethnic group which has been, to varying degrees, stepped on and treated like shit for hundreds of years, and who has grown up with experiences and mindsets that you can’t possibly understand, how dare that person be offended by something? I mean, c’mon black folks, Amos 'n Andy is all in good fun… and c’mon, asians, that character from Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a laff riot! Stop demanding special treatment!
**
There is hardly a single word of the preceding paragraph that does not anger and frustrate me.
The debate of political correctness vs. racism vs. free speech is an interesting and complex one. I almost certainly disagree with people such as monstro about parts of it. But you, sir, are not contributing to that debate. Rather, you are exhibiting yourself to be an ignorant piece of shit.
Much as I hate to risk appearing to agree in any way with some of the toilet scrapings who have posted to this thread, I must take issue with this statement…
There are plenty of recent movies, comedy acts, etc., in which black women are seen to lament various flaws stereotypically found in black men. If there was a scene in How Stella Got Her Groove Back in which 5 black women got together and made up a list of reasons why beer is better than black men, it wouldn’t really raise an eyebrow, any more than if 5 Asian women had done the same thing about Asian men in The Joy Luck Club.
Outside such a context, however, it’s a totally different issue, and I believe your reaction was basically completely appropriate.
(Do we know for certain whether the college at which it was being sold was primarily white?)
Funny, though. I got the link from a black message board I participate on, and none of us were laughing. In fact, all of us were feeling quite pissed. I guess we just want to feel that way. It sure is FUN FEELING PISSED.
I hope that last part wasn’t supposed to be sarcastic.
Somewhere there’s a line between what’s funny/appropriate and what’s not. It’s very likely the case that you (a black woman, and that’s all I know about you) would draw that line different places in different contexts than I (a white man from a liberal background) would. Which is fine. Reasonable people can disagree about things. And it certainly wouldn’t necessarily always be the case that since you’re black and I’m white, I’m always going to be more accepting of questionably racist humor. Or maybe I would But that’s not the point.
None of which means that we wouldn’t both put the T-shirt in question far far over the line.
If actual harmful violent racism and inequality didn’t exist, would the t-shirt still be as offensive? I say no. I think it would be just like the “Cucumbers are better than men” and “Beer is better than women” t-shirts (which, BTW, would be less offensive if sexism and gender stereotypes didn’t hurt people in real ways). But these things do exist, so I don’t blame monstro at all for being upset about this.
Again, get over it. Tears of rage? Hate humanity? Your OP was just over the top, I’m not saying the shirt is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and I can see, as I admitted, that it isn’t the same thing as a firetruck or whatever, but it isn’t the end of the world you make it out to be. There are those shirts that talk about white men you know, and yes I recognize the power structure, military industrial complex, yada yada yada, but still, it really is the same thing, and if I saw some black guy wearing the shirt I wouldn’t be tearing up in rage, I’d probably not even think twice about it. Maybe you need to work a little bit on coming around to realizing that we are all in this together and ought to be able to laugh at each other with out getting all worked up into a lather. You and I both know that if Chris Rock did a standup routine on why beer is better than a black guy people would laugh at it; becasue it is funny.
LOL, none that I know of, but if you find one, will you let me know?
No, we AREN’T in this all together. “We” being all of humanity (not you and me.) There’s still a big segment of this population who think black people are inferior, morally corrupt, subhumans. The fact that people think this shirt is “funny” proves this population is more overt with their activities than we tend to think.
I laugh all the time. I’m the most humorous person I know (just ask you with the face. She knows I’m not a dour person IRL). But I don’t take racism lightly at all. Not when my people are still being discriminated and jerked around.
The shirt was offensive to me. Period. No need to defend it. No need to make light of it. Yes, I was exaggerating when I said I hate humanity because of it. No, I’m not going to lose sleep over it. But it pisses me off. Just like everyone is pissed off when they create a thread in the Pit.
I don’t like being told to “get over it”. It worsens the anger that’s already there.
I don’t think Chris Rock would find humor in this situation at all.
Jesus Christ! Did you intentionally set out to misrepresent my position by 180 degrees or was it simply an accidental by product of the nuclear meltdown that gave you the ability to mimic intelegence on the internet?
I said nothing about “my group” or “your group” or “monstro’s group” or any other such thing. I said:
The offensive statement is offensive by nature reguardless of who it is aimed at, and as such is wrong, period. Claiming that one group is somehow more suceptable to offense than another is bullshit. What is offensive is the statement, not the group it’s aimed at. If I was to say to someone “You couldn’t possibly understand how to change the oil on that car, you’re just a girl”, I would be saying nothing about the person in question and everything about myself.
Actually Kimstu what she says to those people is “fuck you.” That’s quite a ways from what you wrote. Furthermore, if you can’t see a difference between someone being injured and someone crying about some percieved slight, then there really is no hope for you at all.
And now back to monstro
[quote]
Fuck all you piece of shits who defend offensive material because it doesn’t negatively affect you. Fuck all of you creeps who think racism is just a figment of people’s imaginations. Fuck you to the infinity power.**
Did I say racism doesn’t exist? Not to my recollection. I will defend all material such as this, especially that which offends, because that is what the concept of liberty and freedom is. Maybe instead of bitching about a t-shirt, you could put your energy toward solving a real problem.
Okay, so using black men in a “disparaging” context is bad, but using white men is not? I see now, yes there is racism and it belongs to you.
Maxthevool
Thanks, that just means my words had the desired effect. I usually am an ass to those who complain about trivial shit like this.
Okay, perhaps I should not try to use humor any more. Here’s the problem: there is racism in the world, it isn’t going to go away by people complaining about a t-shirt, the shirt merely having the words “black man” and having a caricature does not make it racist in the first place.
This just isn’t true. I can think of a million scenarios where saying something to one person will justifiably elicit a totally different response from them than from another person.
If I call George W. the President an idiot to his face, he’d probably smirk and say a snappy comeback.
If I call George W. the retarded child in the special education class an idiot to his face, he’d probably cry and tell the teacher.
Is the latter case overreacting? Is the former underreacting? Or should the two be analyzed individually, with a bit of understanding. Like, maybe the President has just as many people telling him he’s smart. He has all of his accomplishments to back him up just in case he has doubts. And like, maybe the retarded child has been put down his whole life and he’s plain sick of being the butt of everyone’s jokes.
A drawing of a black woman on the shirt would lead me to conclude that they were marketing to black woman. What self respecting racist would want a shirt with a black woman on it? I didn’t say they were intelligent marketers.
Your last comment is a can of worms I’ll let Anita Hill open.
Yeah, that’s true I suppose, but why be so cup half empty about it? There are many more people who don’t think that way, and they could see this shirt and laugh at it with out reading it as some grand statement by the KKK about blacks and race etc. Why choose to read it in the worst possible way?
I don’t take racism lightly either, but talking about ‘your people’ doesn’t help your cause here. Think about which white people refer to “their people”: most of them live in the hills of Idaho if you know what I mean.
I do. The man has made millions out of lampooning blacks and black culture. But, you want to be upset, fine, go ahead, waste your time.
The reason why it feels racist is because it is. The sentiments on that shirt are based on stereotypes specific to black men and black women. The shirt is critical of the whole black community. Let me try to explain:
To start out with: The graphic on the shirt shows a large black woman and a tiny black man. The black community has been denigrated for along time because of its supposedly matrilinear character. The popular image of the strong, loud, black female seems positive on its face, but it is a double-edged sword. Strong women are seen as being emasculating, and unable to keep men around. The Moynihan Report pointed to the large number of female-headed black families as one of the main reasons for black poverty, crime, etc.
“Beer won’t yell at your kids.” This implies that the black man is not the kids’ father–otherwise, the phrasing would probably be “yell at the kids.” This statement plays on the idea that black women have multiple kids by multiple men.
“Beer won’t get you pregnant.” This plays on the idea that black women are likely to have unwanted pregnancies and that black people don’t use birth control. Obviously, a man of any color won’t get you pregnant if you use birth control (occasional mishaps aside). So this only works within the stereotype of black people not being in control of their fertility.
It’s not exactly like one of those Queen of Africa shirts praising black women. And I’m serious: I doubt any black woman would be caught dead wearing something like this.
I don’t think Anita Hill has anything against black men. Just one in particular.
Rhum Runner:
About what? I’m pissed that racist ideas are being promoted as “OK”. Why do I have to be cynical in order to be tired of racism?
About four hours ago, I would have agreed with you. But I dunno. Just knowing that this company thought people would find the shirts so adorable that they would accept them as gifts suggests to me that there may be more people who think this is “ok” than not. Hell, look at this thread. Look at your own responses. You don’t even think it’s that bad.
Why? In order to be “helpful”, I have to pretend I don’t belong to any particular group? Would you prefer I say “my community” instead?
I don’t think “lampoon” is the right word. And I still don’t think he would take to being rated lower than a mug of beer by a bunch of acne-faced college brats.
