You know what, you are right. I'll fix. (I for real just cannot tell, and maybe the "joke" was just that they are at that age, i.e. REAL YOUNG, which is part of the bummer? It certainly wasn't a joke about the way they dress or their vague and youthful pre-sexuality because kids are kids. But either way: you right.)
Well, three things about this position:
1. Somebody thinks everything. There's someone who thinks that only women with one arm are attractive, there's someone who thinks the moon is a hoax, and there's DEFINITELY someone who thinks that Jamaicans are all chilled out dudes who just love kicking back with Red Stripe (the fact that reggae is largely comprised of protest songs rarely enters into people's conception of it as the most chill music).
2. The fact that YOU aren't racist doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not something IS racist, but I think this is an issue that sometimes gets confused. Whether or not you live your life based on engaged and didactic interactions with the world around you and are constantly questioning your assumptions or letting people prove themselves on their own merits does not mean that is how the world works (definitely not historically, but not even currently for almost 100% of the time). So because you might see something that is racist through non-racist eyes does not in and of itself negate that thing's inherent racism.
3. What exactly is the POINT of your position? Honest question! Like, your argument says that this advertisement (which we can all agree regardless of which position we are taking in this debate, is definitely lame and stupid) is not racist as long as these very specious propositions about the world hold true. Right? Like, your argument is that as long as this very specific personal interpretation of the world, which assumes A LOT about how BILLIONS OF OTHER PEOPLE are thinking and feeling and interpreting things, and which has not necessarily been tested on a wide sample (1 out of all the people is not a huge statistical pool), so lots of unknowns here, but if and when those unknowns hold true then this ad "probably" isn't racist. But, is all of that worth it? Is all of the work you are doing worth it?
Let me point out that none of us here has any power over anything that we are talking about. Right? It would be one thing if I could wave my magic blog wand and have this ad pulled from the Super Bowl. Or have everyone at Draper Sterling Pryce and Joan fired. If that was the case then we would have to tread a little bit lighter. When people's actual livelihoods are at stake then deciding how to reward/punish them for what they do must be taken not only seriously, but also quite strictly. "Is conceiving this ad a fire-able offense?" THAT is a tougher question to answer. Since we DON'T have any of that power, our task is much simpler: it is just to suggest that the world be a slightly more careful place as it makes its brash and bold and incessant decisions.
But you guys are bending over backwards and twisting your minds into knots to simply try and say in the comments section of a blog that this advertisement "probably" isn't racist. Why? I'm curious! I obviously am enjoying this discussion, so I appreciate your differing opinions. I am not saying you should just fall in line NOR am I saying that you should shy away from standing up for your opinion when race is concerned. The opposite. I want to applaud you for it. With one hand. The other hand is making like a "huh?" shrug. Because while I can actually see the value in constructing an argument for how and why something in popular culture IS racist, I'm actually not as clear on the value of arguing that it "might not" be. Show your work!
See below. (Also: "the accent is descended partly from Irish" is one of the most back-breaking attempts to accomodate racism that I have heard in awhile. Come on, hotspur!)
There are a lot of different things being said in this thread, but for now I'm just going to talk about one that stood out: someone said that no one criticizes the Dos Equis "most interesting man" ads for playing off of stereotypes about Spanish people, and also that Volkswagen's own slogan, "German engineering" is also a stereotype. Well, OK, but the dude in the Dos Equis commercial is white, and Germany is a country. Regardless of whether you think "cool vibes" is a fun stereotype or not, the difference is that when white people stick their stereotype flag in another group of people it is with an arrogance, entitlement, and colonialist power dynamic that is by its very nature racist and harmful. You can say whatever you want about white people and it will never, EVER come with centuries of global baggage that includes horrendous crimes against humanity. So that's part one.
As for a stereotype being positive, again, it doesn't really matter, especially when it's a white person using it. The argument, for example, that an "Asian people are smart and good at math" stereotype is not negative and therefore can't be racist is completely ignoring that this comes from a Western viewpoint of culture, politics, and society, and that group classifications like this are by their very nature open to misinterpretation and or malicious intent. (For example: during the 1980s, Japan became an increasingly powerful "economic threat" to the United States before their economy cratered. The same thing is now happening with China. If you think it's impossible for a white person to say "Asian people are smart and good at math, and that is why we need to be scared of Asian people because they're going to use their brains to take over OUR world" then you haven't known white people very long.)
Sure, guys listening to chill music and feeling positive about life isn't itself a bad thing. But white people doing a traditionally black patois as a reductive caricature that you guys yourselves are admitting is a construct of the Jamaican tourist board (TO GET WHITE PEOPLE TO FEEL SAFE ENOUGH TO VISIT) is absolutely 100% a product of racism. Is it the most hurtful strain of racism? No. But if this exists on the spectrum, which I say it absolutely does, then you can't just dismiss the entire spectrum because it's closer to, say, a racist Steamboat Willie cartoon than people being sprayed with fire hoses. Spectrums are spectrums for a reason.
I feel it is also worth pointing out how fun and touching it is when he raps about "smelling his wife" in the song he is recording for his son's audition.
Everyone must and should go about their business today. For many websites, including this one, that business is posting about stupid stuff that doesn't matter. There is nothing wrong with that, and not everyone needs to be addressing YOU KNOW WHAT. This is not the place, obviously. But there is/was something particularly egregious about posting a self-promotional link to your own website on Twitter, which is just a lazy cash-grab method of upping your pageviews, especially during the very moments when the OTHER story was breaking. (As it stands, UPROXX actually responded that they hadn't seen the story yet, which is fair.) That is the distinction, and I think it is a very clear one. If you don't agree, you are welcome to unfollow the Videogum account, as many people did. As far as blocking people, this only happened in cases when people either a) persisted in criticism that was off-base and wrong-headed, or b) used unnecessarily offensive language like "you are a gaping asshole." But in general, on that note, just because you have a negative opinion doesn't mean everyone has to put up with it, and I disagree with the Internet's weird insistence that everyone should just be allowed to say what they want all the time and everyone else should just be subjected to listening to it. If you are being rude, I don't HAVE to put up with you simply because everyone gets a free account. (This doesn't mean that I am not open to criticism, because I genuinely think that I am. It does mean however that you should take time and be thoughtful in your criticism, because otherwise it's just rude yelling, and that's annoying and unhelpful. "Stop it," is boring. "You're a piece of shit," is useless. And while you not liking something is your right, me not caring whether you like something or not is mine.) The counter-point to that would be that Videogum itself rudely yells at people all the time and offers primarily annoying and unhelpful criticism. I don't totally disagree with that! You probably have a point! But all that means is that I can't take offense if someone chooses by that same logic to block or unfollow me, and I promise you that I don't. Block and unfollow away! There are bigger problems out there! And thus the iCircle of e-life continues.
I hope that helps! Thanks for reading!
Sorry, guys. If I was being in any way flippant, it was not about bi-polar disorder, it was about someone seeking desperately to DENY their diagnosis, rather than be upfront and try to seek treatment. Although I could totally see an argument in which this, too, is destructive or at least counter-productive, which I'm sure it is. But also, if you want to destroy the entire celebrity-media complex that allows untreated mentally unstable people to sit for interviews on national television because they are still desperate for attention and no one is helping them with their very real problems, then I am right there with you. But until we burn it completely to the ground, I have no problem admitting that I occasionally enjoy the nightmare of it all for purely voyeuristic reasons because I am a human being in 2012, and that has nothing to do with you or your family or your family's struggles. I hope everyone turns out OK!
Similarly, I think it's distracting people from the fact that his original story about how open minded he is was basically a story about how if you search really, really hard you can totally find at least one qualified woman out there, you just have to work at it!
More importantly, though, because of yesterday's outpouring of "customer support" for the company's social position, it's particularly impossible to ignore what your purchasing power says in this particular instance.
This is categorically false. When you give someone money for a good and/or service with a clear knowledge that your money will be spent on something that you dislike (or like) then you are absolutely engaging in the "political" action of providing money to that thing. That doesn't mean you have to care about it! But just because you're disinterested and would rather eat waffle fries in ignorant bliss doesn't change the reality of it one little bit.
Obviously, no one wants to see thousands of people lose their jobs, but this suggestion creates a false barrier to encouraging actual change in our society. The nature of capitalism requires not thousands but BILLIONS of people to be intertwined in the economically disproportionate system that generates and consolidates capital. It is in the best interest of the corporations and their well-paid management team to imply that it is the thousands of people earning far less than them working jobs they themselves would never deign to do who will ultimately be hurt by any adjustment to the system. Not true! The rich people would also be hurt! (Let's also remember that a more likely outcome of a boycott is a reduction in profits, and a possible decline in share price at the stock market. Not a full on bankruptcy of the company. In which case the ONLY people being hurt are the wealthy management team, i.e. the ones who can change this system of corporate sponsorship of social practices.) Again: it would be horrible for thousands of people who do not agree with their company to be punished for this thing. At the same time, there are a lot of other companies who don't engage in this type of behavior. Ultimately, placing all of the burden of the boycott on the minimum wage employees is just as unfair as using them as a human money shield.
Oh, also, @bradofarrell just sent me this: http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/chick-fil-a-profits-are-supporting-ugandas-kill-the-gays-bill/politics/2012/08/01/45430
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