I'm surprised so many people are passionately defending him. I read a few of the comments in this thread before playing the video and I thought it would be one of those implicit comments that 90% of people would deny as racist, but this is explicitly racist. I felt so uncomfortable watching the video.
Quote:
Originally posted by TrashyNavy
usually things people on atrl say are racist aren't racist at all but this is extremely racist
|
No, they usually are racist, but this is just obviously racist. It wasn't one quick comment or a passing assumption about his background that most people wouldn't notice.
Quote:
Originally posted by J-esper
These days the racist card gets picked up in seconds, every joke, whether harsh or not is made HUGE. If people continue this way and go arguing and analyzing everything that has been said by others in the context whether it is racist or not, then this world will end in a global world war sooner than later. People feel infected, hurt and bullied with every word or sentence that can be directed back at a culture, race or other little thing.
Was it harsh? maybe. Did it cause any drama in the Netherlands under the chinese community on a national scale or did the man went to an organisation to report racism? NO! There it should stay.
Racism is partly about contextuality and about own "taste". Ofcourse there is a line, but this is also on how fast you get offended and what you find offended or how sensitive you are.
I bet there are jokes about other countries, cultures and maybe even races in every country, even on a quiet harsh way. But it is abotu the way you deal with it. Yo can pick up the racism card, cause drama, create hate or people could just pretend they don'care, laugh along with it a bit and the next time such jokes won't be any "fun" anymore, since it's old and people moved on.
I have german blood, and if I had to get mad everytime someone makes a same kind of joke about germans here in Holland, I already would have moved out of the country. But I just don't care, live my life and people forget their jokes about it and also move on.
there are already so many things to worry about in life and in this world
|
It's really easy to say there other things to worry in life and turn the other cheek when you're not actually on the receiving end of this type of behavior. You mentioned that you have German blood, but you don't care when people make comments about Germans; well, of course not. You're only part German, you don't identify with Germans and you're more than likely not perceived as one. On the other hand, the contestant is Chinese and will always be seen as Chinese everywhere. If you walked up on that stage, it's highly unlikely that judge (or anyone) would be belittling your German background.
The only way to deal with bigotry or any issue is to actually address and discuss it, not ignore it. Just because the Dutch Chinese community doesn't care (Asians are always cooperative about everything so that doesn't say much) doesn't mean we should ignore it.
Quote:
Originally posted by longjohn9898
Racism is not just using verbal slurs or doing physical harm to other people with racial motivations. It can be seen on an individual level and a systemic level; it pervades our society and influences, even subconsciously, how we treat each other and judge each other. This video/situation is a blatant example of racism from one individual, but I think we should also recognize how our preconceived notions of other people based on their race (or gender, or class, etc.) affects what we think of them, even before we are consciously aware of it. We are a product of all of the media and culture we have been exposed to, and acknowledging this fact allows us to think about it, question it, and challenge it.
|
Exactly. People have this bad habit of thinking racism or bigotry in general is this Nazi-like hatred of [insert groups] when it's usually seems minor and implicit. My mother is a big homophobe, but she never rants about gay people, never uses anti-gay slurs and never advocates the death of gay people. In fact, I remember her being really upset when I was a child when she was watching a news story about gay people being attacked in Central Park and decapitated. It doesn't change that she's a homophobe with the idea that gay people are strange, scary aliens deeply embedded in her mind.