Do I sound angry to you too (probably mild)?

The BBQ Pit
1

I know this sounds like a poll, but I don’t want it to put this in IMHO because, quite frankly, I want to have some license here with my emotions.

In this thread, in which I use Angelina Jolie’s new role as a black woman (or woman-of-biracial-hue-and-genetic-background…whatever floats your boat) to spring off a discussion about actors and their resemblance to the characters they are supposed to portray, I get accused by a couple of posters of having an outraged tone. I have reviewed the OP several times, trying to find any hint of anger or high emotion in my words, and I simply cannot find any.

Now…I will admit that I have let my temper run away with me on this board, particularly when it comes to race matters. I would be the FIRST to admit this. But I also know that I’m not always argumentative when I post to the board. Most of my posts are neutral, as far as emotions go. I have rarely been called to the carpet for breaking a forum rule, and I have never been accused of trollery. And on many occassions, I have talked about race matters while maintaining a civil, light-hearted tone. I don’t think race is a taboo topic. I don’t walk around on eggshells with I talk about race in real life, and I ain’t gonna do it here, on an anonymous message board.

I see accusations like the ones in the linked thread as detrimental to honest conversations about race. Recently, in this thread, I felt like the dialogue was becoming unnecessarily strained simply because of defensiveness and ungrounded perceptions of hostilities. I’d like to be able to talk to posters about my experiences (and they theirs) without people accusing me of being more hostile than I am. But apart from sugarcoating my posts and inserting a bunch of stupid smilies, I can’t see how I can do that. Has anyone remembered having a problem with my word choices? Do I come across as extra militant and angry to ya’ll?

My Cafe Society thread was actually not supposed to be only about race. I was looking for a general discussion, and perhaps other examples of actors portraying real-life individuals who look vastly different from the actor. The thread was going fine, IMHO, before the thread was sidetracked the way it was. I’m peeved that yet again, I’m going to be sucked into another Halle-Berry-isn’t-black crapfest. Yet again monstro is going to look like the angry black poster*. I suppose I can choose not to get into it, and let the stupid comments fade away unanswered. But I guess I’m not mature enough to just walk away.

Thanks for letting me vent.

*I hope Jada Pinkett Smith plays me in the StraightDope made-for-TV movie

2

No. I was surprised at the implication that you were, actually. I went back and read your OP and found only this:

And then this:

Which are the only two things I see that even really relate. The rest of it goes on to bring up an interesting question on race. But this is what you get:

Which, admittedly, is a response to when you did get a little annoyed. But you got annoyed because someone went and called your premise lame, assuming your only premise was “a non-black woman is playing a black woman”. To me your premise was “Is this kind of thing OK? What about blacks playing whites? Would it bother anyone? Would it work?”

So, nope.

3

Nothing in the OP seemed angry at all. You got a bit snippy when you were accused of being ‘outraged,’ but IMO it was justified. There was no outrage in the OP.

4

Honestly? Yes, I did read your OP in an angry “tone”, but going back and reading it again, I do have to admit that there’s nothing definitively angry about it. I’m not sure why I got “outrage” from it, but I did.

I think it says more about **my **“White Guilt” and **my **expectations that “Black People” are going to be angry with “White People” than anything you’re really doing or writing. Sucks, but there it is. I, for one, pledge to read more carefully next time and be more aware of my own filters.

(Note that I haven’t posted in the other thread, because I’m not sure what I think yet, but I’ve been following it since you started it.)

5

Thanks for being so honest, WhyNot.

6

I didn’t think you were angry, but I did think there was something more serious than a light-hearted musing. That doesn’t mean angry, it just means that this phenomenon could be one which is offensive to some (as you mentioned). It has the potential to be a Great Debate so there may have been an implicit assumption that there were stronger feelings.

7

I saw you as being a bit peeved or at least disappointed in the decision.

I didn’t hear outrage, though. Argent Towers was outraged. I’ve noticed that people will take in the tone of one post, and apply it to others who have a similar position, even if they haven’t expressed that tone themselves.

8

No problem.

I finally got some of my thoughts together and posted, if you’re curious.

But based on the sentence that Cheesesteak, just quoted, I think I’ll go post an addendum. I forgot to address that part.

9

No, you don’t sound outraged. You sound puzzled and curious.

10

I have to admit, as soon as I saw the the thread title and your name I knew exactly what it was going to be about. I don’t think you seemed outraged, but as someone else said, it was a bit more than “light hearted”. I also read it as definitely being about a white actress trumping black actresses for a black role. Maybe it’s because we’ve participated in some of the same discussions and based on that I’m assigning intent where there is none. Apologies if I’ve read you wrong.

So again, no outrage. Thanks for asking, though.

11

To me- there is a tone, an unspecified undercurrent that hints of outrage. But that’s about it.

However, any thread that brings up race- in any way shape or form- around here is going to get dudes riled up. So, consider that next time.

What I don’t undertsand myself is why when they need a fat or ugly part, they don’t just cast a fat or ugly person. I give you Charlize Theron in Monster. :confused: :dubious: :rolleyes:

12

Frankly I don’t even catch a whiff of outrage from my OP. Can you lay out why you think there is a tone so that I can avoid doing it in the future?

I don’t know why I feel so defensive about this. Maybe it’s because I don’t want people to dismiss whatever I have to say simply because they are reading “outrage” and “hysteria” and “shrillness” when there isn’t any.

The ironic thing is that I’m usually calm and relaxed UNTIL someone accuses me. So I then perpetuate the very image that I’m defending myself against.

13

Certainly not “outraged”. “Annoyed” or “bemused” maybe, but I saw no foamy spit or veins popping out on your neck or anything like that.

14

I didn’t really get “outrage” from the OP either, but when you say:

it sounds like you might be trying to hint at something underhanded without having to come out and say it.

As in, “I’m not saying that 9/11 was a government conspiracy… but it’s interesting how you can form a picture of the WTC with a $20 bill.”

“I’m not saying Hollywood producers are filthy racists… but it’s interesting that a white actor was cast to play a black woman.”

See what I mean?

15

I saw no outrage at all.

In fact, I could tell you went out of your way to not project any kind of strong emotions.

So I was equally puzzled by the few remarks made about your OP.

16

But I do find it interesting. If I thought it was so twisted conspiracy, I would have stated as much. I stated clearly why I thought it was interesting. The questions I presented are evidence of this curiosity (thanks jsgoddess!)

People read what they wanted to read, period.

17

That seems a good reason to be peeved, at least to me, but to answer the question I didn’t see any examples of you being angry or particularly militant.

Marc

18

Here’s another data point… I didn’t think your OP spoke in any kind of outrage but I thought you overreacted somewhat to the outrage bit. However I can see why whites would form the impression of an angry black woman… this is NOT to excuse the white reader, but to emphasize our inherent racism. My first thought upon reading your first response was to think “what about Catwoman? Why is she so quick to assume that?” but I shrugged and had faith that you know a lot more about this subject than I do. Just speculation.

19

I think WhyNot and wm– probably nailed it between them.

Many of us white folks carry around this fear that black folks we meet are going to be angry at us even though we personally have never done anything intentionally racist. I think this is the result of a number of things, the primary one of course being that we white folks know that we probably have automatic advantages that many black folks don’t, purely because we’re not the recipients of discrimination based solely on race.

Another big one is the PC police who seem to roam around looking for new things to declare offensive, so many of us are often discovering that we’ve used ‘racist’ language when we thought we were being purely descriptive. And yet another is that one loud angry person can outweigh the impact of a hundred or a thousand quiet, unmoved people. So if a white person has heard one black person getting upset about a similar issue, they may easily assume that others are also upset, but simply too quiet or polite to mention it. I went back to college to get my degree at Temple in Philadelphia in the early 90s. A lot of the younger black women in particular were very vocal in their assumption that pretty much any white person they met was racist, even if they didn’t behave in any way that indicated it. That kind of thing can leave an impression, and this ongoing sort of fear that anything you say may be interpreted as offensive, or that any black person you meet may actually be seethingly angry at white folks in general. The automatic reaction becomes pre-emptive placation.

I suspect what you may have experienced here, monstro, was pre-emptive placation offered on an unconscious level.

One could consider this racist in the sense of assuming different reactions based on race, but the fact of the matter is that most blacks and most whites have very different experiences in this society, and the likelihood is that reactions will differ to some extent along racial lines. Humans use stereotypes and generalizations based on all kinds of things - speech, dress, appearance, age, gender, apparent nationality, you name it. We have to; it’s impossible to judge every individual piece of information separately. Only by classification can we be sentient beings at all. I’m not trying to defend racism here; I’m just saying that people will never stop classifying others based on any number of characteristics they may have, and will therefore sometimes be wrong in what they expect. The critical thing is how readily they assimilate the data that demonstrates an assumption is wrong in an individual case.

In your case, you used the word “interesting.” It’s an interesting word, if you’ll excuse the word play. It can mean anything from its original, unladen meaning of being worthy of interest to practically an indictment. But in the latter case, it’s always an insinuation, used so that the user can back off and say “But all I said was that it was interesting!” But it can also be used perfectly innocently, simply to mean worthy of interest. You were using it in the unladen sense, and apparently some folks thought you meant it as a veiled accusation. You didn’t say anything outraged, but what you said could have been interpreted as such, particularly when you throw in the fact that you’re black and the whole pre-emptive placation thing.

20

Damn, that was a good post, Oy!

This again points to the difficulties of communicating online. I tend not to present OPs on racial issues anymore because of what you’ve described (though I certainly contribute). Certain posters have personas… and I think many see you as an angry Black person, monstro - though I feel you are thoughtful, measured, and careful in your responses.

Funny thing is, the “OMG! That’s so racist!!!” type of person that people encounter in real life rarely surfaces on the SDMB for an extended period of time because of the rigor demanded of posters… plus people here, I think, do try to understand what are the other perspectives on an issue.