TV/Movies Megathread

[crazy canuck]

Yeah the US discourse shapes ours (and I think the US is ahead of us on lots of these issues) - so BIPOC has been used a few times in the UK, for example by Hackney Council, until someone pointed out that "indigenous" has very different and far more racist connotations here

Indigenous is a very important concept over here in this hemisphere...but a very shitty one over in Africa/Asia/Europe (except outside of some very specific colonized places like maybe South Africa). Quickly it boils down to which nationalist group has special rights over their enemies, which is not really how that term is intended to be used.

"We are indigenous to this land while these immigrants are evil colonizers"

Yeah ok.

Well, indigenous is used to identify the group to be protected from the colonizer - see UNDRIP

https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html

[Tamas]

A weird Brit racist thing is the BAME expression.

Black Asian and Minority Ethnicities. So, Blacks and Asians are not minorities? If not, then the others non-white ethnicities are why so? If they are minorities then why do they get separate mention? Asians mean just Pakistanis and Indians if yes why, if not what determines the border?

Also, as an ethnic minority with white skin do I belong in the BAME distinction? If yes what's the point of grouping me with Black and Asian people who are quite obviously facing orders of magnitude more racism than I am, if I do not fit under the "ME" category than why not? By ethnic we mean "non-white"?

It's very confusing.

[garbon]

https://www.london.gov.uk/questions/2018/0064#:~:text=The%20acronym%20BAME%20stands%20for,output%20categories%20for%20ethnic%20groups.

[Josquius]

Meh. I get it. It's saying Blacks, Asians, and others. The others being far smaller in number than anyone who could fit into the large black and Asian boxes.
I guess we have a few North Africans and Pacific Islanders about.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah. BAME has issues and I'm seeing more of a movement to "people of colour" which I think is probably better.

In the UK it was common for all non-white ethnicities to unite under a banner of "black" (the idea of political blackness) - I think again this may have been shaped by the US because of black activism and civil rights movement, black power etc in the 60s having wider relevance in the UK. But you saw groups that would in the US at the time or the UK now probably not be identified as "black" literally under that banner:



The issue was as you say it maybe didn't allow for sort of expression of difference within that group - especially for the large number of British Asians. So we moved to BME (black and minority ethnic) or BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic). I've always seen the "minority ethnic" as a bit like the Q or + in LGBTQ or LGBT+ in that it's intended to capture other identities that aren't called out. Partly that just reflects changing demographics - for example the growing Latin American community, or British Arabs.

I think the recent discussion around Jewishness and its relationship as an ethnic minority to BAME is really interesting and why I think moving to a phrase like "people of colour" which is more clearly separate from ethnic identity may be useful. Because there are often white groups on the census who may face prejudice based on their ethnic identity not their race, like Jewish people, travellers, the Roma - but also people from other European countries etc.

[viper37]

Yeah the US discourse shapes ours (and I think the US is ahead of us on lots of these issues) - so BIPOC has been used a few times in the UK, for example by Hackney Council, until someone pointed out that "indigenous" has very different and far more racist connotations here

Indigenous is a very important concept over here in this hemisphere...but a very shitty one over in Africa/Asia/Europe (except outside of some very specific colonized places like maybe South Africa). Quickly it boils down to which nationalist group has special rights over their enemies, which is not really how that term is intended to be used.

"We are indigenous to this land while these immigrants are evil colonizers"

Yeah ok.

Well, indigenous is used to identify the group to be protected from the colonizer - see UNDRIP

https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html

More evil nationalism! 

[viper37]

I have always found American racial categories very weird - particularly in relation to Latino/Hispanic identities. I wonder if they'll last or if they are just the latest iteration of the way the boundaries of whiteness were policed and actually in a few years many people in those categories will broadly be seen as white, unless they are black? And a lot of Latino/Hispanic identities become like the old "white ethnic" identities: Irish, Italians, Poles etc.

The other celebrity/TV/thing I've seen on Twitter which always makes me think how weird the categorisation is is when every now and then people online have discourse around whether Jason Mantzoukas (who is Greek) is white or not.

I can't think of anyone's racial categories that are not very weird.  Lots of people believe that they exist, but no one can definitively define them.

Arguments over whether "X" person is "Y" race always collapse into statements of opinion about whether some trivial feature defines races.

It all tends to be very US_centric, even though the language has spread over much of the (at least english-speaking) world.  The world is divided into white, and not-white (or BIPOC).  You might be a high-caste family in India, or a communist party princeling from China, but you're still a BIPOC and presumed to have solidarity with all other people of colour.

Then, of course, you get into the issue of identifying what a "white" person is and explaining why white isn't a color.

It ain't!
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/design/discover/is-black-a-color.html

[viper37]

Next I will hear how Cortez was the first Conquistador of color.

Well, if Japanese were Aryans...

[grumbler]

Next I will hear how Cortez was the first Conquistador of color.

Well, if Japanese were Aryans...

They were only "honorary Aryans."

[Sheilbh]

Then, of course, you get into the issue of identifying what a "white" person is and explaining why white isn't a color.  As I say, it always ends in a muddle because we are trying to describe things that don't actually exist except as social constructs.

I'm sure it's very out of date but Richard Dyer's White is really good.

[Valmy]

More evil nationalism! 

It can certainly be used for such purposes, yes.

[Josephus]

It was so much easier back when we just used to say, "darkies."

[viper37]

More evil nationalism! 

It can certainly be used for such purposes, yes.

Newsflash: just like religion, love of one's nation can be used for anything

[Valmy]

Newsflash: just like religion, love of one's nation can be used for anything

Newsflash: Identity politics has a bad track record whether based on nation or religion.

But I have only ever talked about the bad things it does, that is all I object to. I certainly don't object to opening the nation of whatever cultural center non-profit whatever or whatever your paranoid and bizarre interpretation of my position is.

[Jacob]

Indigenous is a very important concept over here in this hemisphere...but a very shitty one over in Africa/Asia/Europe (except outside of some very specific colonized places like maybe South Africa). Quickly it boils down to which nationalist group has special rights over their enemies, which is not really how that term is intended to be used.

"We are indigenous to this land while these immigrants are evil colonizers"

Yeah ok.

Just for the record: imperialist colonization and victimization of indigenous populations happens outside of the Americas and South Africa. I'm sure you'll agree that China is an imperialist power oppressing indigenous populations, for example.

IMO immigrant vs colonizer has to do with who has the power to define the social and economic realities, and how that power is enforced. If the new-comers largely impose their rules on the locals, enforced by military, social, and economic power - and extract the lion share of economic benefits - then they're colonizers. If the new-comers have to fit their lives into the established rules of the local people and negotiate acceptance of each difference they wish to maintain - and if they're not extracting a disproportional portion of economic benefit - then they are immigrants.