this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
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Greentext

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

“Somehow she seemed less keen on the British kid reconnecting with their roots with coal dust or the Australian a poison jar.”

[–] Vladkar 74 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Tbh, going outside to reconnect with nature sounds like a great idea for both kids and adults. Instead of investing in office nap pods and pizza parties, companies should start building jungle gyms and bring back recess.

[–] LowtierComputer 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

I've never thought about that, but it'd honestly do so much good. Sure, some people would be too lazy to take advantage of it, but a little physical activity in the middle of the day, after sitting in a chair or whatever all day, would probably do wonders for people's brains. That's not even mentioning socializing with coworkers. It'd probably actually accomplish the "team-building" they always try to do.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 9 months ago

It's all fun and games right before someone would claim you cursed them or brought a bad luck.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm a person of colour and left leaning, but I find that there is ironic racism from the liberals and the left, as exemplified by this post. I appreciate that many thinkers including Slavoj Zizek call them out on this. There is the idea that persons of colour and minorities are perpetually helpless who need uplifting by privileged white people. Which in effect condescends and stereotype PoCs and thereby exotocising them. It denies the humanity and agency of PoCs to be an individual human who are just as flawed as any of us. This is the modern-day version of "white man's burden".

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I mean, this is pretty clearly racist, and everyone is acknowledging that? I think it's okay for marginalized people to laugh at absurd situations they encounter

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Yes, but there are still blinds spots for many. Trying hard not to be racist sometimes ends up being one.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Oh absolutely. White savior complex is absolutely a thing to be wary of. I just thought that in this instance everyone knew what she was doing wasn't a good thing, and was laughing at the ridiculousness of it.

In general I agree, of course

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[–] General_Effort 27 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Why do I have to think of Chakotay?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (2 children)

For anyone not getting the reference: Chakotay is a native American character on Star Trek:Voyager played by Robert Beltran. The show hired a Native American consultant named James Highwater (real name Jack Marks) who was a complete fraud.

https://heavy.com/entertainment/star-trek/jamake-highwater-voyager-fake-native-american/

[–] General_Effort 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It would still be racist if it wasn't for the fraud. It's a future where everyone is enlightened and rational; not a bible or Quran in sight. You won't find the doctor sprinkling holy water on his patients or fumbling with a Rosary. Some things may indulged by the enlightened, though, for are the savages not like children, in a state of nature.

At least it's not as bad as the space jews. Holy shit, the space jews. They are even introduced as stealing our federation women. The US used to hang people who published that kinda shit. Whatever happened there?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Star Trek oftentimes depicts people as the other as part of broader plot arcs where people learn to understand one another. At first there's misunderstandings between people, but then over time these misunderstanding are overcome and there's peace.

One of the main reasons for TNG is because Gene Roddenberry felt the Klingons were portrayed in too much of a negative light in TOS. So TNG had a Klingon on the crew in a Federation Starship and the Klingons and Federation were at peace. DS9 similarly featured a Ferengi character and had the Ferengi join Starfleet as a borader plot arc. Voyager had a Borg character.

Not sure which characters you think are space jews, is it the Ferengi? If that's the case, no word of lie, My favourite character in all of Star Trek is Quark, a Ferengi character.

[–] General_Effort 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, the Ferengi. Nothing wrong with Quark as an individual, I think. Even the wiki page on the Ferengi mentions the "controversy".

Personal story. Back when I was a nerdy kid watching Star Trek I told my german father who the Ferengi were. He's not woke at all (nor the opposite). He's just of a generation and background where all that is simply not an issue. He immediately said something: "Oh, like Nazi caricature." It had never occurred to me before. I never recovered. It just got worse the more I learned.

FWIW, the hanging remark was about this guy.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Yeah it starts out as a caricature because we're seeing them how the Federation sees them.

But watch the scene where Nog is asking for Sisko's endorsement to join Starfleet. Sisko is making assumptions about Nog about it being part of some scheme to make profit. But Nog breaks down and says it's all about how his father's life was shit working for Quark and he didn't want to live that way. Sisko has a "wait, am I the asshole?" moment and gives the recommendation. Nog is a great member of Starfleet, loses a leg in his service. Rom decides to quit working for Quark and is a brilliant engineer when working for the Bajorans. Quark learns to respect his brother. So no, it's not just one individual Ferengi that's cool, it's a whole story with defined characters.

We even see improvements made in Ferengi culture. Ferengi women's rights and democracy. Social issues in Star Trek? Crazy!

Yeah, S1 of TNG was problematic. Remember the episode where they go to a planet where everyone is black and they have a crazy violent society? So yeah, S1 of TNG was kinda bad for that.

But it improved and and the story of the Ferengi was interesting with a lot of discussion about workers rights in a capitalist society which is something that's not normally possible in Star Trek because of the nature of the Federation being a vaguely defined utopia.

And Quark is my favourite character because while he was most certainly flawed (as all interesting characters are) he would call out the bullshit of the Federation. He was never quite right about things because of his flawed perspective, but he made some very good points. Also the funniest character in all of Star Trek because of that flawed perspective. Most humour in Star Trek surrounds characters like Spock or Data misunderstanding humans, the humour of Quark was him understanding humans better than humans understand themselves.

In the end, no one hates the Ferengi, no one thinks of them as evil. S1 of TNG has problems way beyond the Ferengi, but judging all of Star Trek for some embarrassing things in S1 of TNG means you're really missing out.

And in the end Star Trek is about social commentary and putting aside differences. Can't do that if there's not initial differences to overcome. TNG S1 just took things too far in defining those differences. It wasn't trying to build a racist narrative and we are talking about episodes that aired like 36 years ago.

One of the Ferengi in the problematic episodes was played Armin Shimerman a Jewish man. He saw similar problems as you and pushed to change how the Ferengi were portrayed. And he succeeded and got to play another Ferengi. Guess which Ferengi he played in DS9?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The 90s were simpler times without Google people couldn't check your bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Now people find all kinds of different bullshit with Google. So we solved the problem of gritters being hired as consultants for TV shows... by electing them to public office instead.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

We are far from the bones of our ancestors...

[–] samus12345 7 points 9 months ago

"Is it the tattoo? Because mine's bigger!"

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Wonder if they went to the same school

Image

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The one thing I hate about modern social media is the lack of time tags. Twitter’s “6 days ago” tells me fucking nothing! Tumblr’s complete absence of temporal acknowledgment is frustrating.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

You can get the time if you go to the post and click on the three dots, but it really shouldn't be that much effort.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There was a slightly different version of this around a month or two ago where the whole class was Navajo

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

Turns out Cherokee had a lot of princesses

[–] RIP_Cheems 20 points 9 months ago

Bro got reverse rasicm'd

[–] FenrirIII 14 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Must have been math class cause this dummy doesn't know anything about percentages.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

He was connecting with nature during maths

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Do they call themselves "Indians"?

[–] samus12345 15 points 9 months ago

Many do, yes.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I have a few friends who are Narragansett and they all call themselves Indians

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Yep that's the one, I live right near the brewery

[–] deus 11 points 9 months ago

According to CGP Grey, yes, they do.

[–] BreadOven 6 points 9 months ago (3 children)

What do you mean they?! /s. Personally I don't like the term, but my status card does say "Indian and northern affairs", but at least if you go to the government site it mentions how "Indian" is not how many indigenous people want to be referred to as. Why do they not change it? Good question, I'd assume legal stuff with the act or whatnot. But at least I prefer indigenous.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

A majority of them I knew growing up in Oklahoma did, but that was in the 90s, I have no idea if that is still a typical thing.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (3 children)

In college I had an SJW that basically let me do whatever I want in class because I was trans, thank God too, cause damn is Intro to Psychology a hard fucking class

[–] captainlezbian 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Damn, the only leeway I ever got was for being smart. Sure me being trans certainly helped with the lesbian professor, but she was only giving me leeway because I excelled in her classes. Turns out gen ed English professors dgaf if you go in already writing at a college level

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