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I see 3 misbehaving kids of color and 2 misbehaving light skinned kids. What is the big deal? If they showed no kids of color then it would be racist. Can't win with some people.
I see 3 misbehaving kids of color and 2 misbehaving light skinned kids. What is the big deal? If they showed no kids of color then it would be racist. Can't win with some people.
What you can't see is all the white kids peeing in the pool.
People can be racist. And we also have racist systems (and a racism ingrained into our social structures). This poster is one of the ways systemic racism manifests.
Another one? When you look at portrayals of black women in the media, particularly darker ones, there isn't a variety of roles available. Typically mammy, poor single mom or sassy friend. Guess what happens in real life -- people think that is true! And treat black women accordingly. See the correlation.
Happens to me all the time. People just walk up to me speaking in weird slang when 1 minute earlier they weren't talking that way when they talked to someone else. Or people assume I don't have a professional job and act shocked when they find out I do.
So while you think this poster means nothing, my day to day life shows me all of this messaging perpetrates and people act accordingly.
Jade, you're wasting your time. The technical term is called 'subliminal messaging' but these dopes aren't interested in learning anything, they simply want to point fingers. This kind of thing (or so they think) doesn't impact them, so they don't care. And in their minds, their fake outrage trumps real outrage any day.
If there was an ad telling women on campus to be extra cautious because of campus rapes, and it had a picture of a building in the background with Greek letters on it, they'd be pissed by the implication that it's the frat boys women need to stay away from.
But this? Who cares?? It's just some black folks we're talking about and they don't count.
Uggabugga, I saw it as the NAACP showing America how ignorant they were to science, outer space and our solar system. Clearly they'd never heard of black holes. Looking back, it's even funnier now than it was then. Hallmark should have weathered that storm rather than bow down to the uneducated pressure.
yeah, I totally agree. they look rather pathetic to have buckled to such a ridiculous complaint.
People can be racist. And we also have racist systems (and a racism ingrained into our social structures). This poster is one of the ways systemic racism manifests.
You are correct. This poster is not a photograph. It's a drawing. Somebody drew a picture of misbehavior and then filled in all the colors. I doubt the artist made a conscious decision to make all the troublemakers people of color and the good/cool kids white. It was an unconscious decision, but a decision nonetheless. What drove those choices? Ingrained racism so subtle that the people don't believe it even when it's right in front of them. I'm sorry this junk happens and then is trivialized by people it doesn't affect, Jade.
Jade, you're wasting your time. The technical term is called 'subliminal messaging' but these dopes aren't interested in learning anything, they simply want to point fingers. This kind of thing (or so they think) doesn't impact them, so they don't care. And in their minds, their fake outrage trumps real outrage any day.
If there was an ad telling women on campus to be extra cautious because of campus rapes, and it had a picture of a building in the background with Greek letters on it, they'd be pissed by the implication that it's the frat boys women need to stay away from.
But this? Who cares?? It's just some black folks we're talking about and they don't count.
Doesn't a subliminal message require forethought? How do you know the person making this poster wanted to create a subliminal message? If a computer randomly made posters and this was one of the creations, would you say random chance is racist? Is reality racist when there's a situation where more blacks are misbehaving compared to whites? I walked into a 5th grade teacher's classroom a few months ago - the only black boy in the class had his desk parked right beside the teacher's desk. Should I assume she's racist considering all the white kids have their desks aligned normally?
Doesn't a subliminal message require forethought? How do you know the person making this poster wanted to create a subliminal message? If a computer randomly made posters and this was one of the creations, would you say random chance is racist? Is reality racist when there's a situation where more blacks are misbehaving compared to whites? I walked into a 5th grade teacher's classroom a few months ago - the only black boy in the class had his desk parked right beside the teacher's desk. Should I assume she's racist considering all the white kids have their desks aligned normally?
NOT necessarily. What happens is the subliminal messages that bombard us throughout the day become part of our subconscious and present themselves without needing any real thought about it on our part.
It's like when children in the '60s' automatically drew good cowboys with white hats and bad cowboys with black hats. Nobody told them to do that. They didn't sit there and think about it. They had that buried in their subconscious minds and their choices reflected that.
I even stated a few posts back that I doubt it was done with ill intent. But it was done and isn't a good thing because the subliminal message, like all such messages, is slanted in a negative way.
Regarding your scenario, I would assume the kid got busted, but then I spent quite a bit of time with my desk positioned right next to Sr. Mary Linebacker.
By the way, great question. Thank you for being thoughtful and interested enough to ask.
I like this article from a black columnist who at first saw diversity, not racism in the poster---but then she understood what the white woman was talking about:
Notice how she acknowledges her own biases, like when writing about female Supreme Court justices and mentioning their appearance/clothing---she realizes that she wouldn't have done it with the male justices. Subtle but undeniable sexism.
What if there were 4 blacks breaking the rules vs 3 whites...would that also be racism? What about 3 black vs 4 whites? Wouldn't that also be racism considering blacks are only ~15% of the population yet make up 43% of rule breakers in this hypothetical?
Would it also be racist toward whites to depict more black kids doing something good?
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