Your comments brings to mind this thread , a Pit rant about a grocery clerk who was sprayed with bug spray by an irate customer. The ranter linked us to an article describing the event. The article pointedly noted at the end that the clerk suspected it was racially motivated because the man called him racial slurs.
And for that offense, the clerk was pitted. Not the man who sprayed him with bug spray to begin with. And definitely not the reporter who added that information to the article for no reason except to add a sensational element to the story. No, the victim of the assault was pitted for mentioning the “r” word.
I see this frequently. Reporters will go out of their way to play up the race angle, and those in the audience who are extra sensitive to race will inevitably get fired up. Not about the sensationalistic reporters, though. No, their focus is usually on those who are being reported on. We saw this with OJ. From the start, the media exploited race and threw fires on the flames by reminding us day end and day out how differently the races viewed things. Of course, since most of the reporters and pundits were white, it made the presentation of this kind of analysis all the more provocative, because it often came across as “look how they see things so differently than we do.” The end result was that black people were protrayed as being biased while whites were portrayed as being objective and rationale.
Institutional racism in this form is particularly insiduous because a lot of the information we get about our world comes from the media. It really has a way of impacting how we view each other. It’s a reason why I pay close attention to the way info is presented rather than just looking at content. Content only tells part of the picture.
With all due respect, I addressed the use of the word “savages” in quotes. Where did I write “black-hating racist media” ? I though I articulated my point fairly well, and did not mean it as a personal attack. I’m so very sorry it appeared as such to you. I completely withdraw the statements presented in the post.
My apologies. No distortion was intened, I assure you. If it appeared by the quote I used and the answer to it that I provided, then it was erroneous and I apologize.
As far as the mutilated bodies, I provided a cite. The fact that the video has been removed by CNN does not negate my statements, nor does it negate the fact that adult dead bodies were mutilated- far from water, bloating, rotting because of wet, and any other hurricane-related factors.
Now, either it is a fact that CNN did air footage and photographs of at least two mutilated bodies that were in no way connected with drowning, bloating, packs of wild dogs, or anything else connected to being away from the Convention Center. Or not. Again, the fact that the video clip was pulled down does not invalidate my statements. The cite above directly supports them.
Pretty please with sugar on top, show me where I said that I was obviating blacks from any responsibility, or just walking away? Or taking away people’s choices? You made that up. I am in education and I am actively doing something about this problem. What are you doing about it, besides denying it exists?
I think you do have a myopic view and that I’m seeing the big picture. Funny about that.
I got emotional when you accused me of setting back the cause of blacks in this country. If you could be dispassionate about such an accusation if it were leveled at you, then bully for you. Racism, as I pointed out, is an emotional issue and not rational. I am not apologizing for having strong feelings, esp. when people say things like this to me.
Show me where I said this too. I said racism still existed and was still very much affecting people. I also said it was a vicious cycle. Please stop putting words in your mouth.
But hey, you really do want him to stop putting words in his mouth, don’t you?
I know that I have not really been a participant in most of this lengthy discussion, but as someone who has observed much of this from the side please allow me some small attempt to tie it back to the op. Please each comment on the following:
Racism is a persistent problem in this country. It become manifest in many ways from institutional racism, to overt racist acts, to subtle acts whose perpetraters are scarely aware (or are unaware) have racist effects. Good, well intended, intelligent people can have different concepts of how pervasive of a problem racism presents for most people at each of these levels.
There are some aspects of our institutions that have racist effects, whether by intent or by historic inertia. Not all of those instances of institutional racism are from White-dominated institutions.
Whites can be racist, Blacks can be racist. Sometimes the constant refrain of everything being the result of racism can be a racist act in itself. Certain elements of Black leadership (here I am mainly referring to self-appointed leadership) are guilty of the latter.
The media is a bunch of scum who have three buttons to press: sex; fear; and off. The first two sell things, the third is what they press if they don’t have a way to press one of the first two. When approaching the subject of race they generally use it to press the fear button, not because they are racist scum, but because they care about little but sales and selling race as sex would look even worse.
Chappelle may or may not be funny, but he is a self-serving twit to blame his freak-out on White power structures. This sad attempt at a cover story does a disservice to any meaningful discussion about the role race plays in America.
But is he really doing that?
And I wouldn’t say he had a “freak-out”. It sounds more like he was burned out and under a lot of stress and needed to take some time off and spent some time thinking about his work.
That would have been in Post #183 where someone posting under your username keyed the sentence
I did not take it as a personal attack. I did take it as an (over)emotional response to an image you saw on TV, which caused you to ignore the specific point of my statement which was the references to blogs and talk radio in which the several thousands of persons trapped in the Superdome were called “savages” based on the faulty information that rape and murder were common events inside the Superdome, to which you felt an urge to post an unrelated comment that there had been savage acts committed somewhere by someone.
On further investigation, it appears that there were only four deaths at the Convention Center, altogether, one a possible murder. Not having seen the pictures, I suppose that it is possible that mutilation was involved. That still leaves us with one murder and either one or two desecrations of corpses among somewhere between 25,000 and 40,000 people penned into two arenas with no food or water in the midst of tremendous heat and humidity and only rumors to indicate when–if ever–they might be rescued. The fact that some small number of people (may have)* performed savage acts under those conditions does not provide a legitimate excuse to label tens of thousands of people “savages” or for the networks to make no serious effort to correct the impressions that they had created with hasty and uninvestigated reports.
On the other hand, I am very familiar with the fact that the mere presence of blood on a body skews interpretations of what trauma the body has suffered. Barring a coroner’s report, the question of mutilation is still unresolved as far as I can see.
I don’t think racism will prevent black people from succeeding in America. I think it makes it harder, but having money will always help this, so poverty is part of the problem also, which goes back to racism, in part. I don’t think it can be essentialized very easily, in any case.
This might be true if a lot of his humor wasn’t race-based. He did focus on it a lot, and his decision not to use that as a source would significantly change the nature of his show. It makes sense to me, if he had a major change of heart about the way he talked about race, that he would not want to do the show anymore.
You did read the qualifier apparently right? That’s means to me, that they don’t know for sure what happened. What they have are photos, from an unnamed source, who told them that the bodies were mutiliated. We don’t know when the photos were taken where or how the bodies were mutilated. Are you 100% sure they weren’t dragged in from outside and posed or were attacked inside by various vermin.
You have in your mind what you believe you saw and I believe you believe you saw something. I don’t doubt there are photos, I simply suggest, it’s not what you think it is.
I doubt because as Tomndebb noted, lots of stories of these “savages” turned out to be wrong and while the behaviour of these people were front page news, the acknowledgement of the errors in reporting weren’t.
I’ve seen no independent verification of this. All there is, is an unnamed source and various CNN transcripts. None of which claim to have any verification that this event happened as you believe it did.
Well, yesterday on IMDB.com gossip thingie said “American funnyman Dave Chappelle has cited racial prejudice for his abrupt walk-out from hit comedy series,” and then went on to list these 3 same quotes where he never says he walked out because of racial prejudice and never uses the word racism at all.
But what kind of headline would ever read, “American funnyman cites several complex personal issues for leaving show,” or “American funnyman finally nagged by press into admitting he has several qualms, one of which is “culture” related”? How would that grab anyone’s attention?
Even the headline is “Chappelle Cites “Race” Reasons for Show Walk-Out” with “race” in quotes as if to say “word not acutally used.”
So I guess wait and see if he’s even said anything about race.
What just really really bugs me about this thread is that he hasn’t claimed racism is limiting his employment opportunities, let alone falsely claimed it. He’s not suing anyone for discrimination or trying to get away without doing his share of work. It’s not any different then when a Holllywood actress suddenly decides she’d rather be sued for breach of contract than to continue doing a movie she realizes is a piece of shit that will only degrade her and hurt her career. Like when Kim Basinger quit Boxing Helena. Nobody said she was playing the “sexism” card or said she had a victim mentality.
Okay, good. It’s not just me then who is baffled by this talk about victimization and The Man and whatnot. The thread is making wonder if I’m reading the same things everyone else is. People have been parsing way too much out of his statements.
Yeah. “American funnyman is tired of having to explain himself over and over again” is not sexy enough. Gotta make white folks think he’s blaming them for something so that they’ll buy papers and click on internet ads. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
So might yours, since we are both using CNN as a cite. Ironic? Jah.
I will write to Anderson Cooper. I will ask point blank if he can provide me with a cite, or the name of someone in Nawlins who is in a position to absolutely prove that the bodies shown in the photos that were videotaped and aired were mutilated.
How’s that? And of course, if I get a reply from someone down South, I will post it in here. Otherwise, we could be right, either one of us.
Point well made. (But boy, I’m under a lot of stress, can I just leave for a while and let my partners and everyone who is depending on me just hang there without notice? Can you? If you did wouldn’t people say that you freaked out?)
So let me change it: If Chappelle is indeed blaming his apparent losing it and his eventual decision to stop his show on White power structures then he is being a twit.
I really don’t give a rat’s ass about Chappelle or his show and have not followed these events all that closely. But this is in GD, so that doesn’t stop me from debating the principle!
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They got there because they worked hard. Anyone can do it.
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Some people will NEVER understand.
Thanks Rubystreak for trying to explain but I don’t think that some people really even want to understand.
Some of the posts here really sadden me and I don’t think I’ll argue any points with any of the great debaters here. I’ll just let the “experts” continue to discuss.
Then why bother posting at all? As Tomdeb pointed out, this is a forum for debate and discussion, just because other posters don’t see your point of view it doesn’t mean that they are wrong? I don’t believe that racism is the sole cause or even the primary cause of the problems facing the black-American community. That doesn’t make me a bigot, it doesn’t make me care less (as Rubystreak is implying) nor does it make me wrong. I think the idea of demonizing one group and removing responsibility from another is simplistic and wrong-headed. It hasn’t worked in the past and will not work in the future.
One of the things that struck me reading this thread…most of the things people are pointing at and calling racism, I’ve experienced.
I’ve gotten poor service in restaurants. In some instances I know it was because we are white. (being seated after 4 hispanic families who came in after us) In some instances I’m convinced it was because we are pretty clearly a gay couple. (this is harder to quantify)
I’ve been treated badly in stores. We went to buy furniture recently (entertainment center, dresser couple other things) and were in the store for 45 minutes without being helped, although the hispanic people coming in were greeted at the door. If we hadn’t found exactly what we wanted we would have left, though even at that had to search 15 minutes for someone to ring us up.
My BF has been turned down for promotions because he’s gay and there is taped evidence of it.
I’ve been assaulted on the street outside a bar because I’m gay and cared for my BF for the 4 days in the hospital and 6 weeks of recovery for the broken jaw he got in the incident.
I’ve been treated differently in many situations, called a faggot while walking down the street and gotten the dirty looks and had strangers come up to let me know I’m going to hell.
I guess my point is that most of the things talked about have happened to me. Do I feel that the entire country is anti-white and homophobic?? No, situations happen but you learn to go on with your life anyway.
Just to be clear, I don’t claim to have experienced everything that a black person has or anything like that. Please be sure and note the word MOST in the above posting before ripping me on it.
