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Okay, Kaizer John, let’s do this point by point.
the first page is pretty much people just slagging me off
Demonstrably untrue. Some of the first page, rather than all – really not a lot of it - includes discussion of things you have posted to the board, and some of that discussion is highly critical, whilst others have defended you. This does not equate to “slagging you off” or even “bitching”. Please get over your victim mentality – this does not make you part of a persecuted minority of outcasts. Alternatively, if you have a problem with people discussing the things you contribute to a discussion forum, sometimes critically, you might want to reconsider whether a discussion forum is the right format for you. Likewise, I see no need to have PMed you. (I’m a bit baffled by the number of relatively new people who, in recent months, regarding something I’ve written in response to something of theirs, have PMed me saying nothing that couldn’t have been said in the thread.) If anything, I ought to have carried on in the original Blackalicious thread, but I was already being accused of dragging if off-course.
(Equally, I’m confused as to why you ask why should I be penalised for saying what I thought? - have you, in fact, been penalised?)
I want to first clarify that I'm not a racist
That’s great. However, on Barbelith the level of discussion about attitudes to race allows for the possibility that stating “I am not a racist” is not a get-out clause when it comes to analyzing those attitudes. Taken on face value, the ability to say “I am not a racist” means that David Blunkett is not a racist, nor is Robert Kilroy-Silk. Does that mean that we should never critique their words and actions on the basis of displaying dubious attitudes to race?
(This also applies to there's no way I could be a homophobe, not in the entire universe of anything ever - I’m not even going to touch the “post-homophobia” bit…)
even hinting that I am is deeply offensive to me.
This has already been mentioned in this thread, but you might want to rethink that. A long time ago, I put it like this: that there is a need to...
“accept that as a result of the society you've been raised in you will have prejudices (however unconscious) which are likely to be in line with the dominant ideology of that society (however much you like to think you oppose it) - and from that standpoint you try to understand, work through and ultimately change those prejudices. I see this as pretty much the only way to be - amongst other things, it helps avoid reactions like "I'm not a racist, are you calling me a racist, how dares you call me a racist, I'm leaving Barbelith", etc, when someone questions the assumptions that may be present in something you say...”
Petey's reply to this was passive aggressive, and uncalled for.
I’ll plead guilty to the former, but not the latter. Your exact words were:
“hip-hop, which I usually can't relate to, thanks to the gangs, ni**as (sorry for the stars, but my mum brought me up not to say that word, it makes me feel dirty - it's not for me to be saying) and bitches”
That is to say, you said “I find it difficult to relate to hip-hop on account of the gangs, ni**as and bitches”. You did not say “I find it difficult to relate to hip-hop because the lyrical content includes references to gangs, ni**as and bitches”, nor did you say “I find it difficult to relate to hip-hop because the lyrical content includes references to gangs and use of the terms ‘ni**as’ and ‘bitches’” (two different things). Perhaps it was your intention to convey one of those two possible meanings. However, this was not at all clear, partly because neither of those positions are particularly coherent. Blackalicious use both the words "ni**a" and "bitch" in their lyrics, and Saul Williams certainly uses the former, even going so far as to release a mixtape album with the word in the title (I can provide links if needed). You yourself used the term “bitch” to describe your girlfriend in a post in Games & Gameplay around the same time (albeit since deleted). Perhaps you were being “ironic” there too, I don’t know.
So until you advance a coherent position, all I’m left with is a sweeping generalisation about the content of an enormous genre of music, and a lack of clarity about what “thanks to the” means, which I’m afraid includes the possibility that it means “because it is made by the”. That’s not a coherent position either, but it does seem to go along with what you said subsequently:
I have little to no experience of black culture, sorry but it's true, and I can't identify at all with 'urban' music, becasue it's out of my usual frame of reference or interest.
I find this very, very odd, and not at all in tune with my experience of listening to music. I’ve never taken heroin, much less become addicted to it, but I can enjoy music made by people who have, and written about the experience. There’s a range of sexual experiences I’ve not had, but I can enjoy people making music about having or wanting those experiences. I never shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die, but I dig the song. Do you see where I’m going with this? And those are all more specific examples than saying that one can’t enjoy music made by black people (with a few exceptions) because one has no experience of “black culture”.
So I suppose I’d like some clarification, but this thread probably isn’t the best place for it – maybe here would be as good a place as any.
Moving on…
I didn't really mean that black people and gay people are 'only just' becoming normal, but in the terms of our society, they kinda are. The civil rights movement was only in the sixties, in the lifetimes of our parents. I still hear many people who hold racist views, and just becuase they're not televised, doesn't mean they don't exist. It's shit, but true.
But this isn’t black people and gay people changing, is it? It’s white and/or heterosexual people changing. Fair enough, though, I guess I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt here…
And then you go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like:
Sorry if I'm not black enough.
What the fuck, all over again? |
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