Is FDL quickly becoming the Left’s answer to LGF?
Published by R. Mildred October 3rd, 2006 in Racism, BlogiticsFDL has finally pushed past the Thurmond Barrier of racial insensitivity.
Fuck you FDL, and myself*.
* the bear of racism eats me today, mea culpa, mea culpa, the only thing I can say in my defense is that I didn’t actually make the damn thing, and I hold no shame for remembering the damn thing from a random search for zardoz months ago (something that offensive just stays in your head for wrongness).
What’s shames me is that A) I thought that would be funny at the time, when the implementation was sporked to a fine fucked up paste of nastiness and it’s clearly not, and B) that part of my brain is now going “No! you can still use the O Ry? Owl for good! It’s Just the implementation that you did wrong!”.
I’m slapping it down with the mantra “IN WHAT POSSIBLE UNIVERSE DOES THAT HAVE TO BE USED AT ALL!?” followed by lots of cussing.
I’m So fucking sorry folks.
40 Responses to “Is FDL quickly becoming the Left’s answer to LGF?”
- 1 Pingback on Oct 3rd, 2006 at 3:43 pm
- 2 Pingback on Oct 3rd, 2006 at 4:00 pm
- 3 Pingback on Oct 3rd, 2006 at 6:13 pm
Wow. Screaming with sensitivity just like Gone with the Wind.
Fuck.
(Repeat in slow motion, screaming to the heavens).
What’s the future of American politics if the mainstream of both parties are overtly participating in racist speech?
Ahh! What the hell is that thing?
Yeah that site turned into a sewer pretty quick.
Fuck you FDL is right. That shit is foul. I’m still shaking my head in disbelief.
It’s the O Rly Owl, made “Chinee”, as watertiger might say.
LGF?
Little green fuckstains (footballs)
FireDogLake to my wife’s family: offending you is acceptable collateral damage in our quest to make snarky whites giggle.
Well, isn’t that clever. Ha ha.
Is this what happens to you when you play too much Magic?
You know, when I posted my above comment I was clicking in from the comments RSS file. Which means I didn’t see R. Mildred’s illustration until some time after.
Said illustration is significantly more offensive than the Mikado Photoshop job was. And that was bad.
But in the hours I’ve taken to stop being so pissed off that I can’t make a constructive comment, it occurred to me that I may well be working from an unwarranted assumption here. So let me ask first: R. Mildred, are you Asian? Because I don’t want to quote your own words to Amanda back at you about who gets to use what symbol if I’m mistaken in assuming you white.
Not that I’m an expert, but I have lived for the last 17 years with an actual progressive Asian person, and paid close attention to her opinions, and I know damn well that she’d look at the Mikado thing and say “well, I get their intent and if it’s a satire of both Bush and the Mikado, then you could argue that it’s pretty benign, and I wish they hadn’t done it but whatever, it’s no Abercrombie and Fitch T-Shirt or Drawn Together episode.”
And when she sees stuff like the graphic above, her general reaction is, on a good day, “what racist piece of shit is responsible for this?” and on a bad day, it’s to sink a little bit further into the depression that often comes when your purported white allies feel free to bandy about hurtful stereotypes in order to make some political point in an argument with other white people. (”You wanna see racist? That firedoglake photoshop is even more racist than this drawing of Chinky McSlanteye I just found!! Ha ha ha ha ha!”)
And that pisses me off, you know, because she spends every fucking day working her ass off making the world a palpably better place for no reward and a fair amount of derision, and being demoralized that someone calling herself a progressive would post something like that ugly piece of shit up there to score points in an intramural white-skin slap fight takes away that energy she might otherwise use to teach Asian and Black and Latino kids to read and do math and survive in North American culture. And even if she did something less important with her time such as posting snark on blogs, this kind of shit hurts the person in this world who is most important to me. Which sucks. And she’s just one person.
So the question: Are you Asian, R. Mildred? Because I’m fully prepared to admit that there might be something about this that I’m not getting, that due to your being steeped in the ever-changing and vital post-modern Korean-American-Chinese-Japanese-Pilipino-Canadian culture you have offered this seemingly odious imagery in a way that unbeknownst to my ignorant round eyes actually subverts the seeming racism involved in its publication.
In fact, I kinda hope that’s the case. Because if you’re just another white person trampling Asians in an attempt to score points off another white person, that would really fucking suck.
Maybe it’s too late for me to be looking at stuff like this….but I’m lost.
I think I’ll check back in tomorrow, see if I can make any sense of that weird-ass graphic, make sure that it’s not simply bashing FDL by bashing Asians even harder than FDL, in order to highlight the wrongness of FDL’s bashing of Asians… *sigh*
You know — it is such a weird graphic that I didn’t even register it. I just now realized that those are teeth sticking out the front. And then the rest comes together — the slant eyes, the straw rice paddy hat. ?????
Okay. I’m officially confused. What relationship does the ORLY graphic have with the story? I was under the impression that it was previous FDL related work, and was shown to note the pattern of imagry in this vein.
It’s not, apparently. So what is the link?
(After the updated version of the post)
Thanks for proving you’re better than FDL, RM. You did the right thing.
Nope chris, I’m just an occidental asshole who is now wondering why I did that at all now.
I think I had some rationale that it could not be taken in a racist way, maybe, I have no idea why I had that rationale though, I was remarkably sober when I posted, I’m assuming I forgot that the only people who wouldn’t be offended would be white people.
The number of times in the last few weeks that I’ve thought about how amazing it is that white people think they cna be the ultimate arbitrators of what is and isn’t racist and then I go and do that…
My sincerest apologies to your wife chris and every other oriental in the world, I do not believe I did that.
This does not invalidate any of my previous talk about racism btw, this merely makes me an asshole like the rest of you.
Between the Burkha thing here and at Pandagon, and the “O Ry? Owl” thing here, it’s been quite na interesting week or so…
I guess as long as lessons have been learned, the pain is fleeting and the benefits will make us stronger…
Thanks for proving you’re better than FDL, RM. You did the right thing
UGH, don’t thank me, it’s hardly like it’s difficult to be better than FDL on this sort of thing, all you need is a rudimentary ability to admit you might ever fuck up, and some basic empathy.
Please don’t thank me for doing the right thing.
Kudos, R. Mildred.
This has been an interesting past couple of weeks - sometimes not very fun, but always informative.
I think (or at least hope) that some few are coming to the realization that if you’re thinking “It’s okay if I use this, because my intent is benign, even if in other circumstances it would be racist/unusable for some reason.” then probably the best thing to do would be to think again and consider if something else would work more effectively.
The problem is not, of course, exclusive to white liberals, but perhaps because of their higher visibility (in various poliitical - feminist, etc circiles) online, it’s more noticeable.
Me, I am an almost 50 year old (gotta keep saying that, so that it starts to seem real) Black woman and I’ll tell you… I’d never heard/seen the “N” word so much in my life as I have since I’ve started reading (majority white) liberal blogs. White people giving each other permission to use it - “Don’t mask it, spell it out! It’s more powerful that way” and such, non responsive or self-justifying in the face of any objections, so on.
(Oh and blah blah, rap/hip hop… which is not really my cup of tea, but which is different anyway. )
Am not at all applying all this to this post, or even to this site (which I was unfamiliar with til a day or so ago, but which I think I like), it just seemed like a good place to express this. Which says something right there, I think.
If any good is coming out of this, it is that a whole lot of us are learning how to learn to really SEE what is right in front of our noses. At least I am. Awareness and empathy requires constant vigilance. Not easy, but essential.
R. Mildred, your explanation and apology are easily accepted by this Asian American.
Not one of us, white or otherwise, is totally free from the profound psychic effects of racism (well, except for maybe the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, but anyway). There’s a big difference between (1) acknowledging this reality and working to gradually excorsize those demons from our society and ourselves, and (2) arrogantly and ignorantly presuming “I’m not racist! goshdarnit I’m liberal!” and rabidly attacking those who detect residual racism manifested in your words and actions.
So I’m with Chris, thanks for taking the first approach, in contrast to FDL’s lurid embrace of the second. Frankly, it seems that for many white liberals, addressing racism is less about the hard work of dismantling white supremacy from the inside-out, as much as it’s a way of feeling superior to over right-wing bigots with whom they play gotcha.
Peace.
Does this mean I can’t enjoy the movie Topsy-Turvy?
Yes, kudos to you. Like Sly, I thought the pic was an example from FDL and so I was confused by Chris’ reaction. Now it’s all clear and you did the right thing.
I know you don’t want to hear it, but thanks anyway.
god RMildred, I’m falling pearls over pumps for you all over again. You’re just godamned amazing. I aspire to be able to have the guts to apologize with such grace. thanks.
I support creating “Thurmond” as a slang term for “clueless act of extreme racial insensitivity and/or overt racist hatred.” As in, “Man, that George Allen is just Thurmonding all over the place!”
Mildred’s certainly cooler than that cunt Amanda.
The path away from non-assholery at least begins with being able to say “yep, I’ve been an asshole, I’m sorry.”
signed,
another asshole.
uh, that was meant to be “path TO non-assholery.”
or something. eh, i don’t know. look, i’m an asshole, i don’t know what the fuck I’m saying…
While we are educating ourselves, I’d like to point out that the term ‘Oriental’ is generally considered offensive when attached to people.
Also, as a white person, I’d like to point out that white people generally suck.
Oneiros, that’s a surprise. Here in the UK I think it’s the standard term, while Asian generally implies the Indian subcontinent. I wouldn’t refer to someone as “an oriental” though, because my personal opinion has always been that these sort of words seem to imply less respect when used as nouns than as adjectives. I don’t know what people actually in the groups think though.
While we are educating ourselves, I’d like to point out that the term ‘Oriental’ is generally considered offensive when attached to people.
I did dither over that for a few mintues while writing the apology because I know that it is viewed as an offensive term, but I got put off the term “asian” while in london due to it being too generic (which seems offensive in another way), and there is no other word I could think of aside from “oriental” that is both specific and isn’t a far worse racial epithet.
I wanted another word basically and was pressed for time, so again, sorry.
So I’m with Chris, thanks for taking the first approach, in contrast to FDL’s lurid embrace of the second. Frankly, it seems that for many white liberals, addressing racism is less about the hard work of dismantling white supremacy from the inside-out, as much as it’s a way of feeling superior to over right-wing bigots with whom they play gotcha
I have a theory that I’ve been working on for a while now about an oppressive concept of validation that I’m pretty sure has been at the root of this entire blowup, and the sex wars too. I have LOTS of data now that supports it quite strongly, whereas I could have written it off as just me, belledame, B|L and KH being weirdos before.
I don’t like the term Asian as it’s used here either, because it excludes people from the subcontinent, and there’s no convenient way of referring to us.
i feel validated in my weirdoness
I also just say south asian.
What is LGF?
Little Green Footballs. I highly recommend not going there. Jesus’ General talks about them sometimes, go look there first. It hurts less.
LGf popularised the term “nuke mecca”.
And they weren’t joking.