pastwatcher: (Default)
Quirk ([personal profile] pastwatcher) wrote2013-03-15 05:24 pm

miscellaneous

Who is harmed by a real names policy: I found this article excellently comprehensive.

A photo from 1965 alongside a photo from last night's Brooklyn protests. Showing how little has changed.

Speaking of visceral demonstrations of bad history and the present that sometimes re-enacts it, this blackface montage (blackface, cartoons and other portrayals of black people) from Spike Lee's Bamboozled. I don't know about the film in general, people seem to think it's supposed to be satirical, but the music suggests deep sadness. I wonder who to even show this clip to. I am glad I watched it, it was an injection of so much context that makes blackface never okay. But it would also be needlessly horrifying and upsetting to anyone who already understood this intuitively.

[identity profile] sandmantv.livejournal.com 2013-03-15 10:02 pm (UTC)(link)
I watched the movie when it first came out, and rather enjoyed it, as a deconstruction of the way many people build their identity. It's one of the first things I think about when people talk about "ironic racism/sexism/etc". How good intentions can go ill.
I've never heard anyone else say a good thing about it though.

[identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/ 2013-03-16 08:24 am (UTC)(link)
I've been thinking lately that humor is to some degree inherently anti-empathetic. This can be valuable, because we don't always want to be fully in touch with our feelings--if I had to re-experience the things I felt during my first labor every time I think about labor, for example, I'd be in therapy. But it can also be damaging, when used in ways which inhibit empathetic connections with other people--say, racist or sexist jokes. Many people have reacted to people being offended at offensive things with, "It's just a joke!" Well, finding it funny depends on not empathising with the subjects.

Speaking of blackface.