• Frank Apisa
    2.1k
    I guess it's possible. No?frank

    It definitely is possible, Frank.

    It also is possible that I will hit our states lottery tomorrow night...and win $6 to $8 million.
  • frank
    14.5k
    definitely is possible, Frank.

    It also is possible that I will hit our states lottery tomorrow night...and win $6 to $8 million.
    Frank Apisa

    So it was racist? Ok.

    The racism angle is a gimmick, but yes, there was racism, and it's an important issue, but it's trivialized by association with the British royal family, and therefore we can't be seen caring about it.
  • Baden
    15.6k
    So it was racist? Ok.frank

    That was a bit too easy. According to my research, there's a good chance it wasn't deliberately racist. You'd have to believe in intentional career suicide over it being a stupid mistake. But it's a Roseanne-type issue, we'll probably never know.
  • Baden
    15.6k
    I don't know about all this. But bugger hereditary privilege anyway.
  • fishfry
    2.6k
    Similarly fishfry has his own speculative narrative built up from his interpretation of the facts (and for some reason is even more inordinately sure of himself).Baden

    I'd have gladly stuck around for intelligent dialog; but once I was told to "step off" it was either tell that individual to FUCK off, or depart the conversation. It's not that I don't know how to be a rude asshole; I just prefer not to interact with people who choose that mode of communication. And if they flip out every time someone goes slightly off-topic in an online discussion thread, they must flip out alot. But in this case I don't think that was the problem. I think I triggered that individual's delicate political sensibilities and they didn't have the wit to engage on the topic of the psychodynamics of male-female relationships. As I say you could study Jungian archetypes or Berne's "Games People Play" or the collected works of Sigmund Freud to find this Royal couple described as the ancient archetypes and scripts they are acting out.

    I actually noted that by calling my remarks "sexist" and reaching for the smelling salts, that poster demonstrated how people these days are brainwashed by political ideology to the point that they have no interest at all in human nature. But I gave some classic authors on the subject, you could go read their books and look them up and thereby gain much insight into your own behavior. People don't look inward anymore, they like to make everything political.

    So, genuine concern over a genuine issue or poking the market for profit? Mixed bag at best.Baden

    I stated my opinion and I stand by it. But I have no concern, I'm not actually a follower of the Royals. I only pay attention when the latest scandal is so ubiquitous in the news that I can't avoid it. I'm interested in the psychodynamics of the relationship, but I don't care one way or another about them as people.

    You know why Americans love the Royals? We get to enjoy the pomp, the circumstance, and the salacious scandals, and we don't have to pay for it. That honor belongs to the British people.

    But if you are asking if I sometimes like to poke the politically correct, well of course, it's great sport.
  • Frank Apisa
    2.1k
    ↪Frank Apisa
    So it was racist? Ok.
    — frank

    That was a bit too easy. According to my research, there's a good chance it wasn't deliberately racist. You'd have to believe in intentional career suicide over it being a stupid mistake. But it's a Roseanne-type issue, we'll probably never know.
    Baden

    Not sure of what your "research" entailed, Baden, but of course it may have been just a silly mistake. I do not know Danny Baker...and he may be a total ass. But I think anyone looking at the picture should have realized there was a racial implication in it. To put it in one's Twitter feed...is, if not racial, incredibly stupid.

    I think the public reaction "it was racial" is a lot more understandable than "it was an innocent mistake." In any case, it would not surprise me to find that Harry, not Meghan, was the one who took the bull by the horns, so to speak. I think it quite possible he relived the death of his mother at the hands of out-of-control press...and decided to see if he could get his family away from the nonsense.

    We may never know. But in my opinion, Baker got what he deserved whether because he was being evil or because he was being stupid.
  • Pelle
    36

    The US doesn't have an illustrious past, and instead has a history of struggling to survive. American white supremacism is directly related to fears about the survival of "white culture" and America itself amidst the stresses of becoming multi-racial.

    Tbh I think that this is a general narrative among all white supremacists. Europe sure has an illustrious past, yet white supremacists there echo the same narrative with a sprinkle of "white genocide".
  • unenlightened
    8.7k
    there's a good chance it wasn't deliberately racist.Baden

    Manslaughter, not murder, then? I'm sure the corpse would be relieved. Accidental, thoughtless, deniable racism is the rule; only complete fuckwits deliberately talk about piccaninnies and letterboxes or institute hostile environments these days.
  • Punshhh
    2.6k
    We may never know. But in my opinion, Baker got what he deserved whether because he was being evil or because he was being stupid.
    Agreed, my take on it was that he had a reputation for silly gags like this with racial overtones and got caught out. His excuse was not credible, he claimed that he didn't realise she was mixed race.

    On the racist narrative, there is an undertow of endemic racism in the vilification, but a large slice of sexism, because Meghan is a successful celebrity and another slice of wanting to speak out for good causes. It's a heady cocktail of misogenoir and the press can't help themselves in their wallowing in the gutter.
  • Baden
    15.6k
    His excuse was not credible, he claimed that he didn't realise she was mixed race.Punshhh

    Either he was stupid enough to not realise she was mixed race and was just poking fun at royals in general or he was stupid enough to deliberately commit career suicide. Both seem incredible to me, but it's one or the other.



    No, if his excuse is true, there's no crime at all. That's a possibility. Don't paint me as defending racist fucks like Johnson because I raised it.
  • Baden
    15.6k
    Anyway, excuse me for trying to express a rational thought. I couldn't be further arsed.
  • unenlightened
    8.7k
    Royalty is itself a racial term. To make the monkey comparison with them is also racist.

    And yeah your arse and mine and 180's can discuss this further on a gold plated toilet seat when hell freezes.
  • Punshhh
    2.6k
    I remember hearing Danny Baker trying to give an excuse when he was doorstepped the day after he was caught out. He said he was mortified when someone told him Meghan was mixed race (and the interesting bit for me), he had thought of using a picture of the chimp because they were royals and it was a silly jape about their unearned privelidge, or inbred genes or something like that. Of course he would have got away with that, if racism hadn't been implied.

    Time to forget about Baker I think and get back to the story about the press treatment of Meghan and Harry.
  • Daniel
    458
    I was not trying to justify racial discrimination but presenting what I think might be one of the causes of racist behaviour. All races are racist to some extent (I'd even say all people are racists to some extent), and this fact, makes me hypothesize that racist behaviour might be a consequence of kin selection in action. Again, I am not saying that racist behaviour is right nor that kin selection is the only cause of racist behaviour; all I am saying is that I think that the theory of kin selection could be used to explain why an individual fights for the prolongation of its race. In fact, I think such theory could explain any act of discrimination. (Racism exists, and to try to find its causes is not the same as to justify its existence).

    chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(02)01344-1.pdf

    Read it and let me know if such theory could not be used to explain some of the phenomena observed in racist behaviour. Also, I am not an expert in evolutionary forces, and thus everything I say is just (educated) conjectures.
  • Anaxagoras
    433
    Read it and let me know if such theory could not be used to explain some of the phenomena observed in racist behaviour. Also, I am not an expert in evolutionary forces, and thus everything I say is just (educated) conjectures.Daniel

    BTW when you mentioned me, that paragraph was not my writing.
  • 180 Proof
    13.9k
    :mask: ... love in the time of corona (For Fuck's Sake!)
    Rich & famous (for the talent of marrying up) colored lady got her feelings hurt, so then fucks off in a huff back to where she came from? And I'm suppose to have more than zero fucks to give about that?180 Proof
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/08/meghan-and-prince-harry-oprah-winfrey-interview-special-12-things-we-learned
  • Dharmi
    264
    What I think both kinds of racism have in common is this: people engage in it to make themselves feel better about who they are. True?frank

    Somewhat. Racism is based on the idea that I am what I'm told I am. I'm told "my name is x" "I am x" "I come from x family" "I am x race" "I come from x country" "I am x species" "I am x gender"

    Rather, none of these are actually what anyone is. These are just things we've obtained from the external world. Similar to how the empiricists claimed everyone is a blank slate, and the only thing that makes someone what they are is the impressions upon them from external stimuli. However, I don't claim that.

    Rather than identifying with what is fictional, one ought to identify with what is genuine. The true Self undergirding the impressions of sense data and the logical functions (or lack thereof) or the various pieces of food that you've accumulated in your mass of meat that's called the body.

    The real question is, who are you? Who are you, really? Actually? Peel away all of those phony layers, what is at the core? There's only two answers to this:

    • Something
    • Nothing

    This is the perennial debate in Indian philosophy. The Buddh-ist tradition has said there is nothing undergirding one's identity or being. It's just emptiness, sunyata. However, the Vedic (or Hindu) tradition has said that there is a thing undergirding it, what we called the Atman, the Self. The Buddh-ist tradition says the opposite, Anatman, there is no Self.

    This is the very heart of the issue. Instead of identifying with the phony things that we've accumulated from our experience in the world, we should ask that fundamental question.

    Max Stirner, as well, disliked this "essentialism" of identifying one's self with the external things that define you, religion, family, ethnicity, culture, history, race, etc. etc. etc. Rather than defining for yourself what you are. He's a sort of proto-existentialist. I agree with him on this, though disagree with his anti-essentialism/nominalism.
  • Baden
    15.6k
    Some of the allegations in the latest interview are important. If the royal establishment is so fucked-up racist that the shade of a baby's skin sends them into paroxyms of angst, they need to be ended right now.
  • bert1
    1.8k
    Rich & famous (for the talent of marrying up) colored lady got her feelings hurt, so then fucks off in a huff back to where she came from? And I'm suppose to have more than zero fucks to give about that? Because, y'know, everyday peeps - colored or whatever - don't get treated like that (or usually worse)? Bollocks, mate! Sorry. Pinched-off my daily MegXit this morning, feeling less full of it and quite relieved on that account.

    For fuck's sake. :brow:

    [How you like my drive-by quasi-Jonathan Pie rant?]
    180 Proof

    It is quite Pie-esque
  • NOS4A2
    8.3k
    We’ve learned that the family members of mixed race couples are not allowed to talk about what their children might look like. We call that “racism” in 2021. This is the biggest non-story of the year so far.
  • DingoJones
    2.8k


    Get real, like being “worried” about skin colour is just an innocent pondering. Please.
    You got the non-story right though. Who cares.
  • creativesoul
    11.4k
    Talking about the shade of one's skin and devaluing one based upon the color of one's skin are two entirely different sets of circumstances. Being ashamed of the shade if it's considered 'too dark' certainly lands on the latter. No one is claiming that talking about what the baby may look like is racist except those who distort the narrative.

    It's news because it shows that the effects/affects of institutional and/or systemic racism are very much still in play.
  • NOS4A2
    8.3k


    Get real, like being “worried” about skin colour is just an innocent pondering. Please.
    You got the non-story right though. Who cares.

    Get real. Without hearing the other side of the story you have nothing but the claims of a disgruntled family member who has openly admitted to mental health issues.
  • Tzeentch
    3.3k
    I thought people pondering over the skin color of their baby were suggesting Meghan was having an affair. :lol:
  • DingoJones
    2.8k


    How do you know I haven’t listened to the other side?
    Also, you are making your own assumption about it not being racism based on equally weak foundations.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Get real. Without hearing the other side of the story you have nothing but the claims of a disgruntled family member who has openly admitted to mental health issues.NOS4A2

    How is it, nos4, that you end up on the asshole side of nearly every question? Is it just a knack or do you work at it?
  • counterpunch
    1.6k
    I don't know what it's about. I've read this thread and watched Newsnight, and I still don't know what it's about. But this is probably the right place to ask: are communist citizens slaves?
  • NOS4A2
    8.3k


    How do you know I haven’t listened to the other side?

    Have you?

    Also, you are making your own assumption about it not being racism based on equally weak foundations.

    I am just unable to call an entire institution racist without knowing what was said and who said it. I presume innocence, sure, but only because I feel impartiality is more just than quickly believing any accusation. If I’m wrong I will say so.
  • DingoJones
    2.8k


    Ya. There is a spectrum of takes on it, but seems like racism to me. The colour of her skin was an issue for some who didn’t think it was appropriate for royalty. Maybe I’m wrong but I’m drawing that conclusion based on more information than you’re drawing yours on at least.
    I get where your coming from, the charge of racism has lost most of it’s meaning. Also, i didn’t mean to claim it was the institution. The source of the comments were individuals.
    Anyway, a complete waste of my time but I got sucked in.
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