I think American Idol did something borderline racist tonight.

[Renew Deal]

They showed their clips of what's coming up. First they show an angry black guy and two seconds later they show a cop closing a police car door. They eventually let out that the cop was just a cop that tried out for the show, but it's not how they initially presented it. I'm sure there'll be a clip of it soon.

[Obamanaut]

1. Was there any indication that anyone holds the belief that one race

is inherently superior, or inferior, to another? Isn't that what racism is?

'Racism' and 'racist' are thrown too quickly at too many things. Bigotry or stereotyping are often more accurate.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. So bigotry and stereotyping on racial grounds is not racism?

[Obamanaut]

6. No, they are merely bigotry and stereotyping. 'Racism' is something

else entirely.

Saying a person of (insert whatever race you wish) does not have the intelligence to be a quarterback at the professional level is racism.

Saying all (insert race here) like (insert food item here) is an example of stereotyping.

Look up bigotry for yourself.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. So what if somebody said that black people liked being stupid and sucking at quarterbacking?

Not racism then?

[Obamanaut]

8. Use whatever definition gives you satisfaction. Have a nice day. Ignore. nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. LOL

Hey, it's your fucked up logic.

[pipi_k]

2. What the person above me said

I agree. There's too much "racist" shit being thrown around these days.

Look at someone the wrong way and you're a "racist".

Say you don't like the president and you're a "racist".


Put a clip of an angry black man next to a clip of a cop getting in or out of his cruiser and it's "racism".


Like the person above me said, racism involves believing that some other race is inherently inferior to one's own.

Sometimes people end up seeing what they want to see. Kind of like a few years ago when a group of RW crazies saw sex, sex, and more sex in Walt Disney cartoons.

[Raineyb]

3. You're saying that initially it was deliberately cut in such a way as to imply that the angry

black guy was arrested?

Gee I can't imagine why you'd think that was borderline racist. :sarcasm:

It's par for the course in mainstream media. And not surprising there's already people claiming it's not at all racist.

[pipi_k]

5. Something I find sort of odd...

People who immediately notice whether someone is black or white.

Maybe it's just me, but that's not usually the first (or most important) thing I notice about someone.

The first thing I usually notice about someone is their eyes. The thought, "Oh...this person is BLACK" doesn't even occur to me until later on.

So I get to wondering why so many people are so focused (obsessed?) with categorizing someone as either black or white, and then trying to build a whole storyline of racism around whatever happens to be going on at the time.

I'm pretty sure that the producers of "Idol" didn't intentionally set out to send a "racist" message to anyone. Maybe the man's color didn't even register with them. It's possible.

Back in the early 70s my brother in law and his wife had a baby girl. I took myself off to a little card shop to get them a baby book. Pink.

I got it home and all hell broke loose when my ex husband and a couple of friends saw what I had bought. It was pink, alright. But the baby decorating the front was black. Unfortunately, the real baby WASN'T black. So I had to take the book back to the shop and get the "right" color. That's how little a person's color matters to me. I don't even notice, and I just have some uncomfortable suspicions when I'm around people who seem to notice right off the bat that someone is either black or white.

Like it matters to them.

[Raineyb]

10. How would you not notice unless you were blind?

It's not a complement to be told that someone didn't notice that you are black. That only means that they didn't bother to look at you. I don't give a shit if someone can see I'm black. I would expect them to see that unless they're blind. It matters if I get that look of unwelcome surprise upon seeing me, it matters that because of my skin color they act as though they're surprised to find evidence of intelligent thought and an ability to speak standard English. It matters to me if they see suspect when they look at me. I don't find it remotely comforting when someone says they don't see color, I generally find it to be a condescending line of bull especially if there's nothing wrong with their vision.

That line is right up there with "Oh you're not really black." Oh really? Why is that? But that's a whole different can of worms.

When we're talking racism we're talking about a societal problem and subtle and not so subtle ways of portraying black people as undesirable, criminal, less intelligent certainly contributes to that. And whether or not they meant to be malicious doesn't matter one whit.