Yes Taylor, Yes destruction is beautiful.

This one's fuckin cool, Al:



I could see why people would collect these for purely aesthetic reasons. It's like collecting giant medieval broadswords. They're for show as opposed to functionality. I guess there's a certain beauty intrinsic to objects of destruction.

edit: fuck this... everything I say I feel will be misconstrued just because I AM white. So fuck it.

Hey, andy, your weakness is calling.

Beck, Jere: Is this tankless underwater breathing system a hoax or for real?

"And furthermore, the most despised politicians are hands-down caucasians anyways. Ralph Klein, George Bush, Tony Blair... the list is never-ending."

Taylor, i think statements like this fit into my other point about that whole White Guilt Complex - look at corruption in the governments (present and past) of the former Soviet Union, Eastern Asia (Indonesia anyone?), South America, the African continent, and i'm sure you'll find PLENTY of horrific examples.
Joke: the only reason Caucasians are the most despised politicians is because you guys had a Hitler in your history, the same reason why people hate Invaders because of Ghangis Khan. Besides Caucasian politicians are only more despised because they get more press anyways.

A response about reverse racist:


ORIGINAL STATEMENT, TAYLOR:
"we (as white males in general) have lived here all of our lives and therefore take for granted what we have; they don't."

RESPONSE, ERIC:
"just because someone's not White they automatically gotta be some poor ass fool that scrounged and saved to sneak into this [country]?"

Kay. First off i over exaggerated my statement partially for dirty-comical effect but perhaps my actual sentiment was misinterpreted. Clearly my statement was offensive not because it was Racist per se, but because it rather distastefully perverted an otherwise Well-meaning statement to intend something it did not mean to intend- particularly through, as you point out, the false assumptions i make of what those High School Kids were thinking. That's fair- i fully take that because it was distasteful and only moderately funny.
Just accepting this critique however fails to register my point about the broader discussion of Racism and Reverse Racist- So let's have ourselves a frank discussion about it.

To first clarify, I don't actually believe that those High School Kids have such a ridiculous notion of immigrants - what i believe is they don't recognize that their notions of ethnic politicians are steeped in their own stereotypes - and just because they are Well-meaning Positive Stereotypes doesn't mean that there don't have damaging consequences.

(This point of not recognizing that Positive Stereotypes can be damaging because they're constructed within a similar paradigm as Negative Stereotypes will be the underlying point that colors all of my following arguments - so keep this in mind)


Let's look at what they say in their statement and what they don't say. It speaks well of immigrants as being grateful individuals, not taking for granted the benefits of this country. As said before, because this is a well meaning statement it becomes something that makes a "compelling amount of sense" - but i think part of the problem is because it is well meaning we don't bother to judge it. Let's consider that this level of well-meaning is hardly ever afforded for other ethnic groups. (Once again i am making an assumption of these High School Students), i truly doubt they would echo a similar statement about Aboriginal peoples being excellent politicians. But why? Aboriginal peoples have a cultural heritage premised incredibly much on gratitude. Why is it that those same High School students would not make a similar comment of Aboriginals? I would say it is because it does not fit neatly into their own assumptions/schema.

In fact if we were to look at those HighSchool Kids' own recent families histories we would find that it was many of their WHITE families, Ukrainians etc.. that were the hard working foundation of Albertan settlement. Undoubtably their families likewise had a tradition of gratuity to this country. But to highlight this fact would not fit nicely with their White Cultural Guilt Complex. So instead they try to make well-meaning statements that would allieve themselves of this Complex, as (again, what i suspect) is the case with their statement about immigrants making better politicians.

How did they come to that conclusion in the first place? my assumption is that they came up with this notion Not from watching an ethnic politician in Parliament, interacting with one, and actually seeing them in action as compared to other White politicians, but rather from whatever associations they could make from knowing people of color in their own everyday lives. What they don't include in their statement is that SOME of the people that come over to Canada are actually not very gracious and nice at all. I've seen scores of Asshole kids coming from Asia to study here in Canada, and they have little to no respect for this country whatsoever. It is once again just my assumption, but i doubt that were those White HighSchool kids to encounter those types of foreigners they would consider them aboritions from the norm and not fit that into their schema. Whatever isn't Nice and Well-Meaning doesn't get thrown into their assumptions.

From this we get a sense of how Positive Stereotypes operate in a similar fashion with that of Negative Stereotypes- whatever doesn't fit the stereotype doesn't get considered. But you ask me, so what? why should we bother to be so harsh on Positive Stereotypes? after all aren't they beneficial? As I pointed out above i think they still have damaging consequences because like Negative Stereotypes they limit what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, as well as likewise creating flat characterizations of entire groups of people. I will draw examples from cultural notions of what Chinese people are like, just because it's convenient for me, but you can extrapolate onto other groups just as easily. For me growing up i often had to confront the notion of Asian kids being good at math (and also the somewhat less vocalized dichotomitic notion of Asian kids not being good at Sports- even their own CHINESE BASEBALL) Now looking at that notion, being good at math doesn't seem all that bad. Asides from personal opinions of how much Math sucks, Math is unarguably an important tool for human beings in general. So hey, it's a good thing, right? What often does not get considered is what are the products of applying such a label. Firstly it limits what an Asian kid is allowed to be good at- JUST MATH. Asian kids are not given the option to be very keen on Literature, or History. But you say, oh who cares- who is to say that those asian kids interested in history aren't just going to persue it on their own. I suppose that's true. But let's make a few considerations: How many Chinese comedians (asides from me) do you know? how many asian actors can you name that don't do martial arts? my guess is that it's pretty damn hard to conjure up any names. Why is this? just of Chinese people, there's like over a friggin' Billion of us. BILLION. that's a lotta muthafuckas. and only ONE of them is good enough to make it to the NBA? kay, maybe that's not a good example because the NBA's seriously hard to get into, and the sport of basketball has not been played for very long in a place like China. But the point definately stands with the actors. I mean, shit, he's called the ASIAN GUY FROM AMERICAN PIE in the Kumar trailer, HE's not addressed by his name. I think the fact that there aren't a lot of asian actors is partially due to this stigmatism/assumption of what Asian people can and cannot do.

But WHITES do not suffer from this problem- WHITE as an ethnicity becomes NEUTRAL or absent of ethnicity altogether. In fact let's take a look at any other ethnic group- you can make stereotypical assumptions about EVERY ethnic group - Blacks are good at sports, and so on blah blah blah. But hey, what are WHITE people good at? i mean sure, we've touched upon Italian ethnicity as having stereotypes- okay that's fair. But ask those White High School kids, what their label is, what they're suppose to be good at, and i don't think they'd come up with much of an answer. Someone might joke, oh we're not suppose to be good at anything, because everyone else is suppose to be better than us at it. Ha ha. Meanwhile you see White People in every sport, every type of Arts & Culture, basically doing everything. Being Neutral i would say allows them the privilege to do whatever, or at least keeps them from being pigeonholed. WHITE by comparison is not a flat characterization.

So to get back to my original critique of their statement about ethnic politicians, i think just because it's a Positive and Well-Meaning statement does not mean that it doesn't label ethnicity in a flat and one dimensional way.

Perhaps I'm just cynical, but I would expect this kind of thing happening within any group or ethnic community. Perhaps that's just politics. So for me, it just tarnishes the images of the individuals involved. "bah, politics" pretty much says it all.

awwwwwwwwwwww....i totally haven't been to
SHIFT JAPAN in ages- i forgot how sweet it was.

whoops. i guess that's not a live set of the Rapture - it's a DJ SET FROM THE RAPTURE. crazy.

and also whether or not politicians even give a shit about regaining(?) a better public opinion