The Big Picture: Skin Deep

[kotomeha]

The only thing I care to mention is that he should definitely do an episode about samurai pizza cats. That show was the best show of all time.

 

[Fumbles]

Perhaps your lack of sophistication in presenting a compelling argument that recognizes and accounts for the nuances of a situation is what hinders your success in the scholarship application process more so than the competition.

You are right it is very nuanced. After rereading I was rather scatter brained... Anyways my scholarship is for Computer Science in which I have a 3.7, and this scholarship goes only to us. For the past two years, each recipeint has either dropped out or changed majors, both were black students. However I do know that there may have been other circumstances,etc... My big beef though is how affirmative action is stepping in with its double standards.

 

[almostgold]

....so because there was racial inequality in the past, we should be okay with racial inequality today?

Because thats pretty much the argument I heard.

 

[DeAvatar]

to temporarily hijack the serious internet thread...
no show about <-------? Why bob, WHYYYYYY?

 

[Battenbergcake]

So, in Bob's opinion, its better for a black guy to rob a white guy than the other way arround, and two wrongs make a right. That's just his opinion.

No, in Bob's opinion they were looking to widen the net of their audience by giving a none to central but fairly crucial role to a minority actor with great skill.
That and the white man hasn't done himself too many favours in recent times what with all the slavery stuff we europeans started. Besides better a good actor of a minority get the part than a crap actor who just looks the part but makes important role in the narrative's proceeding a lesser performance.

No, that is exactly what Bob said, that a double standard is okay if it favors the oppressed. Well, I have never oppressed a black man or owned a slave, have you? I have been laid off when I was the only white member of a minority-rich team for no other reason. I have no problem with Heimdall being black, but how about someone white playing Luke Cage in the Avengers? All double standards are bad, and no one was ever healed by favoratism. The day we no longer care what a person's race is is the day real healing starts, not when we try to "balance the scales" for previous harms suffered by other generations. Yes, there is still racism in the world, and only the stupid think it doesn't goes both ways. My Grandfather was murdered by a black man. Should I balance the scales? No. A double standard is the tactic of the weak and moronic.

To be rather frank i probably shouldn't have been so heavy handed with my remark, but i will say i strongly agree with the whole realising we're all human thing. When we do work as one people without tying ourselves to race and nationality as a means to seperate ourselves from each other will be a triumphant moment for humanity as a whole.

 

[Emergent System]

I don't undertsand how constantly pointing out that slavery happened is supposed to do something to alleviate racism. If anything, maintaining this double-standard is reinforcing our natural racist tendencies by constantly pointing out to us that it exists. IF you really want to stop racism, you need to abolish the double-standard and treat everyone equally. "Benign" racism is still racism.

Also, the logical extreme of "it's not a perfect world" as justification for hypocritical double-standards is that I should just go out there and rape a bucnh of chicks because hey you can't really stop me if I'm smart enough about it.

Not a perfect world, right, so why should I try to act as if it were? I could use that argument to justify anything.

 

[redb33rd]

You remove the double standard by changing the standard: best actor gets the part. Unless it is a period piece about Victorian England, everything can be justified via creative license. Trying to compensate the horrors of slavery through movie roles is ridiculous and unbecoming. Best actor gets the job unless race is integral to the story being told. If Elcor can do Hamlet, then may the best man by Heimdall.

Slavery is an especially invalid argument in this case as Idris Elba is british. He is neither american, nor ancestor of the africans brougt to north america as slaves.

 

[toto230]

I don't think the Irish or the Welsh had slaves either, and I know the poor Irish didn't have slaves. They didn't have enough food to not die of hunger.

 

[JDKJ]

You remove the double standard by changing the standard: best actor gets the part. Unless it is a period piece about Victorian England, everything can be justified via creative license. Trying to compensate the horrors of slavery through movie roles is ridiculous and unbecoming. Best actor gets the job unless race is integral to the story being told. If Elcor can do Hamlet, then may the best man by Heimdall.

Slavery is an especially invalid argument in this case as Idris Elba is british. He is neither american, nor ancestor of the africans brougt to north america as slaves.

But the crux of the matter isn't Idris Elba. It's a little bigger than that, I think. Elba just represents a larger issue.

 

[JDKJ]

Yeah but modern folks aren't responsible for that slavery so to use that as an excuse for double standards is also silly.

As an African American i get real tired of the "I didnt own any slaves" argument against the effects of slavery.

True, no one alive today owned any slaves, but whether you admit it or not, you are a direct benefactor of the institution of slavery, and institutionalized racism. And conversley those elements affect me and others on a daily basis.

I never said I didn't benefit I said I'm not responsible for it so you shouldn't try to make me feel guilty about it. Hell I highly doubt my ancestors owned slaves since it seems like most of them immigrated to the U.S. after slavery ended.

But the fact remains that you benefit from not only slavery, but the long history of America's institutionalized racism. No one's -- I don't think -- trying to send you off on a guilt trip. Rather, the point is that if, after all those years, you, as a member of the majority group, are now being made to carry the burden in the form of some sort of "affirmative action" which cuts you a bad deal so that the formerly marginalized groups can finally get a decent deal, then that seems to me entirely fair.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

Unless you are black, mexican, a woman, or god forbid... irish.

Now, that raises the interesting question of whether someone born and raised in the USA with no ancestors born or raised outside the contiguous 48 insisting he or she is Irish came because the rest of the country started being unwilling to call them Americans or made them so.

[http://www.zazzle.com/pretend_to_kiss_me_im_pretending_to_be_irish_tshirt-235157289204770573?gl=Sableagle]

 

[MatsVS]

This argument misses the fact that the lack of cultural equivalence is a result of white nations being white nations for centuries. This means that culture, in this case media, is created for and by Caucasians. The exact same can be said of any nation of any ethnicity.

Historical context is quite often a valid argument that I myself also like to point out. However, given the advances in social sciences the past 50 years, it no longer holds water.

During the more recent times, the welfare of the Western world has attracted peoples from all over the world, in effect turning previously white nations into multiethnic nations, admittedly with varying amounts of minorities in each country. This means that there will be people in these previously white nations who feel that the culture isn't representative of them. This is as expected, it isn't strange, and it isn't even remotely related to any kind of racism.

Really? And here I was thinking that it was wars, famines and natural disasters that drove people to leave their homes. But its our welfare systems, you say? What a fool I've been! The reasons behind your eagerness to dismiss racism as a relevant factor becomes more and more apparent.

Racism did not have anything to do with this. Rather, what racism did is skew peoples' perception regarding the worth of human beings, implying that a person's ethnicity is somehow indicative of their value. That was the true doctrine of racism.

Ehhr.... yes? That is indeed racism you are describing.

People today throw around this word easily, most of them having no idea of the actual practical implications of racist doctrine. There's not a single person on this forum who could stomach actual racism, and the usage of this term to refer to something as immeasurably trivial as the cast of a motion picture not only smacks of uneducated thinking but it is also grossly dismissive of the people who have experienced actual racism in recent history.

A generalization, and an insulting one at that. Our histories are not for you speculate about, and I'd rather see you'd stop, and I'll do you the same courtesy. Racism can exist in different shapes and dimensions, you know. Being less racist than slave owners is not really a vindication.

It's curious that believers in "white guilt" are so ready to attribute heinous characteristics to white people. That view of humanity is rather alarming. Contrary to popular opinion, hating someone because of their race isn't racism, it's merely being rather xenophobic. The two are not the same, neither in practice nor in principle.

I can only speak for myself, but I am quite ready to attribute heinous characteristics across the racial divides. I merely recognize that in a historical context, white racism comes from a more advanced cultural standpoint, and is thus more difficult to write off as mere xenophobia.

Speaking of which, it is not within your purview to redefine linguistic meanings of words and phrases to better suit your arguments. It's a gross logical fallacy and it does not help your cause. Xenophobia does not even share a etymological root, much less a meaning. Racism stems from xenophobia, not the other way around.

This statement is based on false conclusions. Even if it wasn't, it's still invalid owing to the fact that it caters to a double standard.

Yes, we have already established that it "caters to a double standard". What we have also done, however, is established that the double standard is justified, given the past 200 years that have effectively defined the relationship between blacks and whites. Nice of you to rehash an already dismissed argument, though.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

Also I hope everyone knows that Heimdall was a black man in Thor: The Mighty Avenger #6

So this is even less of a big deal...

Spoiler:

Heimdallr, Norse God of Campness and Rainbows?

Okay, now the Captcha is throwing Hellenic or Cyrillic at me, and I don't even know how to generate those characters. What's that? Lambda, alpha, nu-acute, rho ...

 

[nomad240]

i found that kinda funny in all honestly. I also enjoyed how movie bob ignored information such as blacks selling other blacks to the white people as slaves or the fact that slavery existed prior to there ever being a north america it's alled "indentured workers" and they started building america... it was mostly for the poor people in england and france who wanted to go to the "new world.. but couldn't afford the ticket so they were offered a free ticket to the new world if they plugged in a certain amount of time working in fields or construction and at the end of their time they were free people to walk the world and start homes of their own most probably getting jobs from their previous master to pay for the house or the land for them to build said house.

and very quickly is it ignored that whites also helped black slaves escape north to canada. or the more " racial friendly people."

and just to be clear I'm not a racist (( because I know that words will be flyign my way.)) I just poitning out the humor in misinformation.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

Also I hope everyone knows that Heimdall was a black man in Thor: The Mighty Avenger #6

So this is even less of a big deal...

Spoiler:

Heimdallr, Norse God of Campness and Rainbows?

Okay, now the Captcha is throwing Hellenic or Cyrillic at me, and I don't even know how to generate those characters. What's that? Lambda, alpha, nu-acute, rho ...

Uhm that rainbow is bifrost...

 

[Zsazal]

Excellent video, plus the ideal world being My Little Pony was amazing.

 

[JDKJ]

i found that kinda funny in all honestly. I also enjoyed how movie bob ignored information such as blacks selling other blacks to the white people as slaves or the fact that slavery existed prior to there ever being a north america it's alled "indentured workers" and they started building america... it was mostly for the poor people in england and france who wanted to go to the "new world.. but couldn't afford the ticket so they were offered a free ticket to the new world if they plugged in a certain amount of time working in fields or construction and at the end of their time they were free people to walk the world and start homes of their own most probably getting jobs from their previous master to pay for the house or the land for them to build said house.

and very quickly is it ignored that whites also helped black slaves escape north to canada. or the more " racial friendly people."

and just to be clear I'm not a racist (( because I know that words will be flyign my way.)) I just poitning out the humor in misinformation.

I assume that History wasn't your major in college.

The presence of African slaves on the North American continent pre-dates the arrival of the British or the French and their white indenture servants by close to 100 years. The Spanish, who were the first to attempt settlement of North America, owned slaves, most notably at St. Augustine, the first permanent settlement in North America and the oldest city in the United States.

And indentured servitude isn't anywhere akin to slavery. The hallmark of a slave is that they are their owner's property. An indentured servant wasn't ever anyone's property and, when their contracted period on indenture was over, they were free to go about their own business.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

... we are being forced down our throats that until children of all colours and religions dance under a rainbow, we need to be more tolerant.

You have earned the Button Pusher badge!
You got this badge by finding a button and pushing it.

The button was the word "tolerant" up there.

I'm tolerating the noise of a hedge-trimmer or chainsaw or leaf-blower or something like that.
I tolerate traffic.
I tolerate people walking those strange little creatures that they call dogs despite them being snack-sized to an ocelot.
I tolerate dandelions in the lawn because I'm too lazy to go round and get rid of them all.
I tolerate having to wait to use the microwave.
I tolerate bad weather.

I don't tolerate litter building up in my garden. I get rid of it.
I don't tolerate drakes raping ducks in my garden. I chase them off, and am getting closer and closer to shooting one of the bastards.
I don't tolerate pigeons, grey squirrels or rats. I shoot them. (Yes, "*boom* headshot" and all that.)
I won't tolerate people raiding the birds' nests around here. It's going to be hard to climb a tree with both your arms dislocated and broken, isn't it, kid?
I don't tolerate crap radio stations when I'm driving. Don't push it.

I don't tolerate homosexuality or black people or inter-racial marriages or Buddhists because I don't see anything there to tolerate. Do you tolerate rivers existing on other continents? Do you tolerate the fact there are planets orbiting other stars? Do you tolerate birdsong a hundred miles away?

 

[JDKJ]

... we are being forced down our throats that until children of all colours and religions dance under a rainbow, we need to be more tolerant.

You have earned the Button Pusher badge!
You got this badge by finding a button and pushing it.

The button was the word "tolerant" up there.

I'm tolerating the noise of a hedge-trimmer or chainsaw or leaf-blower or something like that.
I tolerate traffic.
I tolerate people walking those strange little creatures that they call dogs despite them being snack-sized to an ocelot.
I tolerate dandelions in the lawn because I'm too lazy to go round and get rid of them all.
I tolerate having to wait to use the microwave.
I tolerate bad weather.

I don't tolerate litter building up in my garden. I get rid of it.
I don't tolerate drakes raping ducks in my garden. I chase them off, and am getting closer and closer to shooting one of the bastards.
I don't tolerate pigeons, grey squirrels or rats. I shoot them. (Yes, "*boom* headshot" and all that.)
I won't tolerate people raiding the birds' nests around here. It's going to be hard to climb a tree with both your arms dislocated and broken, isn't it, kid?
I don't tolerate crap radio stations when I'm driving. Don't push it.

I don't tolerate homosexuality or black people or inter-racial marriages or Buddhists because I don't see anything there to tolerate. Do you tolerate rivers existing on other continents? Do you tolerate the fact there are planets orbiting other stars? Do you tolerate birdsong a hundred miles away?

I'd give you the "YOU WIN THE PRIZE!!" photo but I already gave it to MatsVS. You're just as deserving, but MatsVS's win came before yours.