I’ve read a lot of ridiculous opinions on this board and this one is certainly right up there. Why would you possibly think a MMA fighter is any better at decerning racism than anyone else? The fact that he could beat me up doesn’t mean he’s right. Jeez.
It’s Australia, so…
It’s somewhat like the “The Rock Test for Sexism” where instead of considering the scenario under completely safe conditions, you consider it under conditions where your person is presumably at risk.
Such as, imagine your current hypothetical scenario involving a cute 5’ tall 100# female coworker, but replace the woman with Duane “The Rock” Johnson, do you change your behavior? If you do, then what you were planning to do may not have been a good choice in the first place, despite the fact that you may have felt perfectly comfortable doing it to the woman.
So too, when faced with with a potentially racist situation, would you feel comfortable defending it as non-racist to a person who (A) would be the target of the racism, and (B) could pound you like Rocky beating up a side of beef? As comfortable as you would be when defending it from the safety of a computer desk? Would you feel comfortable telling this athletic ass-kicking machine that the huge lips on the cartoon aren’t really racist but are just a natural effect of drawing a caricature of a black woman?
Edited to add, it’s not my favorite thought experiment, but it does provide food for thought.
…are you planning on bumping this thread every time Serena looses a match with a prediction of what you think was going to happen which is completely and utterly wrong? Because that would be hilarious. Please do.
It still strikes me as a particularly silly idea.
The truth, or otherwise, of a statement is not affected by whether or not the hearer of the statement can beat me up.
Regards,
Shodan
Not saying that it isn’t, as this exchange represents more effort on my part thinking about this concept than I’ve ever bothered with before, but I’m soldiering on, nevertheless.
However, what does change is the relative importance of your audience’s feelings on the matter.
In the “The Rock” example, the original form of this concept, the idea is that a man may treat a woman with indifference to her feelings on how she is being treated. If she doesn’t like it, what is she going to do about it? Replacing her with The Rock suddenly means that her feelings DO matter. “What is she going to do about it?” is now answered by “stuff my ass upside down in a trash can”.
WRT racism, what sort of conversation about racism are you having if you don’t consider the feelings of the (presumed) target of said racism? Can we freely ignore their opinion? If we place a person in a hypothetical situation where their audience’s opinion absolutely matters, in a very real and potentially painful sense, we are forcing them to be considerate of this person’s feelings, and seeing if that changes their behavior at all.
The Rock test is useful for people too ignorant, stubborn, or stupid to understand and utilize concepts like racism and sexism (and how to avoid them) – for them, if they imagine everyone they interact with were The Rock, then they’d probably avoid racist or sexist comments or actions. Maybe they’re still not quite understanding why, but at least they’re not groping and throwing racial slurs around.
I don’t know if it is rascist, and I don’t see any problem conceptually with making fun of a celebrity for an apparent temper tantrum, especially in tennis where they have already been well established by white guys and so are basically institutional, but this particular drawing does look awful similar to old cartoonish renderings of cave men or cannibal Islanders. Squatting jump, electrified hair, etc. All it’s missing is a tiger sash and club.
It could be rascist, but I could just as easily see it as being naive. Either way, it’s an unfortunate rendering.
The seven-letter word isn’t why it’s silly. It’s that it should be VIOLIN Peghead…
If someone threatens me, it doesn’t make their feelings either more, or less, important. “Don’t say X or I’ll cry” is morally equivalent to “Don’t say X or I will beat you up”. Whether or not I should say X has not been addressed in either situation.
If I am wrong to say it to a helpless woman, then I am wrong to say it to the Rock. And, if I am right to say it to a helpless woman, then I am equally right to say it to the Rock. The rightness and wrongness of X is the same in either situation.
Might doesn’t make right. It also doesn’t make wrong.
Regards,
Shodan
That’s exactly the point of the analogy.
Regards,
Shodan
You’re really working hard at not getting this, aren’t you?
Nobody said anything about you being threatened, The Rock is well known as a friendly easy-going guy, a genuinely nice guy. The test is to imagine the scenario with a person who could physically dominate you, rather than a scenario where your words cannot possibly impact you physically.
This isn’t about “should” it’s about “would”.
If you would say X to a “helpless” woman and you would say the same X to The Rock then it’s likely that X isn’t a douchebag/sexist/harrassing comment. If you wouldn’t, then you must ask yourself why, if X is as right as you believe it to be.
The Rock isn’t going to beat you up for being a stand-up honest guy, so why are you afraid of telling him the truth?
AFAICT I am getting it just fine. I think you are mistaking not getting it with not agreeing with it. Is it wrong to protest at a Trump rally if you know you are going to get your ass kicked?
Regards,
Shodan
I assure you, you are not.
This cartoon looks like a shrunken head.
What the intention was doesn’t matter.
If I would have drawn it I’d have tossed it and changed the perspective or something. Because it sucks and it would obviously resemble some 1920s cartoon of a shrunken head.
I think it shows a lack of caring that it looks like some kind of extremely antiquated racially associated stereotype.
So judging as if I drew it myself it’s racist as hell by way of apathy.
Now as for the Woodley test, it’s dumb, it’s good sattire but as a reality it’s dumb.
Why, because if you’re in a majority class you’re simply much more fair game as an individual. Like it or not, this is the way it is. So I can draw John Mcenroe on a nuise like the one cartoon and get away with it, or George Busch as a chimp and it’s fine …because these majority class people are more likely to be judged as individuals. Nobody is going to think I drew Busch as a chimp because he’s white.
Any behavior or trait is likely to be judged as what I think of the individual.
Famous people of a minority class are likely to be taken as representing their class, to a much larger degree.
I know this already, so It doesn’t matter if I think it’s racist, if it represents a black person in a negative light I’m just going to assume that Woodley would think it was racist coming from a white person. So by that test it’s completely disallowed to think of any black person in a negative light.
I can do photo realistic paintings. I can do cartoons but I’m not as good at them.
Personally I wouldn’t do a cartoon of a black person unless it was of the type where the cartoon style basically dictates all the features or the cartoon style is near featureless.
Here’s why,. Cross-race identification bias.
This is basically the reason behind " they all look the same to me" no matter your race, or who “they” are.
Any given race tends to identify individuals by the features which vary the most within their own race. Across races, studies show any race has more trouble identifying individual members of another race than individuals in their own race.
I’d give a cite but I assume you all can Google cross-race identification bias for yourselves.
Cartoons are all exaggerations, caricatures even more so.
What this tells me is that in all likelihood I would do a poor job as an artist picking out individual features to exaggerate in any other race that weren’t common to their race rather than specific to that individual.
Not that I’m any worse at identifying individuals of another race than anyone is but essentially no race is really qualified to do a caricature of a person from another race. If some other artist wants to do it, great, but it won’t be me.
Oh and with photo realism there is almost no room for artist interpratation. I simply paint the shapes I see without regard to what the image is.
If this cartoon was intended as racist as a starting goal, it doesn’t do a great job, simply because the stereotype is unbelievably antiquated and unrelatable as a racist stereotype to most people alive today. So even playing to a racist audience it would be lack luster.
Interpretation , I know how to spell it not sure how that happened.
Cross race ID bias is also probably why some of us don’t see much difference between the image in question, and some of the images that are supposedly okay.
Perhaps in both examples were mostly seeing “black features” exaggerated. Where those who can see it are picking up on the features that are present in the individual that have also been shown in th ok image but not the one in question.