Shoutbox

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Originally posted by Th3rmal
Whoever finds that racist, obviously havent been in Australia long enough to realise that racism isnt really an issue here.
Why? because we know that whoever is making the "racist" joke isnt serious, and its just a bit of fun; which frankly 95% of the people who I see can handle.

In my school, we have a diverse board of students. Whites, blacks, asians, etc etc, you name it, weve got it. Yet we never have a problem with racism. We recently got our year 12 t-shirts and were allowed to put a nickname on it; and you would be suprised with the names people put on them. One asian had "I ate your dog" and a black student had "Black magic", because frankly, problems in the form of offensive racist comments arent seen in our community. If you go and say something which some people consider racist, may it be "sup nigga" (dont get offended, its jsut an example) to a black person, they will most likely just say hi back. They arent gonna get all pissed nd shit and beat you up, thats just now how it is in australia.

Having said that, there are ALWAYS exceptions to everything. And in this case, its people who cant take light hearted jokes, or people who actually intentionally insult someones heritage directly. This, of course is not tolerable; but something such as this skit, in my opinion is just going along with the good attitude of australians and their ability to take a joke.

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Exactly, people just don't understand th3rmal how it is in australia. We don't take race seriously, we are past all this YOUR RACIST LOOK HOW RACIST YOU ARE, YOUR DRIVING A BLACK CAR AND YOUR WHITE thing. We arnt politically correct, and this is how the rest of the world should be. Unfortunatly the united states still has a problem with race and will have one for ever i think, they will never get too ur level.

lol i was wondering when CookieRevised was going to arrive in here. My politically correct himself.

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The "can't take a joke" argument don't hold up either. Everytime there is a discussion about racism that argument comes up. "Australians and their ability to take a joke"? It is not because a group of people find something funny that there isn't anything wrong about it. You know that the KKK found it funny to linch black people? Or that many of the SS found it funny to shoot Jews. Etc. They would say the same thing: "if you don't you probably can't take a good joke....". I'm not comparing Austrialans with those kind of people of course, but I only want to show that the argument of "can't take a joke" is realy misplaced and/or don't say anything at all about it being racism or not. It simply and only proofs that humor is objective, it does not proof anything about racism at all.

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Australia isn't here to please the rest of the world especially america. We don't take race seriously. The rest of the world can stick to there policial correct society and we will stick to our non political correct society.

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Originally posted by Menthix
After watching the video: Racism? No. Bad taste? Yes. But they were rated appropriately for that and tbh, it seemed like yet another lame TV show in the first place.

Also, the guy at the end is taking it completely over the top by speaking for an entire country: "I just wanted to say on behalf of my country". He should have just said that's how he felt about it personally, him being from the US has nothing to do with his opinion.

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It was a segment in a show. The show is a variety show that is just one bit of it. The segment is meant to be lame, the performances are meant to be totally crap, that's the funny bit. The show is actually a very popular show in australia, it is back for a 2 show reunion, previously it ran for 20 years.

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Originally posted by Phillip
It's sad how pathetic Americans can be. South Park did a send up of Steve Irwin with a stingray barb sticking out of his chest shortly after he passed away and did us Australians throw a tantrum..? No. I didn't even know what 'blackface' was till this appeared all over the news. All it was to me was 6 guys having a laugh. You cant apply foreign attitudes to Australian TV. Isn't it obvious that is was allowed to go to air because it didnt seem offensive..? And only after some American airhead (who incidently parodied black people himself) expressed offense did we bother to actually give a fuck..? I'm sick of all this American arse kissing.

Also I wouldn't bother arguing with Cookie anyone. Where he lives he is probably right but us Australians know that it's not like that here.

Can somebody just apologise to Rev. Jesse Jackson so we can be forgiven and move on?

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The funniest thing is the americans actually think we care what they think lol.

Even australias politicians agree the show was not racist.

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Originally posted by Discrate
Australia isn't here to please the rest of the world especially america. We don't take race seriously. The rest of the world can stick to there policial correct society and we will stick to our non political correct society.

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Way to speak for an entire country...

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Originally posted by segosa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet

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hahahaha.

On a more serious note racism sucks, but idk if they're racist in Australia. Never been there.. yet.

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Originally posted by Discrate
lol i was wondering when CookieRevised was going to arrive in here. My politically correct himself.

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lol, we balance eachother out, no? YingYang and that sort of crazy stuff.... So in the end it is pure science that we would never agree on such things

YingYang != science

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Originally posted by ipab

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Originally posted by Discrate
Australia isn't here to please the rest of the world especially america. We don't take race seriously. The rest of the world can stick to there policial correct society and we will stick to our non political correct society.

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Way to speak for an entire country...

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I am not really speaking for the entire country (even though i could because it is the majority of peoples views. I am just saying how it is. Look at th3rmal in his post he said basically the same thing. "we don't take race seriously"

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1084394769627714346&hl=en#

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Originally posted by Jarrod
Is australia really racist or is it a misconception

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Despite all the stuff in the news here about Indians being ill-treated, I really don't give a shit.. There are racists everywhere. You have nice and helpful people everywhere as well.. generalizing and saying a country is racist simply because of the actions of a handful of dickheads is wrong.
Then again, it is said that a country should be judged on the basis of how they treat their guests.

There is racism directly in the topic title...
Although Australians may technically not be a race...
But assuming that you can call a country racist is generalizing and that is the start of racism... 

[MASSIVE RANT WARNING.... PLEASE IGNORE IF YOU HAVE ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT ]


YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

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Originally posted by Discrate
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1084394769627714346&hl=en#

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I'm not realy about that video. More like , because that video in itself is very biased and conveniently only shows certain aspects and is edited in such a way that they portray the people and the racism subject in the way you see it.

I mean, if that somewhat portrays your definition, experience, beliefs, etc about the term and word 'racism' then yes, I can understand where you got your arguments from and stuff.

"What is racism?"
"Eh... Eh... Eh..."
"Can you give an example?"
"No, but it is everywhere."
"Like if he is a gay and I'm strait, that can be racism"
"...."

I mean, wtf?
Then the video goes further and shows that it can be a very biased thing. However, you can 'proof' anything with such a documentary, especially one where they ask the questions in a certain way, but leave out other equaly important questions.

In the second half of the documantery they start out with the assumption that racism means the believe that one race is superior than the other. And that is correct. But then they conveniently forget to make a very important distinction: One ethnic group can indeed be better than the other in certain areas (they take the basketball example*), but that is not racism in itself at all. Racism is the believe that one race is superior in _everything_ (and thus you hate the 'other' inferiour one and/or ridicule them). And there is the big difference, "in everything", and the big (and convenient) mistake they make in that documentary.

And since they (conveniently) leave that important difference out, they can (conveniently) proof that racism is very biased, has double standards, etc.

* they go on about basketball for like a minute. But then they go on for like 10 mionutes about why white people would be better at tests. Well, the reason why most people agree that black people would be better in basketball is because they see it with their own eyes, they know it for a fact.
Of course, if you ask them why white people would be better at tests, than most people wouldn't know what to answer. Because is it actually true? How would those interviewed people know? They don't, and thus can not answer that question strait away. They didn't knew it and thus they can't answer that question. But that is all there is to it. That's logic, not a "double standard".

And this goes on and on. Very easy to make your point in that way I'd say. However, you could simply do the opposite too: showing 1 minute of video about how people don't know why white people do better tests, then quickly foget about it and burry it under 10 minutes about people struggling to come up with an answer about why black people are better at basketball... Then what would that 'proof'?

After all that they say: "see how biased and double standard racism is"... But they never asked the question "why is it then that black people are better in basketball". Why didn't they ask it? Because those same interviewed people probably wouldn't know what to say either. It is just the same, but it is conveniently left out of this documentary just to proof that it seem to be ok to call black people better in basketball, but it is not ok to say that white people are good at something else, hence the so called double standard.


Belief me that those interviewed people and the way that documentary has been made is far from how other people see or understand what racism is, at least from my small experience here in Western Europe. But as I said in the beginning, if that is indeed the thing you belief and understand of how most people think about racism, using it lightly (and often for no reason at all) and act upon it, then yes, I can perfectly understand you and I would even agree with you on some points if I would follow that same train of thoughts.

But for me, here, racism is something far more concrete and it does mean something and isn't something vague or undefinable. And in 99% of cases I've seen the usage of the word is genuine and real racism is going on when it is 'shouted'. (However there are of course always people here who act in just the same manner as shown in that video though and/or shouting "racism" to everything and everybody, but those are a very small minority).

So, if that video is an attempt to show how America realy thinks about it and how they use the word 'racism', double standards, etc, than I agree with most stuff you said. But I also like to believe (and hope) that is not how the majority of 'America' actually thinks. And I like to believe that most people have at least some more concrete knowledge of what racism is and can actually identify it when it happens, than the ones in that documentary, and as a result do not use the word lightly or shout 'racism' every 5 minutes for no or the wrong reasons. But maybe I'm too naïve also (and maybe I have seen too many times how small 'innocent' jokes and things can grow over the years to something far worse. It always starts with 'taking a good hearted joke' and before you know it you live in a place where it is normal to piss on people and where it wouldn't even be noticed because everybody does it so it is 'normal')...