Pat @Pat@qoto.org

#democracy #republic #USA
#ignorant #banal #parrots

If I hear another person ignorantly parrot the phrase, "We're not a democracy, we're a republic!", I think I'll puke.

Democracy has many forms. The form of democracy we have in the US is a representative democracy. Because it is not a monarchy, it is also a republic. (A republic is a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who is accountable to the public.)

**** "Democracy" and "republic" are not mutually exclusive. ****

Here's Merriam-Webster's current definition of democracy:

"a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections"

Here's an image of the definition from Samuel Johnson's dictionary of 1785, at the time when our country was formed:

@bonifartius @tripu

The Reason piece appears to just be using the Daily article as their source, along with whatever original documents they could find online. The NY Times picked up the story (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/arts/music/othello-blackface-bright-sheng.html) and likely has additional research on it, but I can't get past their paywall.

The practice of using blackface perpetuates racism whether or not the people doing it understand that it's wrong. So the future examples you cite are indeed also in that very general category -- many people today do not know that what they are doing is wrong, but some do.

When Olivier did Othello, most people didn't see a problem with it, but forward-looking people did. (Othello is actually much more complicated -- it was written before the US was even founded, which is why I said, "...productions of that sort...", meaning productions using blackface.)

Regarding "safe spaces", I think that's a bunch of bullshit. College is for exploring and learning and discovery. It's about discourse. Shutting down people who earnestly have a different view in order to prevent them speaking does not promote progress, it stifles it.

To damage somebody's career like they did to Sheng is wrong. As I said, when somebody tries to apologize like that, you can never see into somebody's brain to know for sure if they are consciously racist or just slow at becoming "woke". The students should have confronted him directly and respectfully and discussed the issue.

If he would have continued to hold the position that blackface was ok, then that's different. That would mean he has some kind learning disability and probably shouldn't be teaching if he can't even learn simple things like that.

@khird @louisrcouture

Hint: There are no typos or misspellings in my toot.

@louisrcouture @khird

It's not a school exam question that I need help with or anything like that. I just recently discovered something new to me and thought it would be amusing.

@louisrcouture

I don't understand your comment/question.

It's just a fun quiz.

_
#quiz #test #science

Without using any reference material (no internet, books, etc.), explain florescence in detail.

@bonifartius @tripu

Although it is difficult to form any type of conclusions from a single article, not actually being in the room at the time, I think that the fact that the woman who complained was a freshman and most likely a young person, contributes to the reaction. One of the purposes of college is so young people can learn how respond appropriately in social situations. To learn to be adults.

I don't know if she questioned Sheng contemporaneously during the class or waited until afterwards to complain. Questioning him during the class would be the proper way to do it. Then they could discuss it in the classroom and sort it out. It sounds like she became very confrontational about it.

As for Sheng, you never actually know for sure what is going on inside someone's brain. He seems rather clueless about the whole situation. The article said that he had attended awareness training, and I don't understand how someone could not know that blackface in almost any context is inappropriate today and so he should have either picked an alternative composition adaptation example or explained prior to the showing that that blackface was inappropriate even in the 60s when it was made.

The reason why that kind of contextualization is required before showing the film is because older productions of that sort are designed to promote and perpetuate racism, which was largely tolerated before the civil rights movement during the 60s. It was designed to make people more racist. If those films are shown to a young audience who may or may not understand that, then it could have racism-promoting effects on those young people. By explaining all of that up front before the film is shown, then it helps to mitigate and inoculate against that and instead it can show how racism is bad.

@freemo

Thank you. I didn't know that. I also didn't know that they used piano-player type punched input. I only remember punched cards.

I heard that the term "bug" comes from when a moth flew into an old IBM computer and got stuck in between the contacts of one of the hundreds of relays in the machine.

@travis @icedquinn @cnx @freemo @trinsec

I agree that inequality of opportunity and disrespect in general is bad and that we need to work at eliminating all prejudice.

I disagree about racism being natural. Recognition of in-group and out-group members may be part of evolutionary psychology (I'd still need to see more evidence of that), but racism, that's taught to people over time. Just defining what characteristics constitute "race", is something that is taught to people starting at a young age.

@travis @icedquinn @cnx @freemo @trinsec

I mentioned about a dozen different techniques and stereotypes, not just the boss thing. The point is to pay attention when you watch films. See how black people and other people of color are portrayed. If you really make a point of seeing it, you will see it.

People who are color blind can't see racism.

@travis @freemo @trinsec @cnx @icedquinn

Go back and look at that image I posted -- a bunch of white people in positions of power, while black people are in the background, off to the side of the frame, carrying spears, playing a horn (stereotypical images). This is the more subliminal racism you see in films these days.

@travis @freemo @trinsec @cnx @icedquinn

I meant that the movie awards are a kind of tokenism, to attempt to show to the world that Hollywood isn't racist, but when it comes to actually changing things in the films, actually showing positive images of black people in movies, filmmakers generally don't do that.

Racism in Hollywood has changed over the years. Older films were more explicit about it, but newer films are more subliminal about it. They use some the techniques I mentioned early and many others.

It also waxes and wanes over time. During and immediately after the very rough times of the 60s civil rights conflicts, Hollywood made an attempt to clean up their act, but that quickly faded away. During the Obama administration there were a lot of really ugly, subliminally racist films that were released. Now following the BLM movement, there are better films just being released.

Overall, Hollywood has a long way to go to get anywhere close equitable treatment of people of color.

@freemo The "8" guy.

I just blocked a user for racist comments.

@freemo @icedquinn @trinsec

Trading Places was a kind of backhanded racial awareness -- Murphy's character was still "poor black" while Aykroyd's character was the "rich white banker".

And for every Trading Places, there five films like Top Gun, which was horribly racist.

@freemo @trinsec

Well, awards are for show -- "See, we're not racist..." Look at distribution of salaries and see if there racism in Hollywood. Also, if you look at actual numbers of impressions, i.e., the number of positive black characters and the size the of audience they get it much smaller than the racist depictions. When a positive film somehow gets past writters, the casting agency, the director, editors, etc., then the distribution company will sabotage the film by advertising to the wrong audience (or not promote it all) or they will put spoilers in the trailers, or somehow mess it up so fewer people see that positive image.

@freemo @trinsec

It not just the numbers of black people in film, it's how they are represented.

Rarely is a black person cast for a leading character who is, for example a Wall Street banker or in a position of authority or dominance over a character played by a white person. If a black actor plays a boss, it typically is a "mean boss" or one who is in opposition to the protagonist.

Or black people are rappers, janitors, criminals, slaves, soldiers, boxers, cops, etc. Or they are killed off early in the film. Even black extras are slighted in films, often placed towards the edge of the frame or blurred out or a white extra walks in front them. It's rampant in Hollywood, and it's not just unconscious bias -- it intentional.

Pick your favorite five films and look at them though that lens. You'll see.

@freemo @trinsec

Historically, science tried to categorize by race, but now that has been rejected. They study specific phenotypes and trace the origins and migration of those genes.

You are right about the variation of skin color. Melinen content varies by latitude (or more precisely by insolation) and takes about 10,000-30,000 years to change in a population (from what I remember). The haplogroup I mentioned originated about 30,000 years ago in west Africa, so likely ancient Egyptian's skin was lighter than in central or west Africa.

But ancient Egyptians (<~1500 BC) definitely were not Welch or any other ethnicity north of Rome, which is the ethnicity of the actors playing those parts.

@trinsec @freemo

Science rejects the concept of race entirely. Race is a social construct.

@freemo @trinsec

But my point really was that racism in movies goes largely unnoticed until it is pointed out.

Black people, if they are included at all in films, are typically portrayed as characters who have menial jobs, carry things for white people, use substandard grammar, are depicted as being mean to the protagonist, etc., etc., etc...