Racism is contextual

[phiwum]

When I try to think of examples, the only one I can think of are the handful of tards who complained about the Star Wars character Finn being black, upsetting their ideal of all Star Wars clones being white.

Can you cite some other examples?

Okay, I stopped paying attention to Star Wars for a while now, so I haven't thought about this before. But aren't all the clones from a single genetic line? I kinda get the "tards'" point.

Not that it matters much in terms of the story, of course, but if they are clones, shouldn't they look pretty similar?

 

[Mycroft]

I take your point, but this sort of reasoning leads to some conclusions that many people balk at.

Let's say that a real estate developer (let's call him DT, for reasons that should be obvious) recognizes that a large percentage of the residents he wants to attract would not like to live next to black folk. As a result, he purposely turns down the offers of black folk. He is charged with violating the Equal Opportunity Housing Act (or whatever it's called).

Is he racist? Not necessarily. He might just be trying to maximize his profit though he has no personal prejudices. Yet, folks use this as evidence of racism.

Now, our fine President DT provides many other bits of evidence of racism, but if the only evidence we had was his selling (or leasing? can't recall) discrimination, we might conclude he's a greedy son of a bitch, but not necessarily a racist.

I actually think this conclusion is reasonable, but I'd wager I'm in the minority.

Choosing not to rent/sell to black people because they might drop the property value is racist even if it's not motivated by hatred for the race. It's the acceptance and perpetuation of the system that's racist.

Imagine saying, "I know I pay my female employees 65 cents on the dollar for what I pay my male employees. I don't do it because because I don't like women. I love women. I do it because I can and it saves me money."

It's still sexist.

 

[Mycroft]

Okay, I stopped paying attention to Star Wars for a while now, so I haven't thought about this before. But aren't all the clones from a single genetic line? I kinda get the "tards'" point.

Not that it matters much in terms of the story, of course, but if they are clones, shouldn't they look pretty similar?

I don't recall it ever being said that all the clones were from the same line.

 

[Mumbles]

Choosing not to rent/sell to black people because they might drop the property value is racist even if it's not motivated by hatred for the race. It's the acceptance and perpetuation of the system that's racist.

Imagine saying, "I know I pay my female employees 65 cents on the dollar for what I pay my male employees. I don't do it because because I don't like women. I love women. I do it because I can and it saves me money."

It's still sexist.

It's basically the "you don't know what's truly in his heart counterargument. The point is true, and irrelevant. George Wallace claimed that he only shrieked about black people because it won him votes - and to the people being harmed, there's no difference at all.

As to the OP: Yes, context matters.

 

[Cain]

Overheard a guy once say: "Black chicks are loud and slutty."

Later I found out he said that because he's racist.

 

[dann]

In and of itself there is nothing racist about a "white savior" movie. The racism is that the "white savior" narrative is told and repeated to the exclusion of other narratives.

While we're still waiting for that William Tillman movie. You can't even find him on Wikipedia!

 

[Information Analyst]

Do they? Does the right tell us that black people, for instance, need to identify with the skin colour of characters in movies? I've never heard that argument from them. I've heard from them that casting minorities was always a far-left political decision, though.

Really? Even in the UK, with a smaller non-white population, calls from the latter for greater representation on screen is pretty much a constant.

 

[Information Analyst]

When I try to think of examples, the only one I can think of are the handful of tards who complained about the Star Wars character Finn being black, upsetting their ideal of all Star Wars clones being white.

Can you cite some other examples?

Wasn't there some kerfuffle over some of the casting in The Hunger Games?

Of course, with Star Wars there's the counter- - or rather non- - reaction to Samuel L Jackson in The Trilogy That Shall Not Be Mentioned. I don't recall any negativity over that. Have things become more polarised more recently?

The clone argument doesn't really work, given that the clones of TTTSNBM were replaced by volunteers and conscripts later in the timeline. Given that, there's no reason for Finn to be white, and it's not like we'd previously seen many (or any?!) Stormtroopers without their helmets to establish anything.

 

[Darat]

Wasn't there some kerfuffle over some of the casting in The Hunger Games?

Of course, with Star Wars there's the counter- - or rather non- - reaction to Samuel L Jackson in The Trilogy That Shall Not Be Mentioned. I don't recall any negativity over that. Have things become more polarised more recently?

The clone argument doesn't really work, given that the clones of TTTSNBM were replaced by volunteers and conscripts later in the timeline. Given that, there's no reason for Finn to be white, and it's not like we'd previously seen many (or any?!) Stormtroopers without their helmets to establish anything.

The movies make it quite clear that apart from a few more senior leaders Stormtroopers are white!

 

[Information Analyst]

I take your point, but this sort of reasoning leads to some conclusions that many people balk at.

Let's say that a real estate developer (let's call him DT, for reasons that should be obvious) recognizes that a large percentage of the residents he wants to attract would not like to live next to black folk. As a result, he purposely turns down the offers of black folk. He is charged with violating the Equal Opportunity Housing Act (or whatever it's called).

Is he racist? Not necessarily. He might just be trying to maximize his profit though he has no personal prejudices. Yet, folks use this as evidence of racism.

Now, our fine President DT provides many other bits of evidence of racism, but if the only evidence we had was his selling (or leasing? can't recall) discrimination, we might conclude he's a greedy son of a bitch, but not necessarily a racist.

I actually think this conclusion is reasonable, but I'd wager I'm in the minority.

Isn't that just racism by proxy? "I'm not racist, but people I don't want to upset are."

 

[Matthew Best]

Romesh Ranganathan tells a joke in which he says that sometimes an absence of racism is even worse than racism. (He is, I hope you can tell, an "Asian" comic.)

It seems he was driving his car and accidentally drove into the back of someone else's vehicle. It was entirely his fault and he felt terrible. Then the other driver got out of his car fuming mad, came over to Ranganathan and shouted at him: "What on earth do you think you were doing, you fat bastard?"

 

[Information Analyst]

The movies make it quite clear that apart from a few more senior leaders Stormtroopers are white!

You'll have to remind me where they do that. There's certainly nothing in the Original Trilogy that does that, and obviously the New Trilogy takes place after it.

Oh... You mean the uniforms...

 

[phiwum]

Choosing not to rent/sell to black people because they might drop the property value is racist even if it's not motivated by hatred for the race. It's the acceptance and perpetuation of the system that's racist.

Imagine saying, "I know I pay my female employees 65 cents on the dollar for what I pay my male employees. I don't do it because because I don't like women. I love women. I do it because I can and it saves me money."

It's still sexist.

(a) These visitors want to see black dancers in the African performance, so I will only hire black dancers.

(b) Most of my potential market does not want to live near black people, so I won't rent near black people.

In terms of harm done, there is no contest, of course. (b) is far worse than (a), which produces negligible harm about reinforcing stereotypes.

In terms of motive, the two are more or less the same. I take it that the motive is essential in determining whether an act is racist or not, because racism has to do with one's attitudes towards races. Both (a) and (b) are obviously discriminatory (and (b) very harmfully so), but I'm not sure I'd call them racist.

But I take your point with the gender-based pay difference. It does seem natural to call that sexist. I don't have a good response to that yet.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Racism is not contextual. Racism is prejudice/discrimination against a group of people, based on their race. The example you gave is simply not a case of racism.

A movie director who's casting actors for a role in which character is supposed to be black, is obviously only going to interview black actors. That's not racism, because in that situation, the race of the person is an essential detail that's required for the role. It's not the only one, though, which is why not any black actor will be competent for the role. They probably need to have other traits, such as being a good actor, having a good resume, etc. Same thing if you're looking for actors with a lot of muscles because you're looking for the lead for a movie about Hercules. A person complaining that they were discriminated against in any xenophobic sense because they have no muscles, would be flat out wrong.

And of course hiring someone whose race is not specified it always defaults to white because white is the default nothing racist about that either.

 

[ponderingturtle]

In and of itself there is nothing racist about a "white savior" movie. The racism is that the "white savior" narrative is told and repeated to the exclusion of other narratives.

Nonsense that is just what sells, a totally non-racist business decision. In the entertainment industry you can always fob the racism off on someone else.

 

[phiwum]

I don't recall it ever being said that all the clones were from the same line.

Oh. I thought they were from the same line, Boba Fett's daddy or something.

In fact, that's what Wookiepedia says.

Bred from the genetic template of the bounty hunter Jango Fett, clone troopers represented the latest evolution in galactic warfare at the time, largely due to their superiority over battle droids.

No idea if that's canon, but I'm just guessing that folks contributing to a Star Wars wiki are a little anal about things like that.

If you're right, and there's more than one genetic line, then a clone can look like anyone. If they're all descended from Jango, then seems to me they should all look very much like Jango.

Again, not that it's essential to the story.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Maybe I have a warped mind, but your context doesn't particularly make it less racist.

1 seems to be some niave thinking that a lot of South Africans aren't white

2 seems to be some weird conclusion that corporates some how need to see only black people

3 is irrelevant

No see the goal here is to fob the racism off on the expectations of the generalized african audience. Like refusing to cast blacks in lead roles because the audience expects whites in it. Some thing.

 

[phiwum]

The clone argument doesn't really work, given that the clones of TTTSNBM were replaced by volunteers and conscripts later in the timeline. Given that, there's no reason for Finn to be white, and it's not like we'd previously seen many (or any?!) Stormtroopers without their helmets to establish anything.

Okay, if there's no reason to think that Finn was a clone, then who the heck cares about the casting of Finn?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Okay, I stopped paying attention to Star Wars for a while now, so I haven't thought about this before. But aren't all the clones from a single genetic line? I kinda get the "tards'" point.

Not that it matters much in terms of the story, of course, but if they are clones, shouldn't they look pretty similar?

The argument is that only clone wars era stormtroopers are clones. The first order makes a point of arguing for going back to clones.

 

[phiwum]

Isn't that just racism by proxy? "I'm not racist, but people I don't want to upset are."

It's certainly kowtowing to racists for the sake of profits, a bad thing to do by anyone's standard.