You can be an underdog in certain respects and not in others. The inability to understand this, except in terms of intersection of multiple demographics, is characteristic of modern social criticism. Anyway, the point was just that you said the video was funny because of its being flippant and cute with something unspeakable, but the unspeakability is what is important here.

To think that there is only one unique race (white people) whose racial identity is defined entirely negatively in terms of oppression, requires a deep racialist ideology.

But the idea of being white was invented to justify colonialism and slavery. Before that, people were French, German, English, Polish, etc.

Is not being allowed to attack someone symptomatic of being in a position of power over them?

I think that's actually a super complicated question. Couldn't you flip this and say the taboo on racial slurs is an expression of white racial security? Don't need to put someone in their place, who knows their place, kinda thing. Imagine a subtly abusive husband who fucks with his wife in subtle ways but acts calm and in control while she launches insult after insult, and remains respectful especially when he's talking about her in public

I don't think it's as simple as the image, but it's also not as simple as whites under the heavy thumb of pc speech-policing.

Anyway, the point was just that you said the video was funny because of its being flippant and cute with something unspeakable, but the unspeakability is what is important here.

Oh, I definitely agree, but I think we differ on why the unspeakable stuff in it is funny.

See... that's political, not comedy. Supposedly, there is this grave double standard in how racism is treated. How unjust you cry. What could be funnier than seeing those people ignorant of racism against white people ground into the dust?

I'm going to suggest that the reason you don't find it funny is that you are the overdog and hence feel threatened by it. *shrug* — The Great Whatever

No doubt, but that's to be expected here. "Comedy" is heavily tied into expressing political power. One laughs at the failure, stupidity, pain or inferiority of their opponents as rhetoric. You are (sometimes) laughing not because what you've seen is really funny, but because it hurts those who you disagree with. What could be better than taking down those ignorant students of Western hegemony?

This doesn't make much sense, considering white people were always white, and even now people are still German, Polish, etc. I mean, Europeans are an ethnic population. There's some serious metaphysical juju going on in trying to transmogrify your very genes into pure evil. But that seems to be the gist.

Couldn't you flip this and say the taboo on racial slurs is an expression of white racial security? — csalisbury

Yes, and I would agree with that. I think that white people exert a feeling of superiority in thinking that they have transcended culture and have a duty to bring the other mud people, still tied down to base tribalist sentiment, to their level. Hence the self-deprecating white insistence that they 'have no culture,' which simultaneously harms and exalts white people, hence why they make a sport out of how much they hate other white people, etc.

Imagine a subtly abusive husband who fucks with his wife in subtle ways but acts calm and in control while she launches insult after insult, and he remains respectful (especially when he's talking about her in public) — csalisbury

Agreed. There is a tendency for white people, mostly liberal white people, to treat minorities as animals and pets of various sorts, and to show 'solidarity' with them in condescending ways, by showing how they can take an insult like an adult while a minority can't and must be protected (and 'can't help but violently protest' and so on). This is all common knowledge.

I don't think it's as simple as the image, but it's also not as simple as whites under the heavy thumb of pc speech-policing. — csalisbury

It isn't – but poor white people, for example, are actually under the thumb in significant ways, whereas wealthy and educated white people use the thumb to throw poorer white people under the bus for various ingratiation strategies. Yes, it's all very complicated.

See... that's political, not comedy. Supposedly, there is this grave double standard in how racism is treated. How unjust you cry. What could be funnier than seeing those people ignorant of racism against white people ground into the dust? — TheWillowOfDarkness

It's not unjust. It's reality, and I'm commenting on it.

No doubt, but that's to be expected here. "Comedy" is heavily tied into expressing political power. One laughs at the failure, stupidity, pain or inferiority of their opponents as rhetoric. You are (sometimes) laughing not because what you've seen is really funny, but because it hurts those who you disagree with. What could be better than taking down those ignorant students of Western hegemony? — TheWillowOfDarkness

I think that comedy is deeper than that, but okay.

Everyone knows that that's all pretend though, right? I mean, I could say racist stuff all day and none of my family or friends or anyone that knew me would care. It's just that we think all of the strangers we're trying to impress would care...

Europeans are made up of many ethnic groups, just as Africans are. The idea of a single white race to which various ethnic groups may or may not be included in is based on a history of thinking there were superior and inferior groups of humanity based on some racial characteristics, with skin color being predominant.

So do we consider Persians to be white? They're not European, but they don't identify as Arabs. What about Aborigines? Are they black? South Asians with very dark skin, what are they?

It's a continuum obviously, but to deny the existence of groups because a continuum between them exists is the fallacy of Loki's Wager. Yes Europeans are made up of many ethnic groups, but each of these are more closely related than sub-Saharan African ethnic subgroups, and so on. There is obviously a large ethnic group of human beings with a certain skin tone living on a certain continent, not by coincidence.

]There's some serious metaphysical juju going on in trying to transmogrify your very genes into pure evil."

Which I never said. I stated that being white or black (or Asian, etc) is a social construction.

i agree that pc speech is all too often a class signifier used to identify and keep down poor ppl.

Your arguments seemed to suggest that people are mistaken for arguing racism only applies to white people. You have sympathy for the alt-right because, on some level, you think they are unjustly treated. Supposedly, we don't let them claim their homeland like any other ethnic group.

I think that comedy is deeper than that, but okay. — The Great Whatever

A lot of the time (hopefully), it is. My point is that it's quite sometimes not. People laugh to assert hierarchy, to bask in a victory over an opponent. I'm saying that you seem to fall into this a lot-- where comedy is reduced to nothing more than upsetting the powerful.

But it's obviously not a social construction. I mean, you understand that people who originate from different parts of the world look different, right? Do you really think that the fact Africans are darker than East Asians is socially constructed? I guess your eyeballs must be too?

Yes Europeans are made up of many ethnic groups, but each of these are more closely related than sub-Saharan African ethnic subgroups, and so on — The Great Whatever

Yes, but why lump them into one category called "white", "black" or "red"? The reason this happend is because of racism during the colonial era to justify the economics of slavery, and driving natives off their land.

Your arguments seemed to suggest that people are mistaken for arguing racism only applies to white people. You have sympathy for the alt-right because, on some level, you think they are unjustly treated. Supposedly, we don't let them claim their homeland like any other ethnic group. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don't think it's just or unjust. Again, I think it's reality.

A lot of the time (hopefully), it is. My point is that it's quite sometimes not. People laugh to assert hierarchy, to bask in a victory over an opponent. I'm saying that you seem to fall into this a lot-- where comedy is reduced to nothing more than upsetting the powerful. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Ultimately I think that comedy is not for upsetting the powerful because it gives the powerful too much center – the humor is for the one laughing as much as the object of laughter. If that object is 'the powerful,' then the powerful are the powers that be in a deeper cosmic sense, the archons or metaphorical rulers of the universe, given that humor is fundamentally disruptive of rule. But this disruption is far deeper than politics.

Because there are obvious differences, the most obvious of which is a clear difference in skin color? Isn't this a stupid question?

Yes... if we are talking in terms of understanding and categorisation. That we put people of a certain body in a particular category is always our discourse. It's constructed in how we understand people. The presence of a body doesn't put anyone within a category.

Skin color isn't everything. I know a bi-racial guy, and I had no idea, he just looks like a handsome white guy with a super awesome tan.

I mean, you understand that people who originate from different parts of the world look different, right? — The Great Whatever

You mean like how Northern Europeans look different than Southern Europeans? What about red head, freckled Irish people with their light skin? Are they more white than someone from Romania?

You mean like how Northern Europeans look different than Southern Europeans? What about red head, freckled Irish people with their light skin? Are they more white than someone from Romania? — Marchesk

Yes, Europeans are different from each other, but they are more different from Africans.

This is seriously not hard to understand.

Nah, you'd have different bodies even if no one talked about it.

Yes, Europeans are different from each other, but they are more different from Africans. — The Great Whatever

Particularly with the Neanderthal genes, but at any rate, the history of being in the white or black race is one of slavery and then deep discrimination, so it's something a bit more than just noticing that people descendended from different geographic locations tending to look different. Also, it includes a history of which Europeans groups got to be considered white, and which weren't, depending on the time period.

Slavery is a part of the history of black and white people. This does not mean that being white in itself was created as a result of, or is inherently tied to, that slavery. People were white before and after slavery, and being white isn't defined in terms of being evil.

Alright, I don't know why the topic went this direction, but I have to go to bed. Night.

That's what I said.

What we wouldn't have, if we didn't talk, think or understand it, is the ethnic category. If everyone looked at a white person and saw someone belonging to the category of "black person," there would be no white ethnic group identity in our culture. There would be black bodies and white bodies, yes, but no-one would be thought of as having an ethnic identity of "white person."

People were white before and after slavery, and being white isn't defined in terms of being evil. — The Great Whatever

There was no such thing as being "white" or being "black" before a certain time. There were various ethnic groups competing and sometimes allying with one another. They didn't consider themselves to be all one race.

And anyway, unless you are an albino, nobody actually has white skin. So it's a false categorization to begin with.

Really, when you think about it, white is full spectrum... it includes all of the colours of the rainbow brozillas -- and white, being the category itself, transcends all of the colours within it.

I stated that being white or black (or Asian, etc) is a social construction. — Marchesk

Postmodernism alert!

*ducks*

Postmodernism alert! — Thorongil

Well, some things are "socially constructed". Maybe there is a better way of saying it. How about, people have considered themselves and others to belong to varying groups over time, and being white is no exception to this. In the European past, it could have been Roman, or Spartan, or Scottish, or Jewish (which isn't always accepted as white).

So Romans considered various non-Roman groups to be barbarians. Jews called the non-Jewish Gentile. Various Germanic tribes would have had their own naming for the other. The point is that all of this made up by culture. Who is part of a group and who is an outsider, and how you think about that outsider, whether they are to be feared or conquered, or treated as savages.