Can a typeface be racist?

[JollyRoger]

This is the same kind of PC garbage as people claiming a thrown roll of tape equals fascism.

 

[BvBPL]

So as long as one uses PC-words it's OK to deliberately offend people, but if one says something without any intention of offending but uses some word that someone somewhere finds offensive that person should be reprehended.

Your inference is without merit.

It's freakin' obvious that the only thing that matters is intention.

That statement is absurd. It is the responsibility of the party initiating communication to ensure that his message is conveyed in the manner he intends and that the recipient understands it to mean what the speaker intended. If you need to communicate with someone who does not speak your language then the onus is on you to communicate your ideas in manner that will be understood by the other party; the other party cannot be held responsible for his inability to understand you. Similarly, if you draft a letter on a business matter and your ideas are rejected because you wrote the letter in a casual, rather than formal, manner then it is on your head if that letter is ignored for that reason.

If you want to communicate with someone in a manner that does not offend them then you are responsible for not causing offense. The listener is the passive recipient of your communication and cannot be held accountable for being offended by you. The listener is not at fault for being offended, you are at fault for offending him.

 

[warpus]

Guys, the truth, as usual, lies somewhere in the middle.

 

[gangleri2001]

As someone familiar with actual Chinese characters I must say that the typeface Chop Suey doesn't even look remotely Chinese or eastern Asian. In fact, it's totally alien to a Chinese guy. Gotta wonder what was its creator inspiration.

That said, it seems really weird for the complaint to come from a guy who's column is itself a bad pun at the expense of a Chinese system of spirituality. "Tao Jones?" Really?

Because Tao can only refer to taoism, right?

 

[luiz]

Your inference is without merit.

Nope, if form is important but not intention that's the conclusion.

That statement is absurd. It is the responsibility of the party initiating communication to ensure that his message is conveyed in the manner he intends and that the recipient understands it to mean what the speaker intended. If you need to communicate with someone who does not speak your language then the onus is on you to communicate your ideas in manner that will be understood by the other party; the other party cannot be held responsible for his inability to understand you. Similarly, if you draft a letter on a business matter and your ideas are rejected because you wrote the letter in a casual, rather than formal, manner then it is on your head if that letter is ignored for that reason.

If you want to communicate with someone in a manner that does not offend them then you are responsible for not causing offense. The listener is the passive recipient of your communication and cannot be held accountable for being offended by you. The listener is not at fault for being offended, you are at fault for offending him.

And of course that's complete garbage.
Nobody is forced to know what can offend anyone. Maybe I'm offended by your argument, but that's not your fault, how would you know?

A conversation (or a contract for that matter) is a two-way street. If the listener understands that there is no intention to offend, regardless of the form used, it's his choice to be offended.

Your (rather silly) mistake is the assumption that some things are objectively offensive. They aren't. Nothing is offensive outside of context, and anything can be offensive in context. So the only thing we can do is judge the intention behind what is being said.

 

[Mise]

I basically agree with what BvBPL said, but would add that intent is important in determining if the speaker is a racist, or if he is "merely" saying racially offensive things. However, this distinction is far too subtle for a lot of people in this thread to understand.

To be clear, "intent" is completely irrelevant in determining whether something is offensive or not. If I start a sentence with "no offence, but...", or "I'm not being racist, but...", you can guarantee that what I'm about to say is offensive and/or racist, irrespective of my pleadings otherwise. Not intending offence or not intending racism absolutely does not make you immune somehow to accusations of offensiveness or racism. Anyone saying otherwise is stupid and wrong. No offence intended, of course.

 

[Farm Boy]

The trick comes in when you recognize that some people have over active pain-bodies. Taking and finding offense becomes self rewarding and self reinforcing. There simply isn't a way, except through lack of communication, to avoid offending such individuals. Well, even lack of communication can be construed as offensive sometimes. Maybe there simply isn't a way at all.

When you have to go through state mandated sensitivity training(for everyone, I didn't do anything special ) and listen and nod to stories about how offensive groundskeepers are when they idle a dangerous weedeater to watch female pedestrians walk by in close proximity to where they are working you start to understand some people are just looking for trouble wherever they can find it.

 

[NickyJ]

This font is racist against Western countries!

 

[Mise]

The trick comes in when you recognize that some people have over active pain-bodies. Taking and finding offense becomes self rewarding and self reinforcing. There simply isn't a way, except through lack of communication, to avoid offending such individuals. Well, even lack of communication can be construed as offensive sometimes. Maybe there simply isn't a way at all.

When you have to go through state mandated sensitivity training(for everyone, I didn't do anything special ) and listen and nod to stories about how offensive groundskeepers are when they idle a dangerous weedeater to watch female pedestrians walk by in close proximity to where they are working you start to understand some people are just looking for trouble wherever they can find it.

I don't really think this describes the vast majority of people. In other words, for the sake of a tiny minority of people who, by your description, have psychological issues that are best handled by trained professionals, we shouldn't just wholesale abandon the policy of trying to minimise the amount of offence we cause to other people. You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater: because it is pretty much impossible to go your entire life without offending someone, we shouldn't even try to not offend people at all. Instead, we should do away with considering how other people might react to what we're saying, and only focus on our intent: Intent is the only thing that matters, in this new logic that luiz is creating.

But that's clearly nonsense. Sometimes, you say something that you think is completely innocuous but hurt your friends' feelings, without ever intending to cause any hurt at all. You don't realise that they will react like that, so there's little you can do to avoid it. But you still apologise for it afterwards, and try to censor yourself in the future so that you don't cause offence again. Otherwise, people rightly call you a dick. Or maybe they don't call you a dick to your face; that would be offensive. But it's clear that a better person would apologise for the offence caused, and endeavour not to cause offence again. It's just being a decent human being.

Regardless of luiz's protestations, it clearly matters who is listening to you. If I go around telling rape jokes, chances are I'm eventually going to tell one to someone who was raped as a child or something, and it triggers the horrific memory of that rape for them. This is clearly a bad thing, and I would never wish for anyone to relive the devastating memory of their rape for the sake of my cheap joke. So we don't make rape jokes. Never ever. Unless you're immature and you don't really understand why you shouldn't make rape jokes, of course*. Yeah, I know, you probably enjoy the odd rape joke, just like I enjoy the odd racist or sexist joke or whatever. But boo hoo, I can't make rape jokes or racist jokes or sexist jokes any more, big deal, who gives a crap? I'm not going to cause harm or offence to others for the sake of my own enjoyment, and I'm not going to go around asking people whether they've been raped before I tell my dumb little joke. There are plenty of funny jokes I can tell that don't involve rape, so it's not the end of humour as we know it. I can be funny without being a complete arsehole, and that certainly seems preferable in any case.

The situation here is similar, though clearly not as extreme. The font being used might be offensive to some people. And you have no way of filtering out those people -- indeed, in this case, they might well represent a significant proportion of your target market. So why needlessly cause offence to them? Yeah, I know, you probably enjoy using the "Chop Suey" font. But boo hoo, I can't use that font any more, big deal, who gives a crap? It apparently causes offence to other people, and really whatever pleasure I derive from that using or seeing that font being used is insignificant compared to the offence it causes. So I remove the font from my website and try not to offend anyone again.

Which is exactly what the company did, btw. They removed the font from their website and carried on with life. I don't see why anyone is getting worked up over that. Is there some inalienable right to using the "Chop Suey" font on your advertising? What's wrong with the company's response to this? And Adidas's response, too? I don't understand why people are getting so worked up over it.


*-there are other reasons, such as "normalising" rape - rape being increasingly seen as a joke is not a good thing. But for the sake of discussion, we'll stick with this particular reason.

 

[woody60707]

Not even the author of the WSJ article called it racist. He did that journobabble thing where he "asked the question" 'is this racist?' in the title, but didn't actually say it was racist himself. He said that it was cringeworthy and extremely stereotypical, and pondered whether racism will ever disappear as long as stereotypes like this continue to "dehumanise" certain peoples.

"Is your font racist?" is clearly an attention grabbing headline.

So he Glen Becked it.

 

[Traitorfish]

You could probably dig up quite a lot of anti-Russian sentiment during the Cold War times, especially since the Soviet Union was often referred to as "Russia". See also the cartoon characters Boris Badenoff, Natasha Fatale, and, of course, Larry Wolff's Inventing Eastern Europe.

That was hardly racial in character, though, and while it applied to East Germans as much as to Poles or Russians, it did not apply to Polish-Americans or Russian-Americans. If anything, the difference posed was an Atlantic one, the Soviet Bloc becoming the new incarnation of European tyranny to follow Hanoverian Britain, Bourbon France, Hohenzollern Germany and the Third Reich, and Western Europe an Easterly outpost of American democracy.

 

[luiz]

I basically agree with what BvBPL said, but would add that intent is important in determining if the speaker is a racist, or if he is "merely" saying racially offensive things. However, this distinction is far too subtle for a lot of people in this thread to understand.

To be clear, "intent" is completely irrelevant in determining whether something is offensive or not. If I start a sentence with "no offence, but...", or "I'm not being racist, but...", you can guarantee that what I'm about to say is offensive and/or racist, irrespective of my pleadings otherwise. Not intending offence or not intending racism absolutely does not make you immune somehow to accusations of offensiveness or racism. Anyone saying otherwise is stupid and wrong. No offence intended, of course.

Intent is of course the only thing that matters, and it's mind-bogglingly stupid to say otherwise. It's not about saying "No offense intended but..." or "I'm not racist but...", it's about judging what was said by what was meant, not by our own biases.

For instance, the word "criollo" in Spanish America usually means something local to the country. In Brazil the word "crioulo", which has the same origin and sounds just like the spanish counterpart, came to be an ugly racial slur, the same as the "n-word" in the US. So once a recently arrived peruvian student from college invited a bunch of friends to his house and announced he would prepare a "criollo dish". Some of the people invited were black. Were they offended by the use of such a racially-charged word? Of course not, because they aren't morons and realized the peruvian guy meant no offense, he was simply using the word as it is used in his country.

Not intending offense and not intending racism should absolutely make someone immune from accusations of racism. Words are just conventions and in themselves are completely harmless. I thought this was a tautology but apparently it's a contentious matter with the PC Gestapo.

 

[Save_Ferris]

Racism is everywhere. Notice how the newspapers always print in black when they're reporting on crimes.

 

[Mise]

Intent is of course the only thing that matters, and it's mind-bogglingly stupid to say otherwise. It's not about saying "No offense intended but..." or "I'm not racist but...", it's about judging what was said by what was meant, not by our own biases.

For instance, the word "criollo" in Spanish America usually means something local to the country. In Brazil the word "crioulo", which has the same origin and sounds just like the spanish counterpart, came to be an ugly racial slur, the same as the "n-word" in the US. So once a recently arrived peruvian student from college invited a bunch of friends to his house and announced he would prepare a "criollo dish". Some of the people invited were black. Were they offended by the use of such a racially-charged word? Of course not, because they aren't morons and realized the peruvian guy meant no offense, he was simply using the word as it is used in his country.

Not intending offense and not intending racism should absolutely make someone immune from accusations of racism. Words are just conventions and in themselves are completely harmless. I thought this was a tautology but apparently it's a contentious matter with the PC Gestapo.

No offence intended here luiz - sincerely, what I am about to say is not intended to offend you, rather, I only wish to state my opinion - but this is the most immature thing you have ever posted. You're an ultra-privileged, spoilt, poor-little-rich-kid knowitall, who complains about the most mundane things that your government does incessantly, yet spectacularly fails to see the irony of your posts in this very thread. All of this coming from a guy who once argued vehemently (and hilariously) that throwing a roll of tape was a sign of fascism coming to Brazil is really the icing on the cake. Threads like this are a constant reminder of why I can never take you seriously.

Feel free to judge whether I truly intended to offend you or not. But know that I absolutely did not intend any offence, and think that you would be hypersensitive to treat it as an offensive post. I'm just stating my opinion; feel free to call the mods AKA THOUGHT POLICE if you wish.

 

[Traitorfish]

Intent is of course the only thing that matters, and it's mind-bogglingly stupid to say otherwise.

Taken at face value, this would seem to suggest that it is wholly unnecessary to contemplate the possible consequences of ones actions, as long as your preferred consequences are good. We might say that, for example, a drunk-driver rarely intends to smear somebody across the pavement, so it's unreasonable to criticise somebody for drunk driving.

 

[Farm Boy]

I don't really think this describes the vast majority of people. In other words, for the sake of a tiny minority of people who, by your description, have psychological issues that are best handled by trained professionals, we shouldn't just wholesale abandon the policy of trying to minimise the amount of offence we cause to other people. You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater: because it is pretty much impossible to go your entire life without offending someone, we shouldn't even try to not offend people at all. Instead, we should do away with considering how other people might react to what we're saying, and only focus on our intent: Intent is the only thing that matters, in this new logic that luiz is creating.

But that's clearly nonsense.

I'm actually not saying we should try not to offend. My baby is firmly in his little shower chair and the temperature is luke-warm. I believe I am reading luiz differently than you and I think that difference lies in context.

There are a tiny majority of people, as you put it, that are going to find something wrong with everything. There is a larger minority of people that find offense in minor things erratically. There are more people yet who are offended only rarely. The problem lies with mass communication and advertising. There is no way at all you are going to come out with messaging that everyone is going to like. Recognizing that "pleasing all of the people all of the time" is an unrealistic goal, which is I believe the intent here, is not nonsense. There is legitimate discussion to be had in attempting to draw the line between when something is widely offensive and needs correcting and when instead we should recognize that the offended person should probably be referred to counseling instead of buttressed.

Communication's burden lies most heavily on the sender, but indeed, it's never wholly a one-way street. To assert that earnestly is to be forever trapped, again without context, in a 200 level Communication Studies textbook.

 

[Mise]

I'm actually not saying we should try not to offend. My baby is firmly in his little shower chair and the temperature is luke-warm. I believe I am reading luiz differently than you and I think that difference lies in context.

There are a tiny majority of people, as you put it, that are going to find something wrong with everything. There is a larger minority of people that find offense in minor things erratically. There are more people yet who are offended only rarely. The problem lies with mass communication and advertising. There is no way at all you are going to come out with messaging that everyone is going to like. Recognizing that "pleasing all of the people all of the time" is an unrealistic goal, which is I believe the intent here, is not nonsense. There is legitimate discussion to be had in attempting to draw the line between when something is widely offensive and needs correcting and when instead we should recognize that the offended person should probably be referred to counseling instead of buttressed.

Communication's burden lies most heavily on the sender, but indeed, it's never wholly a one-way street. To assert that earnestly is to be forever trapped, again without context, in a 200 level Communication Studies textbook.

Well in that case I misinterpreted your post - I think we basically agree. Boo hoo, no more "Chop Suey" font, company removes font from website, everybody gets on with their lives. The best outcome, right? I don't think anyone will mourn the loss of that font, least of all the people involved here.

 

[luiz]

No offence intended here luiz - sincerely, what I am about to say is not intended to offend you, rather, I only wish to state my opinion - but this is the most immature thing you have ever posted. You're an ultra-privileged, spoilt, poor-little-rich-kid knowitall, who complains about the most mundane things that your government does incessantly, yet spectacularly fails to see the irony of your posts in this very thread. All of this coming from a guy who once argued vehemently (and hilariously) that throwing a roll of tape was a sign of fascism coming to Brazil is really the icing on the cake. Threads like this are a constant reminder of why I can never take you seriously.

Feel free to judge whether I truly intended to offend you or not. But know that I absolutely did not intend any offence, and think that you would be hypersensitive to treat it as an offensive post. I'm just stating my opinion; feel free to call the mods AKA THOUGHT POLICE if you wish.

Well you didn't really address anything I wrote at all, only said it was stupid and gave your overall opinion of me. That indicates that I am right and you are wrong.

I think the example I gave is quite clear on why words themselves are irrelevant and can only offend depending on context. Theoretically offensive words (as in my example) can be absolutely harmless and entirely PC words can be used to write a terribly racist argument. Again, I would think this is as self-evident as it gets, but PC stupidity has no limits.

As for me "complaining about the most mundane things my government does", I'd ask for a single example of me complaining unreasonably. You won't find it. And of course anyone who read the "roll of tape" thread knows the incident was quite serious, especially because of its ramifications, and that is how it was treated by mainstream Brazilian media. But that is clearly besides the point.

I think your post was an example of the opposite of what I was trying to say.

Taken at face value, this would seem to suggest that it is wholly unnecessary to contemplate the possible consequences of ones actions, as long as your preferred consequences are good. We might say that, for example, a drunk-driver rarely intends to smear somebody across the pavement, so it's unreasonable to criticise somebody for drunk driving.

There are two big differences here:
-The drunk driver knows his actions might lead to death of others.
-In the cases where there are damages done, there are damages done (yeah).

If you say something without any intent to offend, there is no damage done unless someone else decides to.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, I think I took long enough to write my last post that I missed the deep-ending exchange that immediately preceded it.

Yes, we probably do agree on the major points here. I think we draw the line slightly differently. Neither of us much cares about Chop Suey, but I think anyone that actually took real offense to it needs counseling. Like others pointed out, its a kitschy font with a tounge-in-cheeck name stylized to resemble what could pass to the unfamiliar for the brushstrokes of a CJKV language. There's no implication of social inferiority or that slanty-eyes can't see straight or whatever the heck racism vs an Asian would look like these days. I think rape analogies are a bit out of left-field.

Does that make more sense?

 

[Traitorfish]

There are two big differences here:
-The drunk driver knows his actions might lead to death of others.

Well, that's rather the point, isn't it: that we have a responsibility to inform ourselves about the possible consequence of our actions, rather than simply blundering along on a string of good intentions. The absence of intent to harm is not an excuse for being reckless, pig-ignorant, or self-centred.