The Racisting Racism Is Back

~ Clarissa

I read the article to discover what the racist rhetoric was. All I found were jokes about Puerto Rico (which can’t be racist because Puerto Rican is not a race), usage of the words “watermelon” and “pimp” (which are common usage and also can’t be racist “) and the statement “America for Americans” (which definitely can’t be racist because 41 million of Americans are black).

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Published by Clarissa

48 thoughts on “The Racisting Racism Is Back”

    1. They hadn’t done the racism thing for a whole 3 minutes, so I was wondering if some racism innovation dropped. Apparently, not. We are still belaboring the watermelon. This poisoned the joy I used to derive from eating watermelons because I no longer know if it’s ok to mention them in public. What if a black friend drops by while I have it out on the table? Will it make the same impression as if I opened the door wearing the KKK hood?

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      1. I’m still puzzled by the whole “soul food” thing.

        It’s called southern cooking. We all grew up with it. Cornbread, shrimp and grits, cheese grits, catfish, collards, watermelon, fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, barbecue… the whole shebang. The only places where that is “black food” are up north, because that’s where southern blacks moved to for jobs, and they took the cuisine with them. Collards and watermelon are what *grows* here.

        But now it’s racist to… cook, eat, and enjoy the exact same things my white grandmother cooked?

        People need to get a grip.

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      2. And in the UK watermelon (probably) isn’t used as a racist description because it’s used as a derogatory expression for the Green party (Green on the outside, communist red on the inside).

        Instead we get people of colour calling each other coconuts.

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  2. Look, I think the “Trump is a racist” thing is definitely overdone. It’s clearly not moving the needle for voters and there are times when the outrage seems manufactured.

    But the “jokes” about Puerto Rico? I suppose we can quibble about the word “racist” but they were definitely bigoted. Not to mention that Puerto Ricans are citizens of this country! This is exceptionally viscious and decisive rhetoric against our fellow Americans. And this isn’t some no-name podcaster ranting on some obscure corner of the internet. This is a rally for someone who will likely become president.

    As I remark above, I acknowledge that the left cries wolf regarding racism too often. And one of the consequences is that many (mostly on the right) now refuse to note genuinely troubling instances of actual bigotry. But bigotry does exist and was on display during that rally.

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      1. I’m actually from New Jersey so I can explain a bit. New Jersey is between New York and Pennsylvania and many places are little more than suburbs of New York City and Philadelphia and many of their inhabitants are people whose grandparents were former working class proles who made some money and moved to the suburbs. Many of these folks have a nouveau riche attitude and ways of living that are very off-putting to people in other parts of the country, think of the Sopranos or Jersey Shore for Italians and JAPs for Jewish people.

        Other reasons are the pollution, New Jersey has a lot of Superfund sites and factories in urban areas, the huge gap between the rich and poor, the horrible urban areas like Newark and Paterson and Camden, the rude people and our accents which make us sound like gangsters. New Jersey has some very wealthy towns right next to terrible urban slums, Paterson is adjacent to very wealthy suburbs and so is Camden. Our state isn’t as awful as outsiders think, it’s just that the bad stuff is all everyone in the rest of the country sees.

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          1. I agree about the turnpike, especially the northern end since I live near Exit 16E. That area near the airport is hideous with all the factories and trucks, southern NJ is much more rural

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      2. “People make a lot of jokes about New Jersey. It’s an American thing, I don’t fully understand”

        I thought most countries have a region or city that everybody else looks down on. In Poland the city of Radom is the butt of a lot of jokes.

        IIRC in Germany Bielefeld’s very existence is the subject of jokes.

        What part of Ukraine does everybody else make fun of?

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        1. My Dad always gently mocked Galychyna with their very specific pronunciation. Last week, at one of my talks, I finally heard somebody speaking like this not as a joke but seriously. It was a struggle not to start giggling.

          In Quebec, we say “what are you, from Gaspesie?” to say that somebody is a country bumpkin. In Russia, they say “are you from the Urals?” So yes, it’s a thing.

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          1. “Galychyna with their very specific pronunciation … It was a struggle not to start giggling”

            Years ago I knew a German from Dresden. He normally spoke standard German and said everybody thinks that the Saxony dialect sounds ridiculous. He said a few sentences in his home dialect and I thought he was exaggerating for comic effect.

            Not too long after that we got a new German teacher from… Saxony who spoke like that all the time (standard German but with a strong Saxony accent). Not only very hard to understand but hard to take seriously…

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            1. I can’t speak to this with full knowledge, but I’ve read that reruns of the American 1960s show “Hogan’s Heroes” is (or was) very popular in Germany (interesting on a lot of levels, there), and part of the popularity was connected to the accents used by the actors who dubbed the dialogue into German.

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            2. In Peru, “bad Spanish” is what Chileans speak.

              Peruanos will also tell you, universally and proudly, that they speak the best Spanish outside Spain. Maybe even the best Spanish *including* Spain. I brushed it off as joking national pride, until we made the border hop from Tacna to Arica. After months of getting by OK in Spanish in Peru– we are not that great at it, but Peruanos do have very clear and precise pronunciation, and we found them patient with dumb gringos– we got into a cab in Arica and tried to tell him where we needed to go. After a few completely fruitless exchanges, where we could not even discern *any* Spanish words and began checking road signs to verify that we had reached the right country, we dug out a notebook, wrote down the address, and thereafter communicated in writing. It was the only way.

              Peruanos. Best Spanish *anywhere*.

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  3. As for the jokes about Puerto Rico, it’s actually not offensive to me since where I live there’s a lot of Puerto Ricans who tell jokes about the island. Puerto Rico has a corrupt government like too many areas in Latin America and also many Americans aren’t aware Puerto Ricans are American citizens.

    As an American of Cuban descent, I can tell you that many Cuban Americans look down on Puerto Ricans because of race and class. Most Puerto Ricans are mixed race and the Cuban Americans around here are white, Cubans tend to think all Puerto Ricans are part black which is why they’re so loud and crass. Plus, Puerto Ricans can access welfare benefits as American citizens and Cuban exiles hate anyone who gets benefits, they think it’s being lazy. My mother thinks Puerto Ricans are all lazy mongrels who should go back to the island, it’s sad because Cuba and Puerto Rico have similar histories and culture

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    1. Yeah, every time that’s come up, I can only think of my old Puerto Rican boss, who was the sole source of every Puerto Rico/Rican joke/stereotype I ever heard. My Puerto Rican cousins are, of course, gentlewomen and don’t say things like that. But would probably laugh.

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  4. I never thought Puerto Ricans are low class or gross at all, many of them came from the same sort of lower middle class/working class background as my own family. I guess the stereotype originated in the 60s and 70s when many Puerto Ricans migrated to New York City when the city was a mess, many wound up in run down housing projects with lots of gangs and drugs and no jobs, so going on welfare was the only way to provide for a family. Since few Cubans wound up like this, they looked down on Puerto Ricans as lazy bums

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    1. If you knew the Trump supporters I talked to today. Brilliant people. Mega educated. High achieving. An absolute pleasure.

      In the meantime, I was accused in the comments to my Saturday pro-Trump show that I’m a country bumpkin living in the mountains. This is the intellect of the people who oppose us. They think there are mountains in Illinois.

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      1. Shitlibs have nothing to offer except for nagging.

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              2. I listened to it. I can theoretically grasp the appeal, but if I watch the whole thing I’ll have a killer migraine for the next two days. That thing should have a seizure warning.

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              2. —Even my shitlib friends lol.

                Sure, I would lol too if someone sent this to me.

                But, seriously, the antidote to covert/victim narcissism of the left is not overt grandiose narcissism of the right. Can we have some psychologically healthy leaders and propaganda, please?..

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              3. I hope you are voting Pollievre because more staid, calm dude nobody can imagine. Americans absolutely always over the top but that’s the charm.

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  6. This is so funny. The essence of the democratic party:

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  7. You all seem all hung up on whether it was racist or not. Who gives a fuck, it was absolutely offensive and completely unnecessary at this point.

    It almost feel like Tony Hinchcliffe was intentionally trying to sabotage Trump’s campaign with this “edgy comedy.”

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    1. Or it’s another perfect example of the same Trump campaign technique that’s been working brilliantly for the guy for over ten years: bait the liberal MSM into giving Trump infinite free publicity.

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    3. I care about the word “racist” because there’s nothing more damaging in American public life than being labeled a racist. Only yesterday I talked for an hour to the owner of an information network here in the US whose YouTube channel was erased twice, with all the videos, all the comments, everything based on accusations of “racism” that he traced back to Kremlinbots. Any time they’d post a video that was severely critical of the Kremlin, accusations of racism would flood in and they’d be banned. Twice the dude had to start rebuilding his network from scratch. But there’s no definition of racism provided so that he can know exactly how he ran afoul of it. It suffices to say that somebody is a racist, and that’s it, he’s gone. So I pay attention when this word begins to be bandied around.

      I would have no problem with somebody saying “I found it offensive.” But the word “racism” carries penalties for all of us that nothing else does. We all need to know what the current definition is because anybody can be destroyed with an accusation. The man I’m talking about never discussed race at all yet he lost his livelihood twice due to the accusations. This is only possible because we have accepted that racism lacks a definition. We need to insist on a definition.

      This is why I reacted to this. I’m planning to go on this dude’s show on Friday. I have zero plans to talk about race but will I be accused anyway? He warned me because he wants to be honest but how did we get to the place where anybody can destroy you if they simply disagree with what you say?

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    4. Nah. Everything on that teleprompter was approved by the Trump campaign. I think they drew the line at C U Next Thursday in Hinchcliffe’s …set. Which I don’t get because it’s not like it was being aired on network television.

      That man is living the dream, opening in Madison Square Garden to a packed crowd, way more name recognition, his career will only go up. Quite a turnaround to having Joe Rogan dump you from his comedy tour, and William Morris Endeavor dump you. He already had a Netflix special but everyone gets one. Jon Stewart loves his comedy and defends him.

      The Trump campaign claims they had no idea his set was going to be like that, but if that were true, wouldn’t they have done the old fashioned hook and yanked him off the stage?

      Roast comedy is appropriate for political rallies. Whipping off your shirt to show off your bra and cussing out election workers like you’re drunk Roseanne about to bray the Star Spangled Banner offkey is patriotic. Undead Jerry Springer, ex-mayor of Cincinnati will reboot his show as a political talk show with metal chairs, widely acclaimed by serious political commentators who just watch World Star Hip Hop fight videos and discuss it on C-Span and the Sunday morning talk shows. I don’t know how they’d handle the guests who carry semi automatic weapons but I’m sure the ratings would be amazing.

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        1. This is what I mean about the publicity.

          I had no idea who this guy was until two days ago. And now I know too much. You can’t buy that kind of recognition and he obviously had some if the campaign had him open for them.

          I’m obviously not the demographic anyone is trying to reach with this guy or Joe Rogan (i’ve heard of him at least) or the Call Her Daddy podcast or a bunch of other outlets that are apparently super popular and have great reach.

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  8. Does that man have any idea what flavor of racism they’ve accused him of in order to nuke his channel twice? Because that matters immensely — some racisms are more offensive than others (to YouTube).

    And are the Kremlinbots making accusations about the comments in the livestream or the the actual videos?

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    1. In the videos. Which are either in Russian or Ukrainian, and who can possibly expect YouTube to hire translators? It’s easier to just ban. Nobody cares about proof once an accusation is made.

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