End of USA republic imminent?

[_Some Schmo]

Hopefully it is clear that I bought these things up not in taking some side as to if they should change or not change but assuming the changes were being made out of fear of the crowd.

Well, I think it's fair to say that these changes are being made out of "fear of the crowd." Isn't every political decision made primarily on that basis?

If the crowd's moving, it's moving. If, as a business, you care about your customer base, you'll move with them. What's the financial upside in resisting the crowd?

[_Chap]

The idea that Aunt Jemima needs to persist to celebrate a black woman who financially made it is a thin apologetic to cover maintaining a very dated racial stereotype as a brand. Tissue paper thin. That's not even ballpark how it functions for people in general. Aunt Jemima is particularly egregious because it's historically rooted in the racial stereotyping it evokes rather than just being reminiscent it.

Aunt Jemima is not a brand I know (my maple syrup comes from further north).



But in the current picture, she just looks like a perfectly normal woman who just happens to be black. I mean, nothing stereotypical like wearing a cloth tied round her hair, caricature 'black' features or anything that says 'Gee! it was great down on the old plantation!'.

So why is her portrayal offensive? Is this because of how she was portrayed in the past, rather than the present?

Of course if the majority of black people want to be rid of this picture, so be it. Do they?

[_Some Schmo]

So why is her portrayal offensive? Is this because of how she was portrayed in the past, rather than the present?

Here's some history.

[_RockSlider]

Rockslider,

Can you dumb down what your point and position are? I’m having trouble figuring out just what it is that you’re trying to state, especially given the links (5 hours!) and subsequent thread.

- Doc

I wish I would not have linked Sam Harris. The title (Can we pull back from the brink) and he somewhat started into the self destructive direction, but then turned to his 'data' presentation.

I tried to give a summary of interesting timestamps here: http://mormondiscussions.com/viewtopic. ... 3#p1229443

Weinstein suggests a movement started with 'Occupy wall street' around 2010 a group that morphed evil overtime moving to a 'critical theory' cult that joined up with Black Lives Matter. This hit him personally at the college he had taught at for 14 years when they declared a 'Day of Absence' where only blacks should/could be on campus for that day. Bret opposed this coming event and sent a campus wide email containing the following:

There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and underappreciated roles....and a group encouraging another group to go away. The first is a forceful call to consciousness, which is, of course, crippling to the logic of oppression. The second is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself.

He showed up on the chosen day that he was expected, because of his color, to not be on campus. Because of this he was accused by a group of students of being racist. This immediately escalated to an irrational and verbally aggressive crowd who refused to dialog with him, but instead started a 'critical theory'/occupy like protest that ended up involving the police and a shut down of the campus (2017). The crowd basically took the school's president hostage, swearing at him and verbally abusing/controlling him to a point that he totally submitted to their demands. You need to see these videos to grasp the depth of crazy that was going on at a very liberal and exclusive private college. At the students demand, Bret was fired (but sued and won with a 500k settlement).

At the time Bret predicated what is happening today in what he calls 'occupy-2', which is a critical theory cult like leaderless movement that will bring about a Mao revolution that attacks and topples America's institutional structure. Black issues is the facade of emotion hiding an underlying anarchist movement. (gee no wonder EA got after me hehe).

[_EAllusion]

It's a brand that was started in the late 1800's inspired by a minstrel song about an "Aunt Jemima." The brand relied on the classic mammy stereotype of a happy black servant who made delicious food for white superiors quite popular of food brands in the late 1800's into the mid 20th century. Virtually all have disappeared with Aunt Jemima being a straggler due to its persistent success as a cheap pancake brand. It's a weird anachronism. Aunt Jemima art has been gradually updated to obscure the overtness of the old-time stereotyping, but it's still there if you think about it for a second. You don't just get to retcon the fictional Jemima as a successful independent business-chef and forget about all that racial stereotyping embedded in the character. Again, the idea that some corporate executives just today woke up and thought, "Oh man. This is problematic guys..." is hilarious as this is not a subtle thing. There's just been a calculation on the part of PepsiCo that nows the time to abandon ship before it's too late and they sink their overall reputation. It's funny how late to the party this is.

The idea that an actress who played Aunt Jemima was the first millionare black woman is false as is the idea that the brand is somehow commonly seen or associated with that success as a positive black cultural message. Rock's been reading bad social media posts it seems.

I doubt there's been a poll on what black people want to do with Aunt Jemima - there's a lot bigger fish to fry here - but it's quite obvious a business decided keeping it was a bad idea and they didn't make that judgment by thinking it would be unpopular with their desired consumers to do so.

Maybe we'll get another thread about the death of America when Uncle Ben goes too.

[_RockSlider]

If you have a lawn display of Nazi memorabilia and intend for it to historical celebration of defeating the Nazis, you have to understand that what your intent is differs significantly from the social meaning of what you've done.
...

Do you not see from my two post explanations to Honor, that the point I was trying to make has nothing to do with lawn jockeys but was intended to highlight the influence of an irrational out of control crowd on commercial institutions being controlled by fear? Perhaps you could drop the lawn jockey diversion and comment on what I was trying to convey?

[_EAllusion]

Yes, Rock, I'm a Moaist anarchist, whatever that is, because I attacked your free speech rights and demanded a safe space when I suggested that lawn jockey displapys are, in fact, racist, thereby proving I disagree with depicting images of black people in general. You got me.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Thanks for the reconstruction of your intent, Rockslider. There’s not much there I can personally take exception to. We’re headed in two polar opposite directions in this country - fascism is happening and it’s taken root. It’s just that both sides happen to be pointing the finger at one another not realizing their brand loyalty is disastrous for our Republic. All we can do is keep talking about it and then cast our votes, I suppose.

- Doc

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

EA,

How about Left-wing market anarchist?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wi ... _anarchism

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

Do you not see from my two post explanations to Honor, that the point I was trying to make has nothing to do with lawn jockeys but was intended to highlight the influence of an irrational out of control crowd on commercial institutions being controlled by fear? Perhaps you could drop the lawn jockey diversion and comment on what I was trying to convey?

If Coke were selling bottles of Coke with lawn jockeys on them, consumers would be right to not buy Coke and Coke would be right to knock that off. This dynamic would not be the result of fear of violent revolution. It's an ordinary response by business responding to better demands from its targeted consumers.

I'm trying to engage you on the more sensible part of what you are writing, because the idea of violent mobs of leftists intimidating society into submission are on the verge of a Maoist revolution with critical theory being their ideological north is absolutely nuts. So far gone that it's hard to know where you even started. Honor might thing this needs to be engaged with rational discourse, but rational discourse doesn't ordinarily fix this sort of thing and, maybe this board just attracts people with crazy ideas.