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Firefly Again

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Valdís:

--- Quote from: Barmymoo on 08 Feb 2013, 05:20 ---Raising the interesting question of what makes someone "white". I'm sure I've told you guys before about how when Camp Eed went actual camping with Edith and one of her friends, who is black, we noticed that Edith's skin was darker than Kristen's despite Edith being "white" and Kristen being "black".

--- End quote ---

It gets particularly silly with Americans and their "one drop rule" thinking, where someone can have 80% European heritage, but still be considered "black", or counting Latino people in a separate category when it depends completely on the region whether they are or not (since some regions of f.e. Mexico are still almost entirely Nahuatl/Mayan/etc and some are almost entirely European).

Those two examples actually points out the doublethink involved, too, since the European Latinos will have "white features" even if slightly less white skin where-as the "black" population singled out as such generally has "black features" even if whiter skinned. Such as only two of these people being "white".

Like if we would draw some arbitrary line about how much "Lapplanderness" you'd have before we stopped considering you Swedish. It's so 1750s.  :?

benji:

--- Quote from: ackblom12 on 08 Feb 2013, 05:45 ---Summary of Whiteness Theory

If you are interested in the academic side of things.

--- End quote ---

that's a pretty good summary. Basically, "white" has very little to do with skin color and almost everything to do with the character of being unremarkable, and therefor part of the dominant group. Note that, in the US, Irish and Italian were not originally considered white, but came to be considered so over time.

An example: I was once working as tech support and sitting in on a chat room for an online class. Both the student and the professor were from rural Kentucky and the subject of the class was how culture impacts special education.

The student: "I don't think we have any cultures in the school where I work."
The professor: "Good."

Only people who were considered "white" [in the US context] could ever make such a bizarre statement, or affirm it as accurate. White culture is invisible, especially in the rural parts of this state, because everyone is "white."

Carl-E:
No, it's just that Kentucky's uncultured.   :lol:


--- Quote from: idontunderstand on 08 Feb 2013, 02:02 ---
Whoa everyone is so hostile in that thread! Especially funny to see Carl-E lashing out at people.  :-D Did you get nicer since then?

(Is it because of the squats. I bet it's the squats.)

--- End quote ---

I've been thinking about this for two days, after re-reading that thread.  It was a very different time... it was soon after my daughter got sick, I was still living away from home and had a lot of time on my hands and no social life.  If I have it right, it was after her cancer was found and removed, but still before her neurological diagnosis.  It was also the early days of moderation, and there were people around who weren't moderatable.  In particular, I had taken it upon myself to interact directly with Odin, who had joined with the attitude of a 4chan denizen, dropping troll grenades and laughing maniacally.  By the time of the thread in question he was at least articulating his point of view - it was a big improvement. 

Didn't stop him from getting banned soon after anyway. 

I also acted terribly towards Snubnose when he first joined up.  I don't know why, something about him just rubbed me the wrong way.  Akima was a major factor in straightening me out on that point. 


I like to think I've matured a bit since then. 




Or maybe it really is the squats...

Is it cold in here?:
How bad would Firefly have seemed if it had not been preceded by the media's previous century of Chinese villains and caricatures?

Lines:
I don't have a lot to add, but if I had posted in the old thread, I would have posted a version of something like this:

I am a fan of Firefly. I really like the actors in the main cast, the story/space-cowboy vibe is interesting (because I'm a sucker for sci-fi), and I still enjoy it after multiple viewings because I love the sense of humor. However, I don't think the show is perfect nor do I think everyone should gush over it all of the time because there are quite a few things wrong with the show. (Which has been covered at length.) I like it in spite of its problems, but I don't ignore them. I know those problems are there and I process them along with the parts I like.

Also I think it's important for me to point out, I don't really care one way or the other about Joss Whedon. I like Firefly and I liked the Avengers movie and the rest of his stuff is whatever. I can remember one episode of Buffy that I liked (Hush) and that's it.

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