Countdown to New Year: Day 2

Eagerly waiting for 2013 to be done. The New Year of 2014 is an arbitrary change but like the phenomenon where a person walks through a door and forgets what they are doing maybe the simple change in the date will cause a psychological re-think in people.

Until the Obama election sent a clear message that the old ways of oppression were dying the bigots remained for the most part under their nasty dank rocks. When exposed outside of their little circle of like-minded creatures they scurried away and erased their tracks. 

Their bold and increasingly horrible behavior since 2009 is made most publicly evident in the hero worship of bigoted faux-hillbilly Duck Dynasty matriarch and the crocodile piety and exploitative hucksterism of George Zimmerman. For every Phil Robertson that manages to stick around there is a Justine Sacco and Christine Neese that has to flee, deleting every aspect of social media as they run and cower. George Zimmerman is the bloated poster boy of an America so racist they will rally around a figure that a relatively short time ago they would have ridiculed and ostracized as a representative of the very people they target for discrimination. George may be their public face of the moment but he is also considered "one of those" and will undoubtedly be discarded as soon as some other more attractive figure is thrust into the national spotlight by circumstance.

2014 has to be better, even as it appears 2013 was the nadir of recent years. This public parade of hate disguised by religion and freedom is the reflexive twitching of a loathsome and mortally wounded beast too stupid to know it is dead, limbs flailing long after the body is deceased.

Thanksgiving: Day 9

So fresh off October Blackface this happened in November of 2013.

via @NotFaulty

HEY, Y'ALL! STFU AND READ!

READ THEN LISTEN

February 26, 2012

Dispatcher: Sanford Police Department.

Zimmerman: Hey we’ve had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there’s a real suspicious guy, uh, Retreat View Circle, um, the best address I can give you is 111 Retreat View Circle. This guy looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy is he white, black, or Hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

Dispatcher: Did you see what he was wearing?

Zimmerman: Yeah. A dark hoodie, like a grey hoodie, and either jeans or sweatpants and white tennis shoes. He’s [unintelligible], he was just staring…

Dispatcher: OK, he’s just walking around the area…

Zimmerman: …looking at all the houses.

Dispatcher: OK…

Zimmerman: Now he’s just staring at me.

Dispatcher: OK, you said it’s 1111 Retreat View? Or 111?

Zimmerman: That’s the clubhouse…

Dispatcher: That’s the clubhouse, do you know what the–he’s near the clubhouse right now?

Zimmerman: Yeah, now he’s coming towards me.

Dispatcher: OK.

Zimmerman: He’s got his hand in his waistband. And he’s a black male.

Dispatcher: How old would you say he looks?

Zimmerman: He’s got button on his shirt, late teens.

Dispatcher: Late teens ok.

Zimmerman: Somethings wrong with him. Yup, he’s coming to check me out, he’s got something in his hands, I don’t know what his deal is.

Dispatcher: Just let me know if he does anything ok

Zimmerman: How long until you get an officer over here?

Dispatcher: Yeah we’ve got someone on the way, just let me know if this guy does anything else.

Zimmerman: Okay. These assholes they always get away. When you come to the clubhouse you come straight in and make a left. Actually you would go past the clubhouse.

Dispatcher: So it’s on the left hand side from the clubhouse?

Zimmerman: No you go in straight through the entrance and then you make a left…uh you go straight in, don’t turn, and make a left. Shit he’s running.

Dispatcher: He’s running? Which way is he running?

(Sound of Truck Door Opening/Closing)

Zimmerman: Down towards the other entrance to the neighborhood.

Dispatcher: Which entrance is that that he’s heading towards?

Zimmerman: The back entrance…fucking [unintelligible]

Dispatcher: Are you following him?

Zimmerman: Yeah.

Dispatcher: Ok, we don’t need you to do that.

Zimmerman: Ok.

A few minutes later...

That's pretty racist considering it's 2012

Time to re-brand.

Spread the truth about voting rights

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS! Spread the true word about voting & ID requirements: Get your info from your local Voting Registrar, not from billboards and television spots paid for by special interests and hate groups.

Hero's Journey for the new Green Lantern?

I'm going to weigh in on the argle-bargle surrounding the image of a new Green Lantern character DC is introducing.

The fans are screaming that based on the image this character is a street thug, a gangsta and what does a Green Lantern need a gun for anyways? Predictably, the big deal appears to be that he is black, has a tattoo (it's glowing with green power, get a clue, that means something), is wielding a gun and wearing a stylized uniform based on what appears to be a ski mask, possibly a reference to his occupation of a bodega stick up artist.

Forgetting everything else for a moment (even that the new GL may wear a mask in his civilian life as a neighborhood vigilante good-guy) let's understand that one of the under lying themes of being a Green Lantern is redemption. It was for Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner and is certainly an on-going process for John Stewart. All of these characters are on the hero's journey paying for their past sins of arrogance.

It appears from the cover solicit the new Green Lantern, if not John Stewart himself undercover for something, may be on a similar path. Assuming the new guy is a predatory street thug it makes sense that he would have the basic requirement to be a space cop, the ability to overcome great fear.  He actually could be the perfect representative at this time for the GL Corps. Guy Gardner is the past was appreciated by both fans and the GL cast as a Corps member who got things done, regardless of the fall out. He has recently been the morals of the Corps and is probably the most honorable Lantern there is, doing what he feels is right even if the Guardians disagree.

Gardner continually defies the Guardians and is currently on a campaign to stop their shenanigans. So the Guardians may search for someone they think may be easier to point at things and zap stuff without questioning their directives. The new Lantern member, chosen for toughness, poor-impulse control and lack of morality for whatever purpose the Guardians need him for, this character could learn to be the hero the Corp needs to set them back on the path of Order (if not Good). The stylized mask and the gun would be the transitional props from his old life, surely to be discarded as he grows beyond his origins.

So relax. See what happens. Don't jump to conclusions.

The Last Man

Human rights tale in the ironic-ending style common to comic books of the era. Hopefully the end of the story made some sort of impression on young readers. From Spellbound #20 (March 1954).

Click to embiggen like a noble soul.

Better Dead Than Rooibos

Clicking goes to The General.

I've got an idea

You know how to fix the problem with those two Utah State employees who released 1,300 names of suspected illegal immigrants to the police and media?

Retroactively to when the data was accessed immediately make every single person who is named on that list who is in the United States illegally a Naturalized Citizen. No questions asked, no waiting period.

That would be an epic backfire.

Wanted: Experienced Proof-Reader, Apply DC Offices

Was a racial slur inadvertently inserted in the recent DC Comics title Justice League - Generation Lost #4?

I am one long-time reader who is disappointed by DC Comics apparently turning back the clock on the diversity of their characters even though I kind of understand it. It is fear, perhaps, that any lasting change to the formula that basically carried the company over 60 years will meet with disaster. Fear, perhaps based in reality, that nostalgia is all they have going for them and the shrinking fan-base of continuity-addicts snubs with negative consequences financially to the company anything that resembles true progress.

From all the internet press it is clear that DC is very aware of the recent outcry that there is the perception they are relying on the tried, true, nearly antique and primarily Caucasian models of the Golden and Silver Age of comic books. While the retro models of the characters may represent their perceived and steady market-base they are are not truly representative of the diverse population of both the real and fictional worlds. That mentioned, the creative teams and editors of their books should be a little bit more aware of how their products published after the controversy could and would be examined for every perceived slight, hidden message or racial and political agenda. Every beaten woman, murdered Asian, gap-toothed Southerner or jailed Middle-Easterner in their books, movies and games will be picked apart and commented upon by the rational and irrational fans seeking a pattern, proof of a corporate policy of hostility to a diverse populace.

As example, read this scene in Justice League - Generation Lost #4 (July 2010) which hit the stands this week. Preview images have also been available for public perusal on various websites for a while.

The comic book industry has as one of its primary tropes word-play in the form of acronyms that are explored to sometimes ridiculous lengths. Indeed, major story arcs and even some titles have been pitched and launched merely by how cool or interesting an acronym can sound. It is a tactic of advertising and can pique the interest of a consumer and creates a brand identity that hopefully a buyer will return to again and again. So it is interesting that an industry that enjoys and even exults in word games can depict an African-American (or decidedly non-Caucasian) scientist involved in a super-powers project designated as Nanobyte Genetic Enhancement Research.

If you want to put together and sound out the acronym, go ahead, but I suggest you only do it in your head.

I personally am not the most sensitive or observant person and I noticed and made a connection to a word that sounds like a racial slur that denigrates African-Americans and the character, however tenuous, right away. Unless DC states otherwise I have little doubt that the acronym as it appears was merely careless and unfortunate. It would be career suicide and fiscally irresponsible for anyone to try and sneak an intentional slur into any of the popular entertainment media designed for a wide and diverse audience in this era. Of course it is not beyond the realm of possibility as there are a lot of confused, angry and backwards people out in the world.

There is no proof that someone at DC intentionally included a racial epithet into one of their comic books nor am I claiming that they did. However once something is seen you can not un-see it. It does not matter how unintentional or coincidental the word or how it sounds may be. It is there, however inadvertently and the perception of the individual reader is what will likely hold sway. There are websites that just leap on things like this and run with it. That is important because no one can really conclusively say that the acronym was not intentional and that cavalierly killing off the ethnic and obviously brilliant character in the next page was a mere innocent plot device. Take into consideration in the story it was a secret project and some could infer that killing an African-American who was creating a process that could give the disenfranchised super abilities just looks bad even if it is much-ado about nothing.

Helping create a quality product is one of the jobs of an editor and one could expect that the staff of DC, already under scrutiny by some of their customers and critics, would have paid a little bit more attention to the proof-reading. Some will undoubtedly assert the slur was intentional as a clever flip of the finger to those who complained about the back-stepping of diversity in DC comic books. Some will maintain the incident was just an unfortunate and innocent coincidence. Others will claim there is nothing to be found at all.

Regardless, I expect that in the future trade edition of Justice League - Generation Lost that particular phrase will probably be re-arranged to provide a different result. Given the scene I would submit that an initiative that is all giving super-powers to average people would read better if it was labeled "Project: E.N.R.G.". It would be a lot more fitting if the acronym sounds like "Energy" when spelled out, instead of that other word.

Not shown: Nursing bottle filled with cola

A long time ago someone at Disney had the great idea that old American folk tales done in an animated style would make a great movie. The result was the 1946 live action and animated film Song of the South. Unfortunately, Hollywood and America of the 1940s was hardly a positive example of racial sensitivity and the execution of the Uncle Remus tales the film was based upon was, in hindsight, terribly managed. The main and wholly accurate complaints with the film is the depiction of African slaves as being happy, content and grateful for their subjugation. Caricatures that were fashionable and acceptable in popular entertainment of the era are numerous. Because of the way people were depicted and in spite of any artistic merits the film may contain it has not been fully released for the home audience in the intervening decades and only appears in the United States in heavily edited versions.

One of the more popular sequences was The Tar Baby, a tale in which the character of Brer Rabbit escapes from predators using reverse-psychology. For the uninitiated and anyone who grew up outside of the South after 1970 the term "Tar Baby" is a pejorative in relation to African-Americans. As a child in the late 60s watching this film in the drive-in I had no idea that the sticky trap represented anything other than what it appeared to be. In the Disney universe of walking, talking intelligent animals I didn't see anything unusual with Brer Rabbit engaging an inanimate object in conversation and expecting a reply. It is unlikely that the creators and audiences of the 40s thought the same and knew exactly what the sticky trap was supposed to represent, which is only one of the reasons the film was eventually pulled from syndication.

The marketing and exposure for some some sequences continued unabated. Stripped away from negative associations the fun and bouncy song Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah has regularly appeared in music collections and on various video releases since it was originally issued. Yet the mistakes of the past had a way of repeating into more contemporary times in spite of the decisions to suppress the less enlightened and insulting aspects of the film.

In 1958 Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies #8, under the Dell imprint, published a recipe for a "Tar Baby" treat as a one page fun feature. The snack, which kids could make at home or (I shudder to think) school, was a marshmallow creation covered with dark chocolate that resembles the sticky trap that Brer Rabbit ran afoul of in the Song of the South feature. In 1946 sheer ignorance and marketing inertia could explain the promotion of stereotyped caricatures of African-Americans though it would have been a little harder to justify in 1958. It could only have been utter stupidity when the decision was made to include the one-page recipe feature and reprint it in 1975 in Walt Disney's Showcase #28. By the 1970s everyone involved should have known better.

In the interest of parity I changed the recipe to make it more representative of the contemporary South and included it in this post, which you can click on to make double-wide size for easy viewing. For those who prefer the "warts and all" approach to history the original can be viewed here.

Note for people with IQ equal to their shoe size: Original recipe for educational purposes only. Please do not print out and share with your Cousin-Spouses, pals in the unemployment line or distribute at Sunday school gatherings.

Nimby, California

I don't usually engage in much small talk at work with the customers. I do enough not to be rude and because I try to be a nice guy and I'm not deliberately obnoxious. I admit to not being very nice when I shut a grifter down. Who could possibly purchase 10 bottles of laundry soap week after week by accident and then try to return it the following week without a receipt when it is no longer on a 2-for-1 sale? I have no patience for that type of stuff.

It could be my upbringing making me sensitive to matters of ethics, humanity, morality and human rights but usually when I get into a prolonged conversation with someone it invariably turns bad and I recall why I don't really care to spend my time yammering with the locals.

My chats usually have negative results and make me want to go home and shower. For example, this conversation I had with a customer the night before Halloween.

"Looks like you are getting enough candy today."

"Yes! Halloween is so busy for us."

"Really? Where is that?"

"Bird Rock area. Honestly, I think they bus people in."

"How so?"

"We get hundreds of visitors on our street on Halloween and you can tell they don't live there. It's a nice neighborhood and everyone is really generous. So it stays pretty busy until the patrols start at about 9 and clears them out."

"The patrols?"

"Private security patrols. Between the patrols all over the area and us manning the fire hoses we keep everything under control."

"Fire hoses..."

"Hee hee!"

"I...see. Well, you have a wonderful Halloween."

People are a continual disappointment to me.

Sapolio soap ad

Soap advertisement from McClure's Magazine (1897).

When I see these types of old advertisements the forgiving person in me wants to believe that such images are from a simpler, perhaps stupider time. One can not successfully assert that it is not fair to judge people of a past time for their perceptions. I say it is. By that logic people of 2060 would forgive the transgressions of the societies of 2008 because we did not know any better? Pick up and read any history book and one quickly realizes that the government, media and average person new exactly what they were doing in marginalizing, demonizing and ridiculing other cultures and people.

The ad is made inexcusable even in 1897 by going further than the using a simple caricature representing an ethnic group to pitch a product. No one in editorial, marketing or the art department understood that showing forcibly displaced refugee Native Americans wandering about the Reservation, wearing their government-issue blanket, passing graffiti depicting a happy Indian drunk on cleanliness and firewater was demeaning and offensive? I don't buy that at all. It almost looks like a book illustration adapted for advertising use.

As horrible as the advertisement is the mind-set behind it yet exists and still permeates modern advertising. Different groups are targeted but race and culture and a "not us" mentality are still used to sell products with little change, except now humor is used to replace Manifest Destiny. This allows companies to distance their product from the ad or claim their focus group thought the spots were relevant to their experience just in case anyone notices. It would only take a little updating for the Sapolio advertisement to be relevant to today's political and cultural climate and therefore be perfectly acceptable to Southerners and Republicans.

The right kind of cleansing would bring them heathens next to the right God. Maybe end the war if they would just quit acting all stone age and maybe bathe once in a while. Except, we all know what would really bring about a quick end to the comflict, don't we?

Maybe using a more fashionable group will work.

Now that's an easy stereotype to attack. The creative and imaginative are always a great target to belittle and make me feel superior. Too be honest though, all the cons I went to it wasn't the fans that were unwashed and smelly. One certain comic creator smelled so bad I wasn't able to complete a sale of an old Ditko Spider-Man comic to him and had to leave the area.

Show the apes some love...

Too much monochrome. This place needs a dash of color.