White girl, take off your hoops

[Gerarddm]

Of course it is stupid. So what>

[oznabrag]

Here is De La Soul sayin' 'Take it Off'

[Chip-skiff]

Polynesians, I think. That's why it became a fashion among sailors in the old days, and then spread.

Hey, wait a minute- is this 'cultural appropriation' too?

My Mäori pals from New Zealand are pretty hot about that movie. Maui is their culture hero, whom they don't portray as some comical, obese, simian, subhuman hulk. Rather he looks more like this:



That's Dwayne Johnson, who did the Maui voice for the movie, and is Samoan. Big contrast between him and the creature created by the Disney mob. Anthropologist Tēvita 'Ō Kaʻili stated that "Disney resorted to reducing the mighty god Maui to a one-dimensional, selfish, borderline abusive, buffoon."

Mäori call their tattoos ta moko, and the designs are the property of the iwi and hapu, with the right to wear them an honour based on both rank and personal achievement.

[CWSmith]

I am sorry the Maui are offended, but it is Disney and Disney reduces everything to a simple, easy to sell bit of nonsense. They join the long ranks of cultures and people who are not correctly represented.

[Breakaway]

As the proverb states: " Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

Kevin

[Osborne Russell]

Cultural

Not Cultural

What justifies the distinction?

Dress is culture for everyone. Hoop earrings are culture for everyone.

What is the cultural significance? You have no idea whether they are a sign of family affiliation or a merit badge for human sacrifices. Number of husbands. Not that it matters. Culture can F off. Some guy says, you can't wear jeans because I wear jeans as a protest against the many indignities suffered by my people. Your answer?

Suppose this is what hoop earrings connote. You going to tip your hat to it? Tell your daughter not to wear hoop earrings? Tell the college to forbid them, but only to white girls?

The bride price tradition can have destructive effects when young men don't have the means to marry. In strife-torn South Sudan, for instance, many young men steal cattle for this reason, often risking their lives. In mid twentieth century Gabon a person's whole life can be governed by the money affairs connected with marriage; to secure a wife for their son, parents begin to pay installments for a girl of only a few years; from the side of the wife's family there begins a process of squeezing which goes on for years.

--wikipedia, Bride price

[Osborne Russell]

I keep quiet at the dinner table. Kids know nothing. I set them straight when they dredge up heroshima and Nagasaki and the few other America hating themes. I tell them what the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was but generally I let the kids blather on. Kids know absolutely nothing.

That's one approach. You are sacrificing what you know to be right in the interest of the dinner table, which is often for the best. It's a refuge from the wider world. The wider world is still there, however.

[Osborne Russell]

once again false morality rises

Yep.

[Keith Wilson]

Maui is their culture hero, whom they don't portray as some comical, obese, simian, subhuman hulk.

Um - not to take the thread off on too much of a tangent, but have you actually seen the movie? Comical sometimes, but none of the others, not even close. The character is no doubt ornery and difficult, sometimes selfish, but the portrayal of Polynesian culture is very respectful - although for chrissake, it is a Disney/Pixar kids' movie.

[Osborne Russell]

Of course it is stupid. So what>

Underestimate the assertion of culture as a force for evil at your peril.

The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, was a genocidal mass slaughter of Tutsi in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority government. An estimated more than 800,000 Rwandans were killed during the 100-day period from April 7 to mid-July 1994.

The genocide was planned by members of the core political elite, many of whom occupied positions at top levels of the national government. Perpetrators came from the ranks of the Rwandan army, the Gendarmerie, government-backed militias including the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi, as well as Catholic clergy and countless ordinary civilians. Some militias called themselves the "Army of Jesus" and they believed their mission was to destroy God's enemies.

-- wikipedia, Rwandan genocide

Nor will it do to state that "the real problem" is cynical exploitation, not the bigotry itself. A single match can burn down a forest.

[Peerie Maa]

Underestimate the assertion of culture as a force for evil at your peril.



Nor will it do to state that "the real problem" is cynical exploitation, not the bigotry itself. A single match can burn down a forest.

You are beginning to sound as paranoid as Geng

[oznabrag]

Here is De La Soul sayin' 'Take it Off'

[video displayed upthread]

Somehow I just KNEW the irony of the video would be LOST on a bunch of old, white guys.



The song is at once an exhortation to a young woman to take off her clothes, and also an exhortation to her to abandon her adoption of white culture.

Take take take take take it off
Take it off take take take take it off
Take it off take take take take it off
Take it off take take take take it off

Take it off
Take it OFF!
(Take that suede front off)
Take it OFF!
(Take those contacts off)
Take it OFF!
(Take that horsemeat off)
Take it OFF!
(Take those shell-toes off)
Take it OFF!
(Take those track fleas off)
Take it OFF!
(Take that doo-rag off)
Take it OFF!
(Take that moth rag off)
Take it OFF!
(Take those fat laces off)
Take it OFF!
(Take that bomber off)
Take it OFF!
(Take that BVD off)
Take it OFF!
(Take those Converse off)
Take it OFF!
(And those Gazelles too)
Take it OFF!
(Take that Kangol off)
Take it OFF!
(Take that Jordache off)
Take it OFF!
(Take that Afro off)
Take it OFF!
(Take that jhericurl off)
Take it OFF!
(Take that Le Tigre off)

Take those acid-washed jeans, bell-bottomed, designed by your mama
off? Please? Please

[johnw]

If I got outraged every time someone did something stupid, I'd have no time for anything else.

[Chip-skiff]

Um - not to take the thread off on too much of a tangent, but have you actually seen the movie? Comical sometimes, but none of the others, not even close. The character is no doubt ornery and difficult, sometimes selfish, but the portrayal of Polynesian culture is very respectful - although for chrissake, it is a Disney/Pixar kids' movie.

Not being a Disney/Pixar kid, I'll give it a miss. I've actively disliked most of the Disney/Pixar flicks I've seen: too calculated and formulaic.

Which is not to say that all Disney productions are mass-market crap. Just saw this and liked it:



The Maui in the Moana film looks like a nasty caricature of a big, fat, ugly Mäori bloke, and the girl is a typical bug-eyed Pixar clone. After Frozen, I swore off Pixar forever. I'm not outraged. I just find that stuff creepy.

[Keith Wilson]

The Maui in the Moana film looks like a nasty caricature of a big, fat, ugly Mäori bloke, and the girl is a typical bug-eyed Pixar clone. After Frozen, I swore off Pixar forever. I'm not outraged. I just find that stuff creepy.

Well, de gustibus non disputandum. FWIW the Maui character isn't obese at all, just rectangular; it's definitely all muscle. I liked the film quite a lot, and was particularly pleased that although it's the old hero's quest formula (well heroine's quest, but that's probably an improvement too) there's no Evil Villain, rather some things gone badly wrong that have to be set right, more mistake than malice. And there's a wonderful scene at the very end where they set out again in their largest boats to find new islands that will gladden any sailor's heart. I've watched enough anime that the big eyes seem very restrained and naturalistic by comparison.

[Osborne Russell]

University's turn out tomorrows thinkers. Thinking takes practice, and sometimes when you start out you get it wrong.
You should never condemn someone for thinking when thinking is what you send them to Uni to learn.

Think all you like. This is speech -- hate speech by your definition I would think -- painted on a wall.

[Osborne Russell]

This is a small, silly example but it's still a small silly example of something bad.

Yep.

[Peerie Maa]

University's turn out tomorrows thinkers. Thinking takes practice, and sometimes when you start out you get it wrong.
You should never condemn someone for thinking when thinking is what you send them to Uni to learn.

Think all you like. This is speech -- hate speech by your definition I would think -- painted on a wall.

Any one else hear a whooshing sound?

[oznabrag]

Any one else hear a whooshing sound?

I did.

These young women are clearly at the stage where they simply can not comprehend their own hypocrisy.

Time is on their side, though, and I have faith that they'll get it.

[Osborne Russell]

Any one else hear a whooshing sound?

It's the wind between your ears where the intellectual honesty should be.

Hate speech, then. For students. Because they have to learn how. What about the people who can't afford to go to college? Where shall they practice their crimes? What crimes should they especially practice?

[Osborne Russell]

I did.

These young women are clearly at the stage where they simply can not comprehend their own hypocrisy.

Time is on their side, though, and I have faith that they'll get it.

Horse S. Women their age are combat soldiers. Voters.

[Duncan Gibbs]

Geebuz Osborne! I could get all pissed at Gil Scott Herron for his classic track 'Whitey on the Moon' because black, female mathematicians were critical in calculations that delivered almost every single NASA space vehicle safely from the start of the Mercury missions to the beginnings of the Shuttle missions.

I suggest you you focus your righteous outrage on chit that REALLY matters, rather than some little squabble about fashion in one university campus...
Stuff like the fact that 250,000 children under the age of 5 die each year each year from a lack of vitamin A, whilst another 250,000 go blind from this lack of vitamin A, which can be delivered in a capsule that costs a whole five cents.

We all get where you're coming from, but it's not any kind of thin end of the wedge. It's kids, in a frightening political environment, essentially working out where their place in the World is.

It's a FIRST WORLD PROBLEM at worst.

[oznabrag]

Geebuz Osborne! I could get all pissed at Gil Scott Herron for his classic track 'Whitey on the Moon' because black, female mathematicians were critical in calculations that delivered almost every single NASA space vehicle safely from the start of the Mercury missions to the beginnings of the Shuttle missions.

I suggest you you focus your righteous outrage on chit that REALLY matters, rather than some little squabble about fashion in one university campus...
Stuff like the fact that 250,000 children under the age of 5 die each year each year from a lack of vitamin A, whilst another 250,000 go blind from this lack of vitamin A, which can be delivered in a capsule that costs a whole five cents.

We all get where you're coming from, but it's not any kind of thin end of the wedge. It's kids, in a frightening political environment, essentially working out where their place in the World is.

It's a FIRST WORLD PROBLEM at worst.

Not only that, but those women are getting a HUGE earful from every corner.

The comments are hilarious! Not safe for the Bilge, but hilarious!

It won't be a year before those women are thoroughly embarrassed that they took up that cause.

[oznabrag]

From "eyebrow culture" to earrings, social justice marches on.




". . . why should white girls be able to take part in this culture . . ."

I call on liberals to condemn this without reservation, and not merely as silly.

Whoa. . . wait a second . . . I thought you self-identify as a Conservative.

Izzat so?

I was further under the impression that you were a 'sane' Conservative.

Was I wrong about that, too?

Further still, if you are going to start demanding that 'liberals condemn this or that without reservation', then I call this thread a pathetic troll, and I wonder if you would like for me to serve you up a list of crimes against humanity (ACTUAL CRIMES, mind you, not some college-girl-militant bushwa) that I believe CONSERVATIVES are ACTUALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR, that need to be condemned with extreme prejudice?

We can start with the lynching of thousands of Mexican-Americans in South Texas at the turn of the last century, for no better reason than the simple fact that they owned vast tracts of land, and 'conservative' white people wanted it.

I have a GREAT list. It'll be YUUUUGE!

[Duncan Gibbs]

The other issue is that Osborne has been a strident voice for unabated free speech, yet here he asks us to condemn a young, black woman for using this one thing he's told us all he just about holds more sacred than life itself.

What she said was very silly; no doubts about it. But, really, this is of about as much consequence as discussions surrounding Lady Gaga's fashion sense. Really!

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Tempted to quote Downthecreek..

Search the forum for querencia if you cant remember it.

[Duncan Gibbs]

I have it bookmarked!

It isn't just you

Very familar modus operandi of the desperate.

1. Stake out a tiny patch of ground, chosen not for its significance, but for its perceived defensibility

2. Insist on the occupation of this ground, however, irrelevant, as the only possible measure of the battle being won or lost

3. Insist that the game is valid ONLY if played by YOUR rules

4. Rush, yapping and snarling, around the perimeter of your little querencia, pretending your foe wants and is trying to take it and ignoring all attempts to move to more significant ground

5. Proclaim successful defence against an attack that never was. Another victory!

Classic internet tactic.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Tempted to quote Downthecreek..

Search the forum for querencia if you can't remember it.

Linky

[Bluefin2]

We can start with the lynching of thousands of Mexican-Americans in South Texas at the turn of the last century, for no better reason than the simple fact that they owned vast tracts of land, and 'conservative' white people wanted it.

LOL. Ozna most folks know that the south was ruled by the Dems til the 1960's - Texas especially so. Most were known as yellow dog democrats.
And don't try to put all those lynchings on just Texas. That was spread all across to California as well. Many think it was retribution for the Mexican American wars. Certainly not a proud part of our history but at least try to get it right w/o the 'conservative white people' bs.

[oznabrag]

LOL. Ozna most folks know that the south was ruled by the Dems til the 1960's - Texas especially so. Most were known as yellow dog democrats.
And don't try to put all those lynchings on just Texas. That was spread all across to California as well. Many think it was retribution for the Mexican American wars. Certainly not a proud part of our history but at least try to get it right w/o the 'conservative white people' bs.

You might try my Title on for size. It says I'm an Historical Illiterate, but the person who tried to hang that on me has since apologized.


1) The Ratfreaking Republican So-called Conservative Party has tried VERY hard to obscure the FACT that up until the late 60s there were very Conservative Democrats, and very Liberal Republicans. Then, the Ratfreakers decided that they would run their Presidential campaigns on thinly-veiled racism and wedge issues, and that a sharply-divided populace was a better tool for the destruction of this country than any other sort of popular support they could muster. That's because they realized there was no way in Hell any self-respecting American could ever actually, knowingly VOTE for their sorry shtuff. The Republican Party was doomed in 1876, but they waited to reveal what traitors to the Constitution they were until 1968.

Nobody born since 1936 has had an opportunity tio elect a Republican President who did not violate the Logan Act in his bid for election. The Republican Party has become a twisted, evil shell of corruption, graft and treason.

2) "They did it in California, too!" is not any sort of reasonable defense.

3) "We were just getting back at them for stealing their country!" is not any sort of reasonable defense, either.

4) I 'try to get it right' each and every, single day.

5) Don't even BEGIN to try and sell me some miserable sack of BS about how Texas isn't so-called 'conservative'.

[TomF]

I'll condemn it without reservation, although whether it's merely extremely silly or something worse is debatable. In fact, about 90% of the 'cultural appropriation' stuff is total and complete bullsh!t. One central way human cultures get better is to pick up good ideas from other folks. Might as well ask the Irish to give the potatoes back to the Peruvians.

Keith wins.

[Bluefin2]

So Mr Hysterical Whatever - when are you going to own your party's past? Or are you going to pick and choose dates and events or what so many libs do and fabricate history?

[Keith Wilson]

Sigh . . Bluey, are you going to try this hogwash again? Everybody who has read even a little US history knows that because Abe Lincoln and U.S. Grant were Republicans, the states of the former Confederacy were run almost entirely by the all-white southern wing of the Democratic party from the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s until the 1970s and the Republicans' 'southern strategy'. Everybody who has read even a little US history (and is not writing lying propaganda) also knows that the segregationist southern Democrats of the first part of the 20th century have about as much to do with today's Democratic Party as the government of China today has to do their government in 1900, or the current government of Germany has to do with the one in 1937.

We know this trick; it won't fly. There's an excellent reason just about every conservative white southerner today votes Republican, and it sure as hell isn't because they're embarrassed that Pitchfork Ben Tillman was a Democrat.

[bob winter]

There should be a law against social media.

[Duncan Gibbs]

@ Bob:

I'd never belong to a club that would have somebody like me as a member!