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Thx Geraly! “It started as an inside joke — good-natured racial banter in the privacy of the locker room between a black assistant coach and a group of white players on the USC football team…He called them the “White Nation.” It was a tribute.”
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Thx Geraly! ” A tip sheet for managers supervising Filipino workers in the oilfield has enraged members of the community, who say it describes them in terms used by dog breeders…’the Filipino is basically of Malay stock with a sprinkling of Chinese, Ame
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The title says it all
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Thx Kyla! “he also stood out because he was a white man greeted by a roomful of black New Yorkers embracing him as a long-lost member of their family…“Meet your DNA cousins,” Ms. Higginsen yelled to her relatives.”
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Thx nosnowhere! “300″ is the name of an irresponsible, unethical and unscientific movie which portraits Persian Empire kings and soldiers as monsters and animals with body-piercing, armors, facial features and demonic behavior that seem to have sprung out
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Thx Kyla! “”On the Road in America” debuted earlier this year on the Saudi Arabian-owned satellite channel MBC. It follows four young Arabs — three men and a woman — as they travel from Washington, D.C., to California to discover the “real” America.”
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Adrianna wrote:
300 is based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel who is very loose on history. It’s not meant to be taken as an historical piece at all. So yes it’s all wrong because that Miller intended.
Posted 16 Mar 2007 at 3:40 pm ¶
TheBends wrote:
I can sympathise a little with all this 300 talk, as I felt somewhat similar watching say Braveheart or The Patriot. To be honest though, the whole thing looks a little bit silly and melodramatic to me (the movie I mean). Stands to reason I suppose, as its commented above, its more a work of fiction than a historical interpretation.
Posted 16 Mar 2007 at 6:35 pm ¶
drydock wrote:
While I don´t really know much about the history surrounding the movie 300, I´m wondering why a movie about “Persian Empire Kings and soldiers” is being catergorized under Arab Movie stereotypes. Am I missing something?
Posted 17 Mar 2007 at 1:08 pm ¶
kim wrote:
On USC football:
Matthew’s introductory statement belies any unsuspecting outcry, or claims of uninteded racist intent:
“This group is not for the faint of heart. All members are athletes of Caucasion [sic] descent…. We are just doing our duty of protecting the Arian (sic) brotherhood.”
Where’s the funny here? He’s not planning strategy on the field is he?
Posted 18 Mar 2007 at 12:02 am ¶
kim wrote:
On Black Angus:
yeah, yeah. so what. just proves what we always knew, know, and don’t want to know.
let’s see what happens at Christmas morning service, 11 a.m.
Posted 18 Mar 2007 at 12:04 am ¶
Arr! Eek Ehn? wrote:
In the most stringent technical sense, you’re absolutely right drydock, Iran would not take kindly to the title of Arabic. But in the mainstream sense and realizing that most Americans can’t beat a fifth grader in history, we’ve conscripted that term to apply broadly to anyone from the region of the Middle East. It’s like Judaism, where you can be a Jew without following the religion. The generic mainstream definition has taken it to the level of broadly describing an ethnic culture. In the same way, Arabic has lost its specificity as a indicator of a particular language and culture, into anyone who follows Islam and lives in the area of the Middle East. Many Muslims get caught under that blanket statement of being Arabic even if technically they aren’t. Is it wrong to use the label of Arabic so generically? Most definitely if you’re a historian or a Persian. But yes and no if you’re the regular American citizen. You want to converse in terms that are equally understood by the average person, however you don’t want to re-define the term (re-defining correctly even) to such an extent that you fall out of the conversation with the mainstream. It’s an ignorance that’s too ingrained to do much about — that’s how mainstream thought operates, by being overly generic. Most people can’t recite the Bill of Rights from memory (or the tend commandments for that matter), issues they tend to get all weepy eyed over. So it’s doubtful you’ll ever get the mainstream of America to sit down and comprehend the intricate history surrounding the Middle East.
Posted 18 Mar 2007 at 10:45 am ¶
Nadia wrote:
what? the term “arab” has not been conscripted to apply generally to anyone from the middle east. maybe you are thinking of the term “middle eastern?” cultural ignorance and american ethnocentricism is not a good reason to use the word “arab” to describe a persian. it’s not the same thing as colloquial meanings vs. traditional meanings, like in the cases of the words liberal and conservative, etc. just because you’re average american can’t tell an arab from a persian from a sikh from a pakistani doesn’t mean that from now on they will all be called arabs.
arabs should concern themselves with the stereotypes in the film because, for the reasons already covered, they will be associated with the persians in the film. but most peoples who have spent large parts of their histories fighting with another group do not want to be constantly identified as that group. there are plenty of non-arab ethnic groups throughout the middle east (turkish, kurdish, circassian, persian, etc), and while we have a lot in common, using “arab” as a catch-all for these groups denies them their own uniqueness, plus reinforces arab supremacy in the region.
Posted 19 Mar 2007 at 9:56 am ¶
Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:
My bad – was using that as a catch-all term. I’ll take the tag off. Any suggestions for a better tag?
Posted 19 Mar 2007 at 10:33 am ¶
Nadia wrote:
i think middle-eastern is a better catch-all term. but i want to be clear, i don’t have any issue with the link being tagged “arab,” because i think these issues are relevant to arabs as well, i just want all the non-arabs to get their recognition.
Posted 19 Mar 2007 at 11:24 am ¶
drydock wrote:
I couldn’t think of good tag. Movie stereotypes is perhaps too broad. I saw a writer at Asia Times use the term Persianphobia to describe the movie, but I think it misses the larger clash of civilizations element that the movie seems to be promoting (though I haven’t seen it). Middle Eastern stereotypes seems better but even there groups like Sikhs and Afghans aren’t really middle eastern but are stereotyped that way.
Maybe a tag with clash of civilizations?
Posted 19 Mar 2007 at 8:21 pm ¶
drydock wrote:
Also while American ethnocentrism certainly creates some big blindspots, I would say that American culture is pretty anti-intellectual. People here don’t know much history, geography or internatonal political events, including those on the left side of the political spectrum. Not too long ago (the 1980’s) about a millon people were killed in the Iraq-Iran war, which probably could also be described as a Persian-Arab war.
Posted 19 Mar 2007 at 8:40 pm ¶
Burs wrote:
The blogger, Aradhana D (http://leftistlooneylunch.blogspot.com/) has a really strong critique of 300 up.
Posted 19 Mar 2007 at 10:40 pm ¶
nadia wrote:
orientalist stereotypes?
it seems like our language hasn’t caught up with the things we want to talk about. central asia, south asia, and north africa are so closely related to the middle east. the stereotypes of one group–when shown on screen in the western world–definately have bearing on the others. is orientalism still what’s going on here? western countries are still invading and occupying these areas on the grounds that their women are oppressed, that their people are “uncivilized,” and that they need westerners to come in and modernize them. these areas and their peoples are still exotified as well. neo-orientalism?
Posted 20 Mar 2007 at 10:30 am ¶