NerdLounge
Would you like to react to this message? Create an account in a few clicks or log in to continue.

[Rant/Vent] Our Entertainment Makes Us Worthless? [Long-winded]

4 posters

Go down

[Rant/Vent] Our Entertainment Makes Us Worthless? [Long-winded] Empty [Rant/Vent] Our Entertainment Makes Us Worthless? [Long-winded]

Post by caliseivy Sat Mar 07, 2015 12:02 pm

(I thought this was the best place to put this. Sorry if it isn't)

Trigger Warning: racist language, discussion of lynching.

This happened yesterday, and I've been on and off fuming about it. I couldn't confront the person who said it because I have trouble challenging people on topics where I know it's going to become a long-winded argument, the person isn't going to change their mind, and I'm likely to endure more insult and offense than I've already faced. I don't think I have anyone to really vent coherently at and I need to let go of it because it's draining me.

A friend shared an image (I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, and this isn't really about him, but about the original creator of the image). The image was one of those you might see pre-civil rights era with happy Negroes as imagined by racist White people with a caption about watching that Fox show Empire. I see posts like this quite often on my Facebook shared by other people I know where the creator is saying something about Blacks being sheep or stupid or needing to "wake up" or many other versions of the "present day Blacks fell from high status and are terrible and embarrassing" message.

I responded on my friend's post that it's pretty harsh to say about people for liking a TV show (and it's always only about Blacks liking shows with an all Black cast). A friend of his came in and we had a reasonable discussion about it and he confessed also liking Scandal (it seems to be a huge show for everyone but me). He said his piece, I explained I was just tired of seeing so many insulting posts about Black people throughout the week and just felt like mentioning it. We ended okay.

The creator steps in with a whole rant about how Black people are easily entertained and valueless [paraphrasing by me] because they enjoy shows like these. Then he brings up Hallie Berry's award for a sex scene and Denzel Washington's award for playing a drug dealer. I don't remember everything he said, but he insisted people who watch those shows are all coons and coons deserve to be lynched, called us all idiots and coons, and ended with "good day." I know he's not a troll because I've seen this behavior enough times to recognize it as a set of beliefs.

It bothered me because I see people like this and their opinions in so many places so often (the deserving of lynching/abuse is a new one though) and I get so tired of it. I think I might actively hate people like this: the enlightened/aware/awakened Black person who feels they're so above all the other Black-Americans because they don't watch TV or do/don't do certain things that all those other Blacks do and it makes them a better person and more valuable than the others. They preach about how terrible [certain Black things] are and the new forms of slavery, and in the same breath insult and put down everyone else they deem isn't on their level, usually for taking part in any of these things or not agreeing with the person. The term "militant" comes to mind, but when I think of militant I think of someone actively and forcefully fighting for change, and this person doesn't appear to be trying to improve anything.

When I was younger I tried to distance myself from Black people because I was an outcast due to my interests and I believed all the messages about Blacks and success, but I've never held such absolute disdain, and as I've gotten older and began thinking for myself I understand how that outlook on Blacks is wrong and inaccurate.

He offended me by calling me a coon (which I've seen thrown around so much in the past two years I had to look up for an exact definition), but he really got under my skin with his pretentiousness and ego.

I think I'm done. Thanks for reading if you did. Thanks to the mods for a space to put this.
caliseivy
caliseivy

Posts : 302
Reputation : 87
Join date : 2014-10-03

Back to top Go down

[Rant/Vent] Our Entertainment Makes Us Worthless? [Long-winded] Empty Re: [Rant/Vent] Our Entertainment Makes Us Worthless? [Long-winded]

Post by nearly_takuan Sat Mar 07, 2015 1:16 pm

So sorry you had to deal with that. Sad

I used to think of myself as somehow above many of my peers in rural Hawai'i because I insisted on using Mainland American English and never spoke in the local pidgin dialect, instead of the other way around.

That stopped when I was around 12 and had met enough people and seen enough of the Mainland to figure out that the stereotypes about us low-tech backward lazy brutes weren't true at all and had mostly come from my white grandmother and possibly some entertainment media I had consumed that had xenophobic/racist attitudes in it.

But by then it was kind of too late for me to learn a new human language solely by osmosis. To this day I kind of regret that I missed that piece of what I've grown to think of as my home culture.

But like you, I don't think I ever held such prejudices so strongly. In my case, I think I did truly internalize some of those beliefs, but a lot was also just "I don't want to be seen as being like them". And I've gotten at least a little softer and a little more enlightened over the years! Razz

On the other hand, I've never directly experienced a situation like the one you just described; within any given sample of entertainment, my favorite characters tend to be the Asians, especially if they are specifically Japanese and/or islanders. It's just part of how I relate to a story, but the only one who seems to consistently second-guess that choice is me, and I actively fight that. (Admittedly, I also don't go talking a whole lot about whom my favorite characters are from this or that show, especially with strangers, and all the all-Asian media I've ever consumed came directly from an Asian country anyway, so judgments about the viewership in public discourse trend toward anti-"weeaboo" sentiments instead of anything really directed at me. Haven't seen FotB and have avoided most of the hubbub but on that one it seems like mostly concern trolling which is old news.)

I don't know what it will take for people like that to stop being like that. I wish it would hurry up and happen, though.
nearly_takuan
nearly_takuan

Posts : 1071
Reputation : 461
Join date : 2014-10-01

Back to top Go down

[Rant/Vent] Our Entertainment Makes Us Worthless? [Long-winded] Empty Re: [Rant/Vent] Our Entertainment Makes Us Worthless? [Long-winded]

Post by Enail Sat Mar 07, 2015 1:29 pm

What the?! Ugh, sorry you had to deal with that.
Enail
Enail
Admin

Posts : 4853
Reputation : 2868
Join date : 2014-09-22

Back to top Go down

[Rant/Vent] Our Entertainment Makes Us Worthless? [Long-winded] Empty Re: [Rant/Vent] Our Entertainment Makes Us Worthless? [Long-winded]

Post by BasedBuzzed Sat Mar 07, 2015 4:10 pm

What a dunce.

Darkside response: always flank political radicals from their own side. Ask him why the hell he is behaving like the stereotypes he is ranting about(black folks as supposedly easily angered, overly concerned with pop culture, long screeds of victimhood, etc.), then demand a 23andme.

_________________
Pompeii, VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1904: "O walls, you have held up so much tedious graffiti that I am amazed that you have not already collapsed in ruin."
BasedBuzzed
BasedBuzzed

Posts : 811
Reputation : 267
Join date : 2014-10-01

Back to top Go down

[Rant/Vent] Our Entertainment Makes Us Worthless? [Long-winded] Empty Re: [Rant/Vent] Our Entertainment Makes Us Worthless? [Long-winded]

Post by Sponsored content


Sponsored content


Back to top Go down

Back to top


 
Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum