A logistical beatdown for s trife and his paranoid delusions.

Like I wanna know what Dee thinks is black ppl. with "good taste" & if it involves eating watermelon or playing them blues.

...as for the "uncle tom" comment, I'm doing another search right now.

trife -7 more wisdom.

It's funny when you see threads repeatedly rise to the top of 'New Answers', the natural assumptions is that it is more of the same old idiocy playing out over and over. I guess I need to learn to click on 'em once and a while. The punch thread is kind of funny how the minute Julio shows up, Ronan chimes in with an attack on him. Good old ILM.

an Amatuerists idea might work well too: "The Japanese girl and the menacing silent guy could share the news desk too."

can we lock these threads and be done already?

what beautiful about trife's position w/r/t Dee is that he gets to pretend that bling-bling isn't fucking tacky as all hell, since he's got this dichotomoy going: EITHER you think all rap videos should be shot in the ghetto, OR you think there's nothing tacky at all about spending fucking umpteen-billion on yer video so it can have, like, helicopters & jet-skis in it

(there are, of course, several other possibilties in between)

finally: liking p didy or genesis over boring indie isnt contrarian its RIGHT

dude even the most boringest indie ever is better than P Diddy

(after trying to post and there's thirty million new answers: P.S. trife is right, "oriental" is a completely bullshit word, though my Asian wife reports that she doesn't exactly feel insulted when she hears it used: just thinks it's loudly Eurocentric)

Me: Priya changed her sked (schedule) so she could add more classes to her daytime.
Ryan: What classes?
Me: History...English. (sips coffee)
Lydia: English?
Ryan: ESL? (English as a second Language)
Me: Naw. More advanced. She speaks very eloquently.
Lydia: "Priya?" What nationality is that?
Me: She's an Indian.
(cue nosy PC lady)

CUSTOS IN PROVING TRIFE'S POINT SHOCKAH!

'she speaks very eloquently'
She did, though.

Like Spaceships! And 50s Diners! And clubs! And dentist's offices! (oh wait that last one is sum 41)

"A curmudgeon's reputation for malevolence is undeserved. They're neither warped nor evil at heart. They don't hate mankind, just mankind's excesses. They're just as sensitive and soft-hearted as the next guy, but they hide their vulnerability beneath a crust of misanthropy." -- Jon Winokur

I actually believe this about everybody on this thread and the other one who this could apply to, because otherwise I wouldn't bother reading or posting here. But my god you can all make it hard to remember that sometimes, and sometimes the constant inability to even slightly drop the pose gets more tiring than even you're willing to acknowledge -- and I know some of you have.

god that was a great video.

'Definitely,' you meant to say.

jess, leave custos alone. what are you? the ilm bully? you may disagree with custos, but at least he has definable tastes and his own sense of humor. keep in my he also has a sense humor that isn't based on being cruel to others as yours seems to be. i thought name calling was passé once one supposedly became an "adult." together, you and trife represent the absolute worse of ilm. at least trife has the excuse of being prepubscent.

The problem as Ned points out upthread is that this kind of shit, which I inadvertently started, brings out the worst in everyone. At this point it doesn't matter what side you're on anymore whether you're an asshole or not.

I'm sure you're aware that your entire post basically consisted of name-calling, so I won't point out the irony to you.

"Okay, we'll need two guys to grab his arms and a girl to pull his head back by the hair. We want to get this done by 11:30 AM, so make sure you're prompt. I'm passing out bus schedules; the heavies can take the 10:45 and the girl can be on the 11:00. Things should go down in front of the elementary school for maximum embarassment; it will also be a good venue if we go for the pantsing option. We will reconvene at 12:45 outside of the mall to go for a celebratory Orange Julius."

(And also actually yeah, "Oriental" has a lot of off-base etymological and historical baggage, which is why people have agreed to very sensibly refer to people from Asian as "Asian."
Hmmmm. True. (Well, this also was back in 80s, before PC got serious. African Americans were still called "Black" back then, and Follically Challenged people were still called "Bald Muthaf*ckers")
I do find it interesting that there isn't a PC euphemism for "white"
(unless the politcally correct terminology is "opressor")

Of course Asia is, like, huge, so there are still some kinks to work out with this: for the time being you can assume in most contexts that "Asian" means "east or southeast Asian," and that in all other cases people will specify "Indian" or "Persian" or whatever else.)
Persians are middle eastern. Actually, Persia doesn't exist anymore. "Persians" are Iranian or Iraqi (or Kurd, Marsh Arab, etc.)

honkey.

1. The hindmost or uppermost section of seating in a theater balcony, where the seats are cheapest.
2. A group of people whose opinions are considered unimportant: “Pressure is building... to force... Alan Greenspan to cut interest rates and pump up the money supply. [He] has politely ignored these catcalls from the peanut gallery” (H. Erich Heinemann).

The most important point, however: "She's AN Indian" does not make people think of people from India.

...but you'll find that it's in not exactly uncommon as an self-identifier (cf U of M's Persian Students Associations) for Farsis and some other groups.
Hmmm. Didn't know about that. But it's good to learn something new every day.

(actually I am shocked. I've heard the "She's AN Indian" phrase and thought that person in question is indeed from India. Funny how this world works with lots of people and diversity of opinions and how to express them, etc., etc.)

*shoots self*

hstencil: (actually I am shocked. I've heard the "She's AN Indian" phrase and thought that person in question is indeed from India. Funny how this world works with lots of people and diversity of opinions and how to express them, etc., etc.)
Okay, quick quiz:
How many (when you first read that "She's an Indian" phrase) thought I meant "Indian from India" and how many thought I meant "Indian from a reservation."?
My theory is that ILM's American Contingent would've thought "reservation" while ILM's Brit Contingent would've thought "India."
Is this theory close to the truth?

Now: how best to refer to people from Indiana?

she's a Swede, he's a Russian, he's a Kraut, she's Colombian...

or the name of the tribe

of course very few of us are faced with this choice, since the U.S. government obliterated almost every trace of their people and culture from an entire continent in only 100 short years or so, a karmic stain on our nation that may never quite come out in the wash. it ranks up there with the most tragic events in all of human history. "Native American" just sounds like such generalized post-facto whitewash ignorance, at least "Indian" has some kind of historical resonance, which is why some tribes prefer it as a lesser of two evils: the word like a transcription of white ignorance trapped in amber, "cowboys and indians," scalps and pawnees and custer and the rest, and they don't want anyone to forget that stuff, least of all themselves

Perhaps we should just call 'em injuns? But only when they're drunk?

Whoa, Tracer, that's like the deepest thing you've ever said, where did that come from?

Maybe that's the reason to use it! Fuck, if the ethos of America is to completely forget history entirely, I'm not sure why it would be preferable NOT to go against that.

"Indian" is often preferred, especially among the young. It's an appropriation from Europeans of a formerly (mildly) offensive word (young urban blacks in the US have been doing something similar, of course).

"Native American" only makes sense if you mean North American, but then it becomes confusing when indigenous Mexicans are thrown into the mix (Mestizos, etc). And up here, you rarely if ever hear "Native Canadian". The politically correct term (other than "Native"), which many Native elders seem to prefer is "First Nations people" or just "First Nations". My old partner (who is Ojibway-Cree) when I worked with, um, Native street kids, simply used the word "aboriginal".

As a cauc, I got away with using "Indian" only once the kids trusted me. Yet they were generally contemptuous of politically correct white adults who used more liberal-sounding terms.

Anyway, this doesn't even begin to do justice to something that's very complicated.

But Tracer's feelings on this I cocur with wholeheartedly (while acknowledging the history in Canada is somewhat different, yet still appalling).

Oh, and don't forget the residential schools.

(Did they have those -- or equivalents -- south of the line?)

i live in ireland though

Now, as a Canadian, I would think Native "Indian". Someone from India would either be described in a racist way (Paki or Hindu -- yeah, I know) or as "Indo-Canadian."

And that's too bad, Sterling. My history's sketchy, but didn't Sitting Bull come up to Canada to escape the US government or something? Those schools weren't used for physical genocide here as much as cultural genocide. And the effects have passed through the generations today and beyond.

It's fucking sad, actually.

I would respond with a long diatribe, but seeing as though (a.) yesterday was absolute shit for me and (b.) I don't know how on Earth I could possibly address every single thing I need to address, I don't think I'll go much further than to say:

1. Fucking hell, "Way Back When" was my own little way of saying the bloody 1960s. Sheesh. You would think I'd be talking about pre-Civil War, the way it was waved about.

2. I didn't mean a single damn thing about the "tacky mansion" comment other than the ACTUAL FACT that most current rap videos seem to show a lifestyle more conducive to your everday average drug kingpin, what with the gold-plated everything and blinding decor. I do think there's a happy medium between a rap video that portrays rappers as tasteless hound dogs and a rap video that depicts rappers as po' folk, something many female rappers seem to get (look at any Salt & Pepa or Queen Latifah video, for instance).

3. Why do I suddenly get the feeling that this whole damn thing is the "race card" played to the absolute extreme? Look, if you're a bitter African-American, let me give you the benefit of my life experience by saying that you're going to get absolutely nowhere portraying yourself as a victim. I live my own life conscious of the fact that I DO NOT WANT TO BE DEALT WITH IN ANY WAY AS A VICTIM, no matter what happens to me. A lot of personal shit has happened to me in the past, stuff I don't want to get into in detail, and my biggest lesson has been that the old saying, "Whatever does not kill you makes you stronger" is absolutely spot on. And yes, I do think you have little to complain about as a minority these days. At least you don't have the predicament of getting a tap without a water cooler as the "colored water fountain". At least you don't have to enter through a side or a back entrance to get to a restaurant. At least there's no such thing as the "colored" section of a movie theater. At least there are no governors out there who will call in the National fucking Guard to block your entrance to a public school because he doesn't think you have the "right" to go in. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the others involved in the 20th century civil rights movement have done a hell of a lot for people such as my parents, and it's completely disrespecting their lives' work to even imply that things haven't changed since the dismal 1950s.

Ok, so that was a diatribe. And yes, I am using the "f" word so you know what my mental state's been like the past 24 hours.

4. As someone with a little Native American blood in her (the Hopi tribe), I'd have to say the Native Americans (i.e. the so-called "Indians" who don't come from the big subcontinent made famous by Mahatma Gandhi) are the "Native Americans".

If there's a need for reasoned argument here, I think it's more incumbent on Dee to move beyond the vague idea that African-Americans "complain" and portray themselves as "victims" and maybe actually address what specific complaints and complainers she thinks are unjustified.

(x-post)

And sorry for over-reacting, I still don't think what Dee posted is nearly as offensive as when I hear white people say shit like "why are blacks so angry?" I think she's definitely more intelligent than that.

As for the victimization issue there's certainly a level on which I might even agree with her: there are certain mindsets that I think still lean heavy on the idea of government redress slightly more than it's tenable or would even be productive right now. That said, I'm still uncomfortable with the broad brush she's using to paint all black people with issues to raise as "complainers" with nothing real to "complain" about, as if there's some whiny African-American hive-mind out there that's constantly in her face asking for something.

j0hn D did and i at least thort he was playing along.

dee clearly still doesn't.

oops is a slow learner.

Fuck your game, Sterling. Because it isn't funny and neither are you.

Sterling, you are an intelligent person and that's the main reason why I'm frustrated with you rather than assuming you're some sort of hateful ogre, and if you can't understand the distinction I'm trying to make then I won't bother explaining it again.

I went back and looked at the thread and I can't honestly understand why people got so worked up over Dee's post.

"trife, you may have had a point if every person listed here was black. But most of them aren't. Are we to pretend we like all black acts just cuz they're black and we feel guilty from slavery? No one here is 'physically attacking a bunch of black people' or 'physically attacking a bunch of black people who make 'bad' music'. We are simply attacking PEOPLE. The only person here to whom race is a factor is you. "

is one of the more egregious bits of point-missing on that thread (racially problematic != physical attack, for starters) and then followed by asking trife if he's "for real" when he is obv. simultaneously the most and least real thing about ilx.

i mean its like asking if the a car is "for sale": depends on the price.

that was longwinded and useless but all this fussing and yelling has dispirited me so i thought i'd stem it for a brief moment.

no wait. x-post. sterling says: "he is obv. simultaneously the most and least real thing about ilx."

sterling i think you're overusing "obv." when you apply it to one of your trademark effete contradictions.

That said I don't think anyone here ought to be subjected to "logistical beatdowns," and certainly whole threads shouldn't be started for it. If Dee wants to take it to trife on this thread that's her prerogative I guess, but I was kind of happy that we'd steered clear of that.

What bothers me most about Dee's post is that it puts all rapping on a continuum between "po' folks" and "tasteless hound dogs".

the phrase "logistical beatdown" is a malpropism so semantically rich that i'm disappointed that instead of mining it further à la Dan Perry, we have all chosen to take the piss.

this is disingenuous. How is naming a nationality necessarily noting the "essential characteristic" of a person?

BTW "mala'apropism" is "malapropism" in Hawaiian.

amateurist, I can't believe that you can't be bothered to write with capital letters, yet you put that accent grave on "a la".

i.e. "since *I* didn't notice what trife points out then it doesn't exist and if he brings in race he's 'paranoid' (to use custos' phrase)" which is by the way the EXACT logic of the anti-affirmative action neo-con crew.

hence point-missing. and don't call me out on the "read the whole thread" thing coz you don't wanna hear what i have to say about em's "fake b-boy accent". (oh fuck i'll say it anyway -- white boy trying to act black, is he a... c'mon you KNOW you want to say it, a w*gga? yeah those fucking race-traitors acting below their station get yr. blood boiling everytime. and its not even like he HAS a b-boy accent whatever the fuck that means. honestly his flow is the most precise sharp and nasal on modern radio.)

[oh and ned, we each bring our own set of rules to the table but the precondition is that we recognize those of our fellow players -- increasingly foax like trife, youthful dmb fans, etc. are getting written out of the picture in a guise of liberal "normativity"]

As for Trife, I think we can mostly give up on getting back the reasonable Ethan, at least within the confines of ILX: he's been pulling that same troll for a long time, and it needs to be ignored like any other troll. I mean, it's understandable that people are justifiably uncomfortable with being called racists and want to defend themselves against it. But when Trife is saying things like "i cant imagine anyone hating puffy except if because they were racist," it should be clear to pretty much anyone that he's just laughing at you, and there's no gain in trying to discuss intelligently.

Sterling's unfortunately found the easiest way around the Trife scorn, which is half to agree with him and half to pretend that the whole thing's an amusing wind-up meant to draw out people's positions, etc. -- the usual troll excuses. That's sort of disappointing to me, because c'mon: Trife trolls do admittedly turn up a higher-than-average ratio of fascinating reactions than, say, Calum trolls, but fascinating reactions aren't nearly as good in a context where there's no hope of actually discussing them.

nitsuh otm

amateurist, I can't believe that you can't be bothered to write with capital letters, yet you put that accent grave on "a la".

the lowercase thing is just a too-cool-for-school affect, like, "hey, this debate looks interesting but i'm not, like, really committed to it, and like, don't attack my points with too much rigor cause i'm, like, just passing through. no time for the caps key." my use of the accent grave betrays is the giveaway, however: it's all a pose.

I'm not exactly an old man, and I could give a fuck if I'm square, but I feel exactly the same way about most hip-hop and rap stuff now in almost the same way that Dee did in her post. Believe it or not, there are actually a lot of black people that just might feel the same way. I feel like sometimes ILM is in this weird little bubbleworld where its only the people like Dee who express their opinions - and not the trolls like trife - who bring out the "fascinating reactions."

trife is like that guy.

but not now

I think we can mostly give up on getting back the reasonable Ethan, at least within the confines of ILX

That's for damn sure. And it's a total shame. Unsurprisingly, Nabisco nails Sterling's complicity in all this better than I could (and wisely notes along with Tracer that indeed Dee's arguments need, at the least, some thinking through). Sterling, drop the movie argument. Both you AND Trife can do better, and have done.

*k-blammo*

Right, he thought we had already formed a virtual one.

which it clearly was

Clearly to who? You, the knower of all?
Sterling, why don't you try asking some questions instead of making assumptions left and right? Oh wait, I know why, cuz you have everything figured out. You KNOW what's going on in my head. You know what I *really* mean when I say I don't like Eminem's manner of speech. See, you didn't even KNOW that I was talking about his speaking voice, so here's a steaming cup of STFU for ya!

i imagine that scene in x2 where pyro looks longingly at magneto and co. as they are about to jet off.

wait neither of those characters in the italian job fit sterling's description at all.

i'd like to like amateurist coz we've had some interesting arguments but i've never once seen him THINK about something. (have i ever taken an "orthodox" position? i enjoy screwing missionary style if that's what yr. asking but these days i don't even know what the "orthodox" position is and certainly not from you ams coz you never take any position at ALL).

oops is pretty much evil incarnate in my eyes on every single goddamn thread.

for fucks sake Dee pretty much asserted racial oppression was over with (for "those people" no less -- do you have any IDEA of what that screams), and custos said that looking for racial issues is "paranoid" meanwhile everyone pisses on rap and its okay "because black people do it too" (yeah well not like THAT they don't)

and nobody blinks a fucking eye.

ilx continues to prove to me the inseperability of ideology and aesthetics and has almost just proved to me that i will never have a productive discussion on rap with a republican (and hell most liberals).

and stencil if ILX used to be this bubbleworld which wasn't quite as racially and politically backwards as certain parts of this steaming pile of crap we call "society" then goddamn it so much the better.

you'll note that people barely engage with what i say either. respond, sure, but engage? like oops if i didn't read yr. mind then what the fuck DID you mean when you talked about eminem's punchable b-boy accent?

and Dee if you didn't mean to say that racial oppression ended with the civil rights movement then what DID you mean?

everyone on this thread state yr. stance on affirmative action racial profiling oj simpson the la riots and whether The Boondocks are funny NOW. also the war on drugs and welfare reform.

then we'll see who's a goddamn racist or not.

And Sterling: Trife could have been that guy, at some point, but he's not. He's just winding people up by calling them racists and then laughing at the way they scramble to defend themselves.

And Amateurist: yes, Trife is Ethan P. If you look through the archives here you'll be shocked to learn that he used to be all sweet and cuddly and polite about things. He slowly developed a provocateur schtick that was actually useful and interesting for a while. Around the height of it he even wrote some hip-hop reviews for Pitchfork, at which point the schtick was coming a little heavy but was still interesting; then he started writing for a blog that was pretty great and non-schticky. And then, it seems, the schtick swallowed him alive -- which is too bad, cause he's fierce and clever and a nice guy when he's being himself.

Um, I meant it aggravated me. Do you like the way Gilbert Godfrey talks? If so, do you hate Asians? There was no sinister ulterior reasoning. But overanalytical reactionaries like Sterling try to attach DEEP meanings to everything. Toodles!

Anyway, my main problem with Trife, whose presence I generally enjoy, is that he's become one dimensional - always rehashing a pose I read in William Upski Wimsatt years ago.

that's it for tonight. its late i'm tired and i'm done for now.

i don't really know you, sterling--which seems to be your desire. so i can't pretend that the impressions i get from your posts are anything more than that, impressions. but one such impression is that you prize contentiousness above other things. some of your posts seem to me to bear traces of sophistry, i.e. taking an unorthodox position* (or stating a more temperate opinion in an intemperate manner) for its own sake. not that you don't seem to have many heartfelt opinions, of course, often if not always well-expressed.

i'd be more patient with your posts if they evidenced some humility. i mean (having met you, or at last some version of you...albeit briefly) i can imagine a certain degree of humility there but the actual prose style you employ removes all overt traces of it.

*orthodox positon = "i think [x] is great for the reasons most people say it's great" (or some similar formulation).

jordan: no no, x2 was good. it was "the italian job:" that was mediocre!

i do have a great reluctance sometimes to take unpopular opinions, because i'm not confident i'll have the skillz (or the time, really, since i mostly book between tasks at work) to back them up. i'll own up to that.

i'm sad that this thread is now just james and oops taking the piss. not that i've been at my best here, or that my best is anything to write home about besides.

Eminem, no doubt. He's so full of himself it's sickening. And that fake b-boy accent drives me crazy.
-- oops (don'temailmebitc...), June 7th, 2003.

Well I do. You don't, I do. James, you know those rap-metal bands that throw a rap verse in the middle of the song? and they sound like they're forcing their hardness? that's how Em comes across to me. It's like I can see the 'real' Em behind the facade. (i'm not claiming I have superior judgement to you or anyone else, it's just a feeling I get)

Jeez, people, this is kind of freaky reading.

Really.

Cool! I love you too, bro

in a way, this actually reminds me of reynolds more than anything else, music where there is a frisson, a clash of some sorts, which hip hop certainly provides, and rave and early jungle also provided, roots/phuture, masculine/feminine pressure, and arguably french-house provides a similar dichotomy but with much smoother edges, whereas acid/techno seems to be more detached, sublimation to the machine etc, and electroclash is different again in that the clash is a chimera, sonically, a cartoon of a make believe berlin?

anyone who thinks trife wasn't making a serious point on that thread (and somewhat slightly correctly, absent the totality of the generalisation, about the racial double standard), and was just being geirish, is being a bit complacent i think: probably the way he made the point ended up distracting from it (trife very rarely does nabisco-style paragraphs, which is a pity actually cz when he does this he does this REAL well), but sterling's right, i think, that the liberalish haven here does sometimes function more a haven of etiquette than of actual thinking (the downside is of course that without the etiquette, the community would collapse altogether — it isn't accident that PC sprang up in academic communities, where very wide gulfs of ideology have to sit at the same table and pass the salt w/o glassing one another...) (of course the academic world is no longer a haven of thinking in any real sense heh...)

ned for example is blazingly angry i assume bcz trife was rude to his friend dee: well he WAS very rude to dee... but he was also right, that the generalisation dee was making about rap now — "but it's all just videos about this" — is NOT one which shd be allowed to go pass unchallenged

i like that right-wing and centre-right posters are comfortable to dissent here, and i get annoyed when they get mobbed by a kind of centre-lib conformism (even when i REALLY disagree with what they say) — well, this is the same in the reverse direction, a *lot* of projecting was going on on that thread, bcz trife raised (from the left) a taboo topic in a taboo way and then stuck to his guns (maybe this is the aged ultra-left infantile punk rocker in me admiring ppl who stick by their guns come what may) (geir isn't a troll either) (seems to me also trife is also here celebrating-by-enacting one of the aspects of the rap aesthetic there which kind of gets admired in the breach, to put it mildly, when "white" critical norms kick in...) (ie fronting) (hurrah for it)

the argt between him and john d is really instructive on BOTH sides, content-wise, once you realise they are actually both debating seriously, with content

when i put a snarky one-line post up not so long ago abt courtney love being a magnet for misogynists, i attracted a pretty similar self-righteous hostility, from love-haters angrily insisting they were not misogynists: and it's true, some of them certainly aren't => but i still think mention of her brings misogyny buzzing out of the woodwork, and it thinks it's "allowed" bcz she's manifestly an awful person

it is dumb to say ALL PUFF DADDY HATE IS RACIST DO YOU SEE? but it's nevertheless the case that puff daddy hate and its equiv really is sometimes a mask for the crappiest kind of middleclass assumptions about "what black americans ought to be doing, feeling, saying", the quasi-politicised compromises with the system which are acceptable/admirable by these assumptions (the boo word for these is "indie", possibly) vs the quasi-politicised exploitations of the system which aren't (eg IS IT AN ACCIDENT that the admirable/non-admirable dividing line arrives, to be sub-trifeanishly extreme for a moment, falling surpise surprise BETWEEN activities comfortably-off white foax can devote themselves to doing after college and activities poor black and white folks have the option for, if they want to get to a point where at least they're not poor... ?)

(it's a lot more complicated obv: farrakhan eg is a tireless advocate of the black indie ethic)

(awful warning to all: do NOT earnestly post to ilm while eating bread and honey => i am a twat, excuse me while i hunt out a damp cloth)

Mark, disliking ANYTHING can be seen as a mask for the crappiest kind of middle-class assumptions about "what black Americans ought to be doing, feeling, saying". It isn't a constructive, instructive, insightful or interesting thing to say, particularly the way Ethan said it.

"activities poor black and white folks have the option for" = "activities poor black and white folks have nothing but the option for"

i am arm-deep in bee-juice here, gimme a break

I liked this bcz millar's thread was really silly shit and I have to say I enjoyed it when he wanted his own thread to be locked.

The debate between darnielle and ethan was pretty good, esp the bits where they debated whether puffy was doing sampling.

But if he pulled this stuff on a more 'serious' thread it wouldn't be so good.

The hive's revenge!

Tracer wrote: What bothers me most about Dee's post is that it puts all rapping on a continuum between "po' folks" and "tasteless hound dogs".

If anything I think this shows that possibly the worst thing Dee is guilty of is some very naive phrasing on a sensitive subject on a number of occasions which happen to dovetail with phrasing used in a condescending/outright offensive way by right-wing racists, which is then jumped on by others shoehorning quasi-racist intentions into her posts. I don't think she was trying to implicate that all rap exists between these two points in the slightest, but equally I think she was guilty of not thinking through the implications.

if the argt is that trife instead gave it a BAD tweak i am agnostic, cz it led to both interesting and stupid debates intertwined

(however "no no but don't you see its very riskiness is what makes this such a brilliant tactic, unfortunately the enemy unbrilliantly misunderstood it and won the battle with their lack of respect for twinkling genius" is always a silly line to take in discussions of affairs military, so i shall instead switch my entire point to "if anyone is saying there is NOTHING to discuss here, they are wrong: if they are saying this is not the way to start the discussion, that's a difft argt and true or false should not be allowed entirely to shut down the actual real first discussion forever...")

this is complete bullshit and not what happened at all,it was actually trife that placed all rapping on that continuum

dee said she didn't like videos with rapper's displaying their wealth in a way that she thought was tasteless
this was used to back up her hatred for puff daddy

then trife made some idiotic "yeah dee,all black people should make themselves look poor in their videos" post thus instantly changing dee's suggestion that perhaps videos would be better if they were anything other than ostentatious displays of wealth (ie infinite possibilities) into saying that the only alternative was that black people should just look poor (reducing it to one alternative)
this goes beyond putting words into someone's mouth into trife actually being the one who brough up the idea

this "tell me your political opinions and i'll decide if you're racist or not based on my own criteria and nothing else" stuff is bollocks,as is your insistence on making snide remarks about anyone who is not equipped to argue in exactly the terms you use

this kills as many threads and prevents as many people from posting what they think as any troll
it doesn't make people feel that they should think carefully about what they're saying,it just makes them feel you'll jump down their throat if they phrase a sentence even slightly badly,regardless of what they actually mean
ilx is a public forum,having your own "rules" to the "game" and expecting everyone to know them is childish and pointless,why not try and be inclusive so as to try and gain information from as many viewpoints as possible,rather than only allowing discussion on your terms and belittling anyone who can't

vs

"issues of intra-ethnic class shd only be raised in nice ways" (nice acc.who?)

vs

"issues of intra-ethnic class shd only be raised in correct ways" (correct acc.who?)

vs

"issues of intra-ethnic class shd only be raised in effective ways" (effective acc.who?)

etc

if this sarcasm had exploded the generalisation into a proper exploration of it, this is a good tactic: if it doesn't, it isn't => robin's complaint ("stop being scornful and tell me the problem") is a perfectly fair one, i think

(assuming the "good" is exploration on these boards, which from the perspective of the boards it is, but which from the perspective of the world is a bit hive-centric)

i. i have all my life been in somewhat complex oedipal revolt against this teaching milieu, as "square" blah blah (ie "yes yes we know that, let's get to the good stuff")
ii. my absolute dearest friend is just now going through a lifecrisis of disgust and exhaustion at teaching-as-it-currently-is, having done it for 20 years, which can be diagnosed as a massive mid-life "been-there-done-that" crisis

(ie this is i guess why i seem to be arguing both ends against one another here, which has got to be a loser's game, which i'm now going to stop)

I mean, right now you're talking about matters of behavior & etiquette, not the subject of racial double standards, which was trife's initial bone of contention. Which is to say that his sarcasm really hasn't brought about greater understanding about matters Diddy, has it?

i don't actually see how what you just said is really v.difft to what i just said, michael: i am projecting also naturally (= trife makes me think, so sue me!)

i do wish ethan wd write his argument up in longer paragraphs sometimes and not just expect everyone to make the jumps with him (even if i myself like being made to make jumps): i think he's ten times more interesting on mainstream rap than most anti-bling kneejerk is, precisely bcz he CAN make interpol vs unrest-style minute distinctions between p.diddy and who-the-bling-ever (i mean, i know fuck all abt rap, this is why i'm interested), which the haters rush to paper over...

I would say that Ethan is entirely a force for good - which is why I want to argue with him! he really does seem to think that hatin' on bling=culturally acceptable (wrongly so) expression of racial fear/hate, and I disagree strongly with him BUT!!! agree with mark s.'s set-in-genetic-stone liberal mindset "this has made me think, therefore it is good" - which mindset I have struggled a lot with, i.e. if somebody burned down my house, well, that'd make me think plenty, but even if I underwent some serious emotional growth as a result, I'd still rather keep my stuff & not lose a lot of money

ok that got a little lost

my point is that I do believe that Ethan's flinging about of the term "racist" is actually beneficial! I hate Puff Daddy records, but I haven't really thought long and hard about why: I emerge from discussing the matter with Ethan realizing that my response is rather more complex than I'd thought, questioning those responses, able to better articulate why I think "Been Around the World" is just k-lame

I personally very much hate a great many Puffy Daddy records, and I have thought about why: it's cuz he's a god-awful weak-flow-having rapper. I honestly wouldn't mind the way he re-uses old material if he would just actually, y'know, DELIVER on the mic. Rhymes = unimaginative. Rhythm/meter = bland & over-simplistic. Wordplay = elementary. Vocal cadence/delivery = lazy & sloppy & inarticulate. If you can find some way that this equates to racism, well, that's an argument I'd LOVE to hear (er, read).

How, exactly? I am not being obtuse, and much as I respect where you and Mark S are trying to come from, I don't buy it.

1. if a white person thinks old-school rap is good but that it went wrong somewhere along the line, that's suspect
2. if a white person likes brainy college-edumacated emcees but has a loud distaste for chart-hop, that's suspect
2a. cf. "I love Abba, but screw the Backstreet Boys, it's so pre-fab"
3. people who fit in somewhere around the area of 1) and 2) haven't examined (the source of) their attitudes toward chart-hop

...I don't know, this'd take longer than I've got - I have punk rock sympathies, I have this gut feeling that getting "called on your shit" (even wrongly) is an opportunity for reflection, and I hope that that's Ethan's point! because I refuse to believe that he thinks that everybody who likes Rakim is necessarily a Klansman

Just curious, but what is this baggage of which you speak? "Orient" literally means the east, no? It comes from the Latin for "to rise", since the sun rises in the east. It is the exact opposite of "occident", which means the west, and comes from the Latin for "to fall", since the sun sets in the west. How is this off-base?

his posts all boil down to "p diddy r0x0r, u r all nazis"
(xpost)

John, I don't think that about Ethan either -- I just think, as Dan rather trenchantly notes, that his approach, far from being punk rock (and that term was crossing my mind too), demeans himself, the subject under discussion and more besides. I don't find it shocking or some sort of upsetting of a natural complacency, I just find it goddamn dull and insulting, and I admit annoyance at seeing it excused or coddled.

That's just to follow your post, but fyi it JUST IS a slur in the lived-in world, you seeing-how or not. Though now becoming archaic enough to be nearly forgotten, it seems (+ complicated by the word still used uh commercially: "Shuang Hur Oriental Market" down the street from me etc etc)

>>this is complete bullshit and not what happened at all,it was >>actually trife that placed all rapping on that continuum

Yes, as a cartoonish exaggeration of what he imagines clueless diddy-haters think. Dee fell right into the trap.

Just remember everybody, if you have the feeling that you're digging your own grave and ethan offers to give you a hand with your shovel, DON'T DO IT.

People also need to remember that "p diddy" (I thought that name was lame THEN and i think it's lame NOW) has built his rep as a PRODUCER and PROMOTER and AGENT so to dis just on the basis of his rhymes and flow is accurate, but largely beside the point—sort of like calling Shaq a terrible jump-shooter.

(it involves a download which is currently taking SIX HOURS gah)

so anyway plz everyone (inc.robin primarily) ignore the post right after john d's: i know what i mean and it is germane but one sentence is WAY too compressed to say it clearly

In my experience, the term "Oriental" used as an adjective is still quite common and not at all a slur. To refer to East Asian people as "Orientals" is perhaps a bit old-fashioned and not the preferred term. But using "Oriental" as an adjective seems to be widely accepted.

there's a feeling I get when i look to the west

See Mark this is true and precisely what I was trying to get at above (and why I was irked that Dee's defense of herself turned into a referendum on whether black people as a group had anything to complain about) -- and yes yes sure Ethan's accusations do force people to talk more about why they hate someone like Puffy, which gives you more material to sort through and try to figure out whether that assumption is there or not. But it's a ridiculous form of discourse: it's the equivalent of walking into a room and yelling "you are all of you assholes" just to see whose reaction to that does turn out to be assholish. It does less to make people honestly think about and discuss whether there are elements of that in their thinking and more to make them just cover their bases against Trifean accusations -- and this sort of base-covering discourages thought, because it has people rushing to set up rhetorical barriers rather than actually examine what's behind them. And while in the short term it gets people to lay down their cards on the issue, in the long term it makes them hold those cards closer to their chests and never look at them, because they know that showing them is going to open them up to snarky accusations that they can never respond intelligently to.

it's the equivalent of walking into a room and yelling "you are all of you assholes" just to see whose reaction to that does turn out to be assholish

gives me the hard giggles

Well, I'm not always current with the latest trends in usage, so perhaps I'm behind the curve on this one. The boundaries of taste, esp. when it comes to ethnic terms, are fluid, and sometimes terms can leave a bad taste in the mouth for no apparent reason that can be traced to the literal etymology. I know that dictionaries tend to be behind the curve as well, but I'd still point out that in Webster's, the entry for the term "colored" to refer to a black person is marked with the warning message: sometimes offensive - whereas the entry for the term "Oriental" to refer to an Asian person carries no warning label. Perhaps usage is changing though. But I still doubt that the offense of the term has anything to do with "orient" literally meaning "east" - I think it's more a matter of mental associations that people have with the term.

P.S. What is the other of the Other?

anyway comeuppance time for mark s on this thread = opera quit when i posted that last post and my download got fucked so uh yeah

and that is an important point when dealing with what has been going on.

or perhaps 2 simultaneous axes of spin, which might have been more fun

like i guess it just snapped something in me to get told that i'm too "out there" by somebody whose tastes run closer towards those of buscemi in ghostworld than anyone else i've ever met.

(this is meant with all possible affection).

its like ilm is mark fuhrman and yo look out jay z is driving while black!!!

-- trife (...), June 8th, 2003. (later)

(y3ncey actually it was listening to the black eyed peas and fat joe and puffy and busta on the radio driving this morning and thinking "let the hatas say what they want i'm listening to my music and i'm happy.")

Caucasian?

(but I think I hate the American justice system more for letting him off virtually scot-free.)

(I really hope you're not taking me seriously, jess.)

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=bitchslap

p.diddy can't flow, his rhymes are boring (and generally ghostwritten, from what i understand - "i don't write rhymes, i write checks"), he usually under enuciates, and his production blatently panders to the listener's sence of nostalgia. all these qualities he seems to share with the worst underground artists, even if the outcome is a bit different. but he did give us biggie, so how can you hate on him?

also, s trife needlessly politicizes those tastes he disagrees with and his accusations of racism are as flimsy and ultimately self-destructive and contradictory as the indie argument about supporting corporate culture, selling out, blah blah blah... but he does seem to function well as a provocateur. and i enjoy his posts and reviews.

anyway i posted mainly becuz i wanted oops to reread the thing where he sez: "but yes, I think Em's a whigger, I hate Puffy cuz he's a successful black man, I think black people bitch too much, I am a slow learner, I just recently was able to tie my shoes by myself, I think ILM is a worthwhile place to be, I love people who's sole purpose in posting is to point out the shortcomings and perceived misdoings of others." and think about how he felt when he wrote it and then go back and listen to Eminem's "I Am" and see if he liked it any better.

Meanwhile a small number of other people didn't see fit to find anything admirable or worthwhile in their fellow posters and decided it was more fun and a better expenditure of effort to generalize, make assumptions and antagonize everyone within shouting distance. It should be completely unnecessary to name names.

It's a matter of respect for others is all it is. Trolling is inherently an issue about lack of respect, which is why Calum is a troll and Geir isn't. Now go forth and misunderstand me at will.

Now, I find that passage to be choking in contradictions, and I think that the decent academic prose that Dewey epitomizes is itself a kind of deadness and bigotry - well, not the prose itself, but the insistence in Universities and in Journalism that (to some extent) everyone write like that. But there are reasons to try to make everyone write the same, just as there are reasons to make people wear school uniforms and follow dress codes. Sure, uniforms suppress diversity and personality, but in doing so don't they also suppress social conflict and violence? This isn't a rhetorical question either: I don't know if uniformity suppresses conflict and violence, but even if it did I'd be against it. But maybe the consequences of genuine freedom are that people get hurt. Anyway, I grew up in a college town: the pretence was that it was an intellectual utopia, the reality was that whole categories of people (call 'em rocks, hoods, greasers, beer freaks, grits, burnouts, dirtbags, stoners) got their esteem smashed in that nice town, in nice language, as did individuals, as did the people that the hoods et al. scapegoated in retaliation, so my discovering Meltzer at age 15 in 1969 was a return of the repressed for me: he was an intellectual who was actually speaking the social war that everyone was living through, not hiding it behind politics but just ripping. Abuse was in his words, but the abuse was in the world anyway. But...

Richard Meltzer - trivializer of the awesome or awesomiser of the trivial?

Once again you're making assumptions. Do you know how I feel about that song? Um, no. No you do not.
Anyway...I posted that AFTER you made your condescending remarks to me. Likewise, you took something i said ('trife, are you for real?') out of context (i said it only referring to his professed love for Puffy's dance at the VMAs) to suit your preconceived ideas.
Anything more you'd like to teach me?

Well I believe that racial, ethnic and homophobic slurs are perfectly harmless words that should be printed in the largest typeface possible. (thinks about it) (leaves it at that)

ILx might be like that college town after Richard Meltzer arrived...and left, leaving everyone to pick up the pieces and get on with their lives.

http://www.wolfiesnuts.com/images/Bag%20-Redskin%20Peanuts.jpg

go on, take one.

i would give him: 8/10.

s trife is, i think, from athens, georgia, where r.e.m. is from and everyone likes indie rock and he likes the linkin park remix album and he bought a bee shirt like an indie rocker would wear and he reviewed an eminem cd for pitchforkmedia, an indie rocker website. he once told me that rap-rock sincerity was the new faux-naif. he e-mailed me once and asked if i had AIM and he told me to get it. but i don't know what the whole thing was all about. i thought it was cool that he e-mailed me but we never talked after that.

i would give him: 9/10.

jess is from the east coast, i think, and wrote about dj sammy in the village voice, which is a magazine or a newspaper in new york city, and he has a girlfriend named nancy. he didn't like indie rock for a while but then he started to like it again. he thought 'satisfaction' was the best hip-hop single of the year. he's always saying how bad ilm is. i don't know how to react to that.

i would give him: 6/10.

This is your main problem. Do something about it.

it's hard working being me

Me: Priya changed her sked (schedule) so she could add more classes to her daytime.
Ryan: What classes?
Me: History...English. (sips coffee)
Lydia: English?
Ryan: ESL? (English as a second Language)
Me: Naw. More advanced. She speaks very eloquently.
Lydia: "Priya?" What nationality is that?
Me: She's an Indian.
(cue nosy PC lady)

classic thread

sterling clover knows about critical theorists and likes pop music and i don't know if he likes indie rock. i don't know much about him. i read his website before but it's very, very hard to understand and i checked it again a few times and he hadn't updated it.

i would give him: 8/10.

s trife is, i think, from athens, georgia, where r.e.m. is from and everyone likes indie rock and he likes the linkin park remix album and he bought a bee shirt like an indie rocker would wear and he reviewed an eminem cd for pitchforkmedia, an indie rocker website. he once told me that rap-rock sincerity was the new faux-naif. he e-mailed me once and asked if i had AIM and he told me to get it. but i don't know what the whole thing was all about. i thought it was cool that he e-mailed me but we never talked after that.

i would give him: 9/10.

jess is from the east coast, i think, and wrote about dj sammy in the village voice, which is a magazine or a newspaper in new york city, and he has a girlfriend named nancy. he didn't like indie rock for a while but then he started to like it again. he thought 'satisfaction' was the best hip-hop single of the year. he's always saying how bad ilm is. i don't know how to react to that.

i would give him: 6/10.

-- d k (d k), Wednesday, June 11, 2003 5:43 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

this trife/$$ dude really is a farkin twunt, t'aint he?

-- 0", Sunday, February 8, 2004 11:22 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

has morbius moved onto "and twunt" yet?

morbius can move on?

::wheelchair joke::