The Woke thread AKA Liberal Kaynesplaining

I don't recognise my own country anymore, I walk outside my front door on darkie day and all I see is white faces

No that's middle girth

No, that's Middle Earth which doesn't contain any people of colour, because that would break you out of the immersion of a wizard riding a giant eagle off an active volcano.

I believe, in strictly philological terms, it is confined to the terms: 'Damn', 'Shit', and 'That's whack!'.*


I'm sure our resident users of colour could confirm, but ... lol black people don't play vidya gaimes.



*

Yes, yes it is you turkey.

Cut me some slack, Jack!

I wonder if there's a connection to how in US and UK, the far right has pervaded the conservative parties and dominates a lot of public debate, while in Germany they have their own 10-15% splinter party now that is mostly shunned in media and public debate, and rejected even by most conservatives.

It should be noted that after the war, the CDU had a lot of former nazis in its ranks. It's only been under Merkel where the CDU has drifted a bit to the left in an attempt to starve the SPD of oxygen, which has in turn allowed the AFD to happen.

Thatcher did this to the British Nationaal Front in the 80s by adopting a lot of their rhetoric and policies. The Republican party had the "Southern Strategy", realizing that they could become the "Anti Civil-Rights Party" after John F Kennedy embraced the Civil Rights Movement.

Anyway I came here to post this:
Why is the idea of ‘gender’ provoking backlash the world over? - By Judith Butler.

I mean, the main Zwarte Piet we see with solid black skin, often frizzy or curly black hair and red lips and so on? Nah mate that's not ok, because not only does he look like blackface, he is. The historical sources are incredibly clear, referring to his appearance in no uncertain terms as that of a "negro". He was initially dressed as a servant, too, and his outfit still reflects that (albeit it's fancy by modern standards).

Earlier Zwarte Piet-type figures were more demonic and not modelled on a human ethnicity.

There's the deal where he's said to be dark from climbing down chimneys but that post-dated the blackface by a long time,and is the sort of thing white people often come out with, like with that horrifying 1920s advert where a black child washes with a soap brand and comes out white (I think there may be a Kipling example too).

I hear some modern Piets have stuff smeared so it looks like coal dust and they lose the lips/hair and so on, which seems fine and matches the later legend re chimneys. If it doesn't look like blackface that's the main thing.

Point is, history is no defence, no more than with Gollywogs or the like, the character has changed appearance several times. They're not immutable. He was a demon, then he became more upbeat but undeniably blackface (again, accounts at the time are clear), now he's changing to match the legend again. Anyone who is mad about it is a hypocrite not to be mad that they changed off the earliest demonic appearance in the first place.

Tbh whatever one thinks, he's doomed unless he updates because as much as older people or conservatives scream and kick, younger people are just not going to see it as cool and ok to go with the obvious blackface approach, in the age of the internet.

It's a really good piece from Butler and I see the Guardian decided not to censor her this time, probably because they realized they'd published so many trite and dumb GC pieces that people were getting mad. She's a much smarter writer and much more coherent than the GC types I note. Probably because in part a lot to GC stuff requires either subscribing to obscure feminist academic thinking, or is intentionally vague in the way Butler alludes to re fascism.

I think there's a whole underlying thing with the right including the centre right where they just want to drag out every discussion of rights issues forever because they know every minute the left spends talking about racism, transphobia and so on is a minute they're not talking about massive shit the like 1% which is now becoming the 0.1%, or pointing out other sweeping inequalities that right wing politicians and/or their backers (but not most of their voters) benefit from. And the left has an issue where some people want to shortcut past racism etc and ignore it to focus on that, which I understand but is a mistake. You've got to hit both at once and people need to stop being dumb and falling for far-right shit like attempts to divert them into transphobia.

So empathetic

www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/oct/26/dave-chappelle-netflix-transgender-employees

Anyone else catch this insane article on the BBC?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57853385

It is basically a really long article going "what's with all these trans people raping lesbians?" Primarily interviewing members of LGB alliance who sound a lot like an anti trans group, with no trans people interviewed at all for some reason (can't possibly think why?).

Some quotes I thought interesting. Bear in mind this is a BBC article, which up until a few years ago had journalistic standards.



Another bit where the journalist really probes and questions the facts.

Well, if nothing else at least the relentless hatred directed towards trans people has made me star

That's exactly what they are.

I don't know, Chappelle has enough of a following and it seems to have gone to his head.

I wonder how many of that following are the same people he used to have such profound problems with.