Escaping the Echo Chamber

[Inanna]

And forgive her? We try and reach an understanding, maybe?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The thing is, there is no scientific basis for racial differences whether you are talking about "black" and "white" or "Jewish" and "Aryan". They are constructs that are created to establish power over some other group. As Rose said earlier, the oppressors believed (or pretended to believe, which is just as bad) that it was about race. That is the ONLY way that it is ever about race.

[Inanna]

Point, V.

[RoseMorninStar]

The thing is, there is no scientific basis for racial differences whether you are talking about "black" and "white" or "Jewish" and "Aryan". They are constructs that are created to establish power over some other group. As Rose said earlier, the oppressors believed (or pretended to believe, which is just as bad) that it was about race. That is the ONLY way that it is ever about race.

IMO, pretending to believe such things is much worse because that supposes one knows otherwise and chooses to use it as an excuse anyway. It's otherism, vilifying one group (for whatever reason) for the sole purpose of elevating their own. Some people find that hate, divisiveness, and chaos equals 'winning'. (ugh)

I agree Inanna. I don't believe what Whoopie said was intended as denying the horrors of the Holocaust. It was (for better or worse) a not-all-that-unusual gap in her understanding (as River points out). She seems to have recognized her error after some discussion. Teaching moments such as these are important, not just for her, but for a great many of us. A huge swath of this country have little interaction with those of other nationalities, religions, cultures, backgrounds, etc.. It is difficult (I'd say impossible) to understand these experiences without such interactions and discussions-and even then we can only imagine what it is like to walk a mile in another persons shoes.

It's similar to when 'dog whistle' terms are used. Phrases that many will totally miss reference to, but those who have been hurt know exactly what is being inferred. We can't expect everyone to pick-up on such things without education & understanding.

[Maria]

I might also note that at work, we've had extensive D&I aka EDI aka DEBI aka IDEA aka JEDI aka ABIDE training* over the past twenty months.....

(emphasis mine)
Jedi training.

Hidden text.

2729013-jedi.jpg (165.14 KiB) Viewed 4690 times

edit: picture too big, so spoilered




It's all about resources. If you can vilify a whole group and justify taking their possessions, then your own group is better off.
It's a very primitive impulse. Animals don't even have to come up with justifications.

You'd think we'd be past that already, but no.

[RoseMorninStar]

I saw an interview on a morning show with a holocaust survivor and she threw a wrench in my thinking on the 'race' issue. I wasn't sure I followed her logic. I was totally confused.


I grasp that the Nazi's considered the Jewish people of another race, but I didn't comprehend Lucy's take on it, especially in reference to the Holocaust.

[kzer_za]

Well I guess I'll make a rare post on this board...Goldberg apologized, but she appeared to backtrack again at the end of the Colbert interview where she said (paraphrasing) "the Nazis were lying when they said it's about race, it was white people fighting." Why would she double down like that, especially after Colbert had tried so hard to give her an easy offramp? I don't think she's being malicious but it's at least quite tone-deaf.

Modern liberal discussion on race has a rightful desire to illuminate the ways in which the effects of racism have been embedded in social structures and linger today even when individual prejudice may not (or may) be involved. This is important and good, but I worry some of the discourse more or less essentializes "race" and "whiteness" as inherent trans-historical categories as an overcorrection. I think Goldberg's comments that Jews have to be "white" which has always been a shifty nebulous category (Ben Franklin didn't think Italians, French, or even Germans counted as "white"!), reflects this type of thinking, likely because Jews are often considered "white" in the US today.

(btw so there's no confusion my avatar is the musician MIssissippi John Hurt - I'm not black)

[elengil]

"the Nazis were lying when they said it's about race, it was white people fighting."

It's far too easy to forget that when discussing why a group of people did something, we can't impose our definitions upon them and expect them to conform to our definitions - as if those definitions are somehow universal.

It was about race because the Nazi's defined it as such from their point of view, their motivating force was purifying what they defined as their master aryan race. That means to them it absolutely was about race, but also about anything that didn't fit their "perfect" new race: hence the disabled, homosexuals, intellectuals and political opponents, anyone they decided was not going to fit in their definition of their dream.

It wasn't about race in the academic sense, sure.

It was about race per the Nazi's definition. It was about race and non-conformity to their ideals.

That's not them lying. That's them telling us who they were and are. And so long as we reject them telling us that, we will continue to not understand the resurgence of it today.

[Alatar]

[Inanna]

Well said.

[RoseMorninStar]

I'm not a fan of Bill Maher but he makes some good points, especially with the misunderstanding of what Karma is and that what Americans usually mean by karma is properly termed schadenfreude.

I do not watch 'The View' but of course I saw clips from the day Whoopie whoopsed. Because I don't think she spoke maliciously but from a place of ignorance/misunderstanding it would have served purposes better for 'The View' to have a show discussing race, what it is and what the term means to different people and how it's been used historically. An excellent teaching moment. Ignorance can be corrected through education and enlightenment. Hate and maliciousness are not so easy to correct.

[RoseMorninStar]

Frelga, I have been looking forward to your input as you have a background and perspective in this matter that no one else here could possibly have, as far as I am aware. I hope this conversation has not caused you pain/painful memories.

[N.E. Brigand]

Is this AP story about how Democrats are out of touch with rural communitities?

‘The brand is so toxic’: Dems fear extinction in rural US

Or is it a story about how some rural communities are dominated by far right extremists who make it dangerous to be known as a Democrat?

I'm seeing it described both ways.

[N.E. Brigand]

In October 2020, researchers undertook an experiment:

What If Fox News Viewers Watched CNN Instead?

They enrolled a bunch of Fox News viewers in a study, then paid half of them to switch to CNN for one month, and polled each group periodically about a variety of issues.

And by the end of that month, those who had switched from Fox to CNN were:

--"five points more likely to believe that people suffer from long Covid";
--"six points more likely to believe that many foreign countries did a better job than the U.S. of controlling the virus";
--"seven points more likely to support voting by mail";
--"ten points less likely to believe that supporters of then-candidate Joe Biden were happy when police officers got shot";
--"eleven points less less likely to say it's more important for the president to focus on containing violent protesters than on the coronavirus"; and
--"thirteen points less likely to agree that if Biden were elected, 'we'll see many more police get shot by Black Lives Matter activists".

(I would describe the fourth and sixth points as insane beliefs that no rational person should hold, by the way.)

The writer of that Bloomberg op-ed about the study ponders its results:

The authors argue (and I agree) that this kind of partisan filtering of information is a significant bug for democratic accountability. I would also say (and this me editorializing, not the authors) that there is a big partisan asymmetry here — “mainstream” outlets have certain liberal biases, but they also have basic newshound instincts and try to score scoops that make Democrats look bad. Fox has very good access in Republican Party and conservative movement stories, but as best I can recall never once scored a juicy anti-Trump scoop — it’s just not part of their model or mission and gives him armor with the base.

One conclusion I take from this study is that minds can be changed -- and maybe some pro-democracy philanthropist should pay a lot more Fox viewers to switch channels.

Because I do concur that democracy is on the line here. I agree with this observation from a few days ago, following upon a media reporter's count of how many times the Fox News and Fox Business networks, from Monday through Thursday this week, mentioned the following topics:

--Hunter Biden: 143
--Ginni Thomas: 6
--Donald Trump asking Vladimir Putin for political dirt: 3

"You cannot have democracy with this bubble . . . [which is] every bit as effective as an authoritarian dictatorship."

[N.E. Brigand]

Per media journalist Aaron Rupar, duringapproximately 36 hours on Apr. 11-12:

Fox News/Fox Business mentions:
---Hunter Biden: 68
---Jared Kushner: 0

CNN mentions:
---Hunter Biden: 1
---Jared Kushner: 2

MSNBC mentions:
---Hunter Biden: 3
---Jared Kushner: 23

[N.E. Brigand]

I'm willing to consider this argument that Jon Stewart's famous attack on Crossfire (when he was a guest on Crossfire), in which he skewered the show's hosts for treating politics as entertainment, was partly wrong because "imbuing a political position with such *certainty* that anything else isn't just wrong, but evil, is poison for social cohesion." I'm not sure I agree (because often one side or the other really is wrong), but it may be a point worth exploring.

[Alatar]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/15/opin ... ntity.html

Its behind a Paywall, so I've copied in the text below:

Adrian Lester, a British actor from Birmingham and the son of two immigrants from Jamaica, was nominated last week for a Tony Award for his performance in “The Lehman Trilogy” as Emanuel Lehman, one of the German-born Jewish founders of the fallen investment behemoth Lehman Brothers. Lester, like the other actors in the three-man play, takes on several parts, including female characters and at one point, a thumb-sucking toddler.

There has been no outcry about a British actor of African descent playing a German Jew, nor was there any fuss when he played Bobby, a character traditionally performed by white actors, in a London production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company,” for which he won an Olivier.

And why should there have been? It’s called acting.

There was no protest either about Lester’s co-star Simon Russell Beale, born to British parents in what was then British Malaya and a former chorister at St. Paul’s Cathedral, playing a German Jew. Adam Godley, the third actor in the play, is Jewish in real life, but he’s also gay — not so in the play. Again, it’s called acting, and Beale and Godley were also nominated for Tony Awards last week.

And yet countless actors have been criticized for playing people they do not resemble in real life.

Earlier this year, Helen Mirren was lambasted for portraying Golda Meir, a former prime minister of Israel, in a forthcoming biopic even though she’s not Jewish — engaging in what is now called “Jewface.” In a recent interview defending Mirren, Ian McKellen (who incidentally has played everything from a wizard to a cat) asked, “Is the argument that a straight man cannot play a gay part, and if so, does that mean I can’t play straight parts?” He went on: “Surely not. We’re acting. We’re pretending.”

Daring to take on parts different from oneself didn’t always kick up a storm. Back in 1993 when Tom Hanks played a gay character in “Philadelphia,” he was hailed as brave for taking on homophobia and won an Oscar. Today, his performance no longer plays so well in some quarters. “Straight men playing gay — everyone wants to give them an award,” the performer Billy Porter complained in a 2019 actor’s round table. Yet many of our best gay, lesbian and bisexual actors — Jodie Foster, Alan Cumming, Kristen Stewart, Nathan Lane — have won awards for straight roles without even a murmur of complaint.

What we are effectively saying here — without ever, heaven forbid, saying it out loud — is that it’s OK for actors from groups considered to be marginalized — whether gay, Indigenous, Latino or any other number of identities — to play straight white characters. But it’s not OK for the reverse.

Such double standards may not trouble you. But if it’s a problem that a “miscast” actor — one who differs in identity from the character — takes a role away from a “properly cast” actor when there are already fewer roles for underrepresented or marginalized groups, then why not condemn Simon Russell Beale for taking a job from a Jewish actor? Why no outcry every time a 40-something actress bends biology to play the mothers of 25-year-old actresses, robbing older actresses who more plausibly fit the part?

If, however, the real problem is actors not being able to understand what it feels like to be part of a demographic group or to have a sexual orientation outside the confines of their own experience, then none of these actors should be able to play anyone unlike themselves. In other words, no one should ever be allowed to play a part.

Hollywood has wisely moved on from the offensive extremes of blackface and Shylock stereotypes, “queeny” stock gay characters and Mickey Rooney’s embarrassing turn as a Japanese landlord in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” There is plenty of room in the middle without ricocheting to the other undesirable extreme.

It’s not that strict typecasting should never happen; it can yield rewarding opportunities for both actors and audiences. Behold the deaf performers in the Oscar-winning “Coda.”

But deaf performers can also act movingly in a musical like the 2015 Deaf West revival of “Spring Awakening,” which featured them in roles that were originally performed as hearing characters and performed simply as characters, neither explicitly hearing nor deaf, but transcendently human in their expression.

Likewise, in a recent revival of “Oklahoma!” Ali Stroker, who uses a wheelchair, was able to fully embody Ado Annie, who spends much of her time in the movie and previous stage versions swishing away from her suitor, Will Parker, just as Daniel Day-Lewis once captured, with extraordinary sensitivity in “My Left Foot,” the wheelchair-bound writer and painter Christy Brown.

Good actors are able to find a way to portray people who are not like themselves, whether on the surface or well below, which is what differentiates them from those of us who could barely remember our lines in a fourth-grade production of “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Acting is a feat of compassion and an act of generosity. Those capable of that kind of emotional ventriloquy enable audiences to find ourselves in the lives portrayed onscreen, no matter how little they may resemble our own.

Bravo to those actors who do that well. Bravo to the talented Adrian Lester, who makes you forget the color of his skin, his nationality and his religion — and gives himself over entirely to his performance. There is no reason for any actor to apologize for exercising and reveling in his craft.

[RoseMorninStar]

I appreciate the article, and agree with a good deal of it. However comparing a play with a movie isn't apples to apples. Filming a movie is different from live performance as the pool of people available to portray a particular character is different and the article misses the mark on that point. imo.

I agree with the article from the aspect of it's called acting for a reason and the best actor available for the job should be used. However, for too long that has been used as an excuse to freeze other actors out.. Native Americans, Asians, women over the age of 40, etc..

[N.E. Brigand]

A new study finds that:

• Democrats believe 44% of Republicans earn $250,000 or more per year. Actually, only 2% Republicans make that much.

• Democrats believe that 40% of Republicans are senior citizens. In truth, fewer than 20% of Republicans are seniors.

• Republicans believe that 38% of Democrats are lesbian, gay, or bisexual. The actual number of Democrats who are LGB is 6%.

• Republicans believe that 44% of Democrats are African-American. In reality, 24% of Democrats are Black.

• "The more political media you take in, the more biased your estimates."

[Eldy]

Interesting. It's curious to note that the abstract claims their "[e]xperimental data suggest that these misperceptions are genuine and party specific, not artifacts of ... ignorance of base rates," given that polling has found people tend to overestimate the overestimate the size of minority groups in general—including the wealthy, queer people, and ethnic minorities. I have neither the interest nor ability (it's been way too long since I studied statistics or experimental design) to make a detailed assessment of the reliability of their metrics, but it seems plausible to me that, as they say in the full article, the partisan overestimates "reflect more than mere ignorance of population demographics." I imagine there are a variety of factors, especially stereotypes, that make people are even worse at guessing at the demographics of parties than the population as a whole.