Actually, it occurs to me…
Without that Irish and Italian immigration, would there be a generic “white” identity in America?
rocketverliden asked:
Nah, actually I was thinking that there are lots of other southerners we could choose from for replacement statues, specifically ones that weren’t all “rah rah slavery” and so on. Some of them could be a lot more modern, others from before the war, and so on. U.S. founding fathers from those states would be the ideal option for many of them - it reaffirms membership in the US, still has lots of historical weight, and so on.
They shouldn’t be more black than the proportional share of the population, though.
The goal here is to provide an alternative, positive regional identity for the white southerners that is not rooted in the racism inherent to the Confederacy. (And the racism was inherent - at least one governor or whatever went on about how yeah, this was about slavery, and yeah, this was about “the inferiority of the negro race” and so on.)
History is big. There is a lot that can be chosen from when we decide what to emphasize. There are many people, with many stories. With this, we could step sideways.
(The exception is generic confederate soldier statues, which should stay. After all, the side that wins the war usually thinks it’s the ethical side, since most factions fighting a war think they’re the ethical side, so removing them just means legitimizing the idea of removing monuments to soldiers of losing sides in general.)
However, I don’t think the capital-L Left, in broad strokes, wants the southern whites to have a positive southern identity. I think it wants to crush them in order to celebrate itself and its righteousness.
It doesn’t like the founding fathers, either. It doesn’t like the United States of America.
It could celebrate the power of the very ideals this nation’s founders espoused as the source of some of the very power that overturned the cruelty they allowed at this nation’s founding. But most of those people were white men, so they won’t.
East Asian people shamelessly adopting/stealing (a debate to be had there) black American music is a huge growth industry right now. The Teriyaki Boyz were way ahead of their time.
Ironically you could argue that they’ve also appropriated the act of appropriating black culture, because that’s a foundation of white American culture
Do you believe in cultural intellectual property rights, or not?
That’s the real question posed.
The people who complain about things like a female doctor who or female Jedi or whatever almost always swear up and down that they don’t mind the idea of a woman in that role, but then say they have a problem with that particular instance because they think it’s “pandering” or “cheap” or “just for brownie points” or “politically correct”
So when exactly is it not going to be those things? If they say there’s a time and place they’d be fine with it, then when and where? Why does it never seem to come?
Remember that post about how a black reverse Indiana Jones would be great because it would “piss off white guys”?
They know it’s just culture war to take over stuff they currently have for its symbolic value.
If it weren’t just culture war, then it would be about the creation of new media, new stories, rather than insisting “nope, this guy looks too much like you, and you oppress people just by existing, so he must be removed.”
There is already a good test case to differentiate.
Look for people who objected to the idea of a black stormtrooper as a main character in the new Star Wars. As a new Star Wars movie, it wasn’t replacing anyone from the previous movies, therefore you can assume more bad faith of the people who were against having Finn there. (Also the movie is actually enjoyable in itself and the acting was fine.)
Also, they know this sort of stuff only goes one way.
Also also, recall that criticism of the new Ghostbusters that flopped was, to a degree, socially prohibited because it was “girl power!”. But it still flopped. Why wouldn’t a lot of people be suspicious?
Also, when it comes to race and politics in this country, I would like to point out that we have not tried having social policy that does not actually suck.
Anonymous asked:
argumate answered:
luckily policy success or failure has no relation to politics anyway
This will sound weird, but a lot of Trumpers don’t actually care about the wall, per se.
The Trump administration is looking to reduce and change legal immigration, in some ways making it more like it has been previously or like other countries. (Immigration levels have not always been this high in America.)
This makes a lot of sense from a “keep Republicans able to get elected over the next five decades” perspective, as, as we all know, Republican outreach to other minority races has mostly flopped. Also, views change the more generations that immigrants are in the country. (I talk about them flipping the Asians, but it’s a bit harder than flipping the Irish since there is a greater visual difference with whites, and so there are limits to how far racism will dissolve.)
The Democrats were celebrating an inevitable demographic tide that would deliver them permanent electoral majority. However, that tide is not actually inevitable. On some level, Trumpers can probably sense that the plan is to replace or outnumber them, but America does have immigration as part of its national mythos so this is not as well-supported.
The Wall is, to a degree, just a hammy metaphor for actually enforcing immigration law, and to a lesser degree, changing immigration rules. If he changes immigration / enforces immigration law in other ways, his voters will be satisfied even without him actually building it.
Male-dominated video games become spectator e-sports for predominantly male viewers because they sustain a different project than celebrating physical excellence. They don’t showcase a specific form of male-bodied performance so much as support a specific sort of male spectator: a straight middle-class boy full of resentment and patriarchal rage. This is and has been the sports fan par excellence.
http://reallifemag.com/jocks-without-borders/
hooo brother.
(via argumate)
why do they always write about white men like bad fantasy books talk about orcs? I mean, ‘full of patriarchal rage’?
(via 1nsomnizac)
now remember that most of these straight middle-class boys are Korean, even in the linked article, and scratch your head.
(via argumate)
no patriarchy like Korean patriarchy
(via argumate)
Koreans are the whitest boys of all.
Speaking of independent prosecution agencies for police misconduct, we should have those. Can’t have the prosecutors that depend on the cops for all their other prosecutions, bad cops could retaliate to cover for their buddy by refusing to cooperate with later prosecutions. Otherwise at least try it in another jurisdiction.
You mean learning history affects your present worldview?
Gonna be honest here - I no longer trust calls for “inclusiveness” and “diversity” from anyone who isn’t at least Rationalist-Adjacent.
One cannot trust, for instance, that people won’t attempt to overwrite the race of ancient Egyptians (which varied over time, but included people that look a lot like people there now, Greeks, etc) with whatever they prefer.
To clarify, we have a post arguing they were all black until the 7th century, and another post apparently arguing that the Egyptians were, uh, slavs or something. I won’t claim to be an expert on it, though - I’ve just noticed that this has long been a point of contention.
One can’t trust the /pol/acks either, of course, and whoever posted an image of contemporary Macedonia as what Egyptians looked like.
…Which is why I specified the rat-adjs, since IME rats/adjs tend to operate in good faith usually and are less likely to treat such issues as a political football to win points with. (Although I don’t see them discussing Ancient Egyptian migrations much, admittedly.)
“[Ghost in the Shell] is a perfect overlapping of form and function. They speak directly to the audience and say “the patriarchal corporation made Motoko white because they consider it more marketable.”
The irony of the film is that people [online] have bought entirely into the corporate logic and are now arguing that ‘authentic’ Japanese identity is superior because it’s even more marketable - literally that the movie would have made more money with an authentic Japanese on the posters.
In this view, Cutter was bad not because he was using billions of tax dollars to vicisect people for profit, but because he failed to make enough profit for his shareholders. He was not exploitative enough - he did not ‘Think Different". Cutter’s sneering racism is unfashionable, and so his Caucasian deathbots were left in the dust by the burgeoning Japanese-Looking Fucktoy industry.”
An interesting response, though I believe the arguers actually wanted it for authenticity/racial representation reasons and only made the argument about money because they thought “be more moral (according to our morality)” wouldn’t be convincing.
SAN FRANCISCO—In an effort to reduce the number of unprovoked hostile communications on the social media platform, Twitter announced Monday that it had added a red X-mark feature verifying users who are in fact perfectly okay to harass. “This new verification system offers users a simple, efficient way to determine which accounts belong to total pieces of shit whom you should have no qualms about tormenting to your heart’s desire,” said spokesperson Elizabeth James, adding that the small red symbol signifies that Twitter has officially confirmed the identity of a loathsome person who deserves the worst abuse imaginable and who will deliberately have their Mute, Block, and Report options disabled. “When a user sees this symbol, they know they’re dealing with a real asshole who has richly earned whatever mistreatment they receive, including profanity, body-shaming, leaking of personal information, and relentless goading to commit suicide. It’s really just a helpful way of saying to our users, ‘This fuck has it coming, so do your worst with a clear conscience and without fear of having your account suspended.’” At press time, Twitter reassuredly clarified that the red X was just a suggestion and that all users could still be bullied with as little recourse as they are now.
