Paula Deen Innocent?

[Formaldehyde]

Basing a joke on the actual race of someone is quite a failed joke to begin with, in my view. I don't mind such jokes since i view them as boring. I doubt most of them are actually sinister, but still it's a failed trope.

In an idealized society with no racism, they certainly shouldn't exist. And in Europe where racism is largely ignored, it is not even condoned in many countries. But we have freedom of speech here.

If you really don't understand why there is some racial backlash now that blacks do have prominent celebrities who don't have to pander to the desires of conservative whites in order to even be heard, you really don't understand how much of an issue racism continues to be in our society. Richard Pryor broke that barrier long ago.

"You work your butt off and somebody says you can't have your record played because it offends them. Tyrants are made of such stuff." Richard Pryor

"It's been a struggle for me because I had a chance to be white and refused." Richard Pryor

"What I am for is justice for everyone, just like it says in the Constitution." Richard Pryor

you ever see the uncut version of Blazing Saddles?

He can't very well complain about a movie produced and directed by a white.

 

[Kyriakos]

I am of the view that any minority group (black people being the one central in this particular thread) is not really going to better its position by counter-attacking old or new negativity towards it presented (or supposedly existing) by other groups. Sure i can see the point of view that a black person in the USA is more likely to face more problems, mostly due to the economic situation of a majority of the black people (along with other racial groups, including white people by now in the US) but what exactly will help this person if he signs on to a never-ending accusation of shadowy white figures? In my view it won't help him at all.

I was a foreigner when i lived in London, despite having been there for 3 years and so being eligible to ask for permanent citizenship. Sometimes one has to accept that we all have problems, no matter what. Unless there is reason to suspect a very direct influence of another group to someone's plight, i don't think it will help at all to focus on this kind of thinking.

 

[Farm Boy]

How many blacks feel superior to whites? How many of them discriminate against white employees? How many blacks racially profile white teens who walk or drive through their neighborhoods on the basis that they are likely criminals?

I don't know that Formy. Probably less than whites for sheer force of numbers if anything. But that's actually a vexing question. I forget what thread we were talking about in but didn't I, when pestered, go out and acquire the collected rate data on perpetrators of hate crimes? I think it put blacks as significantly more likely to be a perpetrator of a hate crime per capita than a white person was. Now, you could cut that a bunch of ways - maybe that enforcement is unequal just like it is with pot, or that because of the raw demographic difference again and the perhaps human tendency to return racism when it's been received but... I don't know that I would really want to go down this particular quoted line of questioning with any more stars in my eyes about the egalitarianism of blacks than I would about whites, or hispanics, or whatever.

 

[Formaldehyde]

The reason for that is quite obvious. Racially profiling blacks isn't considered to be a "hate crime". In fact, many "law and order" right-wing authoritarians think it is "common sense". It isn't a "hate crime" until people negatively react to incessantly being discriminated against and even persecuted.

 

[Farm Boy]

I think that's pretty much exactly what I was trying to convey with the bit about people returning racism that they've received. And I think it does happen. Both the result and the institutional structure that gives rise to it are problems. But it does, I think, have some telling insight as to:

How many blacks feel superior to whites? How many of them discriminate against white employees? How many blacks racially profile white teens who walk or drive through their neighborhoods on the basis that they are likely criminals?

Somebody being less safe from harm because they might be victimized criminally on the basis of their skin is horrible no matter what way you cut it, and it's not a one sided issue. Living in Tinley Park sucked bad. It was a nice, white, rich little suburb. But everything in it was priced way outside of my income bracket. If Aldi(thank goodness for Aldi) was closed and my wife needed to shop it stunk pretty hard that anything within an hour round-trip in the car that was priced at our level(thus defeating the purpose of trying to shop within our budget) was basically no-go for her. I went myself a couple times and ran into coworkers also out and about that were very irate with me for being there saying I needed to leave and wanted to make sure I had an "escort" to leave safely. No, I don't think we can put a presumption of innocence from racism on anyone these days. Or in any days past, really. Maybe in some future day in my pipe dreams.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I am both amazed at how much progress we have made since I was child when I heard the "N" word every day, and dismayed that we still have so far to go.

 

[Farm Boy]

Indeed.

 

[Zelig]

She's still guilty of the bad food and diabetes thing.

 

[Leonel]

Frankly I'm just amazed she actually has a cooking show. If I had known I could get a cooking show and million dollar deals by putting bits of food on stacks of butter, I would have jumped on that bandwagon ages ago!