Race and Pirates
I ended up buying Beverly Tatum's "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?", despite already having borrowed it from the library because a) I wanted something to read in line while I waited to get a seat for Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and b) I want to financially support books like these and authors who tackle the subject of
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But I'm not just talking about the film. I'm talking about your statements and the logical construction of your arguments. So far you've argued that talking about racism *causes* racism, and have offered nothing to support this idea but a cartoon; you haven't even offered anecdotal evidence to the contrary, let alone cited psychiatric research.
he cannibals portrayed in this film are no more stereotypical than cannibals portrayed in any other children's film.
That is *exactly* the problem. How does saying racism is so endemic to our society that it's *omnipresent* prove that racism isn't a problem?
Maybe it was all politics and economics that had them marked as cannibals. But that's only one theory.
Uh, no. It's also marked in European records which explicitly justify exploration based on cannibalism and in anthropological investigations which don't seem to have evidence to support those contentions.
Does the film depict cannibalism solely as a religious ritual?
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All I'm stating are well known theories on human thought process that anyone can get out of Psych 101, or even my high school Psych. That if you draw attention to something, humans will think about it. If you told a person before they went in and saw a film that all of the instances of the color white in the props has a meaning, they'll be watching for the color white and trying to figure out what it all has in common. If you tell a person that a film is prejudice, they'll be looking for instances where it's prejudice. It's a commonly used technique in English courses, where you're given certain topics to think on before reading the book and they affect how you interrupt what you read. Hell, it's even used in film--if you've ever watched Mulholland Dr. on DVD, there's a perfect example.
How does MAKING racism omnipresent prove that racism is a problem? How does going around calling "racist" at the drop of a hat prove anything? How does separating racism from prejudice HELP anything?
Uh, no....
Yeah, and so are LOTS of things. That doesn't prove they're not cannibals. There had to be cannibals in order for them to get that idea, after all. Saying that "Well, that person drives a Toyota so they must like foreign cars" doesn't mean that every person who drives a Toyota likes foreign cars. It's a generalization. Generalizations aren't facts. In fact, one would think someone who's against racism would go out of their way to avoid them.
Does the film depict cannibalism solely as a religious ritual?
See, if you had seen the film, you'd know the answer was yes. They believe that Jack Sparrow is a god trapped in human flesh and they must free him from that prison by death. A very common view, in fact, among polytheistic "native" religions throughout the world--that of sacrifices representing gods. And definitely something found throughout the central Americas. As is, of course, mistaking a person for a god, as with Cortez.
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If you tell me to look for a pink elephant in The Merchant of Venice, I still won't find it. If you tell me to look for anti-Semitism in The Merchant of Venice, I will find examples of it. This is not because I am projecting my own attitudes onto the text, but because the text has characters demonstrating prejudice against Jews and arguably vindicates many of their assumptions. People can and do disagree about whether the text, as opposed to the characters, are anti-Semitic, but their arguments about it didn't create European anti-Semitism. Yes, people see whatever they expect to see in Rorsarch blots. This doesn't mean that observers are projecting racism onto the meaningless action of Klu Klux Klan members burning crosses on someone's lawn.
How does MAKING racism omnipresent prove that racism is a problem? How does going around calling "racist" at the drop of a hat prove anything? How does separating racism from prejudice HELP anything?
How does calling a clearly argued discussion of elements in a film equate to "at the drop of the hat"? And why am I the one who's making generalizations about depictions of cannibalism when I'm simply responding to your statement that "the cannibals portrayed in this film are no more stereotypical than cannibals portrayed in any other children's film"?
How does separating racism from prejudice HELP anything?
It helps because it identifies how a specific form of prejudice and discrimination is working in this particular context and allows people to take specific action designed to correct this prejudice. We legislate against discrimination based on sex, sexuality, race, and physical disability because those are common grounds of discrimination. Legislating against discrimination because of race doesn't make it impossible to *also* legislate against descrimination because of sex.
See, if you had seen the film, you'd know the answer was yes.
That wasn't a rhetorical question. It was a question asking you for information. Most of my questions to you *haven't* been rhetorical questions; they've been honest questions asking how you justify contradictions in your arguments.
A very common view, in fact, among polytheistic "native" religions throughout the world--that of sacrifices representing gods.
You do realize that cannibalism and human sacrifice aren't synonyms, right?
That *would* be a rhetorical question, except your last paragraph doesn't actually make sense otherwise.
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