Is this how most foreigners (be they white fingers or other sorts of foreigners) see America's racial makeup?
Watch. Twitch with vague discomfort. Discuss.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
let their preconceptions shape their impressions of foreign places
Here's an interesting post-trip video entitled "Racial and Cultural Separation in America." The narrator explains impressions of those topics, as gathered during a cross-country trip through the eyes of a white . . . finger.
Is this how most foreigners (be they white fingers or other sorts of foreigners) see America's racial makeup?
Watch. Twitch with vague discomfort. Discuss.
Is this how most foreigners (be they white fingers or other sorts of foreigners) see America's racial makeup?
Watch. Twitch with vague discomfort. Discuss.
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my discomfort isn't vague.
ReplyDeleteWow. Where is this video even from?
ReplyDeleteI wish I could offer more context and info, Shaina, especially about the white world-traveler who posted this YouTube video (which is where I stumbled across it). He posts videos there as "beautyintheuniverse," and you can see him talking in the video that's currently featured on his YouTube profile page, which he shot at Crater Lake. I don't see any info there about him, except that he's 35 years old.
ReplyDeleteThat did not make me uncomfortable. Most of the time I had a "WTF he is talking about?!" look on my face as I watched this video.
ReplyDeleteWhat a dumbass.
I've lived in England for business and have a grandmother from Whitechapel (East London Russian Jewish) and it sounds to me like he has a "Home Counties" (wealthy suburbs of London) accent. He has a university degree, I'm guessing, but not from Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Bristol or Manchester. I assume he votes Tory. That would make him both an insecure racist snob AND also an easy anti-American snob.
ReplyDeleteI was born in New York City and have lived in a lot of different places. I grew up speaking both English and Spanish and now live in South America. I'm small and have a dark complexion and brown hair and eyes and I'm never taken for American so I get a worm's eye view of how South Americans see the USA.
It's a bit different from this guy's video. There's New York, Boston, Miami, Chicago, Las Vegas and Los Angeles and a vast blank otherwise which is thought of as completely White and militaristic. People in this part of South America (Isthmian/Andean) have heard of the MLB, NFL and NBA cities but don't know where they are or anything about them. Or really care to know. Nobody's asking me for any geography lesson.
This is what you get from 7 1-2 years of Bush. The last two years in which "immigration reform" became code for "hating Latinos." That part we get loud and clear. The funniest thing is this word "HISPANIC". It's a goofy word for Americans to use. It's sounds from an American's mouth here maybe like how "COLORED" would sound up there.
Here's a first lesson ALL Americans need to learn (and tangentially why Obama is so popular here and everywhere else): A Lebanese-Colombian banker doesn't eat tacos for lunch. They don't SERVE tacos in Colombia. Nor does he wear a sombrero and sarape. Basic Armani suit and Hermes tie works. Mind-boggling, no?
I think that the guy who did the video is indeed a dumbass, but it wouldn't kill Americans to learn some culture and geography beyond their borders.
What a dingbat. "There is nothing in this region. No one lives here."
ReplyDeleteHis explanation of the 2nd Amendment was spot on; I've tried to explain this to so many of the ass-backwards rednecks here in Pennsylvania. It's not about your right to carry a gun with you at all times; broader, it wasn't even created for the default 'white guy' idea, which seems to be something like 'There's a good chance a random homicidal maniac will inevitably break in through my front door and try to murder my whole family. I will confront him in the hallway in the middle of the night and shoot him dead with one shot and be the town hero.'
ReplyDeletePeople are silly and stupid -_-