Akio91 said:
So.....this is the first I've heard of this. Bob, are you making up issues for views? Or is this some Hollywood insider mad that the rest of us have missed out on?
No, he's right, it exists. Bob's own politics and white guilt have predictably slanted it though. The issue isn't quite as mainstream as your used to seeing from other outcries because the basic issue isn't coming from sources the left wing likes to acknowlege existing.
Basically "Cloud Atlas" is a movie that has seriously invoked the ire of so called "reverse racists". Equality actually being a forgone conclusion in most of the western world (despite what politicians and left wingers like to say and believe) your rapidly seeing those that are minorities within the western world embracing a "pro (insert race here)" stance, the old "I'm not anti-white, but am proud to be black" or "I'm pro-black" attitude which is pretty much the same thing as white supremacy conveyed through other words and carefully avoided by the left wing. A lot of the outcry you see here is not so much because of old school comedic "race play" by white actors, but because you have minorities offended by what they see as a lesser people playing them. I ran into this issue not so much as white vs. black as most people like to focus on, but more in terms of white guys playing Koreans in the final sequence, which was seen as an affront to ethnic superiority... as is the entire idea of soul reincarnation which can be an issue to those who see themselves superior for reasons having to do with who or what they are inherantly.
I actually tried to find a link to it again (though I can't, I think it was taken down) I was reading a fairly racist article someone put up ranting pretty much about asian superiority and how offensive this movie was on those levels.
I pretty much take the opposite position from Bob on most of these issues even if it goes to the same place. I believe in human equaliy, but I feel within the western world that's embracing it the current problem is not with the "white majority" which has done a good job of adapting on those principles, but for minorities themselves to adapt to equality, do away with their counter cultures, and desires for social vengeance. Or in simple terms, when dealing with things like the white vs. black conflict, white guys freed blacks and supported all of this civil liberties stuff, it wasn't done to give blacks the tools needed to avenge this injustice, and indeed exactly the kinds of movements and attitudes you see now were exactly what was promised wouldn't happen by the people promoting that equality agenda. Globally I also think the rest of the world is very racist, except it's a situation where whites are one of the smallest minorities there are (ironic on a lot of levels). The eastern world in paticular needs to be given a serious kick in the teeth if we ever plan to see racism dealt with. Bob Chipman style guilt and self-judgement doesn't really solve anything, especially seeing as anything we do is only affecting a relatively small percentage of humanity. When you considered that roughly 1/3rd of the population is in India, 1/3rd is in China, Africa is overcrowded, hundreds of millions of Muslims, etc... you begin to realize that what happens within the borders of the USA or Europe affects a very small percentage of humanity.
As a result I take the opposite track from Bob, rather than being an apologist I believe on brutal crackdowns on minority counter culture, reverse racism, and similar things. Someone who identifies as Pro-Black, Pro-Asian, and says "[insert minority here] Power" is just as bad as a KKK member, they are actually the same thing (especially nowadays where the KKK is itself mostly verbal and political as well) and deserves to be hammered as a divisive influance that is working against tolerance and co-existance. I also believe very much in doing things like forcing information into countries like China through their censorship policies and refusing to help them, or let anyone else help them with censorship. I for example believe a search engine that censors itself for other countries to filter outside political ideals like tolerance needs to itself be on the receiving end of a brutal crackdown.
Or in short I pretty much believe the new motto should be "Live Free Or Die" and acceptance at this point still needs to be fought for. The ideas are out there, but need to be enforced through the barrel of a gun, and the striking surface of a truncheon. Even if unherard of numbers of people die, it's one of those cases where anything worth having comes at a high cost. I think we planted the seeds, but gave up far too soon, and fell into lethargy and hand wringing where we let all the same problems continue, just from the opposite direction they were coming from before. The counter culture that was one a champion of civil liberties as become the enemy of those same civil liberties.
There's your reason.