So “Hamilton” has gotten pretty much unanimous praise from critics and those lucky (or rich) enough to score themselves tickets to it. Even Mike Pence, despite that thing that happened when he attended the show Friday night, declared on Fox News Sunday that “Hamilton’ is just an incredible production, incredibly talented people. It was a real joy to be there.”
The Trump-loving, Muslim-hating racist behind the blog Diversity Macht Frei begs to differ. As he sees it, Hamilton is basically an act of “white genocide” set to music. In Hamilton, you see, all the Founding Fathers are played by people of color, a deliberate choice by the show’s creator designed to make the cast “look … like America looks now.”
Well, Mr. Macht Frei is having none of it.
This entire spectacle is simply white genocide turned into entertainment. It retells American history with the roles historically played by European Americans instead performed by brown-skinned people of varied ancestry, the whole thing set to music of a style typically associated with those of African race. This is racial appropriation. One race is written out of history, replaced by another. Europeans are being asked to celebrate their own demise, their own effacament from America’s story.
I’m going to let Nathan Fillion take this one:
The blogger continues:
Imagine if someone made a musical about Zulus and all the Zulus were played by Europeans, played to Mozart-like music. You can imagine the outrage that would provoke. But, somehow, when it happens to Europeans, this racial usurpation is OK? No, it’s not OK. In the age of Trump, maybe white people need to establish a new political correctness of their own.
Yeah, it’s not as if white actors have ever played the parts of non-white characters in movies and TV and Broadway spectacles. (Oh, wait.) It’s not as if Jesus, a middle-eastern Hebrew, is ever depicted like some blue-eyed, dirty-blond-haired, white-skinned surfer dude. (Oh, wait.) It’s not as if Fox News anchors have ever worked themselves into a frenzy insisting that Santa Claus — who I am told is not even a real person — is white. (Oh wait.)
It’s not as if a horde of white Harry Potter fans threw a fit when a black actress was chosen to play Hermione in a London theatrical production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child — even after JK Rowling declared that the complainers were racist “idiots” and that “Hermione can be a black woman with my absolute blessing and enthusiasm.” Oh, wait.
It’s not as if the casting of Hamilton is a conscious response to this long tradition of whitewashing people of color out of history and culture.
Oh wait.
Anyhoo, Mr. Macht Frei goes on to demand the inevitable phony boycott of this allegedly white-hating play.
We need people to picket, protest and boycott this so-called musical. There can be no place in modern America for racially inflammatory spectacles masquerading as entertainment. And don’t give me the argument that this is free speech. This isn’t free speech. It’s hate speech. And hate speech doesn’t cease to be hate speech just because it’s set to music. Especially when that style of music is rap*.
Now, Mr. Macht Frei follows up this post with a wry little “disclaimer” suggesting that maybe he’s just trolling, ha ha — which would presumably make his post a sort of parody of the things those evil SJWs say when they object to white people playing people of color.
But the point of his post, if we assume it’s meant seriously, is pretty much identical with the stated aim of his blog — “chronicling the Genocide of the European peoples, the greatest crime in all of history.” If that’s not meant as a joke — and there’s no indication that it is — then it’s pretty much impossible for me to believe that his Hamilton post was meant as a joke.
Tellingly, when The Daily Stormer’s Andrew Anglin reposted Diversity Macht Frei’s post on his site, he left off the disclaimer. And his commenters don’t seem to be in on any joke.
“All of the Founding Fathers are played by n***ers while the “bad guy”, King George III, of course remains white,”one Daily Stormer commenter complains. (Asterisks mine.)
“The tide is turning , all can see the black nightmare that is all around us,’ writes another, using the logo of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) as his avatar.
Destroying one city after another. We are going to win but it will cost many lives because of cowards.
Yeah, kind of hard to see the joke here.
@Axe
“Fuck your economic anxiety. That is all.”
What if I told you that when you TRY to be offensive it triggers my “awwww cute 3 year old” more and my “OMG so mad” less. But lets play!
1. Why even bother replying with this when I’ve already addressed it? Go read something, anything, on the economic precariousness of the Middle Class. I don’t find it shocking to find out that Trump supporters are in a position of being financially insecure but unlikely to be recieving government help.
2. Still placed higher than “Gee, I’m a Nazi”.
In other news, average averages are average, yo. Third is still shows a major concern. I never said that billionaires that voted for Trump goodies were voting out of economic insecurity.
Also not surprising that clinton voters are super concerned about the economy.
@mrex
You don’t know me very well. Not that you have any reason to, mind…
I’d rather not
No need
Don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean
@Axe
“You don’t know me very well. Not that you have any reason to, mind…”
Nah, I don’t know you, I don’t claim to know you, and I wasn’t making a sweeping generalization about your personality either. If I had to guess, I would actually imagine you’re a lovely person, and I base this on the fact that every other post of yours that I can remember is generally kind, level-headed, and a pleasure to read. I know this seems weird and almost manipulative to say during an argument, but you roundabout asked, and I’m being sincere.
But I’m done with the games here. If you seem to be fucking with me, I have no problem with the same. Act in good faith, and I’ll try my hardest to do the same for you.*
“No need”
But you have a need. 🙂
Regardless of what you think of me or my opinions on this subject, becoming as knowledgeable as possible on the economic realities (not assumptions) of all classes will make you a better and more effective feminist.
Elizabeth Warren is highly recommened.
“Don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean”
Perhaps actually read the earlier post which you responded to.
*I actually took a break earlier this year because I was getting too angry too fast and being a jerk. I owe some people like PI and kupo apologies.
@mrex
Don’t expect me to accept that apology, especially with how condescending you’re being right now.
@mrex
I’m hardly surprised, given your entire contribution consists of ‘what about the white people ‘, that you are completely ignoring everything being said to you. Trump’s personality, while repugnant, is tangential to the main objection, which is that he is a fascist who plans to fill his cabinet with Nazis and theocrats. This, in addition to killing a considerable number of people, will have an utterly catastrophic effect on the economy. It will destroy the precarious remnants of the middle class, and drive the poor deeper into destitution. In short, white America cut all of our throats because they hate n****rs and b***hes and queers that fucking much. And every last Trump voter can fuck themselves, and I will laugh and gloat at every one of their misfortunes I survive to see
@mrex
What games tho? Forgive me if I feel like you’re having part of this conversation around me instead of with me. What are we playing? Since when was I trying to be offensive? It’s like you’re 3 posts ahead of me. Slow down, yo…
Why does it seem like I’m fucking with you? Like I said, you don’t know me very well. Trust me, there wouldn’t be a ‘seem’. If I were fucking with you, I’d have already made a stupid pun outta your name for 1 thing…
What am I supposed to learn here? What don’t I understand?
I’m pretty lukewarm on her honestly
Which post did I respond to? See what I mean about talking around me
I’m not keeping up with this thread and I’m not reading all the teal deers but, like, didn’t mrex use to be more concise and have a maroon icon? Is this a different mrex or the same one?
@Jack
Icons change sometimes. Nobody seems to know why. A lot of em changed a few months ago for some reason
@Jack
All of the generated icons changed a couple of months back, so that doesn’t mean much. Mrex is still being an obtuse jerk who expects everyone to sympathize with them while they walk all over everyone else with no regard for the damage they do, so I vote same person.
It appears that @mrex and everyone else are talking past each other, perhaps due to mrex’s desire to defend whites against “fuck their economic anxiety”.
I say, whether their economic anxiety ought to be fucked or not, it shall soon be, because Agent Orange cares not a whit for it. I, being a somewhat economically anxious white male myself, find myself agreeing with “fuck their economic anxiety”, because they (Trump supporters) supported probably the worst possible person for it, and because their “economic anxiety” takes a form resembling “Those damn [long string of racial &c. slurs] took all our jobs!!!”, and “economic anxiety” of such a form ought to be fucked.
@Axe @kupo
They changed a few months back? So that explains why my default icon changed from a mint green to an awesome orange one, the best color of all time. Sweet.
But, also, fucking hell mrex what happened. I know I have a shit memory but I remember that you were, you know, not an ass.
Besides, isn’t there some data that shows that the economy actually improves under Democratic policies/presidents as opposed to Republican ones, anyway? Or is that even a thing and just something someone pulled out of their ass and I’m spreading false information? Was any of the peeps here an economist because I think someone is and I don’t remember who.
@Jack
Yep! 2 graphs:
GDP growth
http://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Screen-Shot-2014-08-13-at-10.19.04-AM.jpg
and income growth, separated out by percentile. 20th percentile means the poorest 20%, 95th means all but the richhest 5%
http://indiedesign.typepad.com/2010_images/political_ruminations_2010/stats-charts/slate-income-growth-by-party.gif
(Numbers differ on that one somewhat but not significantly)
ETA: This doesn’t really take into account Republican Presidents with Dem legislatures and vice versa. Plenty of things to tease out, but it’s a good start point
@mrex
Here’s a couple of links for you :
Don’t Chase the “White Working Class” Vote
How Racism Explains America’s Class Divide and Culture of Economic Cruelty (An Excerpt from Under the Affluence)
@Jack
Yes. Republicans are terrible for the economy.
@Axe
So it’s definitely not economic anxiety, at least to the informed voter.
And also I don’t think anyone who is actually worry about the economy would vote for someone who has filed for bankruptcy at least five times and is famous for having failed business ventures, you know, just saying. You don’t even need to research Donald Dump for that, it’s been chronicalized in tabloid news and made prominent in pop culture for years, decades even.
So, like, def not money troubles.
There, I contributed.
I know my dad voted for Dump because he wanted him to “tear down the system”.
I guess bankruptcy is one way. Hope my dad enjoys the pension and Social Security while it lasts.
@Axe re the income graph:
It’s also telling that the greatest income growth rates under Republican presidents are in the highest income percentile. Interestingly, even that is lower than the Democratic presidents’ income growth rates for all percentiles, including the highest.
Where do these graphs come from?
@Jack
Trump voters and informed voters don’t form a Venn diagram with a lotta overlap
@Laugher
The GDP one comes from Princeton economists Blinder and Watson via the Economist
The income one is from Princeton poli scientist Bartels via Slate
Again, there’s more going on than just what the graphs show. Confounding factors and all that. Still, Dem Presidents have shown to be better for the economy under at least those 2 metrics
http://67.media.tumblr.com/eeea11373c2f3c5577fc3376a3aab24b/tumblr_nkib82XpEp1uojoiko1_500.jpg
Why do you feel the need to police the way people talk about things?
Why is it so important to you that we coddle us white people’s feelings, instead of be fucking blunt about it? Why do my feelings as a white person take precedence over how PoC are getting the shit kicked out of them by decisions based in part in racism?
We need to be uncomfortable. It’s from that fucking discomfort that we decide to make a change.
We don’t need to be coddling us white people’s feelings when it comes to racism. We white people need to learn to focus on other people who aren’t white.
Except they fucking are.
Or at the very least, they are okay with Trump being an open fucking racist.
Trump ran on a platform of racism. He promised a wall along our southern border, he called Latinx people “rapists”, he’s putting literal neo-nazis in prominent positions, and he’s threatening to put a Muslim registry in place, and one of his men cited Japanese internment camps as a precedent for this.
He’s not shy about his fucking bigotry. It was a huge part of his platform.
If you voted for Trump, despite all of this being out in the open, then you’re either racist, or fucking okay with racism. Either way, you don’t get to claim you’re a good person who doesn’t hate PoC.
If you read that John Scalzi link I posted (and I sincerely doubt you did), the metaphor goes like this:
You want HBO, so you call your cable/satellite provider and ask for it. They say it’s only available if you get it in a bundle with Cinemax.
You agree to get the bundle, so you have HBO.
So, in this situation, are you or are you not subscribed to Cinemax?
You can say you’re not, but you’re paying for it. It’s on your bill. You can access it at any time, even if you don’t.
So, you were okay with getting Cinemax if it meant you got HBO.
If you voted for Trump, you were okay with racism.
That’s not the only reason a lot of Trump supporters are awful, but it’s A HUGE FUCKING REASON that needs to be addressed.
Again, you vote for the loud and proud racist, you are at the very least okay with racism.
But you can learn to recognize those unconscious actions or beliefs and, in time, learn to correct them.
You have the ability to do that.
Because regardless of your gender, it’s really fucking rude and condescending, especially when you march in here and decide to be the fucking Tone Police.
Okay, so why do we need to “accept responsibility” for an open fucking racist and the bigots who support him and a broken electoral college system that got him elected?
A lot of the shit that happened was out of our hands. We could only promote the issues ourselves and vote the way we had to.
Like making it glaringly obvious that Trump’s a fucking fascist who is hiring other fascists and bigots to his cabinet?
Why was this a bad idea? Informing people on how shitty Trump was was a huge eye-opener for a lot of people and actually swayed a lot of Republicans to cross party lines.
Like Trump’s racist ideas of a Muslim registry and a wall along our southern border?
Again, I fail to see how pointing out Trump is a fucking fascist is equivalent to “focusing on his personality” or an “ad hominem” or not worthy of mention. It’s a blatant statement of facts.
Gawd. Can I call for Mrex’s banning yet?
Nope, she’s been an ass for as long as I’ve been posting. She’s just been more blatant about it since she decided to vote for the Hell Toupee.
And don’t even bother pretending that you didn’t vote for him, Mrex. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have spent several days and thousands of words hand-wringing about #NOTALLTRUMPVOTERS.
Dude uses an actual Holocaust death camp slogan as his screen name, but thinks “genocide” is something to do with theatrical casting decisions.
Okaaaaay.
@Paradoxy
Exactly! This right here is the entire point of feminism. If this weren’t true, we wouldn’t have the vote, it wouldn’t be illegal* to pay us a lower wage, we wouldn’t be making progress with getting doctors to take our concerns seriously, etc. We still have a ways to go, but that fight is all around exposing the general populace to their unconscious biases and teaching them how to overcome them.
Mrex, this is an example of your own unconscious bias that you can change. I know because I did it myself! See, girl means female child, similar to how boy means male child. Both of these terms are/have been used to infantalize marginalized people. In the case of “boy”, it’s now recognized that it really bad for a white man to call a black man this. It can also be bad for a black man to call another black man this because it’s still a weapon of that same oppressive system and if it’s used in that way it’s still racist.
Referring to women as girls is another way that a marginalized group is infantilized. Before you say it, yes, it’s different. The way that women are marginalized is different, so of course the feeling behind their infantilization is different. And it’s still not seen by the majority as a negative. It’s still mainstream to use “girl” as a common shorthand for woman. But if you read this blog you know the type of thinking that’s based in. Women are considered to have the intellectual capacity of a child by a frightening number of men. That used to be more widespread, and that’s where the language usage comes from. That level of conscious thought is now much smaller, but there’s still an amount of unconscious bias that influences us when making decisions about the people around us that says women are less intellectual than men. I see it in job interviews where the male candidate is deemed as stronger in technical ability than the female candidate despite her performance being equal or even stronger. The language we use reinforces this.
You can help change this in yourself in a number of ways. Every time you find yourself calling a woman, “girl”, ask yourself why you picked that term. Try to use “woman” instead. This will take time and feel awkward. It’s hard to change our speech patterns. Also, every time you find yourself evaluating a woman’s (or girl’s) intellectual capabilities, quantify your impressions. Too often we take the shortcut of forming conclusions based on impressions without questioning them. We need to start asking ourselves why we evaluated someone the way we did. Was it their actual performance or was it their mannerisms or could we have been influenced by unconscious bias? It’s hard to do this, by the way. Really, really hard. And we already think we’re doing this, so that makes it harder. That’s why we need to quantify, because if we can’t give a solid reason for our impression, it’s probably formed out of something unconscious. This applies to all marginalized groups, by the way, not just women.
@axe
“Forgive me if I feel like youre having part of this conversation around me instead of with me. What are we playing? Since when was I trying to be offensive? Its like youre 3 posts ahead of me. Slow down, you ”
Well, I wrote a whole teal deer on why “fuck your economic anxiety” is a extremely confusing way of saying “I’m very frustrated that you voted in someone who will be so bad for the economy”, and sounds more like “you have no economic concerns”. And then you responded with little more than “fuck your economic anxiety”.
So I thought you were trying to be offensive.
Again;
“I, being a somewhat economically anxious white male myself, find myself agreeing with fuck their economic anxiety, because they (Trump supporters) supported probably the worst possible person for it, and because their economic anxiety takes a form resembling Those damn [long string of racial &c. slurs] took all our jobs!!!, and economic anxiety of such a form ought to be fucked.”-Laughter at Bigots
Again, why not just say “fuck your racism”? Even if they were using economic anxiety solely as a cover for racism, why allow them to confuse the issues? “Fuck your racism” is direct and can’t be misconstrued.
@PI
“Why is it so important to you that we coddle us white peoples feelings, instead of be fucking blunt about it? Why do my feelings as a white person take precedence over how PoC are getting the shit kicked out of them by decisions based in part in racism?”
We don’t need to coddle white people’s feelings when it comes to racism. We do need to be blunt.* We do need to feel uncomfortable. But “fuck your economic anxiety” isn’t a blunt statement against racism, it’s a dismissal of the economic concerns of economically fragile whites.
@Dali
“Im hardly surprised, given your entire contribution consists of what about the white people , “
Uh, unless “white people” is synonymous with “economically fragile white women** living on the edge of bankruptcy”, I most certainly am not.
Intersectionality!
Also Dali, I am listening to you, fuck, I MOSTLY AGREE WITH YOU, just not your scale.
You listed many very good points. Yes, go out and talk about those, and not about how the ENTIRE white working/middle class, as a whole, are a bunch of Nazis that deserve pain because they’re members of a group that skews Republican. (Yes, including the ones that are Democratic, or queer, or whatever.)
Generalizing entire groups is wrong, yah?
I haven’t gotten to finish reading your links further than skimming them, so I’ll wait to respond to the rest. Just trying to keep this shorter and shoot this off before the day starts. I’ll think about the criticisms that I’m being condescending as well. It certainly is not my intent to hurt people. I honestly didn’t think I was doing so.
Kupo, I’m not expecting/looking for sympathy. I don’t think I deserve sympathy here, nor do I really want it. I’m looking more for people’s better natures, their sense of moral justice.
@PI
“Again, I fail to see how pointing out Trump is a fucking fascist is equivalent to focusing on his personality or an ad hominem or not worthy of mention. Its a blatant statement of facts.”
Nah, “Trump is a fascist” is an opinion, one we share, but still just an interpretation of facts. Honestly, you overestimate how informed most Trump voters are. Say “alt-right” to the average Fox-News Trump voter and you’ll get a blank stare.
Only like what, 30% of Americans even read newspapers at all. Maybe they watch their favorite cable “news” show. Asking them to consume multiple different sources of information from all different sides of the spectrum? Yeah, not happening.
This is what I mean by focusing on the issues. Who, what, when, etc. Trump is obviously skilled at impression management.
“Okay, so why do we need to “accept responsibility” for an open fucking racist and the bigots who support him and a broken electoral college system that got him elected?”
No I’m we need to accept responsibility for the failed campain strategy that got Nazi Angry Orange elected. You can’t honestly argue that it didn’t fail?
As to the electoral college, we’ve had arguments about getting rid of it for hundreds of years. I want it gone, but I’m not holding my breath.
Has anyone posted Trump calling the electoral college “undemocratic” on twitter several years back?
@SFHC
“And don’t even bother pretending that you didn’t vote for him, Mrex. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have spent several days and thousands of words hand-wringing about #NOTALLTRUMPVOTERS.”
Eh, considering your history of “arguments” consist entirely of insults and strawmanning me with things I explicitly said I don’t support, why should I be surprised now? Actually, this one may be wrong, but it isn’t completely intellectually dishonest. Good job. You’re making progress.
(“Credit” goes to forcing me into a position of overclarifying things to the point of pissing people off. Good job!!!)
Let me give you another explaination; I get pissed when people call my older family members Nazis. Especially since some of them voted for both Obama AND Trump. Shocking, I know.
Alright, I give up. You’re absolutely hopeless because you both don’t care to understand and because you’re trying to claim that because of intersectionality you somehow don’t count as white and don’t have white privilege. You’re trying to use our language against us without bothering to understand it.
mrex, your entire argument is tone-based, with occasional overtones of concern trolling. Are you actually here in good faith? If you are, it might interest you to know that I can’t fucking tell, and neither can many other people here. If you want to be perceived as someone arguing in good faith, the tone that needs to be moderated might be yours.
@mrex
That’s not what ‘fuck your economic anxiety’ means. I watched the hashtag develop, on Black Twitter(tm) but also elsewhere. Fuck it, it started before the election, so it’s obvs not about how people actually voted. That’s OK, lemme splain it to you:
I’m frustrated that, when bigots finagle their way into electing a man who has promised to hurt me and mine, White Liberals(tm) show up to tell me not to be so mad. I’m frustrated that, as always, PoC, LGBT+ folks, immigrants, etc are being asked to build bridges that the people who hate them are never expected to build. I’m frustrated that people keep saying that the Dems/’left’/whatevs lost when seats were gained in both houses and the popular vote spread now exceeds 2.5m. I’m frustrated that the ‘economic anxiety’ of rural white people is so often seen as more important than the struggle of marginalized groups simply to live. I’m frustrated that all this is done while those aforementioned bigots demonstrably didn’t care nearly as much about their damn ‘economic anxiety’ as they did their hatred of brown people. So, fuck your ‘economic anxiety’. My empathy has limits, and those people don’t deserve my effort
So you think people are mad, cos you were forced to overclarify? Not that your opinion is bad? Not that you can’t refrain from condescending assery? You can’t even own up to it without shifting blame. This sentence is just… All ya problems, right there, in a few words
Every time someone gets into this shit, guaranteed they’re protecting them and theirs’ feelings. Every time. And every time, it’s some weak ass shit