(no subject)
In case you don't subscribe to Newsweek, here is a delightful nugget that happens to be the actual cover of a September issue:
Oh man, that doesn't stop being funny to me. IS YOUR BABY RACIST? "Gosh, you know I thought it was weird that my newborn kept complaining about Mexicans!" The actual article is interesting stuff about psychology, parenting, and the universal human tendency to understand the world by first organizing people into groups and then feeling loyalty to your own tribe. It also says that if you want your kids not to be racist, you can't just take the easy way out with some vague hippie feel-good "some people are different, but we're all a big happy family!" routine, because by the time children are old enough to infer that this extends to race, they're often too old to unlearn all the assumptions they've already made.
But that cover, oh lordy. I think what gets me about it, other than the fact that giant quizzical baby faces are inherently funny, is that it lays bare the age-old strategy of selling news: scare the bejeezus out of people by exploiting fears they didn't even know they had. All you have to do is take something universally beloved, and then imply that it is either in danger, or dangerous. You see this in network news promos all the time: Is spinach poisonous? Are cell phones giving us cancer? Are you at risk for identity theft?
While searching Google Images for a good picture of the cover, I found several blogs complaining that printing the word "RACIST" in block letters on the forehead of a blond-haired, blue-eyed infant is sort of racist itself. But I don't think that Newsweek is biased against white babies, any more than TV news programs are biased against spinach, or cell phones, or "you." Newsweek's agenda is to sell magazines. In this case, by oversimplifying a nuanced, complicated article into the crowd-pleasing formula of GOOD THING + SCARY THING + QUESTION MARK--and freaking the crap out of us in the process.
It's a dirty tactic, but it works. Also, it's really, really fun.
IS YOUR PUPPY A COMMUNIST?
IS YOUR GRANDMA A PICKPOCKET?
IS YOUR KITTEN A CANNIBAL?*
IS YOUR SANDWICH A BOMB?
*joke courtesy of my mom. Thanks mom, ILU.
Oh man, that doesn't stop being funny to me. IS YOUR BABY RACIST? "Gosh, you know I thought it was weird that my newborn kept complaining about Mexicans!" The actual article is interesting stuff about psychology, parenting, and the universal human tendency to understand the world by first organizing people into groups and then feeling loyalty to your own tribe. It also says that if you want your kids not to be racist, you can't just take the easy way out with some vague hippie feel-good "some people are different, but we're all a big happy family!" routine, because by the time children are old enough to infer that this extends to race, they're often too old to unlearn all the assumptions they've already made.
But that cover, oh lordy. I think what gets me about it, other than the fact that giant quizzical baby faces are inherently funny, is that it lays bare the age-old strategy of selling news: scare the bejeezus out of people by exploiting fears they didn't even know they had. All you have to do is take something universally beloved, and then imply that it is either in danger, or dangerous. You see this in network news promos all the time: Is spinach poisonous? Are cell phones giving us cancer? Are you at risk for identity theft?
While searching Google Images for a good picture of the cover, I found several blogs complaining that printing the word "RACIST" in block letters on the forehead of a blond-haired, blue-eyed infant is sort of racist itself. But I don't think that Newsweek is biased against white babies, any more than TV news programs are biased against spinach, or cell phones, or "you." Newsweek's agenda is to sell magazines. In this case, by oversimplifying a nuanced, complicated article into the crowd-pleasing formula of GOOD THING + SCARY THING + QUESTION MARK--and freaking the crap out of us in the process.
It's a dirty tactic, but it works. Also, it's really, really fun.
IS YOUR PUPPY A COMMUNIST?
IS YOUR GRANDMA A PICKPOCKET?
IS YOUR KITTEN A CANNIBAL?*
IS YOUR SANDWICH A BOMB?
*joke courtesy of my mom. Thanks mom, ILU.