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I have no defence; I actually double checked it writing it and saw she was Irish.

The point I was making though is a character who owes a debt to stereotypes without itself being offensive or dismissive doesn't make a work racist. I could agree it does have the same kind of unconcious racism I guess.

ECH consider it on the list.

Absolutely nobody in this thread has said that Lord of the Rings is a racist work.

However, I would like you to consider whether, if you were black, and had black children, you would perhaps be more willing to dismiss it as a whole due to the inclusion of racist themes?

This is a consideration for those of us with children of color; how comfortable would you be with your brown child reading a book that portrays its good characters as white and its bad characters as brown?

Sorry for the delay. Funny enough, I was talking to a black female friend about this same thread. She's upstairs putting Picklesson to sleep.

Anyway:

Here's the Irish dude, he's Filipino, rather than Asian, and the relevant bit starts around 2:13:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVYrOn7j7eo&feature=channel_video_title

Now mind you, you can hear his accent, even if he's not speaking English. And just before this, he's saying it's a shame that Irish is dying. And in this clip he mentions that he's Irish. He identifies as both Filipino and Irish.

Now, I can't remember which clip it was, since he has a few in Irish, but he uses the phrase "Nil me muinteoir" which is incorrect, since it means "I am in a temporary sort of sense, not a teacher" where he should have said "Ni muinteoir me" (I am not a teacher [permanently, as far as I as the speaker can tell but maybe down the line I'll change my mind. Who knows, let's drink more and I'll make a temporary decision])" But people gave him shit about it. It's an honest mistake since English doesn't make that distinction. I am not a teacher vs I am not a teacher. And he admitted that he hasn't spoken in Irish in several years. And I've seen shit comments on his videos but encouraging ones for American or Canadian women trying hard to speak Irish and it's nothing but encouraging. He's some foreign fuck butchering the language for a slip up or two, except that he's an Irish born Irish citizen. He could run for president. I, as a pure (as it gets) Irish citizen, would not be able to vote for him, since I am a Bostonian.

You know what?

I am some foreign fuck who is entitled to citizenship. Those Americans and Canadians who are botching it? Put your dicks away. They aren't fucking you.


This dude is Irish. Here's the proof. Talking about Irish politics. In English. With and Irish accent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH3xbYpQo28

Very interesting, thanks for the links!

I'm listening now, and he sounds 100% Irish.

As a dual citizen with an Irish father, he is Irish. His command of the language is superior to my granmother's. And let's face it. If someone talks shit about ANYONE regardless of their background talking shit about them speaking Irish, they don't actually care about the language. Think about it this way. If they move to our American country they need to learn English. If they aren't Irish, they can't speak Irish.

No fuck that shit. Seriously. Our language is dying. If ANYONE wants to learn it, they have my support. I had to learn to

Phone problems?

I agree completely. It's like all the dead and dying indian languages here. And if his being Irish was even a question, just listening to him talk should resolve it, because he sounds Irish.

That said, I also don't believe that he was promulgating any kind of racist agenda, either. I think that he was simply trying to make the bad guys ugly and the good guys appealing using imagery that was familiar and comfortable, and that was the imagery at hand, so deeply ingrained into him due to its dominance in culture that he didn't even question it.

Which is exactly why we are questioning it.

Next to the light/dark theme, there was also a lot of stuff going around about rising above ancient grudges and prejudices to work together for a common goal.  The humans, elves, and dwarves basically all hated or mistrusted each to the point where they were willing to watch as the others' cities fell to Sauron one by one at the beginning of the series, and it wasn't until they started working together that things got better.  Aside from Legolas' and Gimli's friendship subplot, you even have a straight-up interracial marriage between Aragorn and Arwen.

We need a :requia: emoticon.

I understand what he's saying... it's just not directly relevant.

However, the books do make a good case study in unconscious systemic racism expressed in the writing of someone who was consciously and purposefully against racism. I think that should tell us a lot; if even Tolkein was not immune, we all are susceptible if we aren't conscious of it.

Placid Dingo, I'm glad we seem to have come to consensus. I did want to address something you brought up: racism in Little Women. You drew the comparison between Tolkein's evil hordes of brown races and Louisa May Alcott's black maid in  the March household, who you stated is clearly drawn from stereotypes about black women. There are a few holes in your comparison's credibility.

First off, the maid was Irish.

Second, the only non-white character in the book is Laurie, the wealthy neighbor boy who falls in love with Jo and later marries Amy. It is not actually clear what race Laurie is; I would guess probably Indian or Middle Eastern. He is described as having black eyes, brown skin, and curly black hair.

Third, the book is set, if you remember, during the Civil War. The father of the girls is away fighting for the North.

Fourth, the book is essentially a memoir, and the maid is not based on a stereotype (not even an Irish one) but drawn from Alcott's memory of the maid she grew up with. She was, if I recall, described in the book as being young and pretty with dark curly hair and pale skin, and was always swooning over some boy or another.

Lastly, Louisa May Alcott was a vehement abolitionist who wrote a book on American racism. http://www.amazon.com/Louisa-May-Alcott-Race-Slavery/dp/1555533078/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327549262&sr=1-1

I can honestly not think of a single worse comparison.

Sorry for the delay. Funny enough, I was talking to a black female friend about this same thread. She's upstairs putting Picklesson to sleep.

Anyway:

Here's the Irish dude, he's Filipino, rather than Asian, and the relevant bit starts around 2:13:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVYrOn7j7eo&feature=channel_video_title

Now mind you, you can hear his accent, even if he's not speaking English. And just before this, he's saying it's a shame that Irish is dying. And in this clip he mentions that he's Irish. He identifies as both Filipino and Irish.

Now, I can't remember which clip it was, since he has a few in Irish, but he uses the phrase "Nil me muinteoir" which is incorrect, since it means "I am in a temporary sort of sense, not a teacher" where he should have said "Ni muinteoir me" (I am not a teacher [permanently, as far as I as the speaker can tell but maybe down the line I'll change my mind. Who knows, let's drink more and I'll make a temporary decision])" But people gave him shit about it. It's an honest mistake since English doesn't make that distinction. I am not a teacher vs I am not a teacher. And he admitted that he hasn't spoken in Irish in several years. And I've seen shit comments on his videos but encouraging ones for American or Canadian women trying hard to speak Irish and it's nothing but encouraging. He's some foreign fuck butchering the language for a slip up or two, except that he's an Irish born Irish citizen. He could run for president. I, as a pure (as it gets) Irish citizen, would not be able to vote for him, since I am a Bostonian.

You know what?

I am some foreign fuck who is entitled to citizenship. Those Americans and Canadians who are botching it? Put your dicks away. They aren't fucking you.


This dude is Irish. Here's the proof. Talking about Irish politics. In English. With and Irish accent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH3xbYpQo28

Very interesting, thanks for the links!

I'm listening now, and he sounds 100% Irish.

That said, I also don't believe that he was promulgating any kind of racist agenda, either. I think that he was simply trying to make the bad guys ugly and the good guys appealing using imagery that was familiar and comfortable, and that was the imagery at hand, so deeply ingrained into him due to its dominance in culture that he didn't even question it.

Which is exactly why we are questioning it.

I think the LOTR discussion is what started to irritate me. I still don't believe it's racist because that work has a very specific meaning in my mind; the idea that any race is superior or inferior to another. So yeah there's dark creatures and light creatures but it feels like a stretch to me that the normal way to read that is White humans are better than black humans.

YES Tolkein should have been aware of the implications that could be read into his work and either changed it or decided to cop the flack.

YES as an author I want to make sure I avoid writing that could be seen in any way as racist.

YES as I have said pretty clearly, I agree racism can be implicit and unintentional.

But you know, if I write about balck and white people fighting green goblins, well couldn't that be maybe interpreted as fighting the thrd race; an allegory for Asians? Is Zoolander racist because of the 'black janitor makeup' scene? Is the Lion King racist because the hyenas are obviously the post ww1 Germans rallying behind the Hitler figure of Scar? So on.

I feel like there's a point at which 'identifying racism' in media becomes. Lo5ing. I'm not saying it's not there. I'm not saying it needs to be intentional. I'm not saying it needs to be obvious. But for my money, unfortunate implications are not racism.

I'm not even sure there's a clear disagreement here. We all think that works should take care to avoid unpleasant implications, that racism should be avoided in a work, that Tolkein made some bad choices in writing that led to his works being interpreted in an unintended racist way. I just dont feel like you can dismiss a work as racist singularly because it CAN BE SEEN AS racist.

I didn't see a single person dismissing the Lord of the Rings as racist simply because that aspect has racist implications. I did see a number of people (including myself) saying that it bothers them when people try to dismiss an entire work, or the work of significant historical figures, due to an element of racism.

And yes, I do believe that it is racism... albeit perhaps unconscious racism... to make the bad guys dark-skinned and the good guys light-skinned. That not-insignificant detail did stand out to me as a kid, and it bothered me. It wasn't incidental, and it was a repeated theme throughout the book. Elves are fair: Uruk-Hai are dark. The human good guys are light-skinned, mostly with yellow hair and blue eyes, the human bad guys are dark-skinned. Orcs are "A grim, dark band... swart, slant-eyed". Good is light/fair/blond/blue eyed, evil is brown with nappy hair. Furthermore, most disturbingly, it inextricably links good and evil with race.

It doesn't get a whole lot more directly racist than that.

When was the last time you read the books? It might be a good time to re-read them; you might be surprised at what you see with a new awareness.

NUO.

Damn, the Facebook thread seems to have stalled out at 56 posts. http://www.facebook.com/kalera/posts/10150517468114069?ref=notif&notif_t=feed_comment

I was really expecting better from the FB people. Hardly anyone there has even tried pulling apart the question of why it might not be private property.

I am having a hard time extracting your point from that. Can you clarify? In my opinion, consciously recognizing and naming passive racism is an important step forward; are you agreeing or disagreeing with that?

Agree.

But I'm feeling frustrated because I feel like this thread is saying if you can interpret it as racist in some way, it's a racist work. Which seems pointless because if thats the way to do it, anything ever written is a racist work.

Can you explain what, specifically, in this thread is making you feel that way, maybe by pulling some quotes? And is it really a feeling, or is it a thought? I think that's an important distinction. 

In my opinion, one of the reasons it's valuable to point out ingrained racism is actually to help make it less ingrained. It's less likely, if people point out the embedded (and most likely unconscious) racism in Tolkien's work, that writers will continue unconsciously embedding racism into their work.

Who would you rather be, the guy who is conscious that making all your villains dark-skinned is going to be seen as racist, or the guy who is happily oblivious and publishes a book in which all of the villains are dark-skinned?

I'm not really ok with this, Cram. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhVu2hxm07E&feature=related

So today, E.O.T.'s steering went out. It just stopped working. So I had to go find him up in the West Hills, and call AAA, and bring him home.

His truck was stopped in the oncoming lane.

I just keep thinking about the fact that in order to get to where he was, he had to take the freeway and cross a bridge, and if this had happened at a different time, at almost any other place on his route to work, or if there had been a car in the other lane when this happened, we would be short one E.O.T.

And man, that would suck.

So, when I think of furries, the first thing that comes to mind is "fire".

I bet fake fur isn't very fire-resistant.

Cricket bats. Hammers. Entrenching Tools. Tomahawks.

All cost money, and would have to be disposed of afterward.

I mean, using that sort of shit on regular people afterward would be cruel & unusual.

Use pvc pipes. Schedule 40 is nice and whippy, but schedule 80 is heavier. It is also fairly cheap.

OMG

Finally I know what to do with the extra PVC in my basement!

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/tibetans-shot-dead-for-failing-to-observe-chinese-new-year/story-fnb64oi6-1226252287686

China shoots people for not celebrating the New Year.

Well, really they were shot for being Tibetans.