And who the hell has accused you, or all white folks, of blanket racism in this thread? Who the hell has been so terribly beating YOU up verbally in this thread that you feel compelled to ascribe baseless accusations of racism to some mythical “Angry Black Person”? And just why the capital letters, hmmmm? Categorize much?
As a 24-year-old, I have to ask, what the hell are you talking about?
It’s from an episode of Family Guy, where Cleveland’s wife Loretta gets bumped from the starring role in The King and I, I believe. Loretta had the role because she auditioned best; but Diane Simmons the clueless anchor assumes that she was chosen because it’s supposed to be an all-Black production.
Well, in my reading of it, Diane wasn’t assuming anything of the sort. She was just trying to make conversation. Loretta was probably the first non-white woman she had ever spoken to, besides Asian reporter Trish Takenawa, and she wanted to make it look like she was “in touch” with “her” supporting cast.
Oh, that episode. I assumed we were talking about something that wasn’t complete fiction.
I was clueless too, because I’ve never seen Family Guy.
Heh-heh…I thought it was from an episode of Cheers. An episode I’d apparently missed.
Well, this is silly. It is obvious that I was making general remarks, based on my experiences, which this thread brought to my mind.
I really, really have no patience with this attitude. What in the ever-loving-fuck is so hard to understand? We’ve been trying to tell people for years that racism still exists - it’s not our fault you want to bury your head in the sand and poo-poo other people’s expereiences just because it’s inconvenient to you. Why do black people always have to bow and scrape and do things just the right way to get approval? Why can’t she just express anger?
PLUS - if you’re the type of person to walk around saying “you people” to ANYBODY in ANY situation - you are a jackass.
Yes, there are people of color - and White people as well - who make every imaginable slight out to have some racial component. I think if you know people of color in numbers or operate in pretty liberal circles, this is bound to be the case. But I think of these folks as being a little loopy, as do most folks I know.
But I’ll bet every woman Doper has been in the situation where you’re in an interaction with a man, or several men, and you’re not being called a name or insulted directly, but the way you’re being spoken to, or looked at, clearly communicates to you that the man doesn’t see you as equally intelligent or well-versed in the topic at hand. (For some reason my female friends tell me this happens a lot at car dealerships and auto repair shops.) And while it might be true that you are in fact clueless or less intelligent than the man you’re speaking with, there’s something else about the way you’re being treated that seems to be simply due to the fact that you have two X chromosomes. Sure, you don’t go looking for these issues, but every now and then something glaring comes up.
If a woman tells me about such an interaction, I will tend to believe there is some credibility to the claim. The man in question might be a raging sexist or an old guy out of step with the times, but I would tend to think that the average woman, through sheer experience, would be familiar with the subtleties of being treated “less than.”
BTW, the thread I started about thresholds for racism is here. Sunk like a stone, maybe y’all can chime in…
Well I guess I’m a huge jackass then, because I do this all the fucking time! I walk around my office saying, “You people drive me crazy.” I call the mail order pharmacy and say, “You people don’t really know what you’re doing, do you?” I talk to the cashier at the grocery store and say, “You people are all out of the Kempers, you bastards!”
And the a great many of the fine citizens of Washington state are jackasses too, because they are forever calling as telling me how, “You people are just trying to screw us over.”
‘You people’ can be taken other ways, depending on the people involved.
To the OP…I can see how this was a racial incident.
Yeah, that’s what I can’t quite get my head around; a Doper, not knowing Family Guy.
It just doesn’t compute for me.
No one, myself included, has claimed that racism no longer exists. Who’s burying whose head in the sand?
Why does anyone who posts a rant in the Pit get called on their rant and grilled like their on the stand? I don’t know-and it’s one of the more irritating aspects of the Pit, IMO. I did not defend the OP’s grilling-in fact, I supported her right to be angry and expressed some of my own frustrations. FWIW, I think the OP’s daughter handled the situation with grace and dignity rare in an adolescent.
Hippy Hollow --excellent post and I agree. I have been on the receiving end of the behavior you describe and it is awful–and enraging. This thread perhaps doesn’t show it, but I think most (if not all) of those here DO give the OP the benefit of the doubt re her interpretation of this event. I, and a few others were pointing out that upon occasion, that phrase is used in a non-racist way.
That’s funny because I perceived the thread going like this:
Me: A racist made my daughter cry.
A very few in the thread: Really? Well, if you tilt your head just so and squint your eyes, that’s doesn’t look racist at all.
Me: It was racist here’s why. And I don’t like the fact that I had to do a little jig in order to prove it to you.
One snarky individual: Well, why didn’t you just say that in the first place?
Me (no stranger to snark): Why did I have to say that in the first place? It was very clear from the OP. The fact that I even had to dance the jig upsets me. There are pretty naive people out there.
One snarky individual: Fuck you.
You think this thread makes you sad? And after I told my daughter things are getting better too.
And let me repeat, underscore and emphasize how resentful I am that I had to dance a jig in order to be believed. Do you hear the other angry black voices in this thread? It is the same resentment.
It is indescribable the frustration this thread has caused me. That there are still posters in here willing to blame ME for the derailing of this thread pisses me off even more. Poor, poor Kalhoun– so misunderstood. She was just trying to make a small point. Why all the anger?
Well, now you know.
[pats Biggirl on the head]
Oh, come now, dear. What would you know about racism? You leave that task up to us white folks; we know all about racism and how to recognize it. It’s our burden, sadly.
You don’t have to be black to be angry about that, biggirl.
This is the SDMB, Biggirl. If you come here and post just about anything other than “I like fluffy bunnies” dudes are going to ask you to back it up. You have over 8000 posts, so you should know this. It ain’t just you Biggirl- it’s every freaken poster that has ever stuck their nose in, including Cecil himself.* Everyone * has to “dance a jig” in order to be beleived about everything that has a semblence of fact. Your daughter had a bad experience. Fine. But you don’t get to whine about being asked for more and better information about the incident. You’ve been around long enough to know that 90% of all PIT rants have either come back to bite the PITer on the ass or have had doubters and naysayers. So, I assume you knew this-* before * you posted a PIT rant, right? Why then are you acting shocked, suprised and resentful about something you *had * to know would come to pass? :dubious:
Sorry, I don’t buy it. Smells like bullshit to me.
No one asked anything before they started expressing disagreement with Biggirl’s point-of-view. That’s what annoys the hell out of me. It’s one thing not to “get it”. It’s another thing to start speculating on all the reasons why a witness to the event is wrong in her perceptions and do so in manner that suggests that the thread is not intended to be a vent session but rather a trial by jury.
Your earlier contribution to this thread takes it to a whole nother irritating level.
“But without knowing what the customer meant as ‘you people’ and without a video transcript, we just don’t know it was.”
Hilarious, this is. A video transcript is now needed if someone is going to say someone was racist? Anything short of that and it’s grounds for skepticism, is that right? So what if Biggirl said the lady called her kid a big fat tree frog from outer space. Would you need a video transcript to believe it? Why or why not? I mean, if she can imagine that “you people” was hurled at her like Biggirl says it was, what’s keeping her from imagining other kinds of insults?
If we can’t trust that the girl heard “you people” accurately, then why should we take anyone on this board at their word when they relay a story to us? Why shouldn’t the same level of skepticism be expressed in all threads founded on one person’s interpretations of a personal experience?
This is the first time I’ve heard we must have video evidence in order to be believed when recounting a conversation. All this time I was thinking that we usually work off the assumption that everyone here is a credible witness to their own experiences unless we have evidence that says that’s not the case. Ha! I’m guess I’m a silly goose.
I’m still wondering why it even matters what the person meant. Like I said in post 167, the customer was rude and being a bitch, biggirl’s daughter was polite and professional. It is abundantly clear which one is the better person. Part of dealing with the public is dealing with rude people and the daughter handled herself better than almost every other service person I’ve ever worked with.
Why all the fuss over trying to interpret what the bitchy customer meant?