Racism Thread

[stoic quest]

@blazing oar

@past panther @outer dune

Idk whoever else is a part of this discussion

Can satirical racism be tolerated? Is there a place for it?

[past panther]

I think if you have to insist the racism is satirical when it is not obviously so, it's probably racist

[stoic quest]

Many alt-right groups use "satirical" racism to skirt the line of what is acceptable and move the overton window

@blazing oar Get in here

[past panther]

You can't insist on the most generous possible interpretation of your post to vindicate you

Use judgment, both your opinion and how you think others might react to it, and act accordingly

It's a meme/shitpost - your own interpretation does not exist in a vacuum

Whoever made it (unless that's you) didn't make it for a specific person to understand it in a specific way, if the broadest, easiest explanation is more plain to see

[lavish yew]

The way that i handle this topic personally is by only discussing and distributing satirical coverage of harmful topics with people i trust to have nuanced opinions

[stoic quest]

This reminds me of a video analysis I was watching about the "Rush Hour" series and how it talked about how Rush Hour framed the relationships between the Asian and Black communities, and the thesis of the movie was that you don't need to be White to be racist

[blazing oar]

That’s what I’m querying, what is “obvious”?

[past panther]

just saw this video actually

[stoic quest]

google.com

[past panther]

more importantly, what makes your non-racist interpretation more valid than a racist one?

[lavish yew]

There is no objective answer to this

It's a vibe thing

[blazing oar]

I think they’re equally valid, if by valid you mean “true”

[lucid adder]

my take is that racist jokes are just toilet humor

[blazing oar]

No one’s perspective is more “valid” than another

[stoic quest]

You might think you're being smart for defining things but it comes off as pretentious fyi

[lucid adder]

they just come off as lazy and get exhausting fast

[blazing oar]

?????

[past panther]

define "pretentious"

[lavish yew]

It's not clear to me what you're practically trying to conclude about racist memes

[past panther]

define "smart"

[blazing oar]

It’s important to realize we’re all racist, in that race is superficial and assigning causality to, for example, one’s skin color is absurd and stupid

We all see skin color

And thus we discriminate

[stoic quest]

The problem is that racist jokes often exist in a superposition between racism and non-racism, and we don't know if the person is racist until we look at their user history

[lucid adder]

and thus, haha poop fart

[past panther]

"anti-racists and racists are exactly the same"

[blazing oar]

Of course

[blazing oar]

No!

[lavish yew]

Nobody here is disputing that racism exists and is pervasive

[stoic quest]

Race is a social construct, and this is especially apparent in the USA. Many countries don't see race as the color of one's skin. (ex: India)

[blazing oar]

I said for example

[graceful orbit]

Jokes are only jokes if theyre funny, thats my rubric

I can tolerate offensive things if they amuse me

[blazing oar]

Race to me is rather synonymous to phenotype, or like I said, superficial things

[stoic quest]

https://tenor.com/view/notfunny-not-funny-john-mulaney-gif-13988169

BBBG_irl

[graceful orbit]

For what its worth, i dont think we need to spell out a racism rule and the vibe check is very sufficient

[lavish yew]

How does your comments on racism and race relate to what memes ought to be shared?

[stoic quest]

"Phenotype" is a modern concept, ancient (and many modern) people would understand race to be tied to your country of origin

[blazing oar]

Sure, that changes nothing

[past panther]

bright line rules are just begging for people to skirt around the edge of the rule e.g. trolls constantly asking where the line is and insisting it's an edge case every time

[graceful orbit]

It also allows more freedom for contributors in good faith and specific grievances can be worked out to the admins liking (to not have a rule)

There are excuses to walk the line sometimes especially when it comes to discussing things, a post isnt necessarily an endorsement its all highly contextual

[outer dune]

This is not true actually. A racist's POV is in in fact less valid

[graceful orbit]

(This is a joke)

[blazing oar]

That’s what I was alluding to, I think, this whole time. Yet it seems some of you presume to be speaking on behalf of others. I was earnestly trying to learn about other people’s ideas of race, racism, etc. and how they relate to their understanding of humor. It seems many people here are eager to assume the worst of others, which is rather ironic I think. I had a favorable view of this server as a group of people studying memes and processes of communication, but this experience has diminished it.

[blazing oar]

What does validity mean (to you)?

[past panther]

this thread turned me into a lysenkoist

[blazing oar]

How is someone’s perspective “less valid”?

[stoic quest]

How do you feel about people posting racist memes in bad faith? (ie: to push a racist agenda?)

[lavish yew]

We all just didn't like your meme

[lucid adder]

wasn't the whole point of the thread to determine whether or not you're being an ass

[blazing oar]

Fuck them

[blazing oar]

But also I pity them

[lavish yew]

You're running in circles to explain the fact that you posted something we didn't like

[blazing oar]

We’ll that’s obvious now

[stoic quest]

And how would you distinguish bad faith actors and true non-racist satirists?

[lavish yew]

If that offends you then sorry

Maybe this is the wrong community for you

[blazing oar]

I was trying to understand why you didn’t like it…

[past panther]

probably an explanation or context at the point the post was made would have helped

[lavish yew]

It was overtly racist

[past panther]

absent that, assuming racism is the likely explanation

[blazing oar]

Now who’s running in circles

[blazing oar]

…

This is exhausting, I’m going to go outside

[past panther]

are you really saying im not being open minded enough to you by saying your posting a video with a guy going "ching chang chong" and no explanation is probably racist lol

[stoic quest]

That sounds like a good idea o7

Enjoy your walk dude

I'm gonna go for a walk too, or maybe go lift idk I'm getting off Discord now, I've said what I need to say

[lavish yew]

Yeah this conversation stinks

[blazing oar]

I’m not upset at your initial reaction; I’m frustrated that after I began to explain myself you continued to presume I didn’t care about how you felt

Which is exactly what I was trying to learn about

[past panther]

i dont think you need to be told that someone may interpret something as racist to understand that something might be racist

[graceful orbit]

I think youre in good faith @blazing oar you are just in the position of dying on a hill nobody would want to die on

All you gotta do is kinda use the vibe to curate what is worth posting here

[blazing oar]

In an alternate timeline it would be interesting to see what the response would have been if I just asked about racism without posting anything else.

[graceful orbit]

Its cool you would have been quickly banned if you really crossed any line. Just be discussion focused with edgy shit

[lavish yew]

Usually discussions that general don't get many bites because they are well-trodden

Posting meme+analysis could have been a good intro

[blazing oar]

I said as much in my last message in #general-2

[graceful orbit]

/thread

[blazing oar]

Just to be clear, my post, involving (racial) stereotypes, was in response to someone asking about whether it would be acceptable to post “slightly inoffensive” memes, which I found to be a fascinating phrase. To suggest that you could quantify racism and/or offense is interesting and potentially absurd. I think, looking back at it, my post was misguiding, if not self indulgent. The “I’ll use my credit card” line is tremendously funny to me, for reasons that would, now obviously, take a great effort to fully explain. In the future, if I do at all, I’ll just questions about these topics, and if I get shallow responses, I won’t engage and instead I’ll mutter to myself irl, “fucking idiots”.

[lucid adder]

fucking idiots

[past panther]

i was referring to your chinese lego video post, just for reference

not the south park video

think i said that

[blazing oar]

Did you? I had no idea.

[past panther]

#general-2 message

dude in the video basically making ching chang chong noises

[blazing oar]

Now I see, that was quite earlier when people were quickly and frequently responding, missed that

[past panther]

no wonder i did not find the antiracism argument convincing lol

the south park angle i can see

[blazing oar]

It would be difficult for me to discern between mandarin sounding gibberish and mandarin as I’m ignorant of the language

[past panther]

to be clear, i think the content is kinda sinophobic too but don't wanna get too into it

[blazing oar]

So I’m not paying attention to that or enjoying that element; (“haha, yeah that’s what those Chinese people sound like”)

[past panther]

since it's basically the west's foreign policy stance on china too

[blazing oar]

That’s fair, I haven’t thought about that video much

Have no defense for it

*I have no

[blazing oar]

I understand how the audio element may be a predominate factor that informs your impression of the meme as a whole, but if the video was narrated with actual mandarin and not mandarin sounding gibberish, would you think it was less sinophobic?

*predominant

You said you don’t want to get into it; would you at least give me a broad take?

So I can have something to compare to my own impression

Here’s similar, more viewed content

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wphTAEQusLk&pp=ygUabGVnbyBjaXR5IHRpYW5hbm1lbiBzcXVhcmU%3D

Aside from the gibberish again, do you find the rest of the content objectionable for the same reasons as the other video?

Maybe this would require you to be more elaborate. I’m not obligating you to.

[past panther]

would basically mean getting into all the misinformation spread about china

[blazing oar]

Sure

[past panther]

thesis is essentially that a vast majority of the things being said are not true

[past panther]

not gonna watch this btw

not gonna get into it cause i'm not really interested in debating the facticity of the claims

if you're interested you can look it up

[blazing oar]

Sure, but about the gibberish?

[past panther]

the chinese sounding gibberish is bad sure

and i also think that it being bad on purpose gives it the ability to say "it's just a joke"

in addition to the lego facade

even if it doesn't serve that purpose and is simply a racist pantomime of the language

[blazing oar]

Mhm, I can understand how it can be a shield

[past panther]

i also imagine the comment section is full of racist things that the video allows people to feel comfortable saying

that's why there is a solid point to be made about advancing a racist agenda

[blazing oar]

There may have been confusion in the prior thread about what video I was referencing. The whole time I was thinking about the South Park video, not the one with Lego. Now I’m thinking about the latter.

What are your concepts of race and racism? How do they apply to the video? A response of “It’s racist” is as useless as saying “It’s not racist”. I want to learn about your ideas of race and racism, and how they relate to humor. Don’t tell me to “google” things. If you need to, refer me to specific sources that inform your thoughts on the topic. For example, Dr. Seuss’s “The Sneetches” is my favorite allegory about racism.

Also, your point about misinformation is too broad for it to be usefully meaningful. Unless we can compare what we know in the more direct manner I suggest, conjectures will only magnify any miscommunication we have.
Do you think the video’s creators are innocently misinformed about China? Or, are they deliberately exploiting and reproducing misinformation? Are the stereotypes involved confused? We can develop arguments about the potential effects and consequences this video has, but I want only you to expound on your actual experience and how you respond to it with such questions in mind, and not a hypothetical one on behalf of others.

Perhaps a contrasting meme would help clarify things. What would your opinion be of a lego advertising video that presents a school shooting narrated by English sounding gibberish with mandarin subtitled statements about American political discourse about school shootings?

When you say something is this or that and someone else seems to not share your view, you ought to interrogate each other so that you can at least better understand how your views differ (and indeed how they are similar). That is, if you care about communicating with them.

Ultimately I still do find the video funny. It was funny the first time I watched it, but maybe in the future it won’t be. That’s the nature of funny.

Does me finding it funny (i.e. causing me to laugh) make me racist? I don’t think so, based on my ideas of race, racism, and laughter. I think I can laugh at something and endorse it. Or reject it. I can have mixed feelings about things. I don’t want to harass others with things they dislike, but I would like to know why they dislike them; I want to know they like other things, too.
This is the sort of point that interests me and which I want others to opine on. When you say X is or is not racist, I want you to explain what that means. In this case X is that particular video. If we generalize, which is inevitable, I want it to be from the specifics of the video, and then, for any conclusions to relate directly back to it.

I think this sort of discussion is important and relevant to this community because memes, meaning, humor, social interaction and communication are all interrelated concepts and processes, and it would benefit us in our study of these things, however informal we may be in it.

Also, what does it mean to laugh at something? The only sensible and consistent definition I have is that what is funny makes you laugh and what makes you laugh is funny. I understand that something funny to me is not necessarily funny to others. This all of course relates directly to what I wrote above, but it could easily become a distraction to it and is also worthy of another differently centered discussion.

TLDR: Often it is difficult to communicate what you mean, which is why I don’t say unable, as sometimes it is nearly impossible—though I don’t think this is such a case—, but if you are unwilling to explain yourself to someone after you critique them when you are otherwise able, go fuck yourself.

[past panther]

#1146205635856318494 message

[blazing oar]

This is useless. You’re not being remotely specific. What exactly do you want me to look up? If you care about communicating with me you need to be specific. Saying “misinformation” is not helpful to this end.

[past panther]

like I said earlier, I'm not that interested in discussing

no one is obligated to educate you thoroughly

however, if people in a community have an opinion about something, you can respect it without having to interrogate and fully understand it

[blazing oar]

What is your opinion again, to be clear?

At least give me a phrase to search, something, anything to better inform me about your opinion.

Are you not prepared to put minimal effort into helping me understand your view?

If you search any combination of “misinformation” and “china” into a web browser, there is nothing but articles talking about misinformation FROM China, not about it.

[past panther]

i think this whole thread is evidence that plenty of people have already put in a good faith effort

[blazing oar]

I’m prepared to look into it.

What is the good faith?!

Just give me SOMETHING to look into

It would be depressing to me if you’re trolling, but not as depressing if this is honestly how you interact with someone trying to better understand and communicate with you.

[night moss]

what was the south park post i missed it

oh this one? #general-2 message

thats hilarious

[upper grove]

dude from my POV reading through the messages @blazing oar had an interesting take and you consistently responded in an inflammatory and dismissive way

I don't think anything he said was that objectionable tbh

I guess he just sent a tone-deaf meme and everyone assumed the worst

[upper grove]

art doesn't have an obligation to be maximally accessible

and yes comedy is art

Someone with poor reading comprehension can read Lolita and come away with "dang age-gap relationships are super romantic"

That doesn't make Lolita pro-pedophilia??

This is a failing of the audience, not the work

In the same way, just because a meme can be construed as racist by a person with poor comedic comprehension, that doesn't mean the meme itself is racist

There's an argument to be made as to appropriate audiences, which I think a couple ppl mentioned

[lucid adder]

I don't think a lot of people here care, at least not as much as P

it was a shit meme, that's all I have to say

[upper grove]

"I would share this with a friend that could understand the context but not where it could be misunderstood"

which makes sense, but this is a place for analyzing memes

this stuff is perfectly suited to this server

you would think ppl here would be exactly the ones most suited to nuanced discussion about memes

including racial ones!

anyways sorry u got piled on @blazing oar

[lucid adder]

I still think it was tone deaf, though this thread felt a little reactionary

though I wasn't really paying attention, so don't quote me

[upper grove]

I checked the comments and the creator says "a lot of Chinese-speaking users have commented that they did not understand a single word. I actually ran the subtitles on the screen through English -> Chinese (Simplified) on Google Translator and tried pronouncing it to the best of my abilities... with little success apparently... lmao. Well, I tried."

it's not an attempt to mock the language

[blazing oar]

I was just thinking about that earlier

I looked into the comments of the video; it is full of joke comments about the authoritarian nature of the Chinese government; are they racist?
Moreover many commenters say that the narration is badly pronounced mandarin and that most of it is not mere gibberish, which would, I agree with you, harder to defend, not that I want to defend it one way or the other.

[upper grove]

As for the content of the Lego City meme, yeah I don't think it's a very funny meme, but it's in the same class as the "Americans invading ___ for the oil" memes

[blazing oar]

Totally

[upper grove]

lazy and a little tired sure but humor on national stereotypes is very enduring

Also I think the video of the asian guy pretending to be a stereotypical chinese guy pretending to be an american guy is hilarious

it succeeds on comedic grounds there

also it's a great example of playing on racism without being racist

in the same way that this tweet gets posted on this server every once in a while:

a sarcastic caricature of racism is not racist!

unless if you're bad at understanding humor

[lucid adder]

I laughed at it without knowing what yakubian meant just cause it sounds funny

[blazing oar]

I wouldn’t even say “poor comprehension”, but just different understanding of something. But fellatio doesn’t seem to understand (perhaps on purpose) that other people can think differently about one thing. Maybe they sympathize with the communist party or something; whatever. I just wanted to understand what they see in, or rather how they see, the video, and explain what is offensive about it (to them) with more detail and direct me to sources about misinformation about China (as they claimed the video contained/referenced).

[upper grove]

Fellatious isn't obligated to do any of that for you, but I do think it's in poor faith to make low-effort implications abt your character and then refuse to engage on a level deeper than the surface

[blazing oar]

I think if you want your opinion to be respected by someone, you do have an obligation to engage them if you critique them. The description and rules of this disc state something like this, anyway.

Just saying something is “offensive” without elaboration after it was requested is obtuse

I don’t expect them to reciprocate my effort or my interest, but they gave me nothing useful at all

They tell me to look “it” up and then refuse to tell me what “it” is…

[blazing oar]

If they told me at the start “I don’t care what you think, it’s racist” then I wouldn’t have engaged them any further. Their behavior seems very troll-like, tbh.

[upper grove]

Best to let it go

[blazing oar]

Sure

[past panther]

yeah i will say i may have jumped the gun a bit on the judgment side - however, I think a discussion that demands definitions for every word being used and context for every statement is an exhausting exercise and honestly not one I'm interested in having

racism is a topic that no one here is going to agree 100% on, and nailing down a definition and elaborating on hypotheticals, edge cases, and context is not going to be particularly helpful imo

[past panther]

@blazing oar went to bed after my last message - i can DM you some articles if you're really interested but I have work so won't have too much time to engage this week

[torpid crown]

The Nation of Islam thinks white people were created by this mad scientist named yakub because he hated peace and prosperity

It’s actually really funny

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakub_(Nation_of_Islam)

He supposedly looked like this

[past panther]

my ancestor...