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DirkBender

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Posts posted by DirkBender

  7. Posted

    Thoroughly enjoyed this one, especially where Kevin schools Andrew on the etymology of the term "nigra", about which (blessedly? I guess?) Andrew appeared to be completely ignorant.

     

    And Kevin is right, at least per my own recollections of the last time I encountered anyone using that term--it's definitely from a time when "Negro" was the respectable term of address, and some racist yahoos just couldn't "lower" themselves to use it.

    • Like 1

  11. Posted

    Shortly after my sister and her ex (both white) had their son, the two of them talked about adopting a child who wasn't white "to show people that it doesn't matter what colour your skin is". I feel that using interracial adoption as a "teaching moment", to use your child to make yourself look good is really tacky. Like, "Look at what an open-minded white person I am for adopting a non-white child!"

    Well, talk is rather cheap, doubtful such folk would follow through.

  13. Posted

    I first heard of this tune through the 1977 recording from Ram Jam, more or less contemporaneously, and remember thinking "what an assholish, racist thing for a white band to be playing."

     

    And I won't bother nitpicking about Andrey & Ify's take on it. Sure, it's noxious enough if your assumption is that the tune was played out of some kind of lame white-guilt trip.

     

    But the song's actual origins are quite fascinating, and in retrospect, I can see why a band--any band--might get it into their heads that it was worth covering...

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Betty

    • Like 1

  15. Posted

    I think you dropped the ball on this one.

     

    Yes, of course, have a Gamergate episode. The discussion on that topic was spot on, and I enjoyed hearing Emily's insight. (there's a great interview with Brianna Wu on the topic, here, if anyone's interested --

     

    http://majority.fm/2014/10/20/1020-dani-mcclain-why-black-women-are-the-voting-bloc-to-watch-in-the-midterms-brianna-wu-gamergate/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MajorityReport+%28The+Majority+Report+with+Sam+Seder%29&utm_content=FeedBurner

     

    posting because why not.)

     

    However, the voicemail question seems to have been completely dodged, and I listened to it twice to make sure I understood it correctly. The caller wanted to know if white people calling black folks "racist" was the equivalent of the N-word.

     

    I've been hearing my fellow white folks getting their jollies by doing this disgusting thing for decades now. If anything it's only gotten worse of late; just last week Ben Stein indulged in it.

     

    I'd like to hear Andrew-and-guest cover this in depth sometime. Heard most of the eps and I don't think they have, at least not in the past coupla years.

    • Like 1

  19. Posted

    One of the best of your "serious" topic shows (yeah, they're all serious at heart). Just one unexplored point to share--I think that despite the best efforts of folks like this apparently righteous news producer, what winds up becoming the iconic image of a murder victim is what rises to the top of a news feed, which is based on click thrus, which is going to wind up depending on what the majority culture wishes to see. So if they're clicking on a lot of news stories with a thuggish photo, that's what winds up getting shown over and over again.

     

    Part of that institutionalized racist-ass culture, of course. Shaped too by what decent people--like your caller--decide they won't run. And like she implied, it takes some courage not to run with the one photo you've got, to wait until you have something to which the family approves. How many would put their job on the line to do this, I wonder.

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