Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/30/beep-beep-beep.html
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After last week’s Kingman Mosque bit, I’m convinced Cohen is going to get himself shot.
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By whom? don’t you know Hitlery controls the keys to the deep state?
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I have to wonder if that isn’t part of ‘the plan’; just think of the ratings.
Also:
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This bit was good. But the other bit involving the same ex-Mossad character (sorry, no link, you’ll have to download the show to see it) was “amazing”… which I put in quotes because at the same time it was the hardest one yet for me to watch–I could only play it for 10-15 seconds at a time before I had to stop it and look away for a while. I don’t feel bad for the likes of Roy Moore when he’s made uncomfortable, but when he targets your garden-variety ignorant neighbourhood racists and they’re made to act foolishly, I can’t help feeling sorry for them, even though I hate the intolerance they stand for and rationally I know they deserve to be taught a lesson. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that SBC is doing this, and I don’t think he should stop. His ability to maintain the act in the face of discomfort is impressive… it’s just too hard for me personally to watch sometimes! I wonder how common this reaction is.
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I’m surprised someone didn’t get shot in that bit. Maybe those cops were in on it.
Why do you feel sorry for racists who have their racism exposed and lampooned?
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I nearly wet myself laughing when he was showing them their two options for the mosque.
They’re definitely a different target than the celebrities and politicians who thrive on media attention but they also make the decision to show up for these meetings and (in the case of Borat) to participate in a rousing singalong of “Throw the Jew Down the Well.” No-one is forcing them.
To cringe at those segments is normal but they also drive home the fact that the likes of Cheney and Moore and the state legislator who had to resign would be nowhere in this republic without ignorant bigots voting them in.
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Fascinating that the common thread so far in nearly all of these confrontations is that the dupes were lured in with the promise of an award from Israel. Seems like the mere suggestion of that sweet Israeli cash gets them flying across the country, no questions asked.
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Ditto. On my second watching of it (I just had to show my SO), I marveled at how expertly he pulled everyone’s strings.
He knew exactly what it meant when someone mentioned African Americans, and exactly how to spin everyone up until someone said plainly what was supposed to be left as implication. “We don’t want them here either, but we tolerate 'em!” =0
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You see it here, too. Before Moore realises he’s being punked, he happily agrees to SBC’s every escalation of the concept that Alabama has always been a place of freedom for all of its residents. It’s driving trollies elevated to mastercraft if not art.
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I’m sorry, but why? Spencer was an elected official who had already implicitly threatened a lawyer with being “disappeared” not too long ago. The guy was not ignorant, he knew very well that he was an advocate for white supremacy. I’m unsure why you’d feel sorry for him, given what he represents.
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What SBC has excelled at for a long time is speaking exactly the right language to the right people to make them feel comfortable enough to let their guard down and speak freely. It’s like Obi Wan Kenobi waving his hand at a Stormtrooper – with just a few well placed sentences he can get a politician to drop his pants and yell racial slurs. He isn’t hypnotizing a crowd or tricking them into saying things they don’t believe. I don’t feel the least bit sorry for people revealing their racist tendencies to someone giving them the freedom to feel comfortable doing so.
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Are you sure? He is a Jew, after all /Borat
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I get it. I moved from the South to the PNW, and many things are the same just with different names.
Instead of tattered McCain bumper stickers on pickup trucks, it’s aging Hillery and Bernie bumper stickers on Subarus.
There’s people who try to fit in with the main society, and they both adopt their own historical biases. Whether it’s rednecks or bleeding hearts, a willingness to fit in adds to groupthink which ingrains these thoughts.
This country is tribal. And tribes find ways to identify with themselves and how to identify their supposed enemies.
I’m all for confronting people in power, but going after the villagers is just shooting fish in a barrel.
I mean, it’s hilarious but still not a good clean funny.
It’s almost like People First language should be applied to everyone. Like there’s not racists, but people with racist thoughts. (But of course there are people whose whole identity is their racist ideology, so they are racists.)
I just feel like country will get worse as we continue to vilify each other.
Edit: All I did was try to appeal to seeing others as people, no matter what preconceived notions you may have of them. That applies to all people. I was called a faggot in the south based on my looks, and a nazi in the PNW based solely on looks. This experience has made me want to add more mutual respect, but you know what? I’m wrong. That’s why I have no friends, my family won’t return my calls, I got a graduate degree but can’t find a job. I must be this fucked up person. I’ve done so much to try to improve myself since I left the army a year and a half ago, and it has all been for naught.
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I do think it’s at least valuable to try and empathize with them. A good deal of people in this country have never in their life met a black or brown person face-to-face. Their perception of them has been shaped by local news (where black men are statistically much more likely to be pictured along with a crime than white criminals), Fox News, right leaning newspapers, etc… Add to that a strong tribalism (often fueled by religion), a hatred for city folk who are ok with black/brown people (seen as “stealing” the economic power the rural middle class once had), and “they took our jobs.”
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Assuming you’re referencing Spencer, he was in the GA state legislature, so he was an elected official. He’s not a “villager” he was in a position to help shape public policy. And racism isn’t just one of a set of acceptable political beliefs, it’s a dangerous ideology that dehumanizes an entire group of people based on their skin color.
Again, this guy was a political leader, and he thought it was okay to shout a racial slur and show his ass, literally, on TV. He wasn’t tricked, he was power hungry and wanted to be on TV.
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I’m surprised Roy Moore could actually connect the dots and realize he was being outted as a pedophile.
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Not referencing Spencer.
Precisely the way they refuse to empathize with people of color?
That’s not excuse, though. Plus, I suspect it’s far less the case now than it was even 30 years ago. The country is more diverse than it’s ever been, even in places like the mid-west.
On top of that, there are plenty of non-news based media sources to help them understand people who don’t look like them. I get what you’re saying about media bias and the like, but at some point, that stops being an explanation and just becomes an excuse for continued shitty behavior.
Who then? Just people in general?
[ETA] Just, FYI, here are a couple sites with demographics of the US - the Census bureau’s website with a mapping feature and a page from the Kaiser Family foundation on demographics (for that one, note that of the top 5 whitest states, 3 of them are blue states, so I’m not sure that a lack of interactions with people of color for whites necessarily corresponds to an increase in racist behavior:
https://datamapper.geo.census.gov/map.html
So, it may be true that some people have never had regular interactions with African Americans or people of other races, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be more likely to BE racist. Some of the most racist activity often comes where there is close interconnections between races, and politicians and other people in power can use that to their political advantage by stoking racist sentiment among a majority white population. This is a long standing tactic from the pre-Kennedy/Johnson democratic party in the south (now a key tactic in the GOP).
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