Inkbunny

>I keep wondering why forms don't have a check box for White, Black, Asian, Steeplechase, Latino, Arab, Marathon, Hindi, Israeli, or Baja 1000...

Took me a second to to get that. <forehead slap> :)

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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@ Arcane

>"Did you see that black man? Eatin' his fried chicken and watermelon," the sane person next to him would be like, "Yes I did. Fried chicken is delicious and so is watermelon. Stop trying to turn delicious food into a race issue."

Perfectly said. Of course, racists are often fond of ascribing traits to the people they hate which they're way more guilty of themselves. I rather like the contradiction between thinking that Mexicans are both lazy and also taking all our jobs.

>But I suppose haters gonna hate.

Haters gonna hate because its easier than taking responsibility for their own failings. ;)

Blackraven2

13 years, 5 months ago

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Is it racist to say that black people - to be more specific, the long legged folk from central Africa, are generally way better at long distance runs than any white men? That black power has kicked ass and dominated at both the Olympic Marathon and 100m sprints for the last century almost?

Maybe. Thing is, people are not born the same. A Canadian or Alaska native in the Sahara would get sunburn faster than you can spell "Inuit".

Racism starts when you claim that Mr Reynards SUCKS at sprints BECAUSE he is white (wild assumption). Because that's an illegal generalization, and I can't claim anything about running abilities judging by just skin colour.

Statistically the blacks run faster than whites (for genetic reasons). Statistically the criminal rate used to be higher among black Americans (for social reasons - and sometimes biased judges). If for you that makes every black a good runner, or a criminal, I guess THEN you are racist.

Any person that works at KFC for any prolonged time would eventually become incredibly good at categorizing seemingly unidentifiable pieces of fried yellow breadcrumb crust with chicken flavoured contents. They have to, in order to sort out the occasional chicken foot or head or other nasty bit that otherwise would end up in peoples meal-boxes.

Long story short, racism is wrong, but that makes claiming that everyone is born equal just as wrong. Things are never just "black and white" ;)

Alfador

13 years, 5 months ago

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"	Blackraven2 wrote:
	Any person that works at KFC for any prolonged time would eventually become incredibly good at categorizing seemingly unidentifiable pieces of fried yellow breadcrumb crust with chicken flavoured contents. They have to, in order to sort out the occasional chicken foot or head or other nasty bit that otherwise would end up in peoples meal-boxes.

I think this is the key here--regardless of any stereotypical racism you might CONSCIOUSLY think about, the most probable cause for you assuming he'd get your order right is just the unconscious assumption that any given person is COMPETENT AT THEIR JOB.

But that doesn't mean racism wasn't present here--it's perfectly possible that this guy was chosen to work the deli counter because of his skin color, because SOMEONE ELSE assumed he'd be great at working with fried chicken.

Blackraven2

13 years, 5 months ago

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or the other way around, that someone else didn't even apply for the job, because we all know, working at the deli counter is a job for - well you know ;) We all are forced into stereotypes more often than we think.

AlexReynard

13 years, 5 months ago

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>But that doesn't mean racism wasn't present here--it's perfectly possible that this guy was chosen to work the deli counter because of his skin color, because SOMEONE ELSE assumed he'd be great at working with fried chicken.

Probably not. The deli's full of cracker-ass crackers too. And there's black ladies up at the checkouts. It appears our grocery store is in racial harmony.

JunkBox

13 years, 4 months ago

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"	AlexReynard wrote:
	The deli's full of cracker-ass crackers too. And there's black ladies up at the checkouts. It appears our grocery store is in racial harmony.

Were you just here in my home town? Damn near everyone around here qualifies as "redneck", despite a pretty comprehensive selection of races and accents!

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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Oh, they're not rednecks here. Just regular white folks. I just really like saying 'cracker-ass crackers'. :)

AlexReynard

13 years, 5 months ago

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>Long story short, racism is wrong, but that makes claiming that everyone is born equal just as wrong. Things are never just "black and white" ;)

Nicely said.

I think we also tend to forget the actual meaning of 'racism' these days. Racism means thinking one race is better than another. That's quite a bit different from making a joke or an assumption out of ignorance. Ignorance is by its very nature neutral. Too often, I see people scream "That's racist!" and shame some poor dumbass who literally didn't know better. I think we'd make more progress if the initial reaction wasn't anger, but "Hey, that's not cool, and here's why...".

Also, yeah, pointing out biological differences between races is not racist. If statistics prove one group is significantly better at something than another group, that's the way it is. It's not as if we're immune from evolution. Humans adapt to their environment just like any other animal. But like you said, claiming that ALL [blank] people are good at [blank] just because some of them are, is doo-doo thinking.

Shuyo

13 years, 5 months ago

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*snrk* Reminds me of this:

http://i.imgur.com/k6ryU.png

AlexReynard

13 years, 5 months ago

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@ Shuyo

LOLOLOLOL. I shouldn't laugh. Though my best friend is Indian. And his father was a doctor. So, yeah...

I've often wondered why certain ethnicities gravitate to certain jobs. I dunno if this is true elsewhere, but here in my area of Michigan, we have eight hundred zillion family restaurants owned by Greeks.

Shuyo

13 years, 5 months ago

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The local supermarket here has been owned by a Greek mob family since the 60's.

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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@ Shuyo

A Greek mob family? I could make a joke here about them buttyiffing you before pouring your cement overshoes, but that would be culturally insensitive. ;)

Shuyo

13 years, 4 months ago

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So would me saying that you shouldn't buy the ground beef at their store.

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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@ Shuyo

Why? Does it contain ground-up snitches? ;)

Alfador

13 years, 5 months ago

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Cultural connections. If your family knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody in a particular career path, you're more likely to get the hookups for training and hiring. So when communities, whether racially/ethnically/nationalistically divided or otherwise, begin to get a disproportionately high share of jobs in a particular sector, they will tend to increase that disparity over time.

Especially when parents encourage their kids towards particular occupations (more common in some cultures than others). As a possible example of this, when I was in the EE department at UW, I saw far more Asian-looking people there and in the CS building (which, after it finished construction in my junior year, is melded with the EE building in a way that strongly suggests an unholy merging of two universes that merges buildings, such as what happens in the third act of Final Fantasy 5) than anywhere else in the city.

Saying "There sure are a lot of Asian people in engineering" based on that, is not racism, it's observed statistics. Racism would be if I said something like "Goddamn Asians takin' all our fancy high-falutin' tech jorbs!" (It'd also be incorrect--the reason I got rejected for the most recent really good prospect was not because they passed me over for someone else... it's because the WHOLE COMPANY went into a hiring freeze. They took nobody, even though the guys who interviewed me said their department was desperate to hire someone new to share the workload. Goddamn Republicans ruining all our fancy high-falutin' economy...)

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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>Cultural connections. If your family knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody in a particular career path, you're more likely to get the hookups for training and hiring.

That perfectly answers my question! Damn, Alfie! We need to get you on a game show. :)

>Saying "There sure are a lot of Asian people in engineering" based on that, is not racism, it's observed statistics. Racism would be if I said something like "Goddamn Asians takin' all our fancy high-falutin' tech jorbs!" (It'd also be incorrect--the reason I got rejected for the most recent really good prospect was not because they passed me over for someone else... it's because the WHOLE COMPANY went into a hiring freeze. They took nobody, even though the guys who interviewed me said their department was desperate to hire someone new to share the workload. Goddamn Republicans ruining all our fancy high-falutin' economy...)

LOL! Very true. The reality is, the races all bicker amongst themselves, while forgetting that there is only one true race war in America: the super-rich vs everyone poorer than them.

Alfador

13 years, 4 months ago

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"	AlexReynard wrote:
	>Cultural connections. If your family knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody in a particular career path, you're more likely to get the hookups for training and hiring. That perfectly answers my question! Damn, Alfie! We need to get you on a game show. :)

I probably already told you this at one point, but in high school I was on a game-show-like team thing called "Knowledge Bowl" where teams of students from various schools across the state would answer random questions, everything from the usual trivia to history and math.

It was fun.

AlexReynard wrote:

>Saying "There sure are a lot of Asian people in engineering" based on that, is not racism, it's observed statistics. Racism would be if I said something like "Goddamn Asians takin' all our fancy high-falutin' tech jorbs!" (It'd also be incorrect--the reason I got rejected for the most recent really good prospect was not because they passed me over for someone else... it's because the WHOLE COMPANY went into a hiring freeze. They took nobody, even though the guys who interviewed me said their department was desperate to hire someone new to share the workload. Goddamn Republicans ruining all our fancy high-falutin' economy...)

LOL! Very true. The reality is, the races all bicker amongst themselves, while forgetting that there is only one true race war in America: the super-rich vs everyone poorer than them.

Which would technically be a class war rather than a race war, I'd say.

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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>I probably already told you this at one point, but in high school I was on a game-show-like team thing called "Knowledge Bowl" where teams of students from various schools across the state would answer random questions, everything from the usual trivia to history and math. It was fun.

I tried Quiz Bowl at my high scool, but sucked at it. The questions were all history, geography, math, etc. I'm more of a trivia man.

>Which would technically be a class war rather than a race war, I'd say.

Not unless all rich people come from the same breeding stock. I suspect they do. <shifty-eyed paranoia face>

Alfador

13 years, 4 months ago

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I think we did tell each other about this, and just forgot--your "Quiz Bowl" thing is ringing some bells.

And while it's probably not as stringent as pre-civil-rights-era "miscegenation" laws or European nobility, it does make a lot of sense that super-rich people would only intermarry with each other. It doesn't even have to be a formal rule--if 100% of your social events are with other rich people, how likely are you to even meet less wealthy people in a social setting, much less spend enough time with them to fall in love and bear children?

With the Internet, of course, cross-class socializing is way more facilitated... but still, how many really rich people spend significant amounts of their online time meeting new people who aren't potential business partners? How many millionaires do you think there are in the furry fandom--contrast with the number of millionaires who MIGHT want to put on a fursuit and dance around Anthrocon, if they didn't think it would get them ostracized by their peers...

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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Actually, now I'm thinking of some super-rich spoiled brat heiress looking for some incredibly poor guy to date just to rebel against Mummsy and Daddums.

Shokuji

13 years, 5 months ago

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You can always ask a mod before making it public as well. =) Just look under "help" at the bottom of any page. ^_^

AlexReynard

13 years, 5 months ago

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@ Shokuji

I'm too lazy. If it gets pulled, at least some people saw it for a while. ;)

Stumpycoon

13 years, 5 months ago

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It's probably by raccoon pragmatism talking but isn't working at a chicken joint more likely to lead to chicken expertise than ethnicity? Or the shop having a different tray for each type of fried chicken?

AlexReynard

13 years, 5 months ago

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@ Stumpycoon

>It's probably by raccoon pragmatism talking but isn't working at a chicken joint more likely to lead to chicken expertise than ethnicity?

Well, of course. I just had a moment of derp. Like, when you catch yourself thinking something you *know* is wrong, but you think it anyway because you've heard the idea so much. Humans are wired to think in perceptions instead of rational thoughts, so we all tend to do this.

>Or the shop having a different tray for each type of fried chicken?

Nope, they were all jumbled in a pile.

You know what's even worse? The two most competent employees at the deli are both black. The worst one? The one who makes me repeat everything in my order multiple times, then still gets them wrong? Is a blonde woman. >.< Sometimes reality makes it hard to be politically correct. ;)

Stumpycoon

13 years, 5 months ago

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Yeah, I get a lot of those "thinking something that's really wrong" moments. It comes with being a raccoon. Dark dark raccoon thoughts...

Yeah that'd make it hard to be politically correct. On the other hand when you do say "you suck" and they say "you're prejudiced" you can say "no, you individually suck at that!".

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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Edited 13 years, 4 months ago by Owner

@ Stumpycoon

>On the other hand when you do say "you suck" and they say "you're prejudiced" you can say "no, you individually suck at that!".

Yyyyyep. I used to get into battles with the occasional feminist (both male and female) on FA. They'd be all like, "You just hate women! You're a misogynist!!" And I'd be like, "Bitch! Lookit the rest of the comments! I am having plenty of respectful discussions with women! The reason WE'RE having a problem is because you're RUDE!!!" ;D

Stumpycoon

13 years, 4 months ago

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Yeah the sexist-against-men people pretending that's what feminism is, and using feminism as a shield for their sexism...they really bug me.

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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@ Stumpycoon

THOROUGHLY AGREED. In general, I loathe people who spit bigotry at me and act like theirs is the more rational, moral position. I get this from anti-cub-porn people a lot too.

(Or at least I used to. IB is a whole different world from FA.)

Irfie

13 years, 5 months ago

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A "True story" template would be fit (a man with a glass of wine).

AlexReynard

13 years, 5 months ago

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@ Irfie

The template I was using didn't have that one, or else I woulda stuck him in the bottom of that last panel.

Humbug

13 years, 5 months ago

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I'm more saddened that the chicken had such small breasts. She lived a life of ridicule among her peers and then was slaughtered for meat. :<

Blackraven2

13 years, 5 months ago

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@ Humbug

most likely had been a male "chicken" anyway. lets hope he was into cooking and vore and everything

Humbug

13 years, 5 months ago

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I prefer my sad fantasy to your likely reality.

I'm gonna go write a poem about it now. Or maybe make a movie.

AlexReynard

13 years, 5 months ago

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@ Humbug

>I'm more saddened that the chicken had such small breasts.

Anything more than a mouthful is wasted. ;)

Humbug

13 years, 5 months ago

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Hah! True enough, I suppose. :)

ScottySkunk

13 years, 5 months ago

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Rofl Dood.

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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@ ScottySkunk

I actually haven't had my doods professionally rotfled in a while now. <adds to to-do list>

BillySquirrel

13 years, 5 months ago

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The assumption, and stereotype of black peoples affinity for fried poultry comes from a simple but understandable reason. THEY INVENTED IT. A LOT of southern food is west African ether by way of influence or by direct assimilation. There are also strong Native American, French, English, and German roots in it. Which is why a lot of non americans can never pin down what american food is and assume it is all hamburgers and hotdogs.

Blackraven2

13 years, 5 months ago

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Very true - with the exception of native American food, its all warped and over-greased versions of food known local elsewhere. If you serve "traditional" American fries to a Belgian they will spit it those "pommes frites" out for being too soft and spongy. If you serve an "American" hotdog to a German they will note that the bun is spongy and the spicing of the "Wiener" in it needs to be fixed and any Italian would likely proclaim that an "American pizza" is distgustingly thick and floppy.
I thought if you try to narrow it down to food that actually has been invented in the US it really gets down to the Hamburger and the Marshmellow. But according to Wikipedia even the Hamburger might possibly actually come from Hamburg in Germany, and Marshmellows go back to a dish called "Pâte de guimauve" from France.

BillySquirrel

13 years, 4 months ago

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I'm not talking about just fast food or mass produced plebeian feed. Look to the home. To the family owned restaurant. For my own area, Boudin, Étouffée, Gumbo, all these have foreign influence but they evolved here. Fried chicken, grits, ho cakes, corn bread, all those things have African or native American influence, but they are part of a local identity now. Fast food isn't real food no matter what country you are in. America doesn't have a monopoly on bad food in that regard.

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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>America doesn't have a monopoly on bad food in that regard.

True. I heard it was Scotland that invented the deep-fried Mars bar.

JunkBox

13 years, 4 months ago

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The absolute craziest thing that landed in the fryer has to be deep fried beer. But we're getting a little afield of the original subject.

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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And it was invented in Texas. Good GAWD, that sounds too much like a punchline to be true.

JunkBox

13 years, 4 months ago

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I also see that I spoke too soon: that same article mentions deep fried butter.

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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I have never seen a more likely sign of an impending apocalypse than deep fried butter. Mayan calendar? Y2K bug? All bullshit. DEEP FRIED GODDAMNED BUTTER.

JunkBox

13 years, 4 months ago

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Butter is awesome stuff. You can fry with it, now you can fry it. Now if butter can be fried in butter, the arterial apocalypse will begin.

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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Yo dawg, I heard you like butter...

JunkBox

13 years, 4 months ago

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This butter be good, because it's going to degenerate into puns pretty soon. The subject can be avoided, but at best it'll be by a narrow margarine.

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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Arrrrrrrgh. >.<

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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>A LOT of southern food is west African ether by way of influence or by direct assimilation.

Thanks, I'd honestly been wondering how that got started. Still not sure about watermelons though. Why not oranges or something?

>Which is why a lot of non americans can never pin down what american food is and assume it is all hamburgers and hotdogs.

Yeah, white America really doesn't have its own cuisine. Like Blackraven said, everything we typically eat is from somewhere else. I dunno if that's due to a lack of creativity (we do tend to just throw stuff together in a bowl) or that we're only 200 years old and everything good had already been invented.

Of course, I'm totally fine with American food being a mishmash of everything else. I love variety. I wanna eat something new every day.

BillySquirrel

13 years, 4 months ago

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>Yeah, white America really doesn't have its own cuisine.

Cajuns are white sweetie. XD Their food is mostly a riff on French. Elsewhere you have pasties and other Scandinavian/German fare up around Minnesota/the midwest. Native American out in the southwest. Lots of game with English, Scottish, or Southern American preparation in between. West coast has a lot of Mexican, but everything that makes it's way here get's changed to suit local tastes. NYC has a HUGE Russian population, Polish out toward Buffalo/Detroit. You know watching all these food shows has been really informative. XD

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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Good point, I hadn't thought of them Louisianians. Still though, it seems like anything slightly native we have is just a 'remix' of someone else's food.

BillySquirrel

13 years, 4 months ago

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Because we are remixes of other nationalities. XD

AlexReynard

13 years, 4 months ago

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