You know that racism has peaked and is on the downslope in the US...

[WCGreen]

The best barometer of this phenomena is now, and it's more and more, black guys are being made to look as silly and inept and beer crazed as white guys in just about every beer commercial.

Cell phone commercials are also adding their equalizing themes of making all guys, no matter which hue of their skin, look ridiculous. It's pretty much across the product spectrum. Any company with a product that feels that the best way to sell it's ware, will use the hapless guy, be he black, yellow, red or white in skin tone, as the foil.

Toss in the all knowing woman, of which ever skin hue, and you see that the clock is ticking on racism in America...

[Rosemary2205]

1. snort

yeah, who cares if the majority of people in jail are black. predominantly black school districts are starved of money and resources, and job opportunities in predominantly black neighborhoods are all but non-existant. Since we can put drunk black guys in commercials that means racism has magically gone away! Woohoo!

[WCGreen]

4. It's gotta start some place...

And I didn't say it was over.

I said it has peaked and more and more people aren't racist.

[SoCalDem]

8. it's because of our kids..and sports

Has the torch been passed? I am getting hopeful here..

Posted by SoCalDem in General Discussion
Tue Feb 12th 2008, 04:33 PM

That said, I am a white 58 year old woman, so maybe I am missing something.

I saw it with my own kids, but I attributed it to the color-blind upbringing we gave them..

My youngest son's first real girlfriend was a young girl with a Black Mother and a Japanese Dad.. In May he is marrying a girl whose Father was born in Mexico and who picked cotton as a young man in the San Joaquin Valley. His future mother in law did not learn English until she was a teenager.


All I see in the "parsing" of politics, is the "groups" and who they support, or who they do not support.

Some people (there's that phrase again ..) say that white men will not vote for a black man or that Hispanic people will not vote for a black person or that "older women" will only vote for this one or that one.

If what we are seeing is what I think we are seeing, just maybe people have moved beyond that narrowminded groupthink.

There will always be a hardcore bigoted bunch of yahoos scattered here and there who will not see what is happening, but for the most part, I think we may be getting somewhere.

What made it happen?

I hate to think this might be it, but it just MAY be sports..

Think about it..

Kids idolize sports people..no matter what color they are..no matter what language they speak, no matter where they were born..

Young kids play on sports teams with kids of every ethnic group.

Technically, school integration started the ball rolling, but until kids accepted each other as true equals (often as teammates who counted on each other to win games), there was still resistance.

When kids play together and make friends, they hang out together, their parents sit on the sidelines and cheer for each other's kids..

They shop together, they travel together, meet each other's families...and once the "otherness" barriers come down, they date and marry each other.

A natural consequence of this is the fact that MANY white people of my age group have mixed-race grandchildren. It takes a cold hearted person to continue to hate and fear, when they transfer those feelings to THEIR grand children and sons & daughters-in-law.

When people only think ONE way for a long time, it's hard to see a gradual change, but I find it deliciously ironic, that those little kids who had to have the military to help them even get inside of a "white school" were just the bud, of a flower that seems to be in full bloom...

I'm happy to be around to see it..no matter how much "fertilizer" it took to grow that thing

[Tangerine LaBamba]

23. Oh, child, you're beautifully naive

You ain't seen nothin' yet in terms of racism.

Wait until the general election.

[dkf]

9. I'm thinking it comes more out of being economically disadvantaged...

Any white/asian/hispanic person coming out of those same circumstances would have a tough time too.

Looking at society, it seems to me that the only race that can't be President is probably an Asian person because we simply don't have the numbers as a significant voting block.

[terrell9584]

26. the problem there is not racial

it's rooted in economic circumstances. Or to put it another way, the poor white kid growing up in the trailer park gets no advantage whatsoever in admission points for affirmative action......and they should. It's time for the program to be overhauled to focus on class because fundamentally, there is no difference between the poor white kid growing in West Virginia and a poor black kid growing up in the Black Belt. The only difference is skin color. Putting this yet another way, if you come from a well adjusted two-parent home and you have recieved the best education that this country has to offer and your family takes trips to Europe every year, you should not qualify for any preferential admission other than that based on merit

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. I can only hope you're right...

[BlooInBloo]

3. Always good for white folks to tell black folks that racism is on the way out.

EDIT: I'm sure they'll take that under advisement.

[WCGreen]

5. It is on the way out.

When I was a child it was unthinkable that a black man could run for president.

When I was a little older, Carl Stokes became Mayor of Cleveland.

Now that I am middle aged, I see a man of color about to win the nomination of a major party.

You tell me that isn't progress.

The commercial reference was meant to be slightly tongue in cheek.

[BlooInBloo]

10. (shrug) If I were black, I would interpret the statement as nothing more...

than white folks being self-congratulatory, and preparing the groundwork to say that black folks are being "oversensitive" and "playing the race card" in the future.

Hell, I'm white and I still interpret the statement that way. Why? Because that's how white folks typically use the statement.

[WCGreen]

13. Good for you....

Because that's not how I see.

I'm so sorry you are that cynical.

[BlooInBloo]

14. No, no, no. The word is "oversensitive", not "cynical". Get it right.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

6. Yeah, like women get SUCH a good deal out of this cliche.

The "all knowing woman" is also, almost invariably, thin and attractive. Because lord knows no man, no matter what he looks like himself, should EVER have to be with a non-hot woman. Heaven forfend! She also has no life or interests outside of being this grown man's mommy. If they are not married, she is, of course, desperately yearning for the Big Commitment from the guy, whereas he can take or leave her. The reason for this is that all males loathe relationships and must be dragged kicking and screaming down the aisle by some naggy female. Which is too bad because, as the ads and TV shows would have you believe, there is an ever-present line of similarly hot thin young women lining up around the block to vie to be the caretaker of a non-physically preposessing overgrown adolescent like him.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. I don't know if you're kidding with this or not ........

.... but the fact is, you're right.

People making national product commercials would rather chew off their own toes than slight a group of potential customers. That fact that showing people as foolish, without regard to skin color (actually, very much **with** regard in the sense that it is now okay to do so) is indicative of the country having taken more than a few huge steps forward.

[WCGreen]

12. Kind of kidding...

But it's been happening for awhile.

They obviosly aren't affending the younger men that they are trying to reach.

Nothing like beer and sports to make grown men bond and act silly together.

[avenger64]

11. I don't know. I think as long as there are guys like Jeremiah Wright or ...

... Louis Farrakhan around, I think it's too early to say racism is dead.

[blondeatlast]

15. Louis Farrakhan? I haven't heard about him in well over a decade!

Damn, I need to make use of my gift subscription to People Weekly, apparently...


/jk

[avenger64]

16. No, he's out there, still kickin' ....

... here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9e2vvGQMrg

"Brothers and sisters, this peaceful coexistence with the murderers of our people has got to stop."

[blondeatlast]

21. If Farrakhan bothers you; please for the love of God avoid the RRRepubliKKKan Party.

Thank you--I'm only concerned for your delicate welfare...

[avenger64]

22. Don't worry - I'm stayin' away from them, too.

Thanks for your concern. Means a lot.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

17. He didn't say racism is dead...

He said it was on the downslope...

Less prevalent...

[BlooInBloo]

18. For a more informed view, rather than the typical self-congratulatory one...

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/18/14591/7928/655/517016

An excellent article on both racism and sexism.

[WCGreen]

24. Look I'm a fifty year old man and I can tell you that this country is

far less racist than it was when I was growing up.

I also recognize that we, in the collective, have a long way to go.

[BlooInBloo]

25. Have fun congratulating yourself.

[blondeatlast]

19. Disagree completely. The MSM and the sell-you-crap biz (advertising) has nothing whatsoever

to do with the real world. My husband has brown skin and I see the racism all the damn time, even from people who will swear up and down they aren't racists.

[Quantess]

20. TV commercials, the great equalizer.

This sort of reminds me of a stupid commercial I saw last night. It was a woman hitting a man on the forehead, complete with a sound effect to let you know he was being hit pretty hard, at least 4 times. All because he shoula had a V-8.

Can you imagine if the roles were reversed, and the man was punching the woman in the head? There's no way. Oh, but it's a woman hitting a man on the head, so that's somehow cute and funny. That was the stupidest commercial I have seen in a long time. I actually am considering writing a letter to V-8 to complain.