Am I way off base or is the limerick here racist?
How about this forum post which was supposed to be a joke?
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Moving thread from GD to IMHO.
Interesting question. Both definitely come across to me as the sort of nastiness that racists spew, and then say, “I’m not touching you! How come you gotta be NIGGARDLY with your tolerance? Haw haw haw!” I’m look askance at anyone who made either of those posts.
The limerick shows super-duper contempt for black liberation theology, coupled with aggressive ignorance about the theology. The only people who care about black liberation theology, in my experience, are people involved in the civil rights struggle, either on the pro- or the anti- side. So while the limerick isn’t racist itself, I’d bet a basket of donuts that the author is.
As for the “coal it up” comment, that person seems to be angry that racism is being pointed out, and thinks they’re making a clever rejoinder. My experience is that the dipshits who make those sorts of clever rejoinders are comfortably white supremacist.
There was a limerick stupid and puerile
About a race that once was kept servile.
Is it racist per se?
At the end of the day
It isn’t worth very much of your bile.
It’s a bad limerick, that’s for sure. The last two lines completely break meter. And it’s trivial to fix:
God helps all oppressed
So, long live our victimization.
As for whether it is racist? Yeah, I’d tend to think so, due to how racism towards black people is typically expressed. I try to imagine someone who isn’t racist believing this, and I can’t. It takes a racist motivation to think that the very black people fighting against oppression secretly what to remain oppressed. That way oppressing them is actually good.
As for the other post, there’s not enough context. The thread reveals that the post about finding “chalk it up” racist is a joke. But is it a joke mocking people who point out racist things, or a joke mocking the type of people who would type such a post? The former seems somewhat more likely, but it’s not definitive.
And, no, “chalk it up” is not racist outside of some extremely esoteric context.
Yeah, especially if that attitude is presented as part of the definition of Black liberation theology.
To look at a theological doctrine developed by black people to reconcile their religious beliefs with their resistance to oppression, and to think that the takeaway is something along the lines of "Hyuk hyuk, then I guess those black people must want to stay oppressed!", comes across as pretty racist no matter how you slice it.
Sorry, I didn’t post more of the context (I no longer have access to the workshop), but basically what I said was I would chalk it up to someone just not seeing the inherent racism in the limerick. The response was ridiculing me for expressing an opinion, that they didn’t agree with, vehemently.
My point is they could have ridiculed me without adding the racist “Why don’t you coal it up?” Anyway, I responded by pointing out that chalk comes in many colors.
It’s unclear from your description if they are mocking you for the opinion that the limerick is racist, or the opinion that the person didn’t notice it was racist. If the former, then I would call that racist, albeit indirectly. If the latter, I would consider it bad behavior, but not racist.
Either way, the poem itself is racist, and I would hope that the project would recognize this. I don’t know their goals: if it’s just to list a poem related to a term, fine. But it seems they have a filter, and they might want to put this behind a racist filter.
That said, I’m not willing to get involved with some site I don’t know about, and we can’t litigate what another community should do. I was just answering the question as an academic exercise. Well, that and the bad meter for the limerick bugged me.
For me, if you’re going to say you have the best limericks, they should fit the meter (unless not fitting the meter is the point).