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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2011 18:00:49 GMT
This video is going around and around the world at the moment.
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Post by onlymark on Mar 16, 2011 20:17:22 GMT
She does have nice breasts though.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 16, 2011 22:47:26 GMT
What is the point of that? Someone so fucking stupid and blithely ignorant is not going to influence anyone who doesn't already think like that
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Post by mich64 on Mar 16, 2011 23:08:10 GMT
Her mother, father, and grandparents still have some parenting to do with her. Maybe her family should be coming by her apartment on weekends to teach her how to be a decent human being. And yes Mark, she does have nice breasts. Bixa, she is going to have to live with this forever, it will always be how people perceive her, good luck to her with that winning personality. Cheers Mich
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on Mar 17, 2011 0:51:32 GMT
Um, like okay. Really, whatever. I mean wow, I'm so like blown away. Seriously though, you know what I mean? OMG, she's so like not smart and all that stuff.
In her defense, however, she did use the word epiphany. My favorite part was her acting out what an Asian phone conversation sounds like. I bet she's fluent in Mandarin Chinese.
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Post by onlymark on Mar 17, 2011 10:11:12 GMT
Part of me is disturbed by what she says. However, would you object if she said it was boys and not Asians? What if she said it was Christians? Or, "I can never get any work done because of the Jedi followers on their cell phones"? Lesbians? Dwarves? Blondes?
If she says that she has notices that a certain category of person behaves in an unacceptable way, how should she complain about it? Can she refer to that group or not? Or leave it ambiguous and just say 'people'? What would you do? (apart from not making a video in the first place) How would you phrase it?
I could easily complain that the drivers here are appalling and their behaviour is unacceptable. But what if I just said "Cairenes" (people from Cairo) instead of people? What if I said Arabs or Egyptians? How do you point the finger and say it is they/them that always seem to do it and cause a problem or behave in a way that is unacceptable to an American/British?European/whatever? Or do you wimp out and either not say anything or just make a general complain that there are too many people doing it - when you know perfectly well the Americans don't and the Asians do?
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Post by onlymark on Mar 17, 2011 10:24:13 GMT
The point is, can you not refer to a nationality or a race or a specific group any more without offending them? Or offending you? What if it is certain that a characteristic fits to them? Are you not allowed to point it out? Unless it is positive and them you run the risk of being accused of being patronising?
What if kerouac said that in his local shop it annoyed him that those from the Maghreb never queued properly and always crowded round the deli counter?
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Post by komsomol on Mar 17, 2011 13:13:18 GMT
Isn't her top a bit too small?
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Post by onlymark on Mar 17, 2011 13:50:47 GMT
Surveys have found that many women wear the wrong sized bra.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2011 14:13:01 GMT
Part of me is disturbed by what she says. However, would you object if she said it was boys and not Asians? What if she said it was Christians? Or, "I can never get any work done because of the Jedi followers on their cell phones"? Lesbians? Dwarves? Blondes? If course this sort of idiotic clip is too short to fully analyze her personality (she might have had a snoot full when when she recorded it, not that it would necessarily be a valid excuse), but I have noticed that ethnic complaints are quite often filtered through selective blinders. If someone says, "look at how the Asians are always throwing rubbish in the street!" in a mixed neighborhood such as mine, I'm pretty sure that if I take out a note pad to note the ethnicity of each person who tosses rubbish, I probably will not find an enormous difference among the groups. But once you have attached a trait to a certain group, you notice when they do it more faithfully, and you sort of filter out the other people.
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Post by onlymark on Mar 17, 2011 14:29:09 GMT
She does say that USAnians don't do this horrible thing with the cell phones, but it's true that she may not really have noticed. I'm not though questioning the accuracy of her claims, more wondering if we can no longer say a certain group of people do a certain thing (and it doesn't matter what the thing is) or that a certain group has a particular characteristic - for fear of not being PC.
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Post by onlymark on Mar 17, 2011 14:31:01 GMT
Surveys have found that many women wear the wrong sized bra. But what if I said that surveys have found that Asians talk too much and too loudly on their cell phones in libraries? Is that offensive?
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Post by tod2 on Mar 17, 2011 15:12:31 GMT
Well, that's her little rant and she started it by apologising if it offended anyone. Maybe the nationality mentioned won't take offense because they are on another planet altogether culturally and they could care less. I wondered what the scenario would be here in South Africa in anyone of our libraries....... Would someone just politely make a face and the SHhhhhh! sign like she did? Or, would they report it to the Librarian in charge and have them thrown out if they kept on talking and disturbing the peace. The latter I think.
And what about in an English library, or in the National Library F.Mitterand? What would folks do in the same situation? When I took my son to our library as a young boy he knew talking was frowned upon and if he had anything to say he whispered in my ear. Where has that respect for others gone? To CellphoneLand by the looks of things........
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Post by mich64 on Mar 17, 2011 15:19:51 GMT
She does not like how the Asians talk on their cell phones is her claim but, she does not like how the Asians have their family come on the weekends, she does not like how the Asians look after their children, do their laundry, clean their apartments, she just does not like Asians. It is just a few minutes of her personality and not the total person but it is what she chose to show. Mich
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Post by tod2 on Mar 17, 2011 15:39:55 GMT
I agree Mich - She clearly is feeling overwhelmed by the whole situation on campus(?) Maybe after making this video rant she feels she can cope better with something she can't change.... Therapy via video??
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Post by bjd on Mar 17, 2011 15:53:49 GMT
What I find interesting with this is not the fact that she dislikes Asians's behaviour -- it's that she expresses these opinions and posts them on the internet. Instead of ranting to her friends on campus or her family, or telling the Chinese on their cell phones to shut up, she posts this video, which will follow her around for years. I mean, doesn't she realize what she is doing?
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Post by mich64 on Mar 17, 2011 16:38:38 GMT
I also agree with bjd and Tod2. Maybe she does not have experience with cultural diversity. But posting a video like this could be damaging to her future career possibilities. Many employers are now googling applicant names to see if any information is out there about them. Some potential employer or graduate program may view this and possibly may not give her a second chance. She may not have used her real name, but someone who knows her might add and tag to their page, she cannot control her name not being attached to this somehow. Unfortunately I think she has made a serious error in judgement. Mich
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2011 17:57:41 GMT
Her real name is all over the internet as well. Maybe she will have to change her name.
The parodies are not always in the best of taste but some of them have some good moments.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 17, 2011 22:37:20 GMT
she started it by apologizing if it offended anyone What she says, in her annoying, ignorant, affected way is "don't take this offensively". I like the parody because he catches the absolute phoniness of her accent and delivery. The US has many accents, but hers is learned mall chick speak. "Uhmerricun minners" -- yeah, that's what those pesky Asians need to learn. To be honest, I haven't seen the entire video. When she started aping an Asian person on the phone, my desire to punch her directly in the mouth was so strong that I turned off the video. I wish I could just look at this with Mich's compassionate understanding, or deflect my feelings about it with FMT's humor, but it strikes too deeply at my distress over backward, hateful attitudes taking hold in the USA right now for me to be equable about it.
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Post by onlymark on Mar 18, 2011 7:59:43 GMT
So, it's fairly clear then. None of us like it. But it still leaves the question I ask. Can we not now say a group of people are doing something we don't agree with? Is it like a reaction to spiders or certain smells - we immediately shy away from it?
In the UK, in a certain area, it was well known by the Police that young girls were being groomed for sex and ending up being abused. It was well known to them that the offenders were invariably Pakistani. Eventually this came out into the press and the head policeman said he feared the consequences if he'd said it was Pakistanis doing it.
A further thought. Why are we not accusing the Asians in the library etc of being culturally insensitive in doing what they are doing?
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Post by onlymark on Mar 18, 2011 8:13:42 GMT
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/white-girls-easy-meat-to-pakistani-men-says-straw-2179347.htmlAnd what happened? The focus shifted on the the subject of cultural sensitivity rather than the offence itself. But there is a specific problem which involves Pakistani heritage men... who target vulnerable young white girls. ---- What I am saying is that, when you take a crime type - street grooming - and see that the vast majority of people convicted are from a particular community, then there appears something we should do about those offenders. From the Times - "Yet, until these convictions, the police in over a dozen towns and cities, including Leeds, Sheffield, Blackburn and Huddersfield, had appeared reluctant to address what many local people had perceived as a growing problem – the groups of men who had been preying on young, vulnerable girls and ensnaring them into prostitution. It was a very uncomfortable scenario, not least because many of these crimes had an identifiable racial element: the gangs were Asian and the girls were white. The authorities, in the shape of politicians and the police, seemed reluctant to acknowledge this aspect of the crimes; it has been left to the mothers of the victims to speak out." www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2538090.ece
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2011 9:41:14 GMT
"Erring on the side of caution" is inevitable when trying to correct abuses of the past, but I don't really know any solution for it. France has tried to erase all references to race and ethnicity, but that doesn't stop what you can see with your own eyes or surmise from the person's name, so obviously it doesn't really work -- hence the strength of the National Front.
I would say that people are often asking the wrong questions. Instead of asking things like (for example) "Why are most Pakistani men horrible?" it would be more useful to ask "what can be done to make Pakistani men conform to our values?"
No subject is taboo as far as I am concerned, and I can often come out with stereotypes with the best of them, but somehow I don't think I will tell the world what I think with YouTube.
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Post by bjd on Mar 18, 2011 13:01:13 GMT
" I would say that people are often asking the wrong questions. Instead of asking things like (for example) "Why are most Pakistani men horrible?" it would be more useful to ask "what can be done to make Pakistani men conform to our values?" I think Mark has raised an interesting point. Not only are we bending over backwards to accommodate any and all cultural values, we are not supposed to question them in any way because we will be accused of being racists. Kerouac's question "what can be done to make Pakistani men conform to our values?" posits that "our" values are better than "theirs", and this is now unacceptable. We have gone from a time -- when I was in high school and earlier, when it was standard behaviour to insult anybody's ethnicity. Oddly, it wasn't really personal. In our school, there were kids of all kinds of backgrounds (no blacks or southeast Asians at the time) that could be friends, but you would commonly hear derogatory terms for Italians, Poles, Ukrainians, whatever. The only ones who were not insulted in that way were the Anglos. -- to a time when the only people who can be insulted with impunity are blondes. Mentalities and attitudes do not evolve all that quickly. Behaviour that was considered acceptable at the time no longer is. But, I'm sure that the underlying attitudes have not changed all that much. Toronto may boast about its multicultural flavour, but how many Greeks have Somali or Chinese friends? Communities of a specific nationality still tend to stick together, even if they might shop in stores specializing in different ethnic foods. I mention Toronto specifically because that's where I grew up and it is the most multicultural place I know. Perhaps making the expression of the kind of thing this girl is saying unacceptable will, over the long run, change people's attitudes, but it isn't going to happen in a year or two. The fact that this student considered making this video and putting it out on the net "normal" means a) she is a complete idiot and/or b) it is considered acceptable by her and the people she hangs out with.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 18, 2011 14:16:57 GMT
Bjd, your summation of the unfortunate video and the ensuing discussion is helpful and accurate.
From the article about the "uncomfortable scenario" in the UK, it appears the police could have warned the public about the ethnic makeup of the gangs without insulting the ethnic group from which they sprang. But that article is full of suppositions, and I don't accept it as fully fair to the police.
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Post by onlymark on Mar 18, 2011 14:42:55 GMT
it appears the police could have warned the public about the ethnic makeup of the gangs without insulting the ethnic group from which they sprang. Like how? Keep away from Asian males? Young girls shouldn't get into cars with strangers - especially Pakistani men? How on earth do you do that when any mention of any ethnicity is seen to be racist and insulting? How can you point out their ethnicity without the implied message that it is 'they' who are doing it - which will be seen as not PC? I'm afraid bixa you ask a lot of my level of English manipulation to do that.
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Post by frenchmystiquetour on Mar 18, 2011 17:33:27 GMT
onlyMark - I'm with you as a hater of political correctness. My wife has told me that in France they don't keep track of certain types of demographic data because it would be considered racist. Using crime as an example, there is no way to tell if any one race or ethnic group is more involved in a particular type of crime than another group, or, if there is an imbalance in the way these groups are being convicted or prosecuted. In the U.S. this type of data is tracked and it can actually be used to prove that black males are being incarcerated at a much higher rate than their representation as a percentage of the population. Does this mean black males are more likely to commit crimes or that they are more of a danger to society? I'm sure if you looked at all the associated data it would show that it is the socio-economic conditions in their environment that make black males more prone to involvement in gun/drugs/theft related crimes rather than the fact that they are black. Further, these are obvious types of crimes that are easier for police to identify and courts to prosecute than white collar crimes involving complex financial transactions. I think what the recent financial crisis has shown is that the world has far more to fear from Wall Street financial folks than it does from the black guy who got caught selling crack. And last time I checked Bernie Madoff was the only one out of the tens of thousands of people involved in financial crimes who ended up in jail.
Having said that, the fact that the U.S. tracks this type of data has done nothing to address the problem of over-incarceration of black males but at least the data is there to prove the point. Ethnic and racial data is also used in census info and is used by the government in allocating funds to specific areas so collection of this type of info can actually be beneficial. It seems to me that France and England are burying their heads in the sand here.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2011 19:19:09 GMT
May I refer anybody back to this thread which may give food for thought, especially among those who have heard that France is doing things wrong?
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 18, 2011 20:37:03 GMT
in answer to Mark's question about how non-offensive warnings could be phrased:
There is obviously a level where excessively trying not offend anyone only leads to confusion. Back in the 70s, the New Orleans Times-Picayune had a brief stint during which they did not mention race at all, in any context. Quite quickly everyone agreed that leaving out crucial physical descriptions when advising the public to be on the lookout for an escaped felon, for instance, made no sense.
However, in the UK situation cited in the article, advisories could have been put out warning girls away from pimp gangs, then describing their m.o., their clothing, and appearance. At that point, saying that gangs operating in a certain area were composed of people of X ethnicity is not the same as saying that all people of that background are bad.
The way I read the article, that's more or less what Keith Vaz is saying. And to a point I understand why Jack Straw said what he said. It's this portion here where he veers away from specifically citing gangs and makes it sound as though every single Pakistani boy is roaming the streets looking to dope a "white" girl: "These young men are in a western society, in any event, they act like any other young men, they're fizzing and popping with testosterone, they want some outlet for that, but Pakistani heritage girls are off-limits and they are expected to marry a Pakistani girl from Pakistan, typically," he said. "So they then seek other avenues and they see these young women, white girls who are vulnerable, some of them in care... who they think are easy meat. "And because they're vulnerable they ply them with gifts, they give them drugs, and then of course they're trapped."
What I get from the article is that the police are trying to act responsibly and are calling out to community agencies to address the problem of vulnerable girls all within the framework of not panicking the public nor falling into a strict racial profiling trap.
(which, incidentally -- Pakistanis are Caucasians, thus white people, as far as I know)
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Post by onlymark on Mar 18, 2011 21:01:53 GMT
Just to lighten this a little, did you know that frenchmystiquetour had a previous life as a newspaper reporter? One of his famous headlines was "Chutney formers quit". He then played a major role in the infamous "Scrotum Heft Enquiry" due to his expertise in standing around doing nothing with his hands in his pockets. Sadly though was drummed out of the profession when he blamed the uproar of his expenses claims on, and I quote, "on queer, thrifty scum." What on earth am I talking about?
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Post by onlymark on Mar 18, 2011 21:32:21 GMT
"then describing their m.o., their clothing, and appearance."
Their m.o. is fine but I doubt if their clothing is any different to any youth. Their appearance then has a problem when you try and describe their skin colour.
The Times did some research (though their web site is pay to view but it was reported elsewhere) which found that - "17 court prosecutions since 1997, ...... In total, 56 people, with an average age of 28, were found guilty of crimes including rape, child abduction, indecent assault and sex with a child. Three of the 56 were white, 53 were Asian."
Detective Chief Inspector Alan Edwards (of West Mercia Police) said "To stop this type of crime you need to start everyone talking about it but everyone's been too scared to address the ethnicity factor. No one wants to stand up and say that Pakistani guys in some parts of the country are recruiting young white girls and passing them around their relatives for sex, but we need to stop being worried about the racial complication."
Even Mohammed Shafiq, director of the Lancashire-based Ramadhan Foundation, a charity working for peaceful harmony between different communities said, "I think the police are overcautious because they are afraid of being branded racist".
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