Much to no one's concern, I haven't weighed in yet on the most important issue of our blog times, the controversy over hipster racism, and whether or not that one HBO show I haven't seen is racist. (I've always been a fan of Barf's, by the way. Who hasn't?) The reason is I honestly don't know which ideological sports team I'm rooting for here. On the one hand Jezebel and friends really are a bunch of over-sensitive concern trolls spoiling for a reason to be outraged, but the other side, represented, I guess, by the place I used to "work" for, Street Carnage can be, uh, how do you say it, literally racist. Despite many other shitty points, Street Carnage makes some decent ones here, writing in character:
We are sorry we singled you out as the personification of modern racism. We know it loses people jobs and ruins careers but consider this: complaining about people who veer even one pubic hair from modern cultural orthodoxies is our bread and butter. We went deep into debt getting liberal-arts educations and spent hundreds of hours proving Star Wars is homophobic and that guitar solos are insensitive to indigenous peoples. When we graduated, nobody wanted to hear about it, so we got jobs at websites where other people with useless degrees can pretend it’s all relevant. Basically, if there isn’t racism lurking around every corner, we’re out of a job.OK. Fair enough. Good burn.
And here:
Accusations of racism have become so ubiquitous, they’ve diluted their meaning down to nothing so, in a desperate plea to breathe life back into their dying cause, the PC left is re-inventing the brand. Now it’s called “Hipster Racism” or “Ironic Racism” and many of us are guilty of it without even knowing.
Sure, I can see that.
But that said, I find the justification for this post, the amazing GOTCHA moment they've pulled out in the argument against Jezebel and LIBERALS EVERYWHERE, to be the single most laughable example of the single most racist cliche known to man. You see, apparently Leslie Arfin, one of the writers on "Girls" and a Street Carnage alumna, isn't actually racist, because a character she played on the show is friends with a black person. Hard to argue with that.
I'm not saying she literally is, by the way. I don't think she is, although I don't know her. I don't really care if she is actually. Some of my best friends are racist. Wait, that doesn't sound right, but I suppose it's about as convincing a rebuttal as the main point of the Street Carnage post, which essentially boils down to this: My friend isn't racist, because some of her character's fictional friends are black. Never heard that one before.
If I'm forced to choose, however, between holding on to my own version of ironic racism, yes, largely formed in part by the likes of Gavin and Barf in the old Vice days, and the crusading thought police of the far left (who I agree with on almost everything else), I think I'll have to err on the side of comedy, hypothetical or otherwise, in this case. Anything else would be fucking retarded and probably gay.
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I thought the first episode was quite good - no laugh-out-loud moments but I enjoyed it. I haven't been able to find the second episode anywhere online. Am I allowed to say that I think Jezebel/Gawker create shitstorms out of nothing and simultaneously a lot of the stuff over at Street Carnage is kinda raciss sometimes too? I'm probably slightly less likely to come down on the SBTVC side of things since the new editor made several posts disparaging me for... well, I'm not sure. She apparently doesn't like people writing stuff for free for them. But just like Luke I'd still rather read their slightly off-colour racist rantings than Jezebel's holier-than-thou proscriptions. The interview with Andrea Plaid where she labels "a lot" of mixed-race relationships as "fetishism" and "part of [racism]" made me laugh.
I do think it's strange how Street Carnage often talks about "the left" as if its readers are uniformly right-wing. I wonder if the hipster libertarian thing isn't throwing the baby out with the bathwater - Gavin might love the invisible hand of capitalism which the Republicans are ostensibly all about (but not really), but what about all the public/private contract boondoggles, increased military spending, increased religion in public spheres, intolerance of homosexuality and stricter controls on drugs n'shit which accompany Republican administrations? All that stuff is anathema to libertarians.
Occasionally Jezebel is funny, that's the difference.
There are a surprising amount of would-be hipster libertarians who read SC, because a lot of them read this site now too.
My friend isn't racist, because some of her character's fictional friends are black. Never heard that one before.
Sure you have, but in the reverse: there is a veritable army of conformist automatons out there repeating, in robotic monotone uniformity, "YOUR FRIEND *IS* RACIST BECAUSE NONE OF HER CHARACTER'S FICTIONAL FRIENDS ARE BLACK. BLEEP BOP BOOP."
OK, but as I said, I'm not necessarily agreeing with that side in this case, although I would normally be inclined to.
If I made a fictional show about my life, there wouldn't be many black main characters. I am not racist (no more than anyone else I guess), so I don't buy the argument that you are describing.
But to counter that with LOOK I HAVE A BLACK FRIEND, isn't pretty hilarious to me.
Oh I agree that is also ridiculous. The whole sad spectacle is ludicrous.
*is pretty hilarious...
The whole thing started because there are no black characters on the show.
I know, and I thought it was a dumb controversy then. Now there is one, I guess, so therefore racism is solved? Who even knows.
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