Utilitarian Review 2/6/16

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On HU

Featured Archive Post: Emily Thomas on new text adventure games.

Ng Suat Tong on We Stand on Guard and Brian K. Vaughan’s hackishness.

David James reviews Rich Scranton’s book on global catastrophe.

Chris Gavaler on drawing words in comics.

Me with a review of the documentary Caucus.

Robert Stanley Martin with on sale dates for comics from March/April 1952.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Guardian I argued that aesthetics needs to consider racism.

At the Establishment I wrote about Orientalism, Beyonce, and that crappy Coldplay video.

At Playboy I wrote about DeRay Mckesson’s Baltimore mayoral bid and black lives matter’s willingness to try new tactics.

At Splice Today I wrote about

Be Steadwell’s Jaded Dark Love Songs and queer sadness.

—how the Republican establishment seems to be doing fine.
 
Other Links

Ta-Nehisi Coates on pragmatism and reparations.

Avital Norman Nathman and Deborah Wage on frightening expectant mothers for profit.

29 thoughts on “Utilitarian Review 2/6/16

  1. Black performers adopting orientalism is perfectly acceptable. Many Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh texts show that Black people were part of the Asian continent. There were Asiatic Black People in ancient times.

    Black performers are not appropriating Asian tropes but highlighting a little used and known;(in the west anyway)part of Black culture.

  2. I think that’s not exactly right. There are certainly black people in many parts of Asia, but that doesn’t really get at the dynamic when black people who aren’t Asian use Orientalism in various ways.

  3. I think we are going to disagree on who is Asian. Is Bobby Sindell still Asian, or is he American now. I’d say Beyoncé comes from a race that once populated Asia. It’s enough for me.

  4. Identities are always porous and constructed. But white people have lived everywhere on the globe as well; I don’t think that gives Coldplay a free pass to treat India as a tourist playground.

  5. White people have lived in India but are not from India originally. Black people are. I think there is a difference.

  6. This does not make me an authority but I’m from Pakistan, which was a part of India before partition and I would say they are the same.

  7. No one’s from anywhere “originally” pretty much. I guess humans (who were black) originated in Africa, but everything else is about migration.

    Anyway, it’s not about genetics or skin color or whose naturally which. It’s about cultural difference. Beyoncé’s culture is not India’s culture; when she pretends to be from India, she’s pretending. It’s a way, way different vibe than when she situates herself in Southern black culture for Formation.

  8. Africans migrated to India at the same time, maybe before brown skinned Indians. And yes they were black.

    How about if Beyoncé was a Buddhist. The Buddha was Indian but many Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan etc are not. Are they appropriating.

  9. This is the problem, here. It’s not about appropriation, or at least not only about appropriation. it’s about whether the video is using racist, Orientalist tropes in a stupid way. It is.

  10. I liked it. She looked great. Should’ve been in it more. Nice to see a black person as a goddess, which we don’t see enough of. As sex objects we do but not as divinity. I wish she didn’t have blonde hair but she’s had it awhile so it’s cool.

    If that video had a white women in her role I would’ve had a problem. As it is I’m cool with it.

  11. Man, it’s almost like there’s a fundamental divide between people who dislike racist tropes, per se, and people who basically dislike certain races.

  12. Just cause I don’t like racist tropes doesn’t mean I’m a racist.

    Jesus gets depicted as a white man when he was black. Not liking that doesn’t mean I’m racist.

  13. In your conversation with Noah, it seems to me that he’s the one who doesn’t like racist tropes. You seem to dislike something else.

    As for the other thing, hate to sound sleazy, but tease me, I don’t want it if it’s that easy.

  14. Evidently some number of races including but not necessarily limited to white people.

  15. To be clear, that’s MY interpetation of the above conversation (which is correct), and should absolutely NOT be taken as an attempt to represent Noah, who certainly won’t agree with me.

  16. I don’t hate whites. I’m listening to Chet Baker right now.

    Which other races are you talking about?

  17. None necessarily. I can’t guess how you feel about races you haven’t talked about here.

  18. I do not agree – but then, who cares? Racism is like big business – if everybody who thinks they’re against it was correct, it wouldn’t exist.

  19. I said you dislike white people. That’s a race. Maybe you dislike others too, maybe not. I don’t have enough information to guess one way or the other.

  20. I just told you I like Chet Baker and was complimenting a Coldplay video. Do you know what color they are.

  21. sooo…I think we’ve maybe gone off the rails a bit. If you want to keep talking about the video, that’s fine, but if we’re going to go back and forth with jabs then I’m probably going to close the thread.

  22. I’ve just now watched the video for the first time. It has a problem, but not what you (Noah) say, and not racial. It’s that it’s half about how rock stars are Jesus, which is at this point sad as well as idiotic.

    Your (Noah’s) piece would doubtless have been great if it hadn’t been ruined from the first word by latent Foucauldian latent machismo (penetrating, good; being penetrated, bad).

  23. Two latents! Oh no!

    I…don’t think that’s Foucault’s machismo? Foucault has feminist problems, but I don’t know that metaphors of penetration are the thing.

    Be that as it may, I’m comfortable maintaining that imperialism and poverty porn are substantially more dangerous than enthusiasm for rock stars (to the extent the two can be separated in this instance.)

  24. Well obviously you’re not going to be actively Foucauldian.

    “Poverty porn” – see, there you go: the rich are looking at the poor, so it’s bad. Calling the video “imperialism” – now that essentially is poverty porn: The rich look at poor people to feel vicariously authentic without the discomfort of actually being poor; we deconstruct music videos to feel vicariously anti-imperialist without the discomfort of doing anything that would actually scare, oh, let’s say, these people: http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/bill-and-hillary-clinton-“friends-haiti”

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