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#51
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Is this racist?
Nevermind wrote:
But the conclusion that that bumper sticker was racist was just incredibly forced. Would you please cite exactly where I came to the conclusion it was racist? From the subject line on down, my entire question has been if I should interpret this as racist. It is a question, not a conclusion. I've learned more about dogs, more about beer and more about how someone could think it was a reasonable thing to put this on their truck. I looked at the website that sold the bumper stickers and didn't notice any KKK sponsorship. I was wondering what sort of environment I lived in. I had no intention of mounting a campaign to silence bumper stickers, or to rename a breed of dogs or any such nonsense. Wendy |
#52
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Is this racist?
dragonlady wrote:
I'm with a group that will be printing up buttons for an upcoming conference with "BMP" -- standing for "Best Motives Possible". We are encouraged to assume that, whatever we see or hear, the person speaking has the "best motives possible", and if we detect a racial, sexual, ageist, or whatever slur, we should assume it was inadvertant or unintended or the result of a need for education, rather than symptomatic of a genuine desire to oppress. I'm TRYING to live my life that way: assume the BEST motives, and only move to recognizing an individual racist when there can be no other possible explanation. My husband would just adore it if I could do something like that. He hates my cynicism. I'm just not sure that your outlook is something I could adopt based on my personality makeup. That isn't to say I couldn't work towards it. OTOH, it feels a tad bit like burying your head in the sand. Sometimes nastiness is there for a purpose, just crying out to be dealt with. I'm not talking about the bumper sticker, but about a kid who is making taunting remarks or something like that. Bullying is just as bad for the bullier as it is for the bullied. Assuming the best motives will lead you to the wrong response an awful lot of the time. Better to determine the actual motives than to assume at all, but barring that, it's better to assume the likely motive. Wendy |
#53
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Is this racist?
In article ,
Wendy Marsden wrote: dragonlady wrote: I'm with a group that will be printing up buttons for an upcoming conference with "BMP" -- standing for "Best Motives Possible". We are encouraged to assume that, whatever we see or hear, the person speaking has the "best motives possible", and if we detect a racial, sexual, ageist, or whatever slur, we should assume it was inadvertant or unintended or the result of a need for education, rather than symptomatic of a genuine desire to oppress. I'm TRYING to live my life that way: assume the BEST motives, and only move to recognizing an individual racist when there can be no other possible explanation. My husband would just adore it if I could do something like that. He hates my cynicism. I'm just not sure that your outlook is something I could adopt based on my personality makeup. That isn't to say I couldn't work towards it. OTOH, it feels a tad bit like burying your head in the sand. Sometimes nastiness is there for a purpose, just crying out to be dealt with. I'm not talking about the bumper sticker, but about a kid who is making taunting remarks or something like that. Bullying is just as bad for the bullier as it is for the bullied. Assuming the best motives will lead you to the wrong response an awful lot of the time. Better to determine the actual motives than to assume at all, but barring that, it's better to assume the likely motive. Wendy Actually, the folks who are working on this are some of the ones who are MOST aggressively involved in anti-oppression work: no head burying going on among them at all! Their contention -- and it is one I rather like -- is that if you DO hear or see something offensive (racist, homophobic, ableist, ageist, sexist, etc.) you are better off assuming that the person's intentions were good and the offense was unintended. At that point, you can approach it as an opportunity for education rather than being PO'd. Doing nothing, however, is never an option. I can give you an example. About 15 years ago, I had my twins in a parent/child swim class. The teacher was doing some stuff to get the kids willing to splash water in their faces. So, with their faces close to the water she taught them to do the hand-to-mouth "wo-wo-wo" thing you see in older movies, encouraging them to "whoop like wild Indians". This teacher was a teenager. Now, as a Native American, I COULD have gotten really ****ed and made a scene, or made some sort of formal complaint. However, I assumed she just never really thought about it, so I waited until I could talk to her after class (when no one else was around) and calmly told her how offensive most NA folks found that sort of statement. She was horrified to realize just HOW offensive what she had done was, apologized profusely, promised to NEVER do it again, and promised to bring it up in their next staff meeting as something that needed to be eliminated from their repertoire. (The next week, the head of the department apologized to me, too, which really wasn't necessary, but it was nice to know that the girl had followed up on her promise. I hadn't really needed an apology, just a change.) Assuming BMP doesn't mean burying your head in the sand: it allows you to approach people in a way that is less hostile. Honesty compels me to add that the conference at which these buttons will be used will be a conference of religious education professionals, so assuming "best motives possible" should be less of a stretch! meh -- Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care |
#54
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Is this racist?
"dragonlady" wrote in message
... I'm with a group that will be printing up buttons for an upcoming conference with "BMP" -- standing for "Best Motives Possible". We are encouraged to assume that, whatever we see or hear, the person speaking has the "best motives possible", and if we detect a racial, sexual, ageist, or whatever slur, we should assume it was inadvertant or unintended or the result of a need for education, rather than symptomatic of a genuine desire to oppress. I'm TRYING to live my life that way: assume the BEST motives, and only move to recognizing an individual racist when there can be no other possible explanation. meh Well, if you'd like an example of (and perhaps an opportunity to light into) people who clearly do NOT have the "best motives possible", take a look at ANY of the posts by users "makemyday" and "BroJack" in the misc.education newsgroup. It'll turn your stomach. -- "There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary numbers and those who don't." ----------------------------- Byron "Barn" Canfield |
#55
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Is this racist?
In ,
Wendy Marsden wrote: *I'm driving behind a white GMC Jimmy SUV and it has exactly one bumper *sticker on it that says, "I hunt black and tans". I'm looking at this *with my mouth open thinking they MUST be talking about dogs, they *can't really be talking about lynching, can they? I look closer to see if *there's a tiny "with" in there. Nope, but there's a silhouette which I *finally figure out (at a stop light when I can study it) is a dog barking *up a tree trunk. "I hunt [breed of hunting dog]" is a common phrase used by those who use hunting dogs. At least, it is around here. I had an instructor in vet school who used to hunt bluetick coonhounds, and had a bumper sticker that said "I hunt bluetick coonhounds." *that the people who put that bumper sticker up thought that way. I said *that the double entendre was the whole POINT of putting up that bumper *sticker. He said I was off my rocker and way too cynical. What double entendre? You think someone is insinuating that they hunt black and tan people? I can't imagine. Seriously. I mean, if the "I hunt __dogs" wasn't a normal construct, then sure I guess...but it is. -- hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net "uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est." not-so-newly minted veterinarian-at-large |
#56
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Is this racist?
Barbara Bomberger wrote in
: On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 23:31:31 +1000, Chookie A mystery solved. I read old girls' school stories, and I remember being mystified by one book which mentioned the girls singing "coon songs". I had no idea what was meant, even though I have heard that Aboriginal people are referred to by racists as coons. It was quite obvious that the author saw nothing derogatory in the word, no more than she would have seen in the expression "work like a ******" (which, despite what this article says about stereotypes, meant to work very hard). FWIW I would also have thought (except for the dog picture) that the owner of the bumper sticker liked their beer! Why coon, btw? What is the connection with raccoons? Having to do whth the whites of the eys I suppose? raccoons don't have visible whites in the eyes & there is no white between the dark mask and the eyes either. since the more commonly recognized derogatory term is a corruption of what the whites called the race, maybe coon is a corruption of another word? lee -- It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them. -Leo Buscaglia, author (1924-1998) |
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