December 11, 2016

"This vaudeville-era poster of a man in blackface hung in my parents' living room."

"We never thought of it as racist – the man in blackface was my grandfather. My parents recently moved out of their house, and it was only when I presented the idea of hanging the poster in our own home to my husband that he looked at me in horror and said we could never do that. I’m ashamed I’ve been so willing to dissociate the family history in this object from the history of racism. Part of me was sad and conflicted about it never seeing the light of day again, but I’ve decided to donate it to the Jim Crow Museum where it can be contextualized, and people can learn from it."

From "Confronting Racist Objects" (NYT).

Here's a link to The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia:
The Jim Crow Museum is the largest publicly accessible collection of segregation and racist artifacts in the United States. These objects are used to teach tolerance and promote social justice. The Museum is free and open to the public; therefore, the Museum is largely dependent on donations-financial and in-kind-to enhance its work.
Speaking of contextualizing racist objects reminds me of this scene in "Ghost World," which we were just watching the other day:

96 comments:

rhhardin said...

Blackface blackballed.

JAORE said...

In my former career I worked with historic preservation professionals. That included restoration of train depots. One had, carved into stone above a hallway to restrooms, "Whites Only". Quite the dilemma. Do they destroy the offending piece or preserve history?

To their credit (IMO) they preserved the piece but added a brass plaque explaining the historic context.

Today I suspect the decision would differ.

Mick said...

And here are the race- baiters at the NYT smearing Trump as a maestro of the "alt right". They are in full Alinsky mode-- Particularizing and Identifying the target. They will never give it up. They will never accept that most of America despises and does not believe a word from them. They have learned NOTHING. They must be stabbed in the heart and crushed into fine powder and buried 1000 ft underground.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/an-alt-right-makeover-shrouds-the-swastikas/ar-AAloI46?li=BBnbcA1

rcocean said...

LoL - The NYT sounds like a cult. Do you have a pagan idol - sorry racist object - well cast it out sinner and ye shall be saved.

I have no idea why anyone would have "racist objects" in their house or why they'd want to go to a museum to see them.

But in a country of 320 million, you'll always find someone who'll like anything.

MadisonMan said...

I would hang it in my house, and give context to anyone who asked. You know, social mores did differ back in my grandparents' day (Dad and his sisters grew up calling Brazil nuts 'nigger toes' because that's what his parents called them) and you can use that information to educate.

I never liked Brazil Nuts -- too much work.

Wince said...

And now the view from the enlightened left.

Swedish Culture Minister Caught in Racist Cake-Cutting Scandal (Photo at link.)

On Sunday the Swedish minister of culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth began cutting a large cake shaped like a black woman to as part of an art installation.

On Sunday the Swedish minister of culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth cut in to a large cake shaped like a black woman as part of an art installation which was reportedly meant to highlight the issue of female circumcision. The event took place at Moderna Museet which reports say is partly funded with public tax dollars.

Makode Aj Linde, the artist who created the installation and whose head is part of the cake cut by the minister, wrote about the "genital mutilation cake" on his Facebook page: "Documentation from my female genital mutilation cake performance earlier today at stockholm moma. This is After getting my vagaga mutilated by the minister of culture, Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth. Before cutting me up she whispered "Your life will be better after this" in my ear," the artist wrote on Facebook.

"According to sources Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth was invited to declare festivities open by performing a clitoridectomy on the cake, which she did by removing the cake woman's labiums," reports Swedish news site Friatider.Se.

The 31-year old artist uses mass cultural icons which he revamps into a new historically manipulated narrative. "Contemporary western ideas of paradise and the romanticizing of exotica and the 'simple life' collide with history's gruesome facts of slavery, apartheid and racism," the artist's website proclaims.

"In our view, this simply adds to the mockery of racism in Sweden," Kitimbwa Sabuni, spokesperson for the National Afro-Swedish Association (Afrosvenskarnas riksförbund) told The Local.

"The objectification of the black female body via the cartoonish color scheme distances the viewers from the victim's humanity," said Akiba Solomon, who blogs about gender matters on Colorlines.com. "I can't imagine that any victim of female genital mutilation or sexual exploitation would feel the least bit empowered or represented by this--more like mocked and exploited."


Megthered said...

I will never understand the left's desire to eradicate history they don't like. History tells a story of the times, how does that hurt their feelings? It truly is a mental illness.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

NYT article: "...and many of you simply wanted to know what should be done with racist objects...."

The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is available.

Harry Reid has blocked it being used for the intended purpose. Various others, from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama have shut down plans for spent fuel reprocessing which would reduce volume by 99+% through removal of inert and marketable components.

Greg Hlatky said...

I’m ashamed I’ve been so willing to dissociate the family history in this object from the history of racism.

She should kill herself. That's the only possible expiation of her crimes.

Ambrose said...

Putting your own grandfather in the Racist Museum sounds like something out of Stalin's 1930's or Mao's 1960's.

rcocean said...

"Various others, from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama have shut down plans for spent fuel reprocessing which would reduce volume by 99+% through removal of inert and marketable components."

Why? It would seem like a good idea to reduce nuclear waste.

YoungHegelian said...

The era that these articles come from trafficked in broad ethnic stereotypes of all sorts & the audience, even that part of the audience that was the "target", understood ethnic stereotyping as a part of humor.

It's easy to see a character like Stepin Fetchit in an old movie & be appalled. It's less appalling when you realize the same actor played the same role in "race pictures" aimed at a black audience. The role was his "schtick", just like Laurel had his role & Hardy had his.

Years ago, The New Republic ran a long article on a book on Yiddish humor in the pre-war era. The images on the photos of playbills & songs for piano often seemed to be of the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes. I remember one actor in particular, whose stage name was "Jew Face", because his face had many stereotypical Ashkenazi Jewish features. His audience? Well, his skits were mostly in Yiddish, so take a guess.

Paddy O said...

Reminds me of the Seinfeld Cigar Store Indian episode

Lucien said...

Our consciousness and understanding today are just so much more advanced than in bygone days: that's why the Taliban knew it was right to blow up those Buddhas at Bamian, and destroy artifacts in Palmyra.

MadisonMan said...

Putting your own grandfather in the Racist Museum sounds like something out of Stalin's 1930's or Mao's 1960's.

Great articulation of what this woman is doing.

Fernandinande said...

Sambo = racist imagery.
Elmer Fudd = cartoon.

Dude1394 said...

sad, Ann, just sad.

Anonymous said...

"Millions of racist objects sit in the homes of everyday Americans."

Jesus, these people.

YoungHegelian said...

I've always had to agree with people who think that the portrayal of "Buckwheat" in the "Spanky & Our Gang" series is racist.

I mean, it was such a demeaning performance compared to that acme of Aryan manhood that was Alfalfa.

mockturtle said...

These objects are used to teach tolerance and promote social justice.

How?

tcrosse said...

Holy mackerel, Andy.

Tarrou said...

If you think you and your family might be racist and contributing to white supremacy, there is only one honorable course of action. Smother your children, set a fire, and in eliminating your bloodline from the earth, purify your soul.

David said...

"donate it to the Jim Crow Museum where it can be contextualized, and people can learn from it."

It also can be conceptualized and learned from in the living room, but too many people are intolerant to allow that to be socially safe to the owner of the living room.

Intolerance is a multi layered thing, but many people see only one of the layers.

Hagar said...

"Under communism, we know what the future will bring; it is the past that is always changing."

This is supposed to be an old Soviet joke.

Paco Wové said...

"Millions of racist objects sit in the homes of everyday Americans."

I wonder if those objects act similarly to radon gas, silently poisoning the minds of millions of Americans, turning them slowly into racist automatons.

cornroaster said...

I will "confess" to having an Aunt Jemima cookie jar in my kitchen. It was my Grandmother's cookie jar, and she always kept homemade chocolate chip cookies in it for me. I keep it as a reminder of how she loved me.

Bay Area Guy said...

There used to be a Communist under every bed - now there's a racist under every bed....

White liberal guilt is not a good thing, because it distorts common sense and rational thinking.

David said...

Ebay has a category for this. Black Americana.

Ann Althouse said...

What makes an individual an "everyday American"?

I’m just average, common too
I’m just like him, the same as you
I’m everybody’s brother and son
I ain’t different from anyone 
It ain’t no use a-talking to me
It’s just the same as talking to you

Paddy O said...

YH, I got the complete Our Gang collection on DVD a while back, thinking it would be fun to introduce it to my kids. Buckwheat isn't particularly a racist depiction, but the shorts themselves have some very racist moments, especially the early ones.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

rcocean: "Why? It would seem like a good idea to reduce nuclear waste"

Per James Mahaffey ("Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters" - available from Amazon/Audible) -

Carter shutdown plans for spent fuel processing to set an example for the rest of the world to follow. Plutonium is a component of spent fuel, and nuclear bombs can be made from plutonium. But it ain't the same plutonium.

Weapon grade Pu-239 is produced by neutron capture of U-238 (the major component of enriched uranium fuel in power reactors) but voraciously grabs the next nearby neutron and decays to Pu-240. That isotope has a very slow decay rate and is useless for weapons.

Special purpose reactors are used for producing weapon grade Pu-239. The breeder U-238 is removed before it can be poisoned by buildup of Pu-240. For power reactors, with a typical three year fuel change cycle, presence of weapon grade Pu is not a problem.

Unsurprisingly, the rest of the world ignored Carter's noble example.

DISCLAIMER - I ain't a nuclear engineer like Mahaffey, but I do stay at Holiday Inn Express time-to-time.

wildswan said...

In the Journal Sentinel today they are discussing the Democrats' dilemma - how can they meet the demands of the "white working-class" and of the "inner-city blacks." As if one were a group of workers and the other ... not. As if their separate demands were therefore almost irreconcilable. Isn't this stereotyping of the most demeaning sort? Isn't there a black working-class? which is even more hard pressed than the white working class BUT IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY. Trump thinks there is - he talks about jobs for the inner city in his infrastructure rebuild as meeting a promise he made when he went to Detroit.

I’m just average, common too
I’m just like him, the same as you

And PS
Is Popeye the sailorman demeaning?

Conserve Liberty said...

Good thing her grandfather wasn't a Hutu.

Anonymous said...

Bay Area Guy: There used to be a Communist under every bed - now there's a racist under every bed....

Not commies anymore, but the Russians now joining the racists among the dust bunnies is the funniest thing going right now. (Which is telling me never, ever to assume that we're anywhere near Peak Crazy. Just when I think the usual suspects can't get any crazier...they will get crazier.)

wildswan said...

I feel demeaned by Lena Dunham. Talking to rocks about her hysteria. Good grief.

Crimso said...

How about donating the Egyptian pyramids to a Holocaust museum?

YoungHegelian said...

@Paddy,

Buckwheat isn't particularly a racist depiction, but the shorts themselves have some very racist moments, especially the early ones.

Oh, I'm sure. I've seen the episodes with the bug-eyed, grinning maids, too. I'm not trying to assert that pre-war America was in any sense a racial utopia, to say the least. I'm just pointing out that humor of all sorts exploited ethnic stereotypes as a matter of course. While life was hard for black Americans, it wasn't hard because of "Amos & Andy", which they watched as avidly as did white Americans.

Unknown said...

I have a 19th century print of the Chief Black Eunuch, a very important official in the Ottoman harem and court. His face appears to be rather a caricature with thick lips etc. but you instantly see his importance by his rich costume. I believe it's one of a series of costume prints showing the distinctive garb worn by various senior Ottoman officials. Am I being racist if I put that up in my living room?

Unknown said...

Speaking of ethnic stereotypes, I love the old Katzenjammer Kids comics with their German dialect ("Chust let me ketch der loafers vot sviped my fresh ge-made pop-corn"). Does that make me a self-hating German-American?

TML said...

This is interesting because I have right next to me a picture from the "Possum Pops Minstrel Show" May 17-18 1949 at my dad's elementary school in Springfield OH. There are men in blackface in the picture. My grandfather is in the photo in a white tuxedo (he looks like the MC). I've never thought of it as racist but more as something that happened a long time ago. It's a treasured photo because it's family. I guess this is a hard area to navigate.

Crimso said...

We could use Jennifer Lawrence's donated ass to establish a pohaku museum in Hawaii.

chickelit said...

Terry Zwigoff made "Ghost World" after his brilliant "Crumb." There's a case to be made that R Crumb's most enduring image belongs in the Jim Crow museum: link.

bagoh20 said...

I think I assume correctly that there is no way to display an African American that is not racist unless he/she is shown in a heroic light. Probably true of other non-whites as well, but you can have a picture of a White looking foolish or evil as much as you want. I think that is pure racism of the lowest kind. There are only two non-racists positions: either never show any person in a bad light, or show us all regardless of race. I only see one of those as plausible, open, and intelligent.

Rob said...

If I were to find any racist depictions in the attic, my first thought would be, "Feets, don't fail me now!"

gadfly said...

When I was in high school in the 1950s, we conducted annual minstral shows sponsored by the school that featured the black-faced Mr. Bones and Mr. Interlocutor. Having performed in one of these, I cannot recall any racist connotations because we were performing acceptable entertainment of the times to the best of out abilities.

It was the 1960s that brought that hissing term "racist" into being and suddenly minstrels were part of racism as insulting to blacked-skinned people and the "Fighting Sioux" nickname no longer honored the redskins in the Dakota, Lacota and Nakota tribes - despite that fact the use of the name "Sioux" by French trappers translated to "little snake" from the beginning. The paradox is now complete.

"The times, they were a-changing" but not necessarily to society's betterment.

robother said...

With the 20th Century transvaluation of Art from sacralizing (gods, saints, heroic humans, nature) to profaning (urinals as art, piss Christ), it had to be just a matter of time until Art's need to shock ran up against the only official morality left standing: the High Church of PC.

Quaestor said...

I will never understand the left's desire to eradicate history they don't like. History tells a story of the times, how does that hurt their feelings? It truly is a mental illness.

George Orwell understood it perfectly. Such eradications were Winston Smith's profession.

mockturtle said...

Isn't there a black working-class?

Of course there is!

Larry J said...

"Blogger Peggy Coffey said...
I will never understand the left's desire to eradicate history they don't like. History tells a story of the times, how does that hurt their feelings? It truly is a mental illness."

Perhaps it's because much of the history of racism in America and much of the history of the left are one and the same. Some examples include slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, lynching, the KKK, and eugenics to name just a few.

tcrosse said...

Jimmie Walker's character J.J. on 'Good Times' was straight out of minstrelsy, and his co-stars were not very happy about it. Dy-No-Mite!

walter said...

"These objects are used to teach tolerance and promote social justice."
Yep..so much racial healing to be had by this.

buwaya said...

This is a serious failure of filial piety.
An ideology, or rather fashion, as it really isn't an examined position, that drives these people to ridicule and berate their honorable ancestors, can only lead to the end of virtue.

eddie willers said...

It was the 1960s that brought that hissing term "racist" into being and suddenly minstrels were part of racism as insulting to blacked-skinned people

So how long until "Hamilton" is labeled a minstrel show?

walter said...

But this story reminds me of Ann's..growing up with Playboy mags around the house.
Bring on the Museum of Misogyny.

mockturtle said...

buwaya wisely affirms: as it really isn't an examined position

That is the very crux of the issue.

Jupiter said...

Tom J said...
"Am I being racist if I put that up in my living room?"

That depends. Are you white?

mockturtle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
mockturtle said...

It is a kind of sickness, this desire to enshrine old social wrongs and to polish them again and again to make them brighter and more relevant.

walter said...

25 minute tour

Jupiter said...

"it was only when I presented the idea of hanging the poster in our own home to my husband that he looked at me in horror and said we could never do that."

As Abby would put it, are you (and your kids) better off with him, or without him?

Fernandinande said...

chickelit said...
There's a case to be made that R Crumb's most enduring image belongs in the Jim Crow museum:


Dunno about his "Keep On Truckin'", but Crumb's "When the Niggers Take Over America" might qualify.

Martin L. Shoemaker said...

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

NYT article: "...and many of you simply wanted to know what should be done with racist objects...."

The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is available.

Harry Reid has blocked it being used for the intended purpose.


With Reid gone, and Mr. Trump and the Republicans now firmly in charge, I hope that we can finally see the Yucca Mountain repository put to its proper use.

Achilles said...

There should be a street of museums with all of the failures of progressivism. Right next to the Jim Crow museum of progressive failure we can have the marxist museum of progressive failure, the fascist museum of progressive failure, the museum of slavery, the museum of progressive segregation in education, the museum of progressive eugenics....

Anonymous said...

buwaya puti: This is a serious failure of filial piety.
An ideology, or rather fashion, as it really isn't an examined position, that drives these people to ridicule and berate their honorable ancestors, can only lead to the end of virtue.


Indeed. They spit on their ancestors in a pathetic bid to gain the approval of people who aren't worthy to lick the boots of those ancestors.

Dance, monkey, dance.

n.n said...

There are black Africans who Plan/cannibalize their albino countrymen. Latent [class] diversity orientations are a first-order cause of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change. Debasing human life through selective dignity, selective value, selective-child schemes only accelerates its progress. Can't we just reconcile?

ceowens said...

gadfly @ 12:17

"Oh, Dem Golden Slippers". Sung by a person who couldn't sing after several "comical" exchanges with Mr. Interlocutor by yours truely in front his paper route customers, family, friends and assorted strangers. The black face wasn't so bad but I wish I could sing better. This was around 1960 (things didn't change as fast up here). Our school was small. If there was a production, you were in it.

wildswan said...

Achilles said...
There should be a street of museums with all of the failures of progressivism.

And that street should be circular so we see the "progress" from workers = good if enlightened to: workers = good, naturally enlightened supporters of communism in Russia to: workers = non-college-educated to: workers = white to: workers = racist, misogynist, xenophobic, Trump-voting, Russian dupes to workers = good even if white if PC, feminist, union supporting Democrats.

rcocean said...

Don Knotts acting scared = funny
Stepin Fetchit** acting scared = racism

Okey-dokey

** = real name Lincoln Perry.

Lewis Wetzel said...

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
Presentism is ugly and leads to self-hatred.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

chickelit said...
Terry Zwigoff made "Ghost World" after his brilliant "Crumb." There's a case to be made that R Crumb's most enduring image belongs in the Jim Crow museum: link.

I think Crumb's Angelfood McSpade would be a much better fit.

chickelit said...

@NorthOfTheOneOhOne & Fernandinade: Thank you both for trying to one up each other with crumbier examples of racism. I was aware of these. My point was that even the most innocuous morsels of Crumb's work can be seen as racist through the right lenses.

Laslo Spatula said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Laslo Spatula said...

Excerpt from "Black Blood, Black Seed":

"Hello, Benjamin."

"Miss Christina! You look so sad! Ever since you sucked clean my man-root you’ve seemed to be a different person.”

“Benjamin, I am a different person. I am now a Fallen Woman of the South. Ever since I swallowed your Black Seed my very Soul has been branded.”

“Branded by who, Miss Christina?”

“Branded by a God that sternly looks down upon Southern Women having intimate relations with a lowly Black Man. What we did was against the very Laws of Nature.”

“The Laws of Nature? I just put my dick in your mouth, that’s all. Seems pretty natural to me.”

“Oh, Benjamin, bless your heart. By knowing you I can sometimes convince myself that even Black Men may possibly have something somewhat like a Soul, too.”

“Miss Christina: us Black Men had a Soul when we was Negroes, we had a Soul when we was Coons, we had a Soul when we was Niggers. You can call us what you want, be we is People, just like you.”

“Like us, Benjamin? I pray that God did not hear you say such a frightful thing.”

“I think God hears me just fine, Miss Christina, and I am sure as Hell he heard me yell “Good God!” when I shot my seed straight down the back of your gullet.”

“No! Will my Sin never leave me be? It is as if your Black Seed was in my very blood, never to leave!”

“Miss Christina, I must respectfully say that all this caterwauling is unbecoming of you.”

“Benjamin, it is like your seed was an acorn inside me, and now a Black Oak Tree of Shame is growing so big it might very well tear me apart.”

“My Daddy, he told me about you White Women. “Son,” he said, “They is more trouble than they ever is worth”.”

“Your Father had relations with a White Woman, Benjamin?”

“Oh, yeah, Miss Christina: he surely did. He liked them mighty fine.”

“And whatever became of them? Your Father and these White Women?”

“I don’t know much about the White Women, but they done hung my Daddy from a tree.”

“That must have been awful!”

“It was, Miss Christina: it surely damned well was.”

“And those White Women: they must have felt SO ashamed.”

“Huh? What the fuck, Miss Christina? They hung my Daddy, and you be worrying about the White Women?”

“Oh Benjamin: Sin hurts us all.”

“Yeah, but Sin don’t seem to hang ALL of us from trees…”


I am Laslo.

Marc in Eugene said...

I watched an episode of a television series called Yancey Derringer the other night, from the late 50s, I believe; had never heard of it until I saw it at Prime. I imagine viewing it would make lots of folks' heads explode-- set in New Orleans after the Civil War; the protagonist has a Black majordomo at his plantation estate and a Pawnee companion/bodyguard/servant/wthkw who only communicates with sign language. It was the 'Christmas special' and Yancey made two or three obeisances to the ghost of his late father (depicted in his portrait with... one of the Confederate flags).

Big Mike said...

That poster to the woman's left is what lefties think of Ben Carson, Thomas Sowell, Claude and Shelby Steele, Justice Thomas, and a lot of other accomplished Black men who decline to think as they have been told to think.

Fen said...

Ambrose: Putting your own grandfather in the Racist Museum sounds like something out of Stalin's 1930's or Mao's 1960's.

Great comment.

I wonder if these people will ever realize that racism is not the Great Satan they have made it out to be. Sure, it's wrong and should be stomped out, but it doesn't even make the top 10 list of things that we need to be focused on fixing.

I'm so tired of talking about race. I think most Americans are too. It's not as big a deal as it's made out to be. Of course, tell that to the Left and they will howl. They only have one tool in their box.

Fen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fen said...

buwaya puti: This is a serious failure of filial piety. An ideology, or rather fashion, as it really isn't an examined position, that drives these people to ridicule and berate their honorable ancestors, can only lead to the end of virtue.

Anglelyne: Indeed. They spit on their ancestors in a pathetic bid to gain the approval of people who aren't worthy to lick the boots of those ancestors. Dance, monkey, dance.

And I think next up is abortion. In 40 or 50 years, technological advances will render it obsolete, same way technology ended the need for slavery. And this woman's great grand-daughter will loathe her and submit her diaries to some holocaust museum educating new generations on those evil people who killed their own children.

This is what the Left fails to understand. Cultures EVOLVE. It never occurs to them that these "racist" things were as socially acceptable and normal then as abortion is today. So it's a cheap shot to judge the past by today's standard. Might as well damn the Founding Fathers for not including animal rights in the Constitution.

mikee said...

Back in the 1970s, when I was just a kid, I was hanging out with my father, my uncle, and my ~80 year old grandpa one Sunday afternoon. Somehow the discussion turned to racial epithets common in earlier days. My grandpa, an immigrant from Slovakia, explained how in the steel mills of Pittsburgh he was known as a Hunky. And that his friends in the mills were all Guineas, John Bulls, Micks, Frogs and Huns. Plus some Kikes and Niggers, of course.

I remember my father and uncle trying and failing to restrain their laughter as he so nonchalantly used the racial descriptors of his young adulthood. When they finally stopped snickering, my grandfather looked at them and said, "We were all mill workers, in a damned dangerous steel mill. When we were working, it didn't matter what you were at home. All that mattered was if you could do the job in front of you, and not get anybody else hurt by doing something stupid."

Words the modern racial activists would do well to hear.

Owen said...

Hammon X beat me to it: Yucca Mountain would be perfect for this. Once we have a place to send this cultural Kryptonite, we can scale up the process and go after more and more of it, st the necessary granular level. As with those old paint cans that need to be disposed of separately, so too that family photo or copy of "Huckleberry Finn." Crews trained in handling these items will be called to the site, barriers erected, air-handling protocols established. Decontamination service firms will thrive. Like those guys who can help you dry out your basement after a flood.

I am looking forward to that feeling of purification that will come when the State sends the signed letter of inspection and compliance.

Owen said...

Hammond X. -- sorry for typo. Also I welcome your view on the problem of neutron capture and isotope decay in the objects we store. Is there a risk of criticality if too many Amos & Andy recordings are stored together? Will workers be issued dosimeters to help manage exposure to Buckwheat or lawn jockeys? Will the relevant metric of lethality be not the milliSeivert but the milliBigot?

Bad Lieutenant said...

Q,

George Orwell understood it perfectly. Such eradications were Winston Smith's profession.
12/11/16, 12:23 PM

Yes-the memory hole. Again, kids: 1984 was a warning, not a how-to.

Robert Cook said...

"I watched an episode of a television series called Yancey Derringer the other night, from the late 50s, I believe; had never heard of it until I saw it at Prime."

I remember that show from my very young childhood. I don't know if I ever even saw an episode...it was on after my bedtime. Didn't the character carry around a cane that he sometimes used as a weapon?

Robert Cook said...

"I wonder if these people will ever realize that racism is not the Great Satan they have made it out to be. Sure, it's wrong and should be stomped out, but it doesn't even make the top 10 list of things that we need to be focused on fixing."

Have you been subject to racism? Have you grown up in a society where you are defined by your racial characteristics, and seen to be inferior intellectually, morally, legally, always suspect, watched, hated and feared?

Meade said...

"Have you been subject to racism?"

Yes.

"Have you grown up in a society where you are defined by your racial characteristics, and seen to be inferior intellectually, morally, legally, always suspect, watched, hated and feared?"

No. And neither has one of my oldest childhood friends, Russell, a very dark-skinned black American who was born the same year as I (1954) and lived 2 doors up the street in a small Indiana college town.

Marc in Eugene said...

RC, He did have a cane at some point in the proceedings, perhaps (lots of stereotypical 'Southern gentlemen' milling about). But firearms were the weapons of choice in the episode I watched. The series only survived one season-- like you, I would never have seen the program, being then one or two years old.

Big Mike said...

Cookie assumes that nearly all white people -- and absolutely all white-skinned Republicans -- are racists. Has he ever recruited African-Americans for a project? I'm sure the answer is negative. Has he ever promoted a lack person except to satisfy an affirmative action quota? I'm pretty certain the answer is negative. In particular has he ever arm-wrestled HR for an out of cycle raise for a Black engineer because the young man was working at a level two or three grades above what previous managers, exercising the soft bigotry of low expectations, had though was appropriate?

Cookie, is there some way you can teach yourself to judge people by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin? Martin Luther King still challenges us across the decades.

Fernandinande said...

Robert Cook said...
Have you grown up ... and seen to be inferior intellectually, morally, legally, always suspect, watched, hated and feared?


Just by my parents. I didn't know they were racists!

Bad Lieutenant said...

Robert Cook said...
"I wonder if these people will ever realize that racism is not the Great Satan they have made it out to be. Sure, it's wrong and should be stomped out, but it doesn't even make the top 10 list of things that we need to be focused on fixing."

Have you been subject to racism? Have you grown up in a society where you are defined by your racial characteristics, and seen to be inferior intellectually, morally, legally, always suspect, watched, hated and feared?

12/12/16, 7:11 AM

Probably not, because most of us grew up in America. That mostly happens in foreign countries, as you know.

Anonymous said...

Cook -

My folks moved us to Houston when I was a small child and picked a neighborhood that was changing from white to black, rapidly. I got the shit kicked out of me fairly regularly for two years because I was white. Does that count?

Jupiter said...

Fen said...

"I wonder if these people will ever realize that racism is not the Great Satan they have made it out to be. Sure, it's wrong and should be stomped out, but it doesn't even make the top 10 list of things that we need to be focused on fixing. "

Fen, there is a great deal of evidence for the proposition that there are major genetic differences between races, and those differences lead to differences in such behavioral traits as intelligence, time preference, and propensity for violence. I gather that you are ignorant of that evidence, and prefer to stay that way. I believe it is foolhardy and self-defeating to pretend those differences do not exist, as you seem to want to do. Would you say that makes me a racist? Do I need to be stomped out? How do you propose to stomp me out, Fen? Get me fired? Throw me in prison?

Fen said...

there is a great deal of evidence for the proposition that there are major genetic differences between races, and those differences lead to differences in such behavioral traits as intelligence, time preference, and propensity for violence. I gather that you are ignorant of that evidence, and prefer to stay that way.

Huh? I agree with your statement. For instance, if one race has an average IQ of 90, they tend to run out of conflict-resolution options and resort to violence quicker than most.

I believe it is foolhardy and self-defeating to pretend those differences do not exist, as you seem to want to do.

I don't see where you are getting that from me. I'm saying that racism is not the Big Deal that popular culture makes it out to be. I didn't say anything about whether there are differences based on race.

Fen said...

Cook: Have you been subject to racism? Have you grown up in a society where you are defined by your racial characteristics, and seen to be inferior intellectually, morally, legally, always suspect, watched, hated and feared

Yup. Every single day. So what?

Racism is not the Great Satan you guys on the Left spend so much time talking about and "fighting" against. I use scare quotes because your side doesn't really care about racism anyway, it's just a prop you use to divide us.

Fen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fen said...

btw Cook, it's pathetically racist of you to assume I have never been subject to racism because I must be a white person. Someone who actually thought racism was wrong would never have made such a mistake. They would already understand that ignorant stereotypes based on skin color are racist, regardless of skin color.

It's how I know you are a fraud.

Next you'll be telling us blacks can't be racist because they are black...

Bad Lieutenant said...

Jupiter, I think we mostly mean "end racism" in the sense of using stereotypes to obliterate the individual, and generally, to stop harming/being mean to those who are different from us. The fact that blacks have a lower average IQ shouldn't mean that you cheat them or bar them from your lunch counter. (Or so I think it would seem to most people.) Or hit them because they came into the wrong bar, or kissed a white girl.

What it does mean, perhaps, is that when you select for IQ, say at an elite/magnet high school, and your take of blacks is say 1% in a region with say 25% AA population, that you should be happy that you've got a selection of blacks who have made the grade and deserve respect, rather than trying to dilute the standard. (Maybe by tweaking the test you could get it up to 2%, since blacks do not have settees or cotillions in their homes and lives and there is a cultural vocabulary gap, but you're not going to get it up to 25% or whatever the proportion of the population at large because elite black brains are fewer than their share of the total population at large.)