I’ve gotta stop you right there - the right likes the war on drugs because it attacks predominantly coloured folks and lefties. Pretty sure I came across a Nixon quote on here not long ago that totally let that cat out of the bag.
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If the message is aimed at white people, he is literally calling for “race purity.”
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I’m asking for a translation of one thing into another pain. And it’s not about equalising it. It’s asking you to translate the possible feeling of what it feels like and to not cause that. It’s just asking for a bit more responsibility on an individual scale and the thing is that we have to start looking at these things in different communities. Because we’re rushed in the way that we constantly have to live and survive capitalism, we don’t have time to take that time with people, and people are just asking for time.
It’s a kind of human kindness that we’ve forgotten in the rush, because those things take time and they ask more of us as individuals, and I am definitely no poster girl for genderqueer, but it’s something that I want to do because I believe in sharing, I am sharing this.
I’m just not sure how reading “fuck white people” is supposed to translate into this response. It feels more like a modern art project to me – it’s for the initiated to distance themselves from a culture they belong to but feel uncomfortable being part of, and act like this is doing something meaningful. “Paying back privilege”, whatever that means. If people feel pain at this message (rather than looking at white people as “them” and agreeing with the sentiment), is it likely to make them recognise the pain that nonwhite people suffer, and would it make them more likely to cause it less? When it comes to practical ways to pay off privilege, Hutton is even more vague:
And it’s not to say…like a friend asked me the other day, “How do we deal with our privilege? How do you be better?”, you know. How do you pay back your privilege? It’s complicated, and I think we each have to find ways to do that. How do you live as a conscious being in a world that constantly asks you to take, to profit and to be unthinking and distracted? Even just in the basic way we speak to people who occupy the same spaces as us. It’s really hard work.
A lot of the argument seems to be “treating people with respect”, which is not paying back privilege – it’s just a basic part of living in a society.
I guess part of this message is confronting people with the anger that their direct and indirect actions cause, since people in general build up systems where they can live their life and not have to face too many negative messages about themselves. By attacking a label they have, it could make them uncomfortable and question their place in the world – many people around you see people like you in a negative light, and for good reason. Historical and current injustices mean that just peacefully living your life isn’t neutral. What are you going to do about it?
If the responses that Hutton gets are more in this direction, then fair enough. If it’s mainly aggression, I’d say it’s more likely to polarise opinion and less likely to result in actual positive change.
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When I saw the image, I read it as “White people F*ck”, and thought well duh, doesn’t everybody? Had to read the rest of the article to realize there what a totally different way to read this.
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Damn, too late to post the popcorn gif again.
I read it as an observation, another example of white privilege, where the whites are free to fuck as they please, unlike the other races.
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It was made for a gay pride parade IIRC. It has a greater social justice message, but it’s really about having fun making Ma and Pa Kettle squirm.
Oh, did the artist say so? Where?
A lot of the argument seems to be “treating people with respect”, which is not paying back privilege – it’s just a basic part of living in a society.
But most (all?) societies have people who, because of the category or categories in which they’ve been placed, are often disrespected. OTOH, being in a dominant category brings more automatic respect, which is, thus, a privilege.
Many things that constitute “privilege” are things that in a more just society would be available to everyone.
The idea of paying back privilege by treating the disrespected with respect makes perfect sense to me.
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Yes, in the original post. However, they said that Gay Pride was just a supportive environment for them rather than their target audience, so maybe not?
If the goal is to make moderates uncomfortable, then it’s spot on. Nothing wrong with that. Otherwise, if there’s some greater grandiose social justice message that’s supposed to bring people together, either it’s sorely misguided or I’m just not seeing it.
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goes back to op
Still not seeing where it says the point is to make Me and Pa Kettle squirm…
To me, that seems like paying someone back by not stealing from them as much any more. It’s a good thing to do and there are many ways that we may be treating people with disrespect without noticing, but I don’t see it as restorative. I guess it could be to an extent if you’re undermining systems that teach you to disrespect people though - reducing ongoing damage is a sort of progress, even if it isn’t a positive benefit.
#Reading is cool!
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That’s me reading into it, and maybe reading a little far into it. I like the idea of making Ma and Pa Kettle squirm, because they deserve to be made uncomfortable. They have never experienced the slightest bit of real discomfort in their sheltered little lives, so fuck what they think. As soon as they feel uncomfortable, they’ll just switch the channel and watch some news actor give fake even-handed justifications for bigotry, and that will be okay because it’s coming from someone with nice clothes and glib words on a major news network. Seriously, fuck those people. Gay Pride seems like a good environment for the suit, because Gay Pride never fails to make those people uncomfortable while promoting a greater social justice message.
As I said, after I reread the OP, I don’t think Gay Pride was the target for this. I think greater conversation was the goal. If so, they are sorely misguided. There is no greater conversation, just parallel circlejerks, fake outrage, and channel flipping. As a society we have moved so far beyond conversation it’s not even funny. If you don’t believe me, look at Trump getting elected president. If you didn’t see that coming, and didn’t think it was a very real possibility, it’s because there was no real conversation about Trump prior to the election. The only way to have a conversation about anything serious is to not let people know they’re having a conversation.
So which do you feel most aligned with, and which do you feel we are performing in this thread?
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I think this is another circlejerk. Nobody here’s opinions on race and racism will change from reading this thread. We’re just saying what we already know.
I just realize that there can never be a real conversation about anything serious, because our society isn’t set up for that.
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Thanks for trying to drive this conversation to what you want it to be versus what it is to the rest of us?
If you are becoming what you hate, bow out and refrain from accelerating.
Internet forums are not ideal for this sort of discussion, but they often don’t happen in public and with friends (beyond when art is used to specifically draw out and incite these discussions.)
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Fuck, white people, amiright?
I’m very offended they made a suit in all caps with no serifs and no accent stitch. They didn’t overdo with the dyes at all, so that’s on the carbon-neutral side. Henna would really have been stepping down, I suppose? Would it have killed if it had a tag ‘Gimpsuiting Local SA #23?’
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What does the kink crowd have to do with this?
