The SE suburbs must be reeling!

[jp1]

So, here are two stories about me--a racist. I don't think of myself as a racist. I try in my conscious mind to see everyone as I see myself, with all the virtues, gifts and talents available to all humans.

Story 1: In 1989 I was a substitute teacher, called in to sub for a high school English teacher. There were two Asian girls in the front row, and a laconic, long-haired white kid slumped in the back row, focused on his desktop (there were no cell phones then). During the discussion, the Asian girls constantly had their hands up; the boy in the back was like cellophane. I gave the writing assignment left for me by the teacher and gave them the allotted time to write, and at the end of it, I asked them to pass them in. My subconscious mind expected to see exemplary results from the Asians, and hardly anything of value from the kid in the back. To my surprise, the writings of the boy in the back far exceeded the writings of the two Asian girls. I was ashamed of myself.

Story 2: Just last week, I had interviews with both patients and doctors on the topic of oncology. I didn't look at my schedule immediately before hand, When the first interviewee came on the Zoom call, I made a subnational assumption that he was the patient. Thankfully I quickly referred to my schedule and saw he was actually the doctor. I was ashamed of myself.

How do you think it works when people who truly try as hard as they can NOT to be racist harbor these preconceptions? It's not their fault--it's how our brains work-- making faulty connections with shreds of past memories and connections, as well as the primal need to categorize people as part of one's own "tribe"--or not.

What happens to the Asians, the boy in the back and the Black doctor when most of society is seeing a different reality through no real fault of their own? If you are the dominant culture, and you are depending upon your conscious, rational mind to see and treat everyone as the same, it is likely you may not be seeing Rogar's "germs" and you are not being self-aware enough to recognize that your unintended, unconscious bias does have an impact on how society treats others.

That unintended prejudging does cut across all races, genders, etc., but it is the responsibility of the majority to factor in the reality of their own blinders in terms of how they perceive others, because if the majority doesn't pay attention, there can't be true equality.

This. I haven't talked about it on my "old music" thread because I don't want to hijack my own thread but two of the songs I've presented have interesting"ism" issues involving the performers as part of the songs' history. With the C&C Music Factory songs I presented a few months ago, "Strike It Up" being the bigger hit, Martha Wash was the lead singer. In the video they used someone else as her because Martha was too zaftig for the producers and as such she didn't make as much money as the woman who was in the video pretending to sing the song. In the other, which I presented yesterday, Funkytown, they made the video with a white woman instead Cynthia Johnson, the black woman who actually sang the song. Again, the actual musical artist got screwed out of a lot of money. The difference between the two situations is that Cynthia Johnson, who recorded her song in the late 70's, just let it go because she didn't think there was anything she could do about it. Martha Wash, who recorded her songs in the early 90's didn't and fought them in court. She didn't get any money out of it but she did get a settlement that required disclaimers on videos of the songs noting that that she, and not the lipsyncher, was the actual vocalist on the songs. So based on these two random examples, which may or may not be representative of how things are overall, things are getting better. But both are reminders that we make judgements based on our external perceptions of others, often involuntarily. The producers of the videos for both those songs knew that and made the decisions to use fake singers as a result.

[iris lilies]

This. I haven't talked about it on my "old music" thread because I don't want to hijack my own thread but two of the songs I've presented have interesting"ism" issues involving the performers as part of the songs' history. With the C&C Music Factory songs I presented a few months ago, "Strike It Up" being the bigger hit, Martha Wash was the lead singer. In the video they used someone else as her because Martha was too zaftig for the producers and as such she didn't make as much money as the woman who was in the video pretending to sing the song. In the other, which I presented yesterday, Funkytown, they made the video with a white woman instead Cynthia Johnson, the black woman who actually sang the song. Again, the actual musical artist got screwed out of a lot of money. The difference between the two situations is that Cynthia Johnson, who recorded her song in the late 70's, just let it go because she didn't think there was anything she could do about it. Martha Wash, who recorded her songs in the early 90's didn't and fought them in court. She didn't get any money out of it but she did get a settlement that required disclaimers on videos of the songs noting that that she, and not the lipsyncher, was the actual vocalist on the songs. So based on these two random examples, which may or may not be representative of how things are overall, things are getting better. But both are reminders that we make judgements based on our external perceptions of others, often involuntarily. The producers of the videos for both those songs knew that and made the decisions to use fake singers as a result.

Victoria’s Secret famously embraced diversity in their models beginning about the year 2021? after their chief designer stated categorically he would never design for a size 14 model.

They just as famously abandoned that business decision late last year because their sales plummeted and stockholders complained.

My personal opinion is that they could have size 14-16 well proportioned models as well as their stick insect models to sell their cheap undergarments and still claim some woke space, but for the super heavy ladies modeling, they won’t be doing that at Victorias Secret.

Some of the body positive activists have died anyway. Health problems related to obesity.