If these hypothetical people grew up in the US, then I’m a bit surprised they didn’t learn about “White” versus “Colored” facility signs in history class, but maybe they were homeschooled?
In any case, the real issue with these hypothetical people who are so ignorant of recent US history on racial segregation, and the anti-integration shift in the Republican Party during the Civil Rights era, is that they probably should not be put in charge of any mass communication tasks for a Republican Party national political convention.
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I see many instances of people making inadvertant racist statements simply because they are NOT racists and didn’t know something was racist, or didn’t think about a racist angle to an innocent statement.
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Well, if a national political party hires such ignorant and thoughtless people to design signs for them at their high-visibility national convention, they have only themselves to blame if they end up embarrassing themselves with tasteless connotations of racism where no racism was actually intended.
There’s only so far you can go with the “But I didn’t know” or “But I didn’t think” defense before you might as well be saying outright “I’m a clueless doofus so ensconced in racial privilege that I can afford to completely ignore the history of racial discrimination”.
I wish I could claim credit: Pick your favorite Melania defense. by steve
Paul Manafort: “There’s no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech. These are common words and values that she cares about her family, things like that. I mean, she was speaking in front of 35 million people last night. She knew that. To think that she would be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy. This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, how she seeks out to demean her and take her down. It’s not going to work.”
Jason Miller (campaign communications person): "In writing her beautiful speech, Melania’s team of writers took notes on her life’s inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking. Melania’s immigrant experience and love for America shone through in her speech, which made it such a success.”
Chris Christie: “93 percent of the speech is completely different.”
Ben Carson: “If Melania’s speech is similar to Michelle Obama’s speech, that should make us all very happy because we should be saying, whether we’re Democrats or Republicans, we share the same values. If we happen to share values, we should celebrate that, not try to make it into a controversy."
Katrina Pierson: “These are values, Republican values by the way, of hard work, determination, family values, dedication and respect, and that’s Melania Trump. This concept that Michelle Obama invented the English language is absurd.”
In paraphrase form.
You’ve got a cancelled check from my account, with my signature, made out to the Mustang Ranch. Do you really think I’d write a check for that? It would be so easily found out. That’s absurd.
Nah, this one is actually standard issue, an almost-acknowledgment of error.
93% of my sex has been with you, baby.
It was so empty, it made me realize how much I love you. Let’s hug and celebrate.
I could almost find myself approving Carson’s remarks if it hadn’t been for the Trump campaign so relentlessly trying to manufacture controversies about the Obamas having such detestable and wrongheaded values. Yeah sure pal, when you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar THEN you suddenly find it convenient to point out how all the cookies belong to all of us anyway and how great it is that we all have the same love of cookies which leads us to share our cookies together. :dubious:
I disagree. I doubt you are aware of all the racial connotations of certain words or phrases you use today that only older people would remember as racist.
And even if it is something one should know, it’s not “inexcusable” if it is inadvertant. If you are going to jump on everyone for making innocent mistakes and condemn them as racists, they’re just going to stop talking to you.
Maybe. But there will be a time when ignorance is evidence of progress, even if you think we haven’t reached it yet.
I for one got the joke, but not at first. It took me a minute of looking at the sign to figure it out. Am I a racist? Of course not. I’m just not hypersensitive to racism. I don’t immediately think of race when I see that sign, because I don’t think segregation by race is a normal thing - I think that makes me less racist, not more.
500 years? If it takes that long, forget it. We can do better than that.
Oh, look at you, Mr. “sharp rhetorical lesson.” I find this arrogant. You are not the world’s protector from every little tiny reminder that we once had racial segregation and we can’t ever hint at it again. It was an innocent mistake. Get over it. Or will you go start a protest over every bit of “accidental racism?” Will you get really angry at the next “white sale” at K-Mart? There’s a time to just relax and let innocent mistakes pass. You’ve probably made some yourself. You just say oops and move on.
I wasn’t actually saying there’s anyone who doesn’t know about that. I was speaking in general terms.
They weren’t. They were in charge of elevator signs in a building.
I didn’t actually say that they didn’t know. But whatever. What you’re saying is that someone DID know, and just didn’t care or actually wanted to embarrass the party. Really? That’s not believable at all. Nobody willfully puts racist signs up at a convention. And if they did, someone else would notice and take them down. The idea that this was a deliberate racist act, or at least a reckless racist act, has no credibility.
I’m a lifelong Democrat, so I’m not sure what you mean by “my party.”
Yes, there are racist Republicans. Doesn’t mean every little thing they do is racist. Stick with the actual, deliberate racist stuff - as you note, there’s plenty of that. Harping on stupid crap like this just plays into their hands by letting them say we’re focused on dumb stuff that isn’t really racist. Don’t give them that ammunition - as you note, there’s plenty of real racism to bash them with.
But you are saying that ignorance of the country’s racist past is good because that means that racism has been left behind.
Except that the consequences of that racism are still felt by many people, ignorance of that breeds more racism.
Example:
Someone who sees statistics of poverty among blacks being greater than among whites can think that it reflects poorly on black people if they don’t know the roots of that poverty.
I’m confident that I’m aware of any as obvious as “white elevator”. If not, then I deserve (and want!) to be sharply educated.
Who did I condemn as racist? Challenging and criticizing isn’t calling them racist – I would say “hey, you should know better, that was a very foolish mistake and you should educate yourself as to why that is – here’s some of the history of why”, or something equivalent.
I don’t think that time is within anyone’s lifetime today. If it is, I would be ecstatic and very pleasantly surprised. In any case, it’s definitely not the case today.
I don’t think that says anything about how racist you are, and I don’t think it says anything about how racist the RNC organizers are. It just says something about their knowledge (or lack thereof) of the history of racism, or whether they care whether something might be seen as hearkening back to segregation.
I hope you’re right!
What’s the big deal about a rhetorical lesson? I’m not calling anyone racist. Some innocent mistakes are nonetheless mistakes, and need some sort of correction to be avoided in the future. Lessons are good for people, not bad for people, and I’m just trying to do unto others as I would have them do unto me.
I’m not advocating anything that would harm people for making such mistakes – quite the opposite.
No. I’m saying ignorance of racism may evidence that it is being left behind.
For instance, there are dozens of racist slurs for “black person” that I learned as a kid, just because I heard them around me in school etc. (not from my parents). My kids don’t know most of them and probably never will. That’s a good thing.
Maybe, maybe not. It depends.
Nobody is saying that we should forget history.
We may forget some of the details, though, and that may be an indicator of progress.
So are you going to get your kids a book of racist jokes? You know, so they don’t make the mistake of telling those jokes? Wouldn’t want them to be ignorant, would you?
This isn’t so much about racism – rather, it’s about ignorance about the history of racism, and that is far more common in the Republican party (and elsewhere) then “actual, deliberate racist stuff”. It’s reasonable to address both in appropriate ways, and saying “hey don’t do that and here’s why” is a reasonable way to address the sort of ignorance that probably caused the organizers to put up the sign.
I have seen it happening. I’m old enough. It’s slow though.
But it could say something about how racist they are - they could be so NOT racist that they saw a sign that said “white elevator” and it didn’t even occur to them to think about race.
Okay, I accept that. Drop the “sharp” part though please.
Racist jokes aren’t a reasonable comparison, IMO – the “white elevator” thing wasn’t a joke, and it wasn’t taken as a joke. It was a mistake that seemed to hearken back to segregation, and that’s the kind of thing about the history of racism that everyone should know. Mass ignorance about this kind of thing is very different than not knowing every racial slur, and this kind of ignorance, when widespread, makes progress a lot harder.
I think we should hope for a day when nobody looks at such a sign and even thinks about race. I think at least we should hope for a day when it doesn’t matter - nobody looks at it and feels insulted over an innocent mistake to the point that they feel the need to lecture someone about it.
That’s not “less racist” – that’s just “more ignorant about racism”. If it was some obscure racial slur, then maybe it wouldn’t say anything about them, but this is a great big obvious thing about our history of segregation, and not knowing about it (or knowing but not realizing that this could be so connected) doesn’t make someone less racist – just ignorant or foolish.
I don’t think any of them are ignorant of the history of racism. They are simply and utterly tone deaf, and sensitivity of how they might offend others is not a sense they cultivate or care about.
I’ll hope for a day when racism is no longer a significant force, and not looking at that sign and thinking about race might be a (positive) symptom of this, but I think it needs to be in that order. In the present, that kind of ignorance is a hindrance to progress rather than a sign of progress.
From my conversations with many Republicans, a lot of them are indeed ignorant – they think slavery/Jim Crow/segregation weren’t so bad, or that black people used to be happier when societal roles were clearly defined and (brutally) enforced, or that southern white people really loved black people and only a very few mistreated them, or that the Democratic party never reformed from its racist past, or that the Southern Strategy was a fiction, etc.