June 18, 2018

"The backlash that forced ABC to cancel Ms. Barr’s television series reflects a distaste for passé, plainly stated racism..."

"... in a society that likes to see itself as having put bigotry behind it. Nevertheless, centuries of institutional racism — and the dehumanization of black people upon which it relied — have left an indelible imprint on how Americans process blackness. The notion that the country might somehow move past this deeply complex, historically layered issue by assuming an attitude of 'color blindness' is naïve. The only real hope of doing that is to openly confront and talk about the powerful, but submerged, forms of discrimination that have long since supplanted the undisguised version."

The last lines "The Racist Trope That Won’t Die" by Brent Staples (NYT). The trope under discussion is the likening of black people to apes. The column went up yesterday, the day we were watching the new video "Apeshit," in which Jay-Z calls himself a gorilla. The line is "I'm a gorilla." Unfortunately, Staples didn't incorporate that complexity, and he's left saying things like "The toxically racist ape characterization has been pushed to the margins of the public square." Jay-Z isn't on the margins!

The other problem with Staples is that he ends up with the age-old prescription, the conversation about race. He calls that the "only real hope." Why is it the only real hope? Is there no hope at all in creating a powerful social etiquette of never saying anything that is regarded as racist and waiting until the population is replaced by people who don't think racist things (or who only think them in vague, innocuous ways)? Is there no hope in the forthright, vigorous reclaiming of race in the Jay-Z manner?  Who gets to say where the "only real hope" lies? Maybe the idea that what we really need is a conversation about race is itself a racial trope that won't die.

But, look, here I am, doing conversation about race. Probably not the right kind, and I expect that if Staples were to notice this, he'd tell me I'm doing it wrong.

And that's one problem with the conversation prescription. It's not a freewheeling, endlessly flowing, back-and-forth kind of conversation. It's a conversation that needs to go the right way, and that can get you into bad trouble if you do it wrong, and that often seems to be a demand that somebody sit still and take a harsh lecture.

So it may be might be naïve to think that "assuming an attitude of 'color blindness'" could easily work, but it's also naïve to think that "this deeply complex, historically layered issue" can be processed through that precious human interaction we call conversation.

59 comments:

Derek Kite said...

Yawn.

Darrell said...

I saw all the Planet of the Apes movies when they were originally in theaters, and I never once thought of Blacks--it was an evolutionary thing.

Tank said...

@Derek

Exactly.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Yawn. Exactly.

Anne in Rockwall, TX said...

Anyone that says we should have a "conversation" about anything actually means "shut up while I lecture you."

mezzrow said...

I blow through here
The music goes 'round and around
Whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho
And it comes out here
I push the first valve down
The music goes down and around
Whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho
And it comes out here
I push the middle valve down
The music goes down around below
Below, below, deedle-dee-ho-ho-ho
Listen to the jazz come out
I push the other valve down
The music goes 'round and around
Whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho
And it comes out here

Scott said...

What motivates the left to fetishize race? It's deeply kinky.

Darrell said...

Kim Hunter, Roddy McDowall, Maurice Evans, Helena Bonham Carter...I can't think of any Blacks cast in ape roles. I haven't scanned the entire cast of every movie and TV version, though.

Paco Wové said...

If you don't want people compared to other primates, then you probably shouldn't compare people to other primates.

Biotrekker said...

I laugh when I think about the angst that must have occurred at Alphabet/Google, when the Goodthinking Leftist Geniuses there realized that they could not get their vaunted AI recognition software to reliably distinguish between gorillas and black people. Their answer - I believe - was to delete the category of "gorilla".

Tommy Duncan said...

"The only real hope of doing that is to openly confront and talk about the powerful, but submerged, forms of discrimination that have long since supplanted the undisguised version."

"Submerged". If it's invisible, why do so many see it nonetheless?

Can be that sometimes "ape" just means ape? And "black hole" is a scientific term? An "niggardly" means scanty?

Daniel Jackson said...

Gee, the Arab press regularly compares Jews to apes and "lesser evolved" animals.

Where's the outcry?

Peter said...

Hear, hear. I sometimes think I would agree to the whole leftist agenda if they would only promise to excuse me from their damn conversations.

The more that relations between the races and sexes move away from objective rules of behavior in public life and towards inquisitions under the guise of "conversations" into what is going on in everyone's psyches, the more people will learn the tricks Soviet and East Europeans had to learn to cope with "re-education sessions". Keep a bland smile on your face, learn the jargon, keep your private thoughts to yourself and navigate through it all as best you can. After all the stuff about privilege, toxic white masculinity, etc. we've seen in the past few years, I feel I could handle about an hour's interaction a day with women and minorities and would prefer to keep them at bay most of the time. Any more than that is becoming grounds to demand danger pay.

rhhardin said...

Blacks, facially, look more like apes than whites do.

The reply is apes have hands like people, in particular white people.

That stops the argument and in addition shows blacks how to think of a resemblance that they themselves have noticed.

That stops the insult-power-meme taking of offense. The taking of offense is always the point.

MayBee said...

Trump has been called an orangutan pretty frequently.
Obviously, a lot of people are racist. You can't get rid of people's private thoughts. That seems to be the progressive goal these days- make you think you are a terrible person for all of your private thoughts. I don't know what their end goal is, but it isn't to just get along with each other.

rhhardin said...

The black-white race problem is blacks feel whites aren't giving them dignity.

But dignity is something you give yourself, not something you're given.

In particular you get dignity by doing something for somebody else. It's magical.

If blacks took up a collection for poor whites, suddenly they'd find they have dignity. What works for an individual also works for a race.

The black leader trick is to keep that from happening. Under no circumstances should a black do something for a white. Blacks should stay angry and resentful, and there will always be a profit for the black leaders.

HoneyBee said...

This so -called conversation, i.e. lecture from the left, is not a conversation but instead a power grab.

Mike Sylwester said...

The trope under discussion is the likening of black people to apes.

David Brooks likened Donald Trump to a wolf.

Anonymous said...

"The notion that the country might somehow move past this deeply complex, historically layered issue...

You don't "move past" "deeply complex, historically layered" issues via a decidedly non-complex, simplistic, and essentially faith-based approach that rejects a priori as "racist" any criticism of its premises or its method. In other words, the author wants to reject "color-blindness" as naïve and simplistic, but insists that you accept his my equally naïve and simplistic approach.

In fact, it is the nature of "deeply complex, historically layered" issues that you can't just "move past" them via diktat and good intentions. That's uh, kinda the nature of "deeply complex, historically layered" stuff. It involves a whole hell of a lot of issues outside the SJW's narrow focus.

"The only real hope...[of keeping the race-hustling racket going]...is to openly confront and talk about the powerful, but submerged, forms of discrimination that have long since supplanted the undisguised version [even if we have to keep inventing new entities like 'institutional racism' and 'white privilege', and implementing more and more coercive social engineering policies to 'remedy' them, after our last batch of policies fail yet again to eliminate 'disparate impact']."

FTFH

Lovernios said...

"I am just a monkey man; Hope you are a monkey woman, too" - Rolling Stones

IgnatzEsq said...

So, how "plainly stated" was Roseanne's racism? I'm being serious here because I think you have to read the tweet rather bizarrely to get to 'racism' (as opposed to my initial reaction of ???).

So take "Planet of the Apes + Muslim Brotherhood = Valerie Jarrett". You have to assume "planet of the apes" was referencing race. The full phrase of the movie title, doesn't really have any historical loaded racial meaning that I'm aware of. Even very liberal Hollywood has recently remade it several times! So you have to really parse out one word from the title and focus on it - Apes. But even then, we have a strange addition of the muslim brotherhood which has nothing to do with blackness either. So basically you have to ignore the full name of the movie, plus the second clause of the equation (and coincidentally know that VJ was black, which quite honestly, since I don't constantly think about race, I didn't know), and rewrite the tweet as "Valerie Jarret = Ape" in your head to see the racist angle.

Plainly stated racism would be "Valerie Jarret is an ape. I hate black people." This was something not very plainly stated and bizarre enough that being on drugs is actually plausible. Her tweets about Chelsea Clinton were much more offensive in my opinion.

chuck said...

Zzzzzzzz. NY Times. Zzzzzzzz.

Anonymous said...

Peter: The more that relations between the races and sexes move away from objective rules of behavior in public life and towards inquisitions under the guise of "conversations" into what is going on in everyone's psyches, the more people will learn the tricks Soviet and East Europeans had to learn to cope with "re-education sessions". Keep a bland smile on your face, learn the jargon, keep your private thoughts to yourself and navigate through it all as best you can.

This destroys your society, of course (socially, culturally, and economically), and you'd think our Do Gooders would've learned a lesson from the recent examples of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. But, as they say, nobody ever learns nothin'.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Screw it. Valerie Jarret is a corruption dealing pile of corrupt crap. No - I'm no a racist for stating the truth.

Cancel my show, bitchez.

Earnest Prole said...

Speaking of the Great Racial Conversation, is there anything Whiter than spelling the perfectly ordinary word naive with a sort-of-umlaut above the letter 'i'? (I suppose the answer in a racially frank conversation would be rendering the perfectly ordinary word reelect as reëlect.)

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

The word "ape" -that's all it takes.

Fernandinande said...

Gorillas should stop committing so many crimes.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said...It's a conversation that needs to go the right way, and that can get you into bad trouble if you do it wrong, and that often seems to be a demand that somebody sit still and take a harsh lecture.

often
I like that, Professor: poetic understatement.

So it may be might be naïve to think that "assuming an attitude of 'color blindness'" could easily work, but it's also naïve to think that "this deeply complex, historically layered issue" can be processed through that precious human interaction we call conversation.

This is less poetic. The truth is that intentionally not paying attention to race (colorblindness) is de facto proof of racism. Likewise paying too much attention to race is also de facto proof of racism. The Race Studies folks are admirably open about this: no matter what you do you're a racist--if "you" are a member of the wrong group you're a racist, case closed.

Michael K said...

I am so old, I remember when. Racists were all white. Who said that?

Anonymous said...

Earnest Prole: Speaking of the Great Racial Conversation, is there anything Whiter than spelling the perfectly ordinary word naive with a sort-of-umlaut above the letter 'i'?

I don't think correctly used umlauts count. Randomly throwing them over your vowels, now that's "implicitly white". (See, metal bands.)

Roy Lofquist said...

"Dignity" - Bob Dylan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSy267PTSnY

dbp said...

""The backlash that forced ABC to cancel Ms. Barr’s television series..."

Let me just stop you right there: There was no backlash, ABC was not forced to cancel Ms. Barr's television series.

ABC wanted to cancel the show and Ms. Barr handed them the excuse they needed.

Earnest Prole said...

Randomly throwing them over your vowels, now that's "implicitly white". (See, metal bands.)

Exactly. Every time I see the word coöperate in the New Yorker I think of the band Hüsker Dü.

Jupiter said...

"Is there no hope in the forthright, vigorous reclaiming of race in the Jay-Z manner?"

Ah, so that's what he does. Vigorously reclaim race.

jwl said...

University student Coleman Hughes wrote excellent essay for Quillette called The High Price of Stale Grievances a couple of weeks that is well worth a read.
----------------

Stale grievances are dredged up from history and used to justify double-standards that create fresh grievances in turn. And beneath all of this lies the tacit claim that blacks are uniquely constrained by history in a way that Jewish-Americans, East Asian-Americans, Indian-Americans, and countless other historically marginalized ethnic groups are not. In the midst of this breakdown in civil discourse, we must ask ourselves—academics, journalists, activists, politicians, and concerned citizens alike—if we are on a path towards a thriving multi-ethnic democracy or a balkanized hotbed of racial and political tribalism.

https://quillette.com/2018/06/05/high-price-stale-grievances/

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

My only hope is that Blacks simply leave me alone entirely. I want nothing to do with them.

Lovernios said...

Is it offensive to apes and other primates when they get compared to humans?

Remember the Red Rose Tea commercials? Racist? Or Cute?

langford peel said...

You have something there Lovernios.

It is a base canard to compare apes to blacks.

Apes are not inherently criminals. They are not a danger to society. They are not an insidious blight on your community.

You never see an ape shooting up an art exhibit as rival gangs of blacks did this weekend. They perfectly illustrate why they should not be allowed in polite society. Why they should not be allowed to congregate in groups larger than five. We can let them have five so they can still play basketball. Of course if apes did that it would be all over the news and not buried as this story was by the fake news.

Leave my Magilla Gorilla alone.

langford peel said...

Roseanne was fired because she gave voice to Trump Voters. Even in a small way this can not be allowed by the social justice warriors at Disney. They canceled the other top rated comedy that had a whiff of a conservative voice.

Which is great for us. This is how you get more Trump. He might win fifty states next time.

n.n said...

There were white apes, and brown apes, and black apes, too. And the colorful clumps of human cells struggled to survive.

At the twilight fringe, black holes become black whores.

n.n said...

There was Jew privilege, which may have been an inspiration for White privilege, and now there is Asian privilege. Denying individual dignity (e.g. color judgments, racism, sexism) is a progressive slope.

langford peel said...

Keep playing identity politics libtards. You are helping us develop the emerging White Identity. If you want every advantage to be based on race than White people will begin to play by your rules. As will the Asians. You dumb fucks will not like how that will turn out.

Thanks.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

That's not an umlaut; that's a dieresis. You'll be calling the ongarek an umlaut next. I admit that the New Yorker does carry its dieresis-obsession to the point of fetish, but the basic idea is to indicate when two adjacent vowels are to be sounded separately rather than run together. Without the diereses, "naive" is a one-syllable word, and "cooperate" a three-syllable one having something to do with chickens.

(When I was a kid and got Ranger Rick magazine, there was an article titled "Reuse That Paper Bag." It took me the longest time to suss out "reuse," because my brain insisted on pronouncing it as one syllable, basically like "ruse." I don't know what the New Yorker would do with that one.)

You can get the same effect as a dieresis with a hyphen, which I believe is mostly how it's done in the UK.

langford peel said...

Here is a typical interaction with your average black person. It happens every day.

Of course there is minimal coverage. You won't see anything about this on TV or in the New York Times. You won't hear about the knock-out game. The shooting at the art festival will be a one day story and then be buried. Unlike Parkland a mass shooting will be ignored and covered up. Business as usual in the black community.

How many were murdered in Chicago and Baltimore last week?

So why not start the conversation about race with that?

Yeah I thought so.

langford peel said...

Almost every interaction with a black person turns into an American Tourister commercial.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Lemme see: Bush 43 was always a chimp. Trump is an orangutan, because the same drooling idiots that gave us "niggardly" and "chink" (in one's armor) and "nip" (in the air, or by a small yappy dog) see the "orang" in "orangutan" and think it has something to do with orange. We're so clever, heh heh!

How's about we leave off all references to politicians as Great Apes, mmmmkay?

Lovernios said...

Ever see photographs of Japanese Snow Monkeys? They look like white people.

PJ said...

To summarize: (1) It is forbidden to compare black humans with other primates. (2) It is permitted, and often “courageous” and praiseworthy, to compare white humans with other primates. (3) It is forbidden to deny that all humans are decended from other primates. Let’s have a conversation!

n.n said...

Denying individual dignity, including color judgments (e.g. racism, selective-child), euphemistically normalized, is the preferred approach to accommodating diversitists and abortionists.

n.n said...

It's downright scientific, asserting an uncountable number of missing links, that humans, black, white, brown, yellow, orange, red, etc., are apes wearing fashionable potato sacks.

YoungHegelian said...

this deeply complex, historically layered issue

I tells ya, the PoMos have turned racism into Geist, the "cunning of Reason" that shapes history.

They, of course, won't 'fess up to this, because the PoMo Identity Politics guys, unlike the Marxists, have neither the courage nor the brains to face up to their own metaphysical baggage. But, it's there, nonetheless.

Earnest Prole said...

That's not an umlaut; that's a dieresis.

Yes, I was making a funny by calling it a sorta-umlaut and linking to the New Yorker’s dieresis mea culpa. Sticking a dieresis on the word naive is an affectation. Our language has hundreds of words with two adjacent vowels that require no dieresis -- we somehow magically all know meander is a three-syllable word and deactivate is a four-syllable word, for example. If someone is so naive that they stumble reading the word naive without a dieresis mark, they will be utterly baffled reading the word with it.

It's kinda sorta like the verb garner.

daskol said...

At the very least, the trio of Gilbert, Metcalf and Goodman expected to be paid for at least 10 episodes of the scrapped 11th season, since their options had been exercised for a $300,000-an-episode salary. (Still unclear is what happens to the writing staff, including Helford, if the new series should fall through.)


Not the backlash, but the blacklash that forced the cancelling. Channing Dungey would get a very negative employee review in her file if such a thing were allowed at Disney. Instead, she's going to have a bit less freedom than is typical for a Network President. ABC is scrambling to recoup their investment. I doubt even the executives in charge of ABC think anyone is going to watch the new show. They know TV. They already committed money to the cast and crew for next season. Rather than waste it entirely, they're throwing a Hail Mary with Roseanneless Roseanne. And Roseanne, who is a caring person and has all the money she needs, is still in charge. What do you think Roseanne has planned for this?

daskol said...

Excuse me, they've committed money to the stars. If the show doesn't get picked up, it seems like the little people get screwed. ABC could be made to seem really, really heartless if Roseanne were to to make a generous gesture. She could probably make that gesture, and then get away with all manner of public misbehavior as long as she got the real story out. It's there, but not everyone is paying attention yet. Roseanne probably has ways to make them pay attention.

southcentralpa said...

Totally serious, I'm not on Twitter. I never saw the tweet everyone had the vapors over, and there's no way I'm taking the media's word for it.

I realize it's been fifty years, but does anyone remember the original Planet of the Apes? There were people in ape-like costumes. People. In make-up. So, Valerie Jarrett is someone who has done more than almost anyone to advance the cause of Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, and has kind of an off-the-beaten-track skin tone that could be said to be reminiscent of someone wearing heavy make-up for a movie ...

So, what was the problem (except for the fact that Barr didn't ritually denounce Trump?). Did she use a pic from the Planet of the Apes reboot (where they used actual lower primates? Did her tweet HAVE pictures, and was everyone just getting the vapours about use of the word 'ape'...?

daskol said...

Wow, just noticed Mr. Staples said Ms. Barr. Not Roseanne. He's onto her.

n.n said...

The diversitists are discriminating against the white, brown, and other color apes from Planet of the Apes. And what of the orange orangutan? Where does it fit in their color schemes?

n.n said...

If I were to guess, I would say the diversitists are aping the thoughts and feelings of the corporate diversity rackets and politicians.

mishu said...

Don’t forget Muhammad Ali’s description of Joe Fraiser prior to the “Thrilla in Manila”.