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Pi 
Joined: 13 Feb 2006
Location: SA
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| pietillidie wrote: |
So this is not "pretentious" academic theory; it's reality on the ground and the reason why many deals don't get done. Have you ever wondered why Asian countries do so well in parts of Africa and the Middle East and have started winning so many big contracts in these places? It's because they don't have the same cultural discourses distorting their communication with Arabs and Muslims. This has huge implications because if the next wave of development is Asian and Arabic, Western countries are going to struggle to compete to be part of it not simply because our wages are higher. Anglo-America had to invade the Middle East to get contracts; Asian countries simply put assumptions aside and negotiate them.
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I didn’t have to wonder, I know there are countries in both the middle east and asia who are quite happy to use slave labour, in fact the slave trade is still flourishing in many of these countries. As they say slavery gets shit done!
Infringement of intellectual property and international patent laws, a few world beaters there too...
_________________
Pi = Infinite = Collingwood = Always
Floreat Pica |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| jack_spain wrote: | It's a mad, mad, mad, mad politically correct world.
I don't like it one bit! "Propaganda Nazis" second guessing your every thought.
Such overuse of the the term "racism" does two things:
1. It means that real racism (the Holocaust, apartheid) is devalued.
2. It means that white people get fed up with being called racists and say stuff 'em. I'll think and say what I like! |
I actually sympathise with this view. Logically and technically I think it's wrong, but if one was to design a campaign to confront racism, the discomfort you point to here would be a major tactical consideration. It is very draining deconstructing one's core assumptions. Culture operates at such a fundamental level that analysing it is in many ways as draining as therapy. But that doesn't mean it's wrong, just challenging. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| Joel wrote: | | pietillidie wrote: | | Have you ever talked to Africans to check if they have a sense of international kinship? |
Have you ever talked to West Indians to see if they were offended by the tv ad?
Stop being offended for others, they can speak for themselves. The West Indians they interviewed on the news last night were NOT offended, and could see the light hearted nature of the ad, and understand the context of the ad.
One of my biggest hates is people getting offended for others, when the people supposedly offended are not actually offended. |
Good criticism and I'll get back to you on it. Certainly North American and continental Africans are offended. Haitians and Dominicans are also offended. But there could be a difference in the West Indies.
Agreed you have a point about false offense by proxy. Because of my work I could might be overly sensitive to certain issues I confront a lot. But even if you were to turn out to be right in this particular case, we still have to deal with the question of identity spilling across groups (Africans from elsewhere are genuinely offended). Also, it's a pretty basic fact that offense is expressed differently between groups, or denied, unstated or resigned to even when it is taken. For example, in many instances Asians will not show offence and the other party is left wondering why the relationship fell by the wayside (we all in fact do this to some degree to avoid confrontation). This issue is a major theme of postcolonial literature; what do we do when so many people seem to accept something offensive? Am I wrong for taking offence when he doesn't? How can I take offence when in so many ways I admire the conqueror and desire to be like them? The issue not as straightforward as it looks.
One point of strong disagreement is your belief that other people can speak for themselves. In a world of greatly differential power this is demonstrably false a lot of the time. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| nomadjack wrote: | Sorry, but I'm currently in southern USA at a political science conference that includes a lot of people working in the area of race and racism, and not one of them has mentioned the ad or anything to do with it. Simple fact is that it has not rated a mention over here. Even the story in the New York Daily News was minor, and in the poll, 66% think it was harmless fun. The 'uproar' in the Baltimore Sun is even more laughable. Have a look through the comments section - there is not one American complaining about the ad. The only 'uproar' is from Australians pointing out the sheer stupidity of the original story. There has been no uproar here and those of us that genuinely give a shit about racism could do without the bullshit that flows from faux outrage over ridiculous beat ups like this. Next.  |
The debate was never about ratings; these things don't go unnoticed and they definitely compound. This will be brought up along with every other minor incident when a more serious incident does actually occur. But I agree the Australian defensive reaction is possibly the larger part of the reaction. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| Pi wrote: | | pietillidie wrote: |
So this is not "pretentious" academic theory; it's reality on the ground and the reason why many deals don't get done. Have you ever wondered why Asian countries do so well in parts of Africa and the Middle East and have started winning so many big contracts in these places? It's because they don't have the same cultural discourses distorting their communication with Arabs and Muslims. This has huge implications because if the next wave of development is Asian and Arabic, Western countries are going to struggle to compete to be part of it not simply because our wages are higher. Anglo-America had to invade the Middle East to get contracts; Asian countries simply put assumptions aside and negotiate them.
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I didn’t have to wonder, I know there are countries in both the middle east and asia who are quite happy to use slave labour, in fact the slave trade is still flourishing in many of these countries. As they say slavery gets shit done!
Infringement of intellectual property and international patent laws, a few world beaters there too... |
Ah, the cruel Asian and the barbaric Arab versus the righteous Westerner.
Unfortunately, in this case for every finger you point there are three pointing back at you. When exactly do you want to start the history of morality? Before the slave trade? Before dividing and conquering of Africa and the Middle East? Before the use of indentured Pacific Island labour in Queensland? Before the holocaust? Before Vietnam? Before Chile? Before Nestle started encouraging mothers from the developing world to swap breast milk for formula? Before supporting Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran? Before the Union Carbide Bhopal disaster? Before James Hardie? Before Iraq?
This is an argument no one can win. |
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jack_spain 
Joined: 03 May 2008
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Pietillidie you seem obsessed by this issue.
Get over it. The old saying is true. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me."
Next thing we'll be banned from referring to Carlton supporters as the Scum. Why? Because we might hurt their feelings.
Frankly there are too many people worrying about what is said about them. They spend so much time on it they don't have time to look for work - or are employed by some branch of this multicultural government looking for issues the PM can apologise for. Thank God Australia still has a universal welfare system - unlike Asia and Africa or the USA.  |
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London Dave 
Ješte jedna pivo prosím
Joined: 16 Dec 1998
Location: Iceland on Thames
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| jack_spain wrote: | | Frankly there are too many people worrying about what is said about them. |
You're a fool Jack!!!! |
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Dr Pie
Dr Pie
Joined: 08 Nov 2007
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At the centre of this argument is The Net. The KFC advertisement was designed for an Australian audience, most of whom know SFA about Afro-American eating habits. I think many Australians have a problem with racial attitudes towards Aborigines, Arabs and Asians but most Australian have pretty positive attitudes to West Indians. This is mostly because of cricket and perhaps to a small extent music but whatever the reason I doubt that it would have been seen as offensive by any Afro-Caribbeans in Australia.
It was obviously never intended to be seen in the US but because of the Net, anything shown or written in one country can be seen all around the world and in terms of what pietillidiee would call the "American discourse" it clearly was offensive. You can then add the fact that the American sense of humour is quite different to the Australian (New York City seems to be the only place in the USA that has heard of irony) and you have all the ingrediants for a storm in a teacup. Which this is.
Racism in this country is a real problem, local advertisements which get shown overseas should not be.
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Born and raised in Black and White |
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London Dave
Ješte jedna pivo prosím
Joined: 16 Dec 1998
Location: Iceland on Thames
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| Dr Pie wrote: | At the centre of this argument is The Net. The KFC advertisement was designed for an Australian audience, most of whom know SFA about Afro-American eating habits. I think many Australians have a problem with racial attitudes towards Aborigines, Arabs and Asians but most Australian have pretty positive attitudes to West Indians. This is mostly because of cricket and perhaps to a small extent music but whatever the reason I doubt that it would have been seen as offensive by any Afro-Caribbeans in Australia.
It was obviously never intended to be seen in the US but because of the Net, anything shown or written in one country can be seen all around the world and in terms of what pietillidiee would call the "American discourse" it clearly was offensive. You can then add the fact that the American sense of humour is quite different to the Australian (New York City seems to be the only place in the USA that has heard of irony) and you have all the ingrediants for a storm in a teacup. Which this is.
Racism in this country is a real problem, local advertisements which get shown overseas should not be. |
Nice post. |
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rocketronnie
Joined: 06 Sep 2006
Location: Reservoir
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I agree mostly with Pietillidie. Australia is one generation off the White Australia Policy and one generation off denying Aborigines citizenship. We are still in the generation of Tampa and Cronulla. The opinions underlining those things have not gone away. In many ways they've been swamped by the Multicultural discourse and it doesn't take much to bring them to the surface again.
Just look at the Herald-sun or Daily Telegraph reader comments whenever an issue of race relations or ethnicity comes up. Every third comment almost has racist overtones or at best xenophobic ones. And the youth aren't necessarily our hope either. Many white working class youth I've dealt with show an unhealthy antipathy to Curry Munchers, Niggers, Slants, Lebs and Coconut Monkeys (Islanders). In many ways they are under pressure from these groups but the point is their default position is a racist one.
Australia is not an institutionally racist country for sure. But the personal views of many remain unreconstructed and potentially open to manipulation on this issue as we have seen before recently (Tampa, Hanson etc ).
I do suspect there are some regional differences, White Melbournians are, I suspect too polite (in some cases) to express what they think, in Sydney and Brisbane they are quite happy to let fly. Not all of us are like this of course but enough for it to be potentially a problem.
Australians are very naive about world opinion. We expect everybody to love us despite what we do or have done. Memory of the White Australia Policy is still strong in Asia. The Howard Government's treatment of refugees was well publicized in Asia and Europe too. And pointing the finger at well documented examples overseas is just a deflection from facing up to our own problems here. Sometimes its also used to justify what happens here also.
I disagree with Pietillidie's comments about the sophistication of our advertisers however. I did a content analysis of Australian advertising back in the nineties and then, as now, in advertising it is still the blond haired blue eyed anglo-aryan (often children for some reason) is the dominant paradgm in advertising products. Often now a few tokens are thrown in as a nod to our changing demographics but the paradigm is still the same. Little wonder that KFC ad got made.(And before someone picks me up on some ads having a wider spread of ethnic groups in them, many of the ads made for global corporations such as Microsoft, Sony and others are made overseas and adapted for the local market - they usually do have a wider mix of ethnicities than the local product).
Ah Iron Man Food....
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"Only the weak believe that what they do in battle is who they are as men" - Thomas Marshall - "Ironclad". |
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Bruno
Joined: 19 Sep 2003
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The real racists are the people who think the ad is racist.
Claiming the ad is offensive because it indirectly mocks people of the US South suggests a belief that ALL black people, irrespective of country of birth, cultural background etc, are ostensibly indistinguishable from each other.
The truth is that people from Jamaica have about as much in common with people from the US South as what people from Australia have with people from Russia. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| I think racists are the people who think the ad is a lot of things. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| Bruno wrote: | Claiming the ad is offensive because it indirectly mocks people of the US South suggests a belief that ALL black people, irrespective of country of birth, cultural background etc, are ostensibly indistinguishable from each other.
The truth is that people from Jamaica have about as much in common with people from the US South as what people from Australia have with people from Russia. |
Do the climate science deniers teach black history denial too? 
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Bruno
Joined: 19 Sep 2003
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Okay. So by posting this map your arguing that people who emigrated from Trinidad and Tobego to London in the 1950's are culturally no different to people currently living in Ghana because the people from Trinidad and Tobego can unltimately trace their ancestry back to Africa... just like today's Ghanains? Yah!
C'mon. Posting that map as if it refutes my comments is one of your lesser efforts around here pietillidie. |
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Pi
Joined: 13 Feb 2006
Location: SA
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| pietillidie wrote: |
Ah, the cruel Asian and the barbaric Arab versus the righteous Westerner.
Unfortunately, in this case for every finger you point there are three pointing back at you. When exactly do you want to start the history of morality? Before the slave trade? Before dividing and conquering of Africa and the Middle East? Before the use of indentured Pacific Island labour in Queensland? Before the holocaust? Before Vietnam? Before Chile? Before Nestle started encouraging mothers from the developing world to swap breast milk for formula? Before supporting Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran? Before the Union Carbide Bhopal disaster? Before James Hardie? Before Iraq?
This is an argument no one can win. |
Ah, the who’s worse than who pissing match. It’s not about winning arguments, just representing the facts.
A short concise history of slavery,
http://www.freetheslaves.net/Page.aspx?pid=303
The history of slavery is not just about the very well documented transatlantic slave trade to America. I’m happy to start at 6800 B.C. up until today, its all human history and everyone is invited.
A little but more up to date than your map.
http://www.freetheslaves.net/Page.aspx?pid=375
Saudi Arabia didn’t abolish slavery until 1962, get a load of what this guy said in 2003;
http://www.arabianews.org/english/article.cfm?qid=132&sid=2
Go ask the UN where slavery exists today.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29235&Cr=slave&Cr1=exploit
Ride the guilt train and indulge in self flagellation if you like, but you can not deny that slavery has existed and still exists in many parts of the world, it’s not about how far you go back or projecting worn out stereotypes.
_________________
Pi = Infinite = Collingwood = Always
Floreat Pica |
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