“Our mistake is sometimes we look for logic in something that is just plain stupid.”

I find this an odd, and puzzlingly anti-intellectual comment, from a scholar. From the perspective of critical race studies, such acts are perfectly 'logical' -- that is, they follow the logics of white privilege and racial hierarchization. Acts of racism are not simply bizarre, inexplicable events, but the natural outgrowth of a trans-societal social order which is profoundly structured by racialization.

"[sic] at the entrance to his strip club."

News fail. It's not even a strip club, it's a "potential business", or more accurately "crazy shit painted on some crazy person's door".

The snowman seems more of a parody of the KKK. It feels like this is a case of people calling someone who mocks the KKK racist.

"I thought the snowman was kind of funny.

Was the creator racist? I don’t know just by looking at it, and it actually doesn’t matter to me. What I appreciate is that it was creative, and that a bit of constructive visual irony was being employed in a landscape that may well have been fairly bereft of humor."
-Andrew (who indicates he is black)

-snip-

Is lynching ever funny? I'm African American and I definitely don't think so.

Is a snow man with a cone shaped head holding a noose a "creative bit of constructive visual irony that was being employed it a landscape that may have been fairly berefit of humor"? Although I see the creativity in that creation, I definitely don't see the humor.

"And what about the children?" I ask with only a little bit of irony. Is this snowman being used as a teaching moment to explain how horrendous lynching was/is, though it was considered as opportunities for public fun?

And how will other "black people" side on this discussion? After all, if one Black person or two or three write in and declare that a KKK shaped snow man holding a noose is just creative fun, then it's okay, right? Maybe it will start a trend (the KKK snowman holding a noose, and Black people supporting that as creative fun).

Spare me (no pun intended).

Dear Syd, it won't let me reply to your comment as it's too deep into the thread.

What's this about racism only towards white people? While I have seen that, the vast majority in my life has been towards black and asian people. If you've read ANYTHING that I've written.
Clearly a lot of people don't see the difference without context. Where have I mentioned racism towards white people other than the limited amount towards myself? I'm alive and healthy, which is more than I can say for some of my friends who have faced more serious racism. They're not white. I think racism is bad no matter who it's aimed at.

What gives you the right to say I am not in a position to talk about racism?
I am not saying we should assume it's a joke. I don't even think it is. However I'm saying that the blind assumption that it isn't is also stupid.

Syd.

Yes, and my entire point is that WITHOUT the context we can't know. This is all I have said. As I have repeatedly said, with the context it is different.
You yourself have also explicitly stated that the works are differentiated purely on the merit of their content. Now you are saying the opposite.

Right, so explaining what I think, is whitesplaining? Not all people think that it's a social construction. Adding that context does make it relevant. If I can't note my reasoning, then how can I say anything? Without adding that my point wouldn't have been clear. e
Also, yes it would be racist to assume that a white person explaining something about racism to a black person is naturally "whitesplaining". This is assuming some sort of homogenous group.
Surely such rhetoric as that "kindergarten" speech would count as blacksplaining or something. It's not. It's a person saying something, in this case condescending, to another person.

Right, so white supremacists like all other ethnicities aside from black people do they?
Not liking me because I was not a specific race is racism. I find it shocking that you don't see that. They didn't like me because I wasn't the right race. If anything, my lifestyle is Japan was far more Japanese than most of theirs was likely to be. It was abuse based on my race. How is that not racism?
Even then, that was a relatively small point compared to the other racist situations I was talking about.

When did I say they "trump" yours? I have NEVER said that. I have never even mentioned any experiences you may have had. Why is my experience not relevant?
You are doing the exact same thing you claimed I was. You are belittling my experiences and saying they cannot compare to your own. I like how you miss out anything about me being beaten up and reduce it to "being called a name". Yes, I was called names. That was not all that happened.

Why do you think I have no idea about institutionalised racism? It's practically the reason I left Britain. England has some truly horrific racism embedded in the government and public services.

Your words:
"Ah. So racism only counts when it happens to white people; black people who have every right to be afraid of a white supremacist billboard like this? We should just assume it’s a JOKE!"
Did I say those things? No. If I did, then they would be racist. You're attributing them to me. Thus you are calling me a racist.

You are fabricating things and saying I have said them. You did the same to Andrew.

Korean and Japanese animosity is the biggest issue in Japan right now. To belittle problems in Japan and talk about not understanding institutionalised racism is what makes that relevant.

Where is this magical dividing line? Obviously there are differences. They're not even relevant to my argument. You're the one questioning my experience and making them relevant. You're the one saying I don't understand racism. So YES, they are relevant. If you say "perhaps you lack an understanding of racism in the US relating to the KKK" then that would make them less relevant. I would argue that racism over the world bears hallmarks that make any comparison valid and useful, but that would be an opinion.
You say "you don't know about racism", which is pretty offensive in the first place. Then you simply dismiss any possible experience I have had as irrelevant. That is not an argument. It's not even an ad hominem.

What is this about europeans? We're not all the same. Please don't just assume that I am part of some larger group and thus abide by a ruleset you have created.
You're sick of something which is basically unrelated to me. You're saying my experiences aren't relevant but not saying why.
I am not saying that the experience of (some but only a minority) of foreigners in Japan is the same. I am demonstrating that you cannot simply say I don't know what racism is. It's incredibly offensive and frankly insane. Why not? Why can I not understand racism?
"Apples" and "Nuclear bombs" are pretty quantitively different. Do you not see how offensive that comparison is? Do you not see how unbelievably self centered it is?

You have yet to explain to my why what you said is not an accusation of racism. You fabricated and attributed something racist to me. How is that not calling me racist? What's this "we"? Only you said that. No one else. Explain to me how saying that is not an accusation of racism.
In order to refute you must use reason. Denial is not reason.

Stop making stuff up and claiming I've said it. You're the one bringing up my experiences. You started that.

Here's one way of looking at it. If the creator's intention was to be offensive, provocative, and inflammatory to groups that he disliked, then being publicly offended, provoked, and inflamed like a verbal hemorrhoid renders it a success. Supporting its censorship only bolsters that accomplishment, which has now blown up to an ill-gotten 15 minutes of infamy.

Now, any emotional reaction you might have to the lump of frost - or anything else representing an idea you detest - is completely valid. But the question remains, once you've had these reactions, what's the most constructive way to deal with them?

My position - and I didn't take the fast or easy route to it, to say the least - is that the bad idea should remain as fully exposed as possible. Exposed to scrutiny, exposed to debate, to satire, imitation, reappropriation, reclamation; left out in the open with a big garish frame around it highlighting everything it hopes to conceal, even granting grace to its merits, until it's so thoroughly drained of its power to harm that we can actually laugh at it.

White supremacy is such an idea. Living in Berlin at the moment, I see from day to day some frightening examples of what happens when this bad idea is driven underground by a culture that hopes to sweep it under the rug and avoid looking it in the eye. It deepens and ferments, and bubbles over into the mainstream faster than you can say Sachsenhausen. Before long, even the country's most powerful figures are mouthing its tenets with relative impunity, as the public eye is no longer trained to spot them for what they are.

But anyway, I'm an artist, not a pundit. So if it were my neighbor building such a snowman, I'd get outside and build a funnier fucking snowman. If I had this guy's concerned neighbors, I'd say we stop turning to the police and we make sure the guy saw ridiculous, profane snowmen out of every window in his house until springtime.

How do you move forward from oppression? For starters, you get creative.

As a general response to those who are wondering if this could be some kind of mockery of the KKK or a (possibly subtle or badly done) statement against racism:

You really need to take into account the social climate in which this happened. In Hayden, ID, the odds are REALLY not in favor of this being the case. Seriously. I've lived in northern Idaho (Sandpoint and Priest River) off and on since my teens and there is a large, vocal, and dangerous racist population here.

The first few years we lived here (late '90s), there used to be hate literature junk mail sent around all the time. It's not generally mass mailed anymore, but you still see it around. My ex-boyfriend is Mexican American and was shot at when he took a wrong turn onto what he thought was a road which turned out to be the long driveway to someone's property. And then there's the everyday bits of blatant, unapologetic racism (worse even than what you'd think of as "par for the course" for America, so to speak) that's just taken for granted here. I fucking hate it here and can't wait to move.

The chances are that this is every bit as racist as it seems. Even if that person wasn't a racist himself, there's no way he could have lived here for longer than a few months and NOT been aware that this would be understood as supporting racism by many, if not most, of the people who see it. Sadly, a large portion of those people probably approve.

I applaud Dr. Selika Ducksworth-Lawton for her comment. It's not "anti-intellectual," it's stating the truth. These sorts of displays are a reflection of STUPIDITY.

All of the comments above are basically *justifying* this behavior by discussing white privilege and so on. Yes, you are justifying and forming a beautiful apologetic. Sound logic does not result in this behavior/these displays. Only Stupidity does.

Syd, What you said. Thank you.

I rarely have the energy to engage like that any more. Although some of the time it might be worth it, usually it's far too exhausting for me.

Keep on keepin on,

Azizi

some people need to understand, if racism aint over,its over. If they think for one minute that this generation of blacks finna let some kkk come in make us feel that history vibe for feel bad just because we where tortured first its not gonna work. We are to ready for the kkk to start back.I dont feel thats its fear anymore.If they do try to start something they will have to come waaaaaay harder then wat they did in history because this set of black people these years at, this time, wont work. I love racist shows and movies for intertainment but its not funny or nothing, it just makes me think of how we should even hate whites more to get revenge or think why we are not doin nothin to them sense we free and they tortured us for hundreds of years but when you got a brain it will work= it calculate itself