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Is this racist?

gumboot said:
How can someone possibly say something that is racist, if they aren't racist themselves? That makes no sense whatsoever.
Foolmewunz said:
Because no matter how hard we try, many of us have some racism in us. I've been caught out in using or believing stereotypes, myself and I'm a person who's dedicated most of my life to standing up for equality and fairness.
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Not to argumentum ad youtubium, but
Avenue Q - Everyone a little bit racist
 
Information Analyst said:
Well, it's an interesting distinction, isn't it?
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As we're talking about two unrelated concepts, I don't find the distinction all that interesting. What I find more interesting is your attempt to conflate the two. As has already been pointed out, numerous ethnicities wear cowboy hats both as work attire and fashion statement. There's no more ethnic nor negative sereotype associated with wearing a cowboy hat than there is a newsboy/cabbie cap. Merely wearing a cowboy hat is not the same as the phrase "just another smooth talker wearing pimp hats".

Information Analyst said:
Over on the Ohio Uni/Halloween costume poster thread, one school of thought has it that someone dressing up in a sombrero and a poncho is "racist," but if that's the case, then surely someone dressing up as stereotypical cowboy is also being racist? Would it be "racist" for someone to dress up as either at a British fancy dress party? What if the person there going for the sombrero/poncho was actually Spanish?
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I'll chalk this up to an unfamiliarity with Hispanic stereotypes in America. Ever hear of the Frito Bandito?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frito_Bandito
 
gumboot said:
Serious question...

Once a phrasing or term has become "racist", does it thus remain racist for all time?

Because it seems to me, one of the issues with this specific term might be a generational issue. There's been a couple of references to 70's media and its portrayal of black pimps in the USA.
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The Bill Mahar clip angrysoba linked to is from a few days ago. The two movie links I provided are from 1989. The "pimp" leitmotif has been around for decades.

Getting back to something you referred to earlier, were the results of your Google search a bunch of white college kids dressed up for "Pimps and Hoezs{sic}" balls? The've been the rage on some college campuses and are generally considered at least unconciously racist.

gumboot said:
To grab one example I'm intimately familar with, you'll often here New Zealanders of all racial persuasions talking to each other using "bro-talk" - what is essentially a parody of how Maori talk to each other, using phrases like "cuzzie", "bro", "chur", "sweet as", and so forth. Often this is done consciously or not, with an NZ Maori accent.
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That's been happening with blacks in America largely due to the influence of the media and hip hop. That said, an Asian saying "fo shizzle mah nizzle" or a white saying "what up {n-word variant} is quite different from them saying to their black friend, "that {n-word} took my seat".

I wonder of some of the embrace of Maori culture in NZ can be chalked up to the All Blacks.
 
UnrepentantSinner said:
I wonder of some of the embrace of Maori culture in NZ can be chalked up to the All Blacks.
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I don't think so. If anything the All Blacks have followed suit behind the rest of the country. Compare how the haka (I presume you are talking about the haka because that's really the only "maori" cultural aspect to the All Blacks) used to be performed even as recently as 20 years ago compared to today.

Most of the uptake of that particular cultural oddity can probably be traced to a New Zealand Maori comedian called Billy T. James who was hugely popular (amongst all New Zealanders) for his performances.



ETA. One thing worth noticing is that a lot of the time in his skits the antagonist is portrayed as British rather than a white New Zealander. This was during a time period when New Zealand was first cutting the apron strings and separating itself from the "motherland" (Britain). White New Zealanders watching this automatically associate with Billy T. James' character rather than the European characters in the skit. It's actually very cleverly done.
 
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On a serious note, tell me if this video is racist:



It's from the Boondocks cartoon.

I was watching it, and I was laughing the whole time because I get all the jokes in it, which play off of stereotypes, but not necessarily racism. The stereotypes in this vid being, that the rapper, doing the song Homies over Hoes is obviously making a lot of homosexual inuendos. And the young guy, Riley, who is watching it, is missing all the inuendos while the other guy is looking on with a skeptical attitude because he DOES see all the homosexual inuendos. And the way they are chest bumping all slow in the club, and the way he shakes the bottle of champagne lol .... and the way the girls are dressed as skankily as possible to show that the guys really have zero interest in them and then slap them around ... yes it plays off stereotypes. No I don't think anything in the vid is racist. If you get all the jokes, it might be hilarious to you. And Boondocks is a "cult classic" cartoon.

It's an example of how stereotypes can be funny, but not racist, in certain contexts.

To give "evidence" to this point, a group of us were watching this vid awhile back at work .... me (white), a couple of girls, two Hispanic guys, and two African-American guys. And I live in the city. We were all watching it, laughing hysterically.

To further illustrate the point ... I remember a few months ago we had hired this new guy from east Texas, small town, yada yada. One day we were working in the back, and one of the guys (Hispanic) was in my way, and I said, "b!!Tch get out the way !" and he turned around and said, "what are you gonna do about it b!!tch n!!gga ? " right up in my face. There was an African-American guy (who we worked with and were friends with) who was standing there and started laughing at us, and I told the guy who had reared up on me to back off, that I didn't want to get any of that Rio Grande smell on me. Everybody laughed at all of it ... except the new guy from East Texas. He had this horrified look on his face like we were all getting ready to get into a fight or something, and you could just see this look on his face like, "how are they NOT getting into a confrontation ? That's racist and there's a black guy here ! "

I realized when looking at him that we needed to watch ourselves around him, because he might view the way we talked as being racist. And in fact, a couple of days later, some Muslim women came into our store, wearing the full garb, and he began to make some seriously racist comments, to the point of where he refused to help the women out while they were in the store. Talking around him always made us all a bit uncomfortable, and we always kind of "watched our mouths" around him because we didn't want to encourage his racist attitudes.

So the point of all of this, is that a white person can be called a n!!gga, in front of a black person, a white person can make a stereotypical comment towards an Hispanic, and that Hispanic can use "black slang" racist words .... and none of it is racist. It's all just normal talk in some circles.

Now, would I take the Foolmewunz challenge and go down to the corner of Whatever and 145th avenue and yell out, "Sup *****! You look pimpin today !" to someone passing by? MAYBE ..... I wouldn't if I thought they would think I was being a punk a$$ b!!tch :). But if I "fit in" I might, and no one would take offense, if I did it in context, and I was already perceived as though I wasn't being a punk racist prick.

Context is everything, and what was racist yesterday, isn't today .... but it still can be in certain contexts of course. It can go both ways. And stereotypes can be offensive, or they can almost be endearing. "Busting balls" and all that.

I think what's interesting is that comedy is often the medium to help transition some of those words and ideas and phrases into neutral territory ...
 
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Foolmewunz said:
There is no single race (the root of "racism") of cowboys. There is no American race. If you can come up with a "dumb American" costume, I might consider your example, but a cowboy is a romantic image. People like to play cowboy. Kids all over the world grew up pretending to be John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. My Asian kid and his Asian schoolmates pretend, at the age of three, to be galloping on their horses and shooting off their fingers(pistols in Marcello World).
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I would suggest that the most frequent media portrayal of the cowboy is white European.
I don't know about growing up in London, but when we played cowboys or soldiers or war when I was a kid in my neighborhood in New Orleans, I can't recall anyone saying, "Oooh, I want to be the Mexican in the sombrero sitting against the wall taking a siesta." It is not a romantic image. It is not a flattering image. It is not even an accurate image. It was a Hollywood stereotype. It is limited to a particular people in a particular place. Add all that together and you get "racist".
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I didn't grow up in London, but I assume it was much like it was where I was up north - far more Second World War/Brits vs. Nazi. "Cowboys & Injuns" was very passe. Funnily enough, my British-born Chinese brother-in-law was always more interested in playing the Nazi role, ended up collecting the uniforms, and would even occasionally wear them for a laugh. Is that racist, since he's not white European, let alone actually German?

And why is any impersonation of a Mexican automatically deemed to be the sort of Mexican stereotype you think it is? It's a bit like suggesting that lederosen = German = Nazi = unacceptable. You don't get "lazy" with a Mexican fancy dress costume, nor a bit of wall to lean against. Add a couple of bullet belts, and you have either bandit or a revolutionary, but how is that different from someone dressing up as a comedy burglar with striped vest, face mask, and bag marked "swag"? People can see it how they want to see it.

Is a single one of those characters considered derogatory? If I came up to you at Harrod's and said, "You... you... Beefeater, you!" would we be calling our seconds and dueling at dawn. Those are historical characters or uniforms (even if fictitious).
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I wouldn't be seen dead in Harrod's, but I guess that's you assuming stereotypes yourself. Of course, the French even now call us "Rosbifs" which is a reference to eating beef, but do we care? Nope.
If someone came to a costume party as Speedy Gonzalez, I'd say, "Cute costume". If someone came to a costume party as Dennis Rodman or Desmond Tutu? Ditto and ditto. But if that same someone(s) came as "a" Mexican in the outfit under discussion, or "a" black guy all blinged out, or "a" sub-saharan African in tribal dress, then it's going to depend on one salient factor: Is said person Mexican or American Black or Black, respectively for the three costumes. If so, it could quite likely be a good parody - e.g. "This is what you think we are like, so I'm going to push it right up your nose." Anyone else in those costumes? Quite likely racist. "Hey hey, let's make fun of some minorities. It's a party. Don't be so sensitive, beaners!"
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I'm struggling to see how african tribal dress is inherently derogatory, but again it seems that you're saying that positive stereotypes are OK, but ones that some might deem negative are not depending on the race of the impersonator, which is hypocritical. You seem to suggest that it would be OK for a black person to dress up as a, "black guy all blinged out," but not for a white person to do the same. The problem there is that it's not unknown for whte guys to be "blinged out" in exactly the same way, so unless the impersonator has actually applied blackface (which I concede would be going too far), why assume they're doing anything more than mocking silly fashion choices?
No. I've given specific responses to your inappropriate analogies and I've shown where certain things are and are not racist. You keep muddying the waters with inapplicable analogies. "Cowboy!" is not an insult. Nor is "Beefeater!" Nor, for the past century, "Redcoat!"

You are trying to broaden the criteria but are not achieving the desired results. (I think you got off on the wrong foot with the cowboy analogy, frankly. That just falls aparat far too easily.)
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No, I think you're failing to grasp just how weak your case of selectively protective stereotyping is.
 
gumboot said:
One thing worth noticing is that a lot of the time in his skits the antagonist is portrayed as British rather than a white New Zealander. This was during a time period when New Zealand was first cutting the apron strings and separating itself from the "motherland" (Britain). White New Zealanders watching this automatically associate with Billy T. James' character rather than the European characters in the skit. It's actually very cleverly done.
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Although by the same token, most Brits would find it funny as well, because the officious and snobbish blazer-wearer is still a familiar archetype in British comedy. They wouldn't see him primarily as British, but more that sort of really annoying bloke you'd hate to have living next door.
 
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