Gap ad controversy

[Gendo]

http://blavity.com/the-girls-in-gaps-co ... -is-upset/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is interesting. I guess gap released an ad that showed 4 girls hanging out; 3 white and 1 black. One of the white girls was leaning her arm on the black girl's head. So this received backlash saying that it's racist in portraying a black girl as nothing but an armrest for a white girl.

Turns out that the 4 girls are all sisters, and their mom is upset that people are seemingly expecting her black daughter to represent black people everywhere, instead of just letting her girls be themselves.

Anyway, I'm pretty surprised that the original ad was seen as racist. I try to be sensitive to various racist things in the media, but I never for a moment would have seen that picture and thought that there was any problem with it. It was just 4 girls hanging out; I never would have noticed or thought that there was any meaning behind the specific positions they were in; if one was leaning on the other or what.

[Derived Absurdity]

Lol, that little girl seems to be really pissed off at being used as an armrest. I wonder if it would look any different if she wasn't the only one in the picture glowering; as it is the vibe it gives off seems kind of hostile.

I don't know if it's racist or not, but I do know that if it is the mere fact that they're sisters wouldn't change anything. I mean, why is it relevant that they're related? Also "intent" doesn't mean anything either, but we already know that.

I also don't think it means anything if a white person doesn't see it as racist. Pretty sure white people aren't the greatest most objective judges here.

[Gypsy-Vanner]

It is a little odd how the black sister is dolled up in striking bright color while the others are outfitted in black and white. I don't think their relationship is relevant either. The company, marketing firm, and photographer intentions may not be relevant either as perception is the most important thing in such things and perception in case is reminiscent of black servitude.

[Islandmur]

to me a couple of the kids just look tired.

[OpiateOfTheMasses]

And yet when Gap did this ad the year before which has an older black kid "leaning" on a smaller white kid in a very similar pose there was no fuss whatsoever:



There are real race issues in the world but when people start crying wolf about things that aren't things they're not doing themselves any favours.

[Islandmur]

When this was mentioned on a thread, people moved to "but look at their body language it's totally different in the two pictures".

It's a bunch of kids striking a pose in a picture, in a kid like manner. In the new one the little black girl looks tired and bored so does the one striking the ballet pose.

I've seen countless pictures of the same genre with kids (family pics) or real live action. Kids leaning on kids, kids riding kids, kids choke-holding kids...

These two girls are sisters, if they pay mind to all the hoopla, their relationship is going to be ruined.

[Anakin McFly]

lol I'm the opposite from Gendo in that I'm often oblivious to racist things, but I could instantly see how this photo was perceived as racist.

I'd say it's unintentional racism resulting from circumstances (the shortest, most leanable-upon girl happened to be the black one) rather than intent.

A few things make the two pictures different:

1) The racial ratio. The first ad is 3 white girls and 1 black girl, and she stands out because she's black as well as the strikingly different colour scheme of her clothes. The second photo is multiracial, where that one white girl being leaned on isn't the only white girl in the photo. None of them stand out in the same way.

2) Facial expressions and body language. The white girl in the second pic is in a defensive pose. Feet apart, arms folded, looking defiantly at the camera. She appears in solidarity with the black girl leaning on her as well as with the others - an all of them against the world kind of vibe. Whereas the black girl in the first pic has a resigned, world-weary expression, her body unprotected and vulnerable in a not very stable pose (push someone standing like that and they're going to fall over), while her white sister has this triumphant look as though she's conquered her. She's got the kind of expression people have when they've caught a particularly big fish.

Intent doesn't matter when it comes to how the thing was received, but it does inform what the response should be: someone accidentally hitting you vs someone intentionally punching you are completely different, even though both hurt.

Meanwhile there's the lack of an even playing field to begin with. If this photo took place in a universe in which the races were genuinely equal, there would be no issue at all with it, because there wouldn't be all that history that affects how people view things.

[Monk]

lol I'm the opposite from Gendo in that I'm often oblivious to racist things, but I could instantly see how this photo was perceived as racist.

I'd say it's unintentional racism resulting from circumstances (the shortest, most leanable-upon girl happened to be the black one) rather than intent.

A few things make the two pictures different:

1) The racial ratio. The first ad is 3 white girls and 1 black girl, and she stands out because she's black as well as the strikingly different colour scheme of her clothes. The second photo is multiracial, where that one white girl being leaned on isn't the only white girl in the photo. None of them stand out in the same way.

2) Facial expressions and body language. The white girl in the second pic is in a defensive pose. Feet apart, arms folded, looking defiantly at the camera. She appears in solidarity with the black girl leaning on her as well as with the others - an all of them against the world kind of vibe. Whereas the black girl in the first pic has a resigned, world-weary expression, her body unprotected and vulnerable in a not very stable pose (push someone standing like that and they're going to fall over), while her white sister has this triumphant look as though she's conquered her. She's got the kind of expression people have when they've caught a particularly big fish.

Intent doesn't matter when it comes to how the thing was received, but it does inform what the response should be: someone accidentally hitting you vs someone intentionally punching you are completely different, even though both hurt.

Meanwhile there's the lack of an even playing field to begin with. If this photo took place in a universe in which the races were genuinely equal, there would be no issue at all with it, because there wouldn't be all that history that affects how people view things.

I definitely agree about the unintentional racism being a thing, and that there are degrees of how the response should be. If they're all sisters, then that would likely explain the ratio of white to black girls. I think the temperament of the black girl played a role in the response, but I think it depends on why she looks that way. Was she directed to look defeated? Or was the girl just actually sick of the entire photoshoot and expressing her actual annoyance? I think in the grand scheme, this is a minor (unintentional) offense

[Anakin McFly]

Yep. I was thinking that a better comparison would not be between the two photos but with the same photo, imagining the races swapped - 3 black girls, one of whom is leaning on the sole white girl, with the same facial expressions and positioning. I'm guessing at least some people would have taken issue with that, even if the people in question were only the sort who whine on Reddit about how political correctness is taking over the world. Likewise if it were a gender thing instead: if it were a white boy there instead of a black girl, I think it would be perceived as having feminist undertones.

So if either case is a possibility, it means that there is something about the photo that suggests a power dynamic, and one that is absent from the second photo.

[Monk]

Yep. I was thinking that a better comparison would not be between the two photos but with the same photo, imagining the races swapped - 3 black girls, one of whom is leaning on the sole white girl, with the same facial expressions and positioning. I'm guessing at least some people would have taken issue with that, even if the people in question were only the sort who whine on Reddit about how political correctness is taking over the world. Likewise if it were a gender thing instead: if it were a white boy there instead of a black girl, I think it would be perceived as having feminist undertones.

So if either case is a possibility, it means that there is something about the photo that suggests a power dynamic, and one that is absent from the second photo.

Yeah, agree on all counts. If the races were swapped, or the black girl were some (white) kid, you'd have white people complaining about reverse-racism or feminazis or whatever.

[Gendo]

So yeah I definitely wasn't intending my OP to sound like "wow SJWs getting upset over nothing again", if it did. It's just that the specific pose the girls were in isn't the type of thing I would have ever noticed. When I see one person resting her arms on another person's head like that, I wouldn't have thought of it as being possibly degrading at all; I simply saw it as a way that people stand when they stand around. As DA says, I'm not the one whose opinions on such things are what matters to the issue of "is it racist".

[Cassius Clay]

Randomly, their mother is the actress from 'Silence of the Lambs". The kidnapped one that was requested to "puts the lotion in the basket".

[Monk]

So yeah I definitely wasn't intending my OP to sound like "wow SJWs getting upset over nothing again", if it did. It's just that the specific pose the girls were in isn't the type of thing I would have ever noticed. When I see one person resting her arms on another person's head like that, I wouldn't have thought of it as being possibly degrading at all; I simply saw it as a way that people stand when they stand around. As DA says, I'm not the one whose opinions on such things are what matters to the issue of "is it racist".

My initial reaction was similar to yours. It was only after I thought about it some more and tried to look at it from a different perspective that I began to see it.

[Derived Absurdity]

As it happens has there ever actually been a case where "SJWs" got upset over literally nothing? Like has there ever been a case where they had no point at all. Where no reasonable interpretation could possibly put them in a sympathetic light. I hear this all the time but I can't think of any. Not that they don't exist, but I can't think of one.

[Gendo]

As it happens has there ever actually been a case where "SJWs" got upset over literally nothing? Like has there ever been a case where they had no point at all. Where no reasonable interpretation could possibly put them in a sympathetic light. I hear this all the time but I can't think of any. Not that they don't exist, but I can't think of one.

Animal rights.

[Derived Absurdity]

I choose to ignore that.

[Anakin McFly]

As it happens has there ever actually been a case where "SJWs" got upset over literally nothing?

It really depends on your benchmark for such things. Technically, everyone who gets upset about something has a reason for it; it's a matter of whether or not those are good reasons, or things that people can reasonably be held at fault for.

Possible examples:

- Blowing up at someone for not putting a trigger warning on a photograph of pomegranates: http://imgur.com/vDuH5VM

- breatharianism, where they considered it immoral to eat because even vegetarianism kills plants for the sake of human nutrition, and is selfish; I found one of those Tumblr blogs and it was full of their moral struggle over the morality of eating plants, or just eating anything really

- Refusing to tip the waitress and leaving an angry note instead because she called them 'ma'am' when they were actually genderqueer, even though they were otherwise presenting in a stereotypically feminine way and at no point corrected the waitress

- getting very angry (I think they told people to boycott) at the organisers of a small LGBT event for being ableist because it was held at a place with no wheelchair access. The event hadn't started, and given that it was trying to be inclusive I'm sure they would have been willing to hear their concerns and make arrangements where needed.

- accusing common words and phrases of being ableist - "disabled security", "paralysed with fear", "we had a crazy time", "this is stupid", etc. They do have a point, and it could be good fodder for a discussion of how language reflects social biases and how we might do better as language evolves. But it crosses the line when they start sending hate mail to people who use those phrases and had absolutely no idea why they were suddenly being subject to internet vitriol, or of expecting everyone to remove these phrases from our vocabulary. (And really there's currently no good replacement for 'stupid', because some things and people *are* stupid, and it has nothing to do with their intelligence level; just like how describing something as a lame joke has nothing to do with people who are physically lame.) Often, many of those words are also used in a positive way, not as a slur, e.g. "That ride was totally insane! Let's go again!"

- the concept of singlet privilege, where people with dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities) get angry at those who didn't acknowledge that some people have multiple personalities and find offensive common words or phrases that imply otherwise.

- the concept of 'adult privilege' and how their parents are oppressing them when they tell them to eat vegetables and clean their room. I thought this was a joke at first but then apparently it wasn't, and most of the people ranting about this were literally 12 years old. and then I felt very old and got off Tumblr.

- human privilege, because some people don't identify as human and it's offensive to use words like 'humankind' as a reference to, well, humankind

It's not that they don't have reason to be upset, and I can understand how they're justified from their perspective. But often the implied solutions are completely impractical, suggest a dissociation from how the world works, suggest a need for psychiatric help (I mean that in a compassionate way), infringes on other people's rights, and will cause far more harm than good.

[Derived Absurdity]

the concept of 'adult privilege' and how their parents are oppressing them when they tell them to eat vegetables and clean their room.

I mean I am all for treating children better but... omg, that's funny

But yeah, those are all good examples.

Also, a very sincere thank-you for introducing breatharianism into my life.

[Anakin McFly]

The thing about all those examples is that they can be extrapolated from regular social justice concerns - there's no clear line that can be drawn to say at what point it is acceptable for some people to be offended or not automatically included for the sake of other people's comfort. It often becomes uncomfortably a matter of numbers, where if you're unfortunate enough to be part of a tiny minority, then the world should not be obliged to meet your needs if it is at the expense or inconvenience of others, or even if it's because that person is mentally ill and requires the world to be a certain way for them to function. It might be for serious issues like food allergies - e.g. some people are fatally allergic to peanuts and might end up in an attack just by being near them due to peanut dust in the air. But I'm not sure it should be justification for, say, a whole country to ban peanuts in order to completely eliminate the problem, even though this is for something that could actually save lives.

I just went to look up the Wiki entry on breatharianism and it had this about the founder of the Breatharian Institute of America:

Brooks claims that cows are fifth-dimensional (or higher) beings that help mankind achieve fifth-dimensional status by converting three-dimensional food to five-dimensional food (beef). In the "Question and Answer" section of his website, Brooks explains that the "Double Quarter-Pounder with Cheese" meal from McDonald's possesses a special "base frequency" and that he thus recommends it as occasional food for beginning breatharians.

I hope he's trolling, and it worries me that I am not sure.

[Monk]

Anakin is basically my source for what goes down on Tumblr and Reddit, since I can't even

[Cassius Clay]

@anakin The ableist language one is actually a very legitimate position. I've seen very good arguments. I actually cut out words like "idiot" from my vocabulary for months. But it's very difficult when you're dealing with someone like Vegas though, and didn't last very long. But, not only is it considerate to ableist issues, cutting out cheap insults forces you to be more creative with your insults. I find that the more you rely on cheap epithets to insult people(insults used to describe oppressed classes) the less creative your mind is. It's easy to use racist, sexist or homophobic language in insulting exchanges. I don't think ableist language is quite on the same level(which might be my privilege talking), but it's a similar thing there. That might also be because ableist language is more built into everyday, casual language...which is arguably more insidious. For example, you say "that ride was insane" frames the word insane in a positive light, but the connotations of the word are still negative, and arguably trivializes mental illness. Like, there's a reason that you probably wouldn't use the word "insane" in that way, if you were chatting with a loved one who just had a mental breakdown/suffering from debilitating mental illness. I'm not saying I don't flippantly use words like that. I might be the biggest culprit. But, let's not pretend that it's completely harmless. It's just so built into our language that it's very difficult to stop.

[aels]

There's a site I occasionally comment on that is very strict on ableist language and doesn't allow language like 'crazy', 'idiotic', 'dumb', 'lame', etc. Ssome of the words they ban are words I use, some are words I would personally be uncomfortable using, but the language policy has led me to start referring to people as 'ridiculous' rather than stupid or crazy and I really like referring to people as ridiculous because it is wonderfully dismissive. Like, I'm not even going to bother arguing with you, I'm just going to laugh at you because you are a ridiculous human being. It's the equivalent of Graham Chapman saying that a sketch is far too silly to continue.

[Anakin McFly]

@Cassius - yeah, I'd consider that one the most legitimate example of the bunch. I've dropped words like lame, retard and idiot because they were once officially used to describe physically/mentally disabled people. Currently that extends to words like 'special', for the same reason, and of late I've been hearing 'autistic' thrown around a lot as an insult, which is so offensive that I can't even.

I think ableist language is different from racial/sexual/homophobic insults because it extends beyond a class of people to everyday concepts. There is intrinsic value in things like health, intelligence, beauty, capability, and our language reflects that. There isn't that same intrinsic value for being white - that's just society's doing. If you're stuck on a desert island, your race or sexual orientation isn't going to make a difference in how well you fend for yourself, but if you're blind and deaf your situation would become objectively worse.

That sense of 'worse' or badness is what words like 'stupid' reference. The problem is when we extend that badness and inferiority to people who are those things, and not with the idea that having a healthy, functional mind and body are good things - because they are good things, and trying to believe otherwise might in fact be more ableist. There's been a movement started about that (#SaytheWord) where disabled people are trying to bring the word 'disabled' back into use, because calling them 'special needs' implies that they desire extra special treatment, while 'differently-abled' is offensive because it dismisses the struggles that result from their disability and falsely implies that if society were more inclusive then all their problems would magically go away.

So that's personally where I draw the line: does it refer to a concept or to a group of people? and how closely the term is associated with those people. e.g. "that's stupid" = fine, "that's autistic" = extremely ableist, "that's so gay" = homophobic, "that's ugly" = fine, "that's crazy" = depends on context and what is being described. Some of these also differ based on the culture, because a lot of the offensiveness comes from cultural/historical associations. And if the people I'm around might have reason to be more sensitive to those words, then I'll put in the effort not to offend them; I'd be less strict around people who don't care and/or who don't speak English as a first language. I have heard so many offensive terms from non-native English speakers, including words that are slurs for groups they're part of.*

*there was this one Russian guy who thought women were called 'bitches' because apparently he taught himself English from porn.

[Anakin McFly]

I went to google human privilege for the lolz and found this:

http://myjourneymythoughts.tumblr.com/p ... -it-exists

From the author's profile:

I'm Nala. My human form is 20 years old and identifies as a vegan, demisexual, panromantic, feminine cisgender, multiracial, neopagan, aneurotypical, ecofeminist, postmodern, Dianic witch, and Otherkin.

I was born with the spirit of a feral jungle cat. I am still in the process of discovering the specifics of my species, but I do know that my origins are in Central America. My spirit sister is a domestic Savannah humankin and I am currently inhabiting her real body in this life cycle. We are on a journey to find our spirit brother, the cat who holds the key to my true identity. Follow us along the way!

My preferred pronouns are: cher, cherself, chi.

I know it's wrong to mercilessly mock people, but sometimes it is very hard not to.

From a linked blog: "There is no ethical consumption under global capitalism." like yeah ok maybe, but that's no justification for making people feel guilty about eating.

[CashRules]

How to tell someone is a total fuckwit and full of shit - said someone claims to be a vegan while thinking of himself/herself as a cat. Actually being a vegan is enough but claiming to be a vegan while also considering yourself to be an obligate carnivore...um, yeah. Okay, everything in that profile says that catperson needs to be exterminated.

[Anakin McFly]

Genocide?

[CashRules]

It's not immoral to commit genocide against fuckwits.

[Anakin McFly]

dammit it's a troll: http://anotherwiki.org/wiki/Transcats

it's unsettling what it says about the state of Tumblr that it's getting very hard to tell.

Genocide this guy instead: http://anotherwiki.org/wiki/TheDarkEricDraven

"TheDarkEricDraven is a self-professed "proud pedophile" active in the otherkin and fictionkin communities, claiming to be attracted to six to ten year olds."

[CashRules]

No we need to commit genocide against everyone associated with or mentioned anywhere within that Wiki you just linked.

[Anakin McFly]

From one of the trolls after confessing to trolling:

Consider the following. You have created a community in which someone can claim to be an autistic pangender asexual demiromantic trans-Asian cat otherkin and not be immediately denounced as a troll. Whether you think these identities are valid or not, you find it plausible that someone would believe they are a Korean cat with autism and appropriate social justice terminology to defend that belief. What does that say about the state of your community? (And that's not even starting on the people who actually supported us).

[CashRules]

Um, that's an entirely valid point.

[Anakin McFly]

I agree.