Notes on A Scandal: WOC & Motherhood
tw: racism, child physical abuse
I was watching a case on We The People, one of those TV court room shows that play randomly throughout the day.
This case in particular was one of two plaintiffs (Mr. & Mrs. Anderson, a newlywed white couple) suing Ms. Cunningham (A black…
The Dictator and The Zionist - The Trouble with Sacha Baron Cohen.
This morning, Sacha Baron Cohen is on my mind. Not a pleasant image to have to confront, but he’s been all over the place with the press for his new movie, The Dictator, which premiered in London earlier this week. He plays a composite character based on Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi - but I also see a lot of Iran’s Ahmedinijad in there. I don’t even really know what the plot of the movie is, but SBC’s movies have never really been big on plot.
I read this blog on CNN by Dean Obeidallah which calls out Cohen on the racism he displays in “browning up” to play an Arab man. Obeidallah’s argument is that Arabs and Indians themselves should be in movies that make fun of them. Fair enough. He doesn’t go far enough, in my opinion, to address all the stereotypes of Arabs that come out to play in the movie, but that’s because he hadn’t seen the movie when he wrote the piece. I wonder if he will.
What bothers me is that nobody’s addressing something more complex and, in my mind, more dangerous. So I’m going to attempt to do it. I know what I’m going to say is controversial, but I believe in speaking my mind when I see something that bothers me.
You see, SBC is a Zionist, a very publicly declared one. Which is not a problem for me personally, really. He’s got the right to hold his political views even if they are very bigoted ones that have been the root of most of the strife in the Middle East since 1948. But he’s got a very deliberate agenda which he expresses not-so-subtly in all his movies, and it’s not being said by commentators because of the fear that they will be called anti-Semitic.
Zionism is the belief in a Jewish nation, and the accompanying fierce loyalty to that nation, no matter what it does in the name of protecting itself and perpetuating its survival. It’s Zionism, not Judaism, that has seen the worst atrocities committed against the people of Palestine. Now, SBC doesn’t go around spouting things about the greatness of Israel in his movies. But if you look carefully, each one of his productions - from Ali G to Borat to Bruno to now, The Dictator, advances a certain element of Zionist propaganda against Muslims. Which is that Muslims are laughable, unintelligent, idiotic people with no intellect at best, and terrorists at worst. And Cohen uses buffoonery to do this.
How? By taking the stereotypes, derived both from Orientalism and from anti-Islamic Zionism, and playing them out to such ridiculous extremes, that his audiences laugh. And in laughing, they feel entertained. And in being entertained, they swallow the stereotypes and the racism whole, without pausing to critically analyze what they’ve been presented with. You could call this SBC’s particular genius. Yes, it’s pretty clever. But it’s also dangerous.
With Ali G, Cohen presented a fairly innocuous character: a rudeboy of uncertain ethnicity* (but everyone assumed he was Asian, or at least an Asian persona taken on by a white man for even more irony and laughs) who was stupid, racist, anti-Semitic, and sexist. A genius comedic character who made people laugh and believe that Asians, especially Muslim ones, of a certain age, class, and educational level, are all like this.
With Borat, I almost don’t have to say anything. We all know the buffoon he played who was from Kazakhstan who went to the United States and displayed all sorts of inappropriate behavior. He spouted off truisms about life in Kazakhstan, which included some pretty nasty jibes at village life - “My sister is best prostitute in village” - implying that again, Kazakhs - who happen to be Muslim - are backwards, idiotic yokels who engage in incest and bestiality. Of course it’s ridiculous, you say, we know it’s not true. Yes, but when you pick a country that most people know virtually nothing about and you assign values and mores to it, you know that because of the vacuum of knowledge, people will subconsciously adopt those values, or at least associate them with the country in the absence of better knowledge. Again, very, very clever.
In Bruno, the story of a gay Austrian fashionista, there’s no overt racism against Arabs or Muslims for a while. But then Cohen pulls the stunt of interviewing a Palestinian man who he claims is a dangerous Muslim terrorist. The man, in real life, is a Palestinian Christian who has nothing to do with terrorism. Cohen made him sign a release form before appearing in the movie, and didn’t tell him that he was going to brand him as a terrorist. On screen, this is a big joke, but in real-life Palestine, this can result in your death at the hands of Israeli security forces.
Most people think of Sacha Baron Cohen as a comedic genius, as I said before, as a trickster, someone who stands conventions on their heads to get laughs. I see him as someone else: a very intelligent man with a political stance and a stage on which to make that stance known. That he’s being subversively funny about it and using comedy rather than straight political discourse to do so is a sign of his brilliance, but also of his duplicity. He is advancing the worst of Zionist propaganda against Muslims with his movies, and the worst part is, you’re paying $15 each time to see him do it.
*I’ve had several people tell me Ali G was a parody of whites who want to be gangsta, Jamaican, or black. This wasn’t revealed until later in the series, though - and to be honest, when I saw him, the first thing that popped into my mind was that he was a parody of an Asian. Perhaps it was the name “Ali” (which was later revealed to be short for Alistair), a Muslim name that is very common amongst British Pakistanis, not so common amongst Afro-Carribbeans. Anyway, even if it was a white wannabe, critics rounded on him for making it “safe” to laugh at that culture from an imagined politically correct stance because it was buffoonery. I stick to my original claim that he was lampooning Asians (in addition to blacks, a more definite identity that I think evolved and became clearer as the series went on), and that his Zionist, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab stance has become more bold over time and become more and more overt in his films. And one thing people don’t know is that when he talks in the supposed language of each character, he’s actually making in-jokes in Hebrew.(x)
It’s interesting because my grade 10 history teacher tried to explain exactly why Borat was so offensive and we didn’t really seem to get it. This really clarifies exactly what he was trying to tell us, and why the movie always left such a bitter taste in my mouth.
(via biyuti)
Phylicia Rashad’s Letter to 21-Year Old Self:
Dear Phylicia,
Romantic involvement distracts you and can blind you to what’s really in front of you. And what really is in front of you? You are. You don’t even know yourself yet. You think you know and you want to assert that you do, now that you’re a certain age, but you don’t. What’s in front of you is a whole world of experiences beyond your imagination. Put yourself, and your growth and development, first. There are long-term repercussions to what you’re doing now. Everything you do, every thought you have, every word you say creates a memory that you will hold in your body. It’s imprinted on you and affects you in subtle ways—ways you are not always aware of. With that in mind, be very conscious and selective.
With high hopes for you,
PhyliciaThat was amazing and the way i’m living life right now :) .
(Source: fuckyeahfamousblackgirls, via moreblessing)
I think I may need to come to terms with the fact that my great-grandmother won’t be in my life for much longer…
Jesus, it’s not about YOU. How can anyone not get that? “Play the race card” my ass. Look at these photos, THAT is what the race card looks like. Not some clueless twit inconvenienced at McDonald’s. Christ.This is horrible. I hope the scumbags who did this to the op drove right over a fucking cliff. God dammit, why are people so hideous?Tonight I was hit with a hand full of eggs and huge rock on my back and called “Nigger” by a white guy in the backseat of a dark blue truck as I was riding my bike on Westheimer and Jeanetta. They drove too fast for me to get the license plate number. I had to get a cop to drive me home. This night makes me wonder how blacks did it back in the day, and why the community is looking the way it is now. I am trying not to cry, but I am in physical pain from the rock and not understanding why I deserved this.
uugh
Reblogging because solidarity.
You don’t know me, but I got your back, any day, any hour, any minute.
I once saw a large truck full of african american males switch lanes, come towards where I was standing on the curb in the rain and purposefully go REALLY fast to hit a large puddle to make it splash me, then saw them roll down the windows and point at me as they laughed.
I am a single white female. I hate to bring race or anything into this and I am sure white people are just as much as ass holes but racism of any kind HAS GOT TO STOP it’s not okay no matter what race you are to hate on any other races! I have been targeted SO MANY times because I am white and female, mostly by men either white OR black doesn’t matter.
I remember once I was in a long line at McDonalds, I would have been next to be served when another lane opened up and the clerk motioned to me to step over to be served. I moved, HUGE black guy who just walked in the store (I saw him enter cause of the position of the doors) Tried to shove me away so he could get helped first. I might have made a face but I know I said, “I have been waiting I was next” he said, “I was clearly here first.” I said, “No you just came in I’ve been waiting in that line.” He gets REALLY uppity and starts shouting, “WELL WHEN YOU’RE WHITE YOU’RE RIGHT” and starts throwing this huge fit.
The cashier (she was black) tells the man that he’s being immature and that she clearly saw I was next and motioned for me to come over, that bringing race into this was not an issue. The guy would just not shut up about me being a white princess and spoiled, when dude I was at the same McDonalds he was in the same bad part of town where I always hung out cause clearly princesses eat at McDonalds in Downtown cleveland. Anyway he had to be removed claiming racial discrimination when even the other people of his race were looking at him like he was a total idiot.
Like I said this has to stop, so I reblogged to share your story as well.
Wow.
You thought sharing your experiences as a white woman was the right way to go here?
You decided to turn the lens onto you and your experiences instead of focusing on what was at hand.
You were not a victim of racism. This young woman was.
This is not about you.
so let me get this straight
because the second victim was white and because she wasn’t struck what happened to her was automatically not racism??
that’s ridiculous and you sound ridiculous
both of these people were victims of racism, albeit different forms, and the second woman was only sharing her story to sympathize with the op
^^^
Identifying, sympathizing, and sharing a similar experience with someone is not a bad thing.
In fact, it’s the one of the things we should be doing more of.
^^^
YES
If I had something like this happen to me as a Latina I wouldn’t be offended for anyone’s sharing their own experience.
I’m sorry this happened to you OP, and to anyone who this has happened to.
holy shit black people cannot have fucking nothing without fucking crackers busting in talking about their racism
fuck all of you
in the face
Racism is racism is racism. It doesn’t matter what color your skin is. Prejudice is prejudice, and I have met African Americans who try to play the race card just to get something out of it, just like White people do too. The OP’s story is really sad, and so is the other poster’s story. Just because the other poster is white doesn’t make it NOT racism.
The ONLY way people are going to be able to stop racism is to stop saying that it only goes one way and not another. It’s the same with accepting all sexualities; just because someone says something negative about heterosexuals doesn’t make that not-prejudiced. It’s prejudiced either way.
And it’s disgusting.Why in the fuck do people insist that assault and hurt feelings are the same thing?
Even if I, as a Black woman, had experienced something like this or someone being mean to me (like the rude and intrusive white girl who busted up into this thread in a way she shouldn’t be), this thread is not the place for me to share that experience. This is about BEVIN and what happened to her, which is indeed a hate crime. This about Bevin’s assault, about Bevin’s hurt and about Bevin’s pain. The most appropriate and simple thing to be said if you must say ANYTHING here is
“Oh, Bevin! I am so sorry that this horrible thing happened to you. I will keep you in my thoughts and hope that you feel better soon.”
That’s it and that’s all. Anything more from anybody, ESPECIALLY some white girl with hurt feelings behind someone’s rude behavior is INAPPROPRIATE and DERAILING.
Who the fuck is raising you?? Have some damn class.
Derailed in record time. Lawd come for your world please, because I’m getting tired…
Tattoo of Leviticus 18:22 forbidding homosexuality: $200
Not knowing that Leviticus 19:28 forbids tattoos: Priceless
This idiot makes me cackle.
(via hiphopcheerleader)
Hip Hop Cheerleader: spawnofhumanbeings: Louisiana School Psychologist: ‘Young Black Thugs...
Louisiana School Psychologist: ‘Young Black Thugs Who Won’t Follow the Law Need to Be Put Down’
Jesus on the main line, I cannot. The fear I have to bring a brown boy…
Declaring that “life must always be protected”, a senior Vatican cleric has defended the Catholic Church’s decision to excommunicate the mother and doctors of a nine-year-old rape victim who had a life-saving abortion in Brazil… The unnamed girl’s mother and doctors were excommunicated for agreeing to Wednesday’s emergency abortion yet the Church has not taken formal steps against the stepfather, who is in custody. Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, the conservative regional archbishop for Pernambuco where the girl was rushed to hospital, has said that the man would not be thrown out of the Church, because although he had allegedly committed “a heinous crime”, the Church took the view that “the abortion, the elimination of an innocent life, was more serious”.
Brazil Rocked by Abortion for 9-Year-Old Rape Victim: Church excommunicates mother and doctors—but not accused rapist (via cocknbull)
Step-father that may have raped a nine year old: NOT excommunicated
Mother of nine year old girl and the doctor that preformed the abortion on the nine year old girl: excommunicated
those are some fucked up spiritual priorities
(via freesamuel)
Church. Y u fear vagina? Isn’t that where Jesus came from?
(via generalbriefing)
This is why I CANNOT fuck with the Catholics. Catholicism comes off as a horrible cult. That shit is otherworldly and scary as hell. No thank you.
(via notesonascandal)(via notesonascandal)
Reporter: I have a question to Robert and to Scarlett. Firstly to Robert, throughout Iron Man 1 and 2, Tony Stark started off as a very egotistical character but learns how to fight as a team. And so how did you approach this role, bearing in mind that kind of maturity as a human being when it comes to the Tony Stark character, and did you learn anything throughout the three movies that you made?
And to Scarlett, to get into shape for Black Widow did you have anything special to do in terms of the diet, like did you have to eat any specific food, or that sort of thing?
Scarlett: How come you get the really interesting existential question, and I get the like, “rabbit food” question?
The respect given to you if you’re a man in the entertainment business, and the respect given to you if you’re a woman in the entertainment business: all perfectly summed up in one idiotically thought out line of questioning.
(via hiphopcheerleader)
i will continue to reblog this until it gets the notes it deserves because elephants
If your heart isn’t melting it’s because you don’t have one.
the smile on my face
jkadfjkasf
I’m not a big fan of animals but dis is cute
(Source: emancip4te, via hiphopcheerleader)
dear internet, let me tell you some things about my public-school-in-georgia sex education.
pictured above is my abstinence til marriage card, given to me in my eighth grade health class. as you can see, i did not sign it, so it is non-binding. they were “optional” but the teacher placed the basket at the front of the class and stared us down. my 13-year-old self had a very brief dilemma between 1. making a stand and not getting one or 2. getting one because it’s fucking hilarious. i am very glad i chose the latter, because as i predicted, this is now something hilarious to show everyone.
that year in health we also learned “how to spot the identifying features of a crack baby” which is literally nothing but lies. we had a system of anonymous questions, and once someone asked “how do i know if i’m a lesbian?” our teacher looked disgusted and she replied “how would i know? i’m not a lesbian!”
EDIT i forgot to mention when she gave these to us she suggested we “cut up our cards together with our husbands on our wedding day” and i remember thinking, fuck if i marry someone from my middle school
the next time i had sex ed in high school it was taught by a dude gym coach who spent the whole time talking about his daughters. the book we were learning from listed “low self-esteem” “stunted social growth” and “depression,” among others, as consequences of premarital sex. at one point, it asked us to fill in the disadvantages of having an abortion. our teacher went, “well, i’m personally against abortion, so we’re just going to skip this section,” which confused me, because it was explicitly asking for an argument against abortion.
the last time i had sex ed it was pretty good and there were free condoms and we got little bottles of lube every time we answered questions, but i don’t think that counts cause it was in an intro to women’s studies class.
new fun fact learned today-
ATM can mean “at the moment”, “Automated Teller Machine”, Ass to Mouth, or Abstinence Till Marriage”. This is a beautiful moment.
This is a thing?
A real thing?
Cheese and crackers. Shall we take a gander at GA’s STD rates?
How’s that abstinence only education program workin’ out for you Georgia?
“How to identify the features of a crack baby”…
welp.
(via hiphopcheerleader)
