@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:
sozobe wrote:I thought Robert's observation about the charge of racism being bandied about so frequently in America that we're just kind of used to it was interesting. I think one other element of that is that in the course of these conversations, white people telling black people what they should or shouldn't find offensive is its own hot button. (emphasis added)
That's a very good point. Once when i was in the Army, one of the GIs addressed another one who was Hispanic by descent as "beaner." He just laughed, and said: "Yeah, i love beans . . . what, you don't like beans?" Of course, we all knew that the intent to genuinely insult was absent, but it was kind of like what you are describing. If someone like Brown had been there, he would have attempted to start a fist fight.
I disagree with RG's comment about a blind spot, though. As a turn of phrase in our language, blind spot doesn't mean the failure to see, it means the inability to see. I don't think it would be at all fair to say that the Australians here are unable to see the source of this silly brouhaha. That they view it with contempt is entirely appropriate in my never humble opinion.
Thank you Set.
The "blind spot" thing is so...er...blindingly obvious to me that it's hard to be repeatedly told it's just a quibble.
Thing is, so much of the arguments about a whole parcel of issues to do with various isms and what is and isn't patronising (and whaling) are seen as quibbles by one side, but are valid and reasonable concerns to the other.
I don't view the US response to the ad with contempt at all, by the way. I don't think you can expect people not to react when something has been drilled into them.
I am glad that the people here, and lots of other USians, seem well able to understand that their visceral reaction is not a reasonable one in relation to this ad.
It's interesting that you raise the socio-historical-political context of Oz here, btw.
We ARE used to being called racist in our region.
In many ways, we occupy a similar position in the region that the US does in its.
We have a similarly horrible racial history in relation to our indigenous people.
We DON'T have the whole heap of baggage that the US does re slavery.
We get seen as clumsy, insensitive, stupid, interfering too much/doing too little, damned when we do/damned if we don't, just like you guys.
We are struggling with our racism, anglo-centrism and all that, just like you guys. I wish we were doing a hell of a lot better.
It's a bit irking that we continue to be called racist in our region, when we feel like we're trying to do lots about it....but it just makes sense historically that it's gonna be happening.
I am wondering if some of the distress this whole thing acted like a lightning rod for is that sadness about being called racist so much by our neighbours? And then it felt like the US was doing it too? It makes lots of sense from our neighbours, I think....but we feel here on A2k that you guys are, by and large, our mates.....and being called racist by some in the US also feel like a pot/kettle thing.
"It's ok if the Aborigines, Indians, Indonesians etc. do it, we can take it from them, but another colonial nation!!!???"
I also think, personally speaking, that being around on a predominantly USian site for what...nearly ten years?....has kind of meant that there are very frequent little or big irkednesses from unthinking ignorance, UScentrism, patronising comments and such.....maybe this issue has touched a kind of well of irks that normally just lies around relatively untapped?
