99% of my landlords don't want Afro-Caribbeans or other troublemakers

[revol68]

Fair post about the historical origins - but historical and current usage are not the same thing.

Yeah which is why I said it's latter day use is much more problematic.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Don't know if you missed my post above Revol. I asked a few questions. Not demanding or expecting an answer to any of them of course but just letting you know in case you missed it.

 

[revol68]

Also corax, it's ironic you complain about racialised terms with expectations of behaviour/thought yet say you should shut up cos you are a privileged white male. ;-)

 

[revol68]

Don't know if you missed my post above Revol. I asked a few questions. Not demanding an answer to any of them of course but just letting you know in case you missed it.

Yeah sorry was caught up in a flurry of posts with Corax.

Firstly my discussion around uncle tom has been predicated that the person using it as an insult is black themselves. A white person using it is more problematic, I'd be especially shocked at their use of something like coconut or banana terms.

Why would the skin colour of my workmates be relevant? What is relevant is that which gives us a common interest ie our position as workers not management. Likewise for a black slave race would be the common factor in determining their common interest, as their race defined their position as slaves.

 

[Pickman's model]

Yeah sorry was caught up in a flurry of posts with Corax.

Firstly my discussion around uncle tom has been predicated that the person using it as an insult is black themselves. A white person using it is more problematic, I'd be especially shocked at their use of something like coconut or banana terms.

Why would the skin colour of my workmates be relevant? What is relevant is that which gives us a common interest ie our position as workers not management. Likewise for a black slave race would be the common factor in determining their common interest, as their race defined their position as slaves.

what would be the common factor where there were both irish and black slaves, not to mention a sprinkling of english 'indentured workers'?

 

[Treacle Toes]

Yeah sorry was caught up in a flurry of posts with Corax.

Firstly my discussion around uncle tom has been predicated that the person using it as an insult is black themselves. A white person using it is more problematic, I'd be especially shocked at their use of something like coconut or banana terms.

I think it was Mehdi Hassan that was refered to as an uncle tom on here the other day. ( I will check) Why is that okay? Why not just call him a traitor? A middle class, self centred twat or some such?

Why would the skin colour of my workmates be relevant? What is relevant is that which gives us a common interest ie our position as workers not management.

Exactly, that invisibility of White bodies and identities in the context of class allegiance and racialised insults is a priviledge.

Likewise for a black slave race would be the common factor in determining their common interest, as their race defined their position as slaves.

What Black slave race are you referring to? Not all Black people were slaves, ever.

 

[Smyz]

What Black slave race are you referring to? Not all Black people were slaves, ever.

There's an invisible comma between "slave" and "race".

 

[Treacle Toes]

There's an invisible comma between "slave" and "race".

Ah yes, I see what you mean...I was a bit eh?

 

[Corax]

Also corax, it's ironic you complain about racialised terms with expectations of behaviour/thought yet say you should shut up cos you are a privileged white male. ;-)

Eh? It's merely a recognition that there are always going to be limitations to my own understanding, as it'll never be directly experienced.

 

[revol68]

I think it was Mehdi Hassan that was refered to as an uncle tom on here the other day. ( I will check) Why is that okay? Why not just call him a traitor? A middle class, self centred twat or some such?

Exactly, that invisibility of White bodies and identities in the context of racialised insults is a priviledge.



What Black slave race are you referring to? Not all Black people were slaves, ever.

I agree that modern racism is based on the notion of white invisibility, that is whiteness doesn't tend to be short hand for various other traits, the views of one white person don't get held as the views of "white people", likewise the behaviour of white individuals never sparks racialised discussion about the "white community" in say the way it does for Muslims post 9-11. The same also goes for women, no one would ask the ridiculous question "what do men want" yet it's something you hear frequently in regards to women.

I never said all black people were slaves, I pointed out that slavery in the US was based on race and therefore it is perfectly understandable that terms like uncle tom arose as insults for those blacks who supported slavery. Just as Malcolm X talked about house niggers.

To simply label these terms racist because they link race with expected attitudes or appeal to someone's race in these criticisms is ahistorical moralistic crap.

 

[revol68]

Eh? It's merely a recognition that there are always going to be limitations to my own understanding, as it'll never be directly experienced.

I don't think it's too likely anyone here has experienced chattel slavery either...

 

[classicdish]

The same also goes for women, no one would ask the ridiculous question "what do men want" yet it's something you hear frequently in regards to women.

Noone has told Cosmopolitan magazine obviously

 

[Corax]

I don't think it's too likely anyone here has experienced chattel slavery either...

Tbh I'm not sure if you're serious here, or just arguing it because you feel on the defensive or something. I'm not even sure why you're still going on about slavery, seeing as it's current usage that's being considered, which I thought you'd recognised in #151.

 

[revol68]

Also where did I ever say it was fine to call that prick Hassan an uncle tom?

I wouldn't because it's utterly stupid to do so and actually racist on many levels because it treats everyone not white as a sort of homogenous group.

I could see why some poor black kid in the US would call Powell or Obama an uncle tom, I might think it's problematic and a poor basis for criticising or making sense of their politics but I wouldn't shout "racist" either.

 

[revol68]

Tbh I'm not sure if you're serious here, or just arguing it because you feel on the defensive or something. I'm not even sure why you're still going on about slavery, seeing as it's current usage that's being considered, which I thought you'd recognised in #151.

Well some people seem to take issue with it's use in the context of southern slavery too.

 

[Corax]

I might think it's problematic and a poor basis for criticising or making sense of their politics but I wouldn't shout "racist" either.

You don't have to "shout" racist at them, just because it's racist. It's possible to recognise things as racist behaviours whilst understanding that they're themselves the result of power imbalances and need to be responded to in that context.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Not much has changed since landlords posted "No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish". My family were always bemused about coming after the dogs.

Mrs Frank is half black, half Irish so they get her coming and going

 

[revol68]

You don't have to "shout" racist at them, just because it's racist. It's possible to recognise things as racist behaviours whilst understanding that they're themselves the result of power imbalances and need to be responded to in that context.

Still think racist is not the right term for it, at least not in how racism is generally understood.

 

[Treacle Toes]

To simply label these terms racist because they link race with expected attitudes or appeal to someone's race in these criticisms is ahistorical moralistic crap.

You can call it what you like.

My point is terms like uncle tom and coconut are racialised. They draw on historical associations and expectations of what it means to be Black, how black people should behave, who they should or should not align themselves with etc and on what basis. To see them used here and justified for me completely ignores the importance/impact of institutionalised and internalised racism. It suggests to me the person using them does not have a deep understanding of the impact of internalised racism and a reaction to racism. It reinforces historical notions of inherent cultural similarities and ignores the fact that class hierarches and the perception of those things has always existed. Equally that different people's identities are not simply formulated on account of them sharing a shade of skin or shared experiences of racism/oppression they never have been. Black and Asian people are in this way as diverse and complex as everyone else, the expectation that they are not and therefore should only draw allegiances along 'race' lines for me reinforces racism and classism, 'racialised classism' in fact.

No amount of quoting Malcom X at me changes that view by the way. He had his journey, his words you quote were in context, I am sure I can find you a quote of his to support my position too.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Still think racist is not the right term for it, at least not in how racism is generally understood.

Who decides how it is 'generally' understood?

Racist behaviour or the use of racialised insults doesn't make someone a 'racist' all the way around IME.

 

[Pickman's model]

Who decides how it is 'generally' understood?

not revol68, fortunately

 

[revol68]

Who decides how it is 'generally' understood?

You'd be better asking Rousseau.

 

[Treacle Toes]

You'd be better asking Rousseau.

What did they say when you asked them? Seeing as though you are claiming to know?

 

[Pickman's model]

I pointed out that slavery in the US was based on race

how do you suggest it differs then from slavery in brazil?

 

[Pickman's model]

You'd be better asking Rousseau.

i'm not aware of anything rousseau wrote on the question

 

[Corax]

i'm not aware of anything rousseau wrote on the question

Although...

 

[ViolentPanda]

"The Asians" ?

Yes. They'reall the same, you see. All essentialisabledown to an identical Asian essence.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'm Irish and was called an Uncle Tom by other Irish on this board simply because I didn't buy into the whole ubernationalism malarkey

You were called a twat far more often.

It's down to stupidity and the other reasons I listed above. Yeah, sure, if people want to be all academic and tubthump about the class struggle, fine. But that's hijacking, in my book. People of all "classes" and "colours" engage in racism. What's needed is to stamp it out, stand up to it and highlight it wherever it rears its ugly head. It gets bogged down, very quickly, when it's reduced to socio-economic-upwardly mobile-class transitionary bobbins.

Class is only a complicating factor if you want it to be. If you were honest and stated "I don't give a shit about class, spare me your class analysis", people might have a bit more respect for you, but as it is you make your antipathy appear to be born out of some commonsense assessment of class, when it really isn't an assessment at all, just prejudice.

I know what racism is, I don't need a bleedin' PHD in advanced political one upmanship or whatever it is that's practiced here.

You do need an open mind, though, and you don't have one. You're one of those tiresome people who know that they're right.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I don't know what you mean.

Are you saying that coconut is not a racist term?

He's saying (IMO) that "coconut" and "uncle Tom" are terms used to convey an assumption of collaboration and subservience about the specific black people they're used on/about, whereas "nigger" is a term used on specific individuals and non-specific communites of black people that belittles all black people. The terms are different in content and in their context of usage.

 

[coley]

actually there is a good discussion to be had baou



Sorry this post has not an once of substance to it. It reads like you're more interested in asserted how opposed you are to racism whilst not wanting to bother having to look at where it comes from, what sustains it and how it is articulated. It's the kind of liberal anti racism that imagines its just about getting people to respect each other.

It's like imagining sectarianism and the troubles happened cos people were simply ignorant and mean, rather than the outcome of deeper structural and historical factors.

Beg pardon yer onner, didn't realise I needed a Phd or whatever to recognise racism and to despise it, I will now leave it to my betters to instruct me in these matters.
E2a, slightly pissed, but do carry on, but please construct your arguments in the form that the average person can comprehend