April 30, 2012

No Sign Yet of "Girls" Whiteness Crisis Abating

From Salon, a trifecta of 2012ness uniting HBO's largely unwatched new show Girls, whiteness, and neuroscience.
Your brain on white people 
Neuroscience shows the media's overwhelming whiteness really is changing our minds. But we can change them back  
BY JEREMY ADAM SMITH 
Hello, New York, indeed. This isn’t the first time TV pushed millions of immigrants and people of color to the margins of one of the most diverse cities in the world. Hello, Woody Allen! Hello, “Seinfeld”! Hello, “Friends” and “Sex and the City”! If “Girls” can’t make it there, it can’t make it anywhere. Of course, the rest of TV has been overwhelmingly white, too. Ever since “Father Knows Best” and “Wagon Train,” the medium has long presented a whitewashed version of the way we live. 
That might be why some “Girls” writers take exception to their show being singled out for criticism. Here’s what writer Leslie Arfin tweeted in response to criticisms: “What really bothered me most about Precious was that there was no representation of ME.” (“Precious,” the 2009 film about a mentally and sexually abused teenager, featured a predominantly black cast.) 
Why shouldn’t Arfin and creator Lena Durham be able to re-create their own private girl-world on screen? What responsibility do show runners have to represent diversity? Does it even matter? How do our brains respond when people of color are invisible or stereotyped on TV? 
This is where science can help. I co-edited a book called “Are We Born Racist?,” ... 
The trick is, quite simply, to acknowledge race and racism, and to talk about it. Many white parents avoid the subject like the plague — in one notorious instance, parents pulled out children en masse from a study when they learned it would entail talking about race. But this strategy doesn’t produce colorblind citizens. It creates shows like “Girls,” “Seinfeld” and “Sex in the City.” It perpetuates a society that historically has pretended to be entirely Anglo-Saxon.

Uh ... Seinfeld pretended to be entirely Anglo-Saxon?

Meanwhile, although of apparently minimal interest to the press, for the second weekend in a row, the number one box office movie in America was Think Like a Man. This didactic comedy is based on the self-help bestseller book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by the socially conservative black comic Steve Harvey. 

The goal of Harvey's book is to help black women get married by teaching them what black men want and need:
Steve Harvey, the host of the nationally syndicated Steve Harvey Morning Show, can't count the number of impressive women he's met over the years, whether it's through the "Strawberry Letters" segment of his program or while on tour for his comedy shows. These are women who can run a small business, keep a household with three kids in tiptop shape, and chair a church group all at the same time. Yet when it comes to relationships, they can't figure out what makes men tick. Why? According to Steve it's because they're asking other women for advice when no one but another man can tell them how to find and keep a man.

Think Like a Man was made on a budget of $12 million dollars, and in its first ten days of release has grossed $61 million. Audiences have given it an "A" grade on Cinemascore's survey. It's directed by Tim Story, a black guy who directed 2002's well-remembered Barbershop, another socially conservative black comedy that was a surprise hit. (The part in Barbershop that got the biggest laughs from black audiences was when Cedric the Entertainer explained:
"I wouldn't be saying this if there were white folks around, but there are three things blacks got to admit: Rodney King deserved to get his ass beat. O.J. did it. And Rosa Parks wasn't that special, just tired.")

But, who cares about discussing in the media a movie like Think Like a Man that black people made for themselves and genuinely like when we can instead worry about the lack of blacks among the four main characters on a show that very few black people would watch?

80 comments:

  1. For anyone who still thinks Darwinism is going to lead to an outbreak of race realism and HBD fun, I encourage you to read that Salon article.

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  2. The Whiteness thing is ironic since commercials are chock full of Black people living un-representative middle class lives. Given that only 40% of Black people are middle class, and Blacks are only 12% of the population.

    My guess is that this "crisis" is a generational thing. Younger White women don't care about their mother's "imaginary Black best friend" and just want to be fabulous, with lots of cool clothes and (White Upper Class Alpha) guys. See Gossip Girl, Twilight, etc.

    Meanwhile the more downscale Moms and older White women need that social status mongering about how THEY are the non-racist folk who get Black approval. See: the Help.

    In other words, a status fight to the death between the Eat, Pray, Love crowd and the Gossip Girl crowd.

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  3. We've entered multiculturalism's mopping-up phase. Any pocket of whiteness must be cleared out. It has nothing to do with fairness of opportunity, despite all the caterwauling.

    Look how small a number constitutes a conspiracy: a show about four white girls isn't properly "representative"! You mean you can't find a circle of four close friends who happen to be white in the real world?

    No; of course the libs know this is silly--they don't care!
    They find the reality of still segregated quartets of close friends (in this day and age!) so unfortunate they demand art deliberately distort reality to will them out of existence.

    The criticism is an implicit shaming of white girls who resemble the characters on the show. The dumb asses don't care this includes them--or maybe that explains their fervor and severity.

    Every time they engage in this they are shouting at every artist alive: "lie to us. Tell us pretty lies!"

    Liberals demand kitsch. Hell, liberalism has become the tyranny of kitsch.

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  4. It perpetuates a society that historically has pretended to be entirely Anglo-Saxon.
    Liberals, SWPL, Scot-Irish, need this to be true. It doesn't matter if it's not true, it needs to be. Just like "blue eyed bankers" looting the coffers.

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  5. Portraying urban and mulitcultural suburbs exactly as they are, may be the most beneficial thing for the race realist movement. The Brazilian movie City of God, did that quite well.

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  6. the media's overwhelming whiteness


    The media actually overrepresents non-whites, which is why when people are asked to estimate how many non-whites there are in the US they consistently guess too high.

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  7. "In other words, a status fight to the death between the Eat, Pray, Love crowd and the Gossip Girl crowd."

    Hilarious!

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  8. This isn’t the first time TV pushed millions of immigrants and people of color to the margins of one of the most diverse cities in the world. Hello, Woody Allen! Hello, “Seinfeld”! Hello, “Friends” and “Sex and the City”!




    Hello CSI New York, where the murderers are always well-off white people and the victims are usually young and pretty white women.

    The same is true for crime drama's in general - though in real life the majority of violent criminals are non-white, in TV land something north of 90% of killers are white men, often middle-class or upper-class white men.

    Is anybody going to ask the producers of these shows when they intend to provide a more accurate reflection of crime in America?

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  9. What happened here? Did Arfin shoot a black actor armed only with Skittles?

    Or is this war on thought crime, as with Harvard email witchhunt?

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  10. he was an odd choice for fantastic four.

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  11. "And Rosa Parks wasn't that special, just tired."

    Parks actually planned it.

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  12. The hilarious thing is that nobody is watching Girls except a handful of people, mostly to whine about it, while the Steve Harvey thing and any Tyler Perry thing are wildly successful and solid moneymakers and regular work for black actors and actresses.

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  13. We've entered multiculturalism's mopping-up phase. Any pocket of whiteness must be cleared out.

    I was going to say basically the same thing. It's not like there aren't black people on TV. Why can't there be show featuring exclusively white people? That would imply that, if it reflects a reality, there is still a white reality. Which must of course go away.

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  14. Maybe we should suggest that the (what, 90%?) white staff at salon give up their white privilege to better reflect the vibrant diversity all around them

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  15. I just watched Little Furniture. It was pretty good. All the characters were very realistic (I know people like that!), but also very hard to relate to or like. Mom was the least realistic and the most likable of them all. The last scene was very strong. Are we absolutely sure that Lena Dunham was 23 when she created this?

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  16. Well,Woody never really was comfortable with black people. (Bobby Short excepted.) I'd love to see him do an all black movie.Unintentional humor is the best kind. I think there is a huge amount of $$ to be made with black movies. Who goes to movies more? Who wants escapism,especially romantic escapism,more? This stuff about how black movies are no good because the foreign market doesnt wnat them:Before Michael Jackson,they werent wanted in pop music. But that seems to have changed...

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  17. Anyone with any brains threw their teevees in the dumpster years ago.That's what I did,so you know I'm intelligent.(LoL)
    Life is alot more peaceful without it.You'll have alot more free time to pursue hobbies,interests,etc.
    That's my two cents. Joe

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  18. Is anybody going to ask the producers of these shows when they intend to provide a more accurate reflection of crime in America?


    "The First 48" has, I'd guess, 80-90% minority offenders.

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  19. "Perspective said...

    Portraying urban and mulitcultural suburbs exactly as they are, may be the most beneficial thing for the race realist movement. The Brazilian movie City of God, did that quite well."

    The Brazilian favelas are much worse nowadays, when the s#!@ gets real they have to call the Army and Marines tanks to help like last year in Rio.

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  20. Yes, Steve, people outside of the alt-right think Seinfeld is white. My Chinese friend, who knows I appreciate his candor, told me that the Holocaust was a big deal because white people got killed.

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  21. Yes, but does Seinfeld perpetuate "a society that historically has pretended to be entirely Anglo-Saxon"?

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  22. Joe Six-Pack4/30/12, 7:49 PM

    The most successful NYC based shows don't have too much diversity.

    Seinfeld, Sex and the City, Friends, and now Girls are White as it gets... Unless you are Mike Wallace...

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  23. The third episode of Girls was better. A scene where the lead meets her ex boyfriend was pretty funny.

    I think sex plots on this show should be a feminist's nightmare. The fact that people are criticizing the casts race and not the sex shows that diversity has a bigger hold on the left than feminism.

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  24. This is the greatest public relations commercial campaign of all time.

    Before this, no one has ever heard of this show.

    After this, close to 10,000 various blog readers were intrigued by characters who are more boring, more idiotic, more unengaging and more caricatures than the Sex and the City harpies.

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  25. Anonymous said...
    Is anybody going to ask the producers of these shows when they intend to provide a more accurate reflection of crime in America?


    "The First 48" has, I'd guess, 80-90% minority offenders.
    -----------

    Well that might be because "The First 48" covers real crime cases, while CSI-type dramas present the invented morality fantasies of white liberal women.

    Which genre has more viewers/influence?

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  26. I imagine everyone involved n the TV show is trying to fan the flames of this pretend controversy for all they're worth, in hopes that it drives a few people to watch their show.

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  27. not a Time Warner PR rep4/30/12, 9:28 PM

    People are saying that "Girls" embodies the imminent SuperZIP white racism prophesied by Murray et al. Therefore it's critical we spend all our free time analyzing it as well as the other fine programming in HBO's 2012 summer lineup, not to mention their world-renowned library of legacy classics such as "Arli$$" and "Mind of the Married Man"

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  28. Yes, of course "Seinfeld" was entirely Anglo-Saxon. Why it was a show created by members of the Harvard/WASP mafia, dontcha know?

    I also began noticing the huge number of blacks in commercials, after someone here referred to commercial breaks as the "Negro Insertion Point." I've created a few rules of my own for the NIP: 1) If there are 2 or more live (i.e., unanimated) humans in a commercial; and 2) It is not a commercial about another show or film; and 3) It isn't a commercial for a SWPL product (e.g., Apple) or a famously lefty company (e.g., Progressive Insurance) - then the odds there will be a black in the commercial probably surpass 70%. Raise the number or actors to 3 or more and they probably surpass 90%.

    Welcome to Hollywood, where America's surburban middle class is 50% black and where murderers, rapists and their victims are 95% white.

    Also - just throwing this out there - but I suspect part of the reason the Times is attacking "Girls" is because they know it's doomed for cancellation. Thus they will get a cheap victory, claiming it was their vendetta that did it in. If the show succeeds it's just another lefty-SWPL-Jewish-New York-chicks bound for 40-year-old barren-ness show that succeeds.

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  29. Sex and the City got a pass because it lowered the fertility of moderate- to high-IQ European American women.

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  30. According to the crack film review team at Something Awful, Steve Harvey has had two failed marriages, so maybe not the best source of relationship advice. But if Jesse Jackson can be Clinton's spiritual advisor...

    Cedric's wrong about Rosa Parks, she was an NAACP activist and it was a planned act of civil disobedience. The story of a semi-heroic everywoman is what's told to schoolchildren.

    Is the First 48 still being made? I used to enjoy that show a lot back when I had a tv. Just about every suspect would have gotten away with it if they had lawyered up, but they are always so stupid that they believe the police when told its in their own interest to confess. There's not much room for dramatic courtroom clashes a la Law & Order, just another batch of mundane chow.

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  31. The biggest laugh in Barbershop was when Cedric said "F*** Jessie Jackson!"

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  32. Hello kiddies! Do we ever have some reality TV for you--a quartet of quintessentially quirky quick-quipping quabs from the quad thought they'd staked out a spot on the Great White Way from a safe distance across the East River but are finding that a taboo trolley is tougher to dodge when you only majored in theater arts instead of iPad engineering! The twee may grow in Brooklyn but your JFK Jr. dream could turn into KKK screams in a New York minute if you don't pay the toll and poll the gays at the local culture ministry first--it's open season on the white-tailed scenester and the uptown girls just renewed their hunting licenses! I think you'll enjoy this freaky fable I call, "A DAY AT THE RACIST'S"

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  33. "Sopranos" was another show focusing on white people in the New York suburbs. Is that show also perpetuating Anglo Saxon hegemony?

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  34. I used to watch the Steve Harvey Show in the 90s. it was some nice harmless mindless humor.

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  35. I can hardly sleep myself.

    Perhaps Obama will soon weigh in and say something ala he'd like to see someone who looks like one of his daughters on the show, only a few years older.

    At least the show can't be sued by the DOJ -- I assume they didn't cast it via a test. Maybe for some other reason, but not for that one.

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  36. Winston Churchill5/1/12, 12:19 AM

    Never was so much kvetching from so many attached to a show seen by so few.

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  37. Right, they only cast celebrities' daughters, they didn't use some racist standardized test, so it's okay on the EEOC front.

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  38. OT

    Google Sued for Suggesting Rupert Murdoch and Other Celebrities Are Jewish

    Apparently as a feature auto-completion has its risks.

    Google should just add '(not that there's anything wrong with being jewish)' after their helpful auto-completions.

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  39. That line in Barbershop got even funnier when Jesse Jackson complained about it.

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  40. By the way, a friend of mine is a former MP in Australia, big time lawyer, member of Royal Melbourne, and other Australian Establishment credentials, and it just drives him nuts when Americans claim that Rupert Murdoch must be Jewish on his mother's side, because otherwise how could he have the DNA to be a media baron?

    Look, he _knows_ Rupert's 103-year-old mother. Plus he's just offended by the American assumption that people of British ancestry don't have what it takes to put out newspapers that the public wants to read. The historical records shows that's really dumb, he says.

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  41. If the Telegraph or Daily Mail started covering U.S. sports, I bet they could penetrate the U.S. market. Drudge alone is giving them massive traffic.

    I'm surprised that Murdoch hasn't yet created a pan-Anglo paper/station. He has all the local markets covered, but he hasn't taken it to the next level. It requires there to be a pan-Anglo consciousness, but a guy like Murdoch seems like they type who'd take a crack at it.

    Imagine, there could be an actual alternative to the NYTimes.

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  42. Murdoch is finished in Britain.

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  43. Murdoch - he looks jewish for crissakes!

    To be fair his dad actually looks kind of Scottish.

    His papers/TV support Israel/neocons.

    Two of his children (at least) are married to jews.

    We are back to the old bait and switch. Jewish means ethnicity - sometimes. Other times it means religion.

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  44. "Apparently as a feature auto-completion has its risks."

    Yeah, auto-complete just types in what everyone else is typing in. If it follows "Rupert Murdoch" with "Jewish," then a lot of people must be asking that question. It works the same with just about any Broadway star and "gay."

    I suggest iSteve readers do a search for some where-are-they-now celebrity and "hermaphrodite," just to see how it affects the auto-complete.

    By the way, would Salon ever publish an article called "Your Brain on Jewish People"?

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  45. Someone with Murdoch's IQ probably has some Jewish DNA somewhere in his family tree. Just because this friend of yours _knows_ Rupert's mother doesn't mean he knows the name of every relative 3 or 4 generations back.

    Do you suppose Rupert kept a bust of Lenin in his Oxford dorm room because he was a useful idiot?

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  46. My guess is that this "crisis" is a generational thing. Younger White women don't care about their mother's "imaginary Black best friend" and just want to be fabulous, with lots of cool clothes and (White Upper Class Alpha) guys. See Gossip Girl, Twilight, etc.

    Meanwhile the more downscale Moms and older White women need that social status mongering about how THEY are the non-racist folk who get Black approval. See: the Help.


    So, first it was women, then it was wealthy, educated women, then it was wealthy, educated white women. And now it's "the more downscale Moms and older White women."

    It's getting hard to keep track of your theories. Ever considered a VCS?

    Well that might be because "The First 48" covers real crime cases, while CSI-type dramas present the invented morality fantasies of Jews.

    FTFY. Carry on.

    Right, they only cast celebrities' daughters, they didn't use some racist standardized test, so it's okay on the EEOC front.

    Way out on the fringes, near The End of the Internet, you'll find a First Amendment exemption the entertainment biz has given itself vis-a-vis EEOC and casting.

    The media has rights, Steve.

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  47. Someone with Murdoch's IQ probably has some Jewish DNA somewhere in his family tree.

    Yeah, because Semitic peoples are just lighting up the skies with their brilliance.

    Ashkenazis are smart because they have loads of European DNA in their family tree. Other Jews aren't so lucky.

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  48. Well that might be because "The First 48" covers real crime cases, while CSI-type dramas present the invented morality fantasies of white liberal women.

    Oh fer godssakes. Whiskey has acolytes now?

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  49. Simon in London5/1/12, 4:09 AM

    Orthodox said...
    "If the Telegraph or Daily Mail started covering U.S. sports, I bet they could penetrate the U.S. market. Drudge alone is giving them massive traffic."

    Even without sport the Daily Mail at least seems to have massive US penetration, probably over half the online commenters seem to be in the US. Of course neither the Daily Mail nor Telegraph are Murdoch newspapers, which probably contributes to their success, all Murdoch papers (The Times, The Sun et al) are pretty Politically Correct in a neocon sort of way. I can't imagine a Murdoch-paper journalist keeping his job after endorsing Marine Le Pen - http://ozconservative.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/one-journalist-sees-bigger-picture.html

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  50. When people complain about lack of ethnic diversity on TV, they're really just referring to one genre: sitcoms.

    Seriously, if you look at the DRAMATIC series of the past 20 years, you'll find plenty of diversity. Have there been black doctors on "ER" and "Grey's Anatomy?" Lots of them. Black cops on "NYPD Blue" and "Law & Order"? Plenty. Black lawyers on "The Practice"? Yep. Black crime technicians on "CSI"? You bet.

    It's TV's leading SITCOMS that have been lily white. ANd there are two reasons for that.

    1) Dramatic series are usually set in the workplace, where there's usually a lot of ethnic diversity. Sitcoms tend to be set within either a family or a small group of friends. ANd the truth is, our families and our friends are USUALLY the same color we are. In real life, Jerry Seinfeld is a New York Jewish comedian who hangs out almost exclusively with other New York Jewish comedians like Larry David (on whom George Costanza was based)! Adding an Irish Catholic friend to the cast to make ME feel "included" would be unnatural and silly.

    2) Comedy, by its very nature, is about silly people doing stupid things. And comedy writers/producers are rightly terrified of letting a black performer make a fool of himself on a "white" sitcom. SUPPOSE Larry David had given the Kramer role to a black comedian. Can you imagine the outcry there would have been? "Kramer is a latter day Stepin Fetchit, an unforgivable stereotype." And Kramer would have to be purged of his every funny quality, and turned into a bland, forgettable character like Lionel Jefferson.

    For reasons I don't fully appreciate, black viewers don't mind seeing black men make fools of themselves on all-black sitcoms (ask Martin Lawrence). But on "white sitcoms," black characters must always be saner, smarter and wiser than white characters. They can NEVER do anything foolish or funny- at most, they can comment sarcastically on the foolishness of white characters (*like Benson on "Soap" or Florida on "Maude."

    You CAN'T be dignified AND funny.

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  51. Looking at the poster, there are only two actors in the movie that are more than 50% African ancestry, not counting Jerry "Turtle" Ferrara, the World's Most Visible Wigga.

    I don't see many "black" movies; is this the first time this Michael Ealy character has to kiss a black girl? He seems to be the go-to guy for white girls' interracial lover now.

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  52. What is so bad about white people?

    The liberals, SWPLS, Scots-Irish, and what-have-you treat us like germs.

    "They must go away! They don't represent the life we (are supposed to) live!"

    Next: whites without X% of black friends or lovers will be required to wear a yellow star.

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  53. We've entered multiculturalism's mopping-up phase.

    In a manner of speaking. I think we're actually, we're entering the phase where multiculturalism is mopped up. Blacks make, and like, films about black people. Latinos like their Univision and jiggly weathergirls. White women and gay whites like their Meaningful dramedies. Oh, and old whites still like Brian Williams reading them their network news.

    There is no way in human history that such wildly divergent peoples grant each other equal legal standing and form a single nation.

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  54. Plus he's just offended by the American assumption that people of British ancestry don't have what it takes to put out newspapers that the public wants to read.
    steve, it's not that - that's an argument worthy of a jezebel writer
    the argument is that because he was of the tribe, the tribe backed him - just like the part scots-irish oligarchs in russia.

    what is the likelyhood of what, 7 out 8 oligarchs having scots irish blood??

    Side note, an australian newspaper had an article that murdoch was hiring israelie hackers to encourage piracy of his competitors...

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  55. Sex and the City got a pass because it lowered the fertility of moderate- to high-IQ European American women.
    yep.

    Christian Davies publically said she didnt' want to have kids because it got in the way of her career. now she adapted an african baby. But hey, no DNA loss there, right??

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  56. FWIW, both VEEP (a great show) and Girls were picked up for Season 2 by HBO. It's not getting cancelled.

    I have watched the first 3 episodes of Girls and I think it's fantastic television.

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  57. The only media stereotypes of "minorities" are POSITIVE, and this has been the case for decades. Hollywood black computer geniuses must outnumber real-life black computer geniuses by a factor of ten.

    And yet this article - and many others - talk about these stereotypes as if they are all negative, and known to be so by everyone. Through the looking glass stuff.

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  58. This goes to what I always tell people, most of the discourse on race in this country is just two groups of white people arguing with each other, while using people of color as a prop.

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  59. Astorian: It's interesting, though, that the NBC single-camera comedies loved by critics and elite whites and mostly spurned by the rest of the public - The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, and Community - do have multiracial casts, and on 30 Rock, the character played by Tracy Morgan is indeed a "foolish and funny" incompetent buffoon (although so are most of the white characters).

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  60. "Girls" "Seinfeld" "Precious" are all monochromatic for the same reason: That's how most americans live their lives.

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  61. Svigor: I think you can successfully infer that I was talking about Ashkenazi DNA, not Sephardic. Perhaps not a bad thesis - a combination of Euro DNA plus the eugenic effect of requiring the study of the Talmud as part of their very religion (or drop out) acted to elevate the Ashkenazi IQ.

    Either way, the "high IQ -> some Ashkenazi DNA" truism is not necessarily because it's the Ashkenazi DNA that is the heavy contributor to IQ. As much as anything, it's similar social strata and perhaps the Esther-style targeting of prominent, intelligent, wealthy, powerful Gentile males for outmarriage.

    You're a smart guy. How far back have you checked into your own genealogy?

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  62. My Chinese friend, who knows I appreciate his candor, told me that the Holocaust was a big deal because white people got killed

    Well, it's true.

    White people got killed (by other whites too) in the Holocaust, Holodomor, Armenian Genocide, Irish Potato Famine, Cathar Crusade, Baltic Crusade, etc.

    But the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, and Pol Pot's Killing Fields are different. The victors and victims are not only non-white but the same race, making this an internal affair, and the victims were all "capitalists" anyway.

    It's sweep under the carpet time.

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  63. "You CAN'T be dignified AND funny."

    You can if you're Margaret Dumont.

    Margaret Dumont, dignified AND funny

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  64. "Perhaps Obama will soon weigh in and say something ala he'd like to see someone who looks like one of his daughters on the show, only a few years older."

    He can find them on commercials. The latest one shows a happy and content affluent black family, including dog, all wired into the net, dad on the sofa with his laptop, in a very big house...I don't even know what product or service they were pushing since I was so struck looking at how unrealistic it all was.

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  65. 'The First 48' has, I'd guess, 80-90% minority offenders


    Also 80-90% black detectives and supervisors, at least in cities east of Albuquerque. I assume that federal $$$ for law enforcement comes with certain hiring/promotion requirements.

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  66. "Anyone with any brains threw their teevees in the dumpster years ago.That's what I did,so you know I'm intelligent.(LoL)"

    Nonsense.

    "Life is alot more peaceful without it.You'll have alot more free time to pursue hobbies,interests,etc."

    I got rid of cable in 2010 and haven't watched network TV in years. But I do use my TV to watch DVDs and instant streaming on my Roku box. I have seen dozens of wonderful movies. My latest kick is Korean movies. Mercy but those South Koreans understand filmmaking. They do horror, police procedurals, crime dramas, comedies, family dramas all equally well. Even their so-so productions have enough intrinsic interest to keep me watching.


    "That's my two cents. Joe"

    Just when I was about to offer you a penny for your thoughts.

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  67. "Svigor said...

    Someone with Murdoch's IQ probably has some Jewish DNA somewhere in his family tree.

    Yeah, because Semitic peoples are just lighting up the skies with their brilliance.

    Ashkenazis are smart because they have loads of European DNA in their family tree. Other Jews aren't so lucky."

    The Sephardi/Mizrahi elite are not pushovers, just ask Haim Saban, Sarkozy and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji.

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  68. @Kylie
    The way you handle the world of media is very intelligent. I respect what you had to say.
    We are not philosophical rivals.
    The important thing is to control the media,and not allow it to control you: That's what we have in common. We go about in different ways.That's all.Joe

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  69. A teachable moment to point out that there are many young white women who are friends in New York, it's a reality, on the other hand portraying crime, esp. murder, in New York as overwhelmingly white when in fact it is AT LEAST 92% black and hispanic is actual racism and unreality.

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  70. I just realised David Mamet's daughter is on Girls. She's cute.

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  71. All the fuss prompted me to watch all three episodes of "Girls" that have aired so far. While I can't say that I particularly like the show, it does touch on some important issues that TV usually ignores: the declining value of a college education, the student loan crisis, parental support of adult children, the way some unscrupulous employers use "interns" as a way of getting free labor, sexual issues, and so on.

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  72. Someone with Murdoch's IQ probably has some Jewish DNA somewhere in his family tree.



    Spoken by somebody with a low IQ.

    Or at the very least, a near total ignorance of the subjects of IQ and genetics.

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  73. And comedy writers/producers are rightly terrified of letting a black performer make a fool of himself on a "white" sitcom. SUPPOSE Larry David had given the Kramer role to a black comedian. Can you imagine the outcry there would have been?

    I respectfully disagree. Tina Fey has created an amazingly funny sitcom called "30 Rock" on NBC with Tracy Morgan's character as the show's chief fool.

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  74. This is one area where underclass black chicks have advantage over successful black chicks. Underclass black chicks can find black guys anywhere since da hood has no shortage of jivey studs.
    But educated middle class black women want the better quality of black men--who be in short supply--, but successful black men be going after white chicks.

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  75. James Kabala said...
    Tracy Morgan is indeed a "foolish and funny" incompetent buffoon
    ------

    Tracy Morgan is unique among black comics in that he does "odd and goofy" rather than "cool and angry" like everyone else.

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  76. "Someone with Murdoch's IQ probably has some Jewish DNA somewhere in his family tree."

    News flash: someone with Snooki's IQ probably has some Jewish DNA in her family tree, too - because all of us probably have Jewish DNA, just as all Ashkenazi Jews probably have English and German and French DNA. Some ethnic groups may have remained "pure" over the years, but none have remained *that* pure. Lots of Jews were leaving the fold over the last 2,000 years. Occasionally they would even have added members. Surreptitious mating was also taking place. Go back 1100 years, when there were ~2^40 spaces on your family tree, and assure me that some of those spots aren't filled by Jews and that some of the spots on Jerry Seinfeld's family tree aren't filled by gentiles.

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  77. "The important thing is to control the media,and not allow it to control you: That's what we have in common. We go about in different ways.That's all.Joe"

    Definitely. I exert iron control over the media that I allow to enter my home.

    Are you sure I can't talk you into adding movie-watching on a TV to your list of hobbies? There are literally thousands of wonderful movies from all eras, genres and countries that are blessedly free of the leftist agenda infecting so much of the Western media these days.

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  78. The Sephardi/Mizrahi elite are not pushovers, just ask Haim Saban, Sarkozy and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji.

    One can find rich people from practically any ethnic group.

    You're a smart guy. How far back have you checked into your own genealogy?

    I did a bit of looking, but nothing as comprehensive as all of that (and the outcome you're suggesting would cause me no anxiety; the differences I find salient are tribal, not genetic)

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  79. @Kylie
    I do sneak into my roommate's bedroom and watch TCM every once in awhile. He has a DVD player,as well.I just finished watching "Gosford Park".
    I thought it was a very good flick.
    LOL/ Joe
    PS-well,I don't sneak in,I do ask his permission first.

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  80. The entire Girls "controversy" strikes me as the chattering classes finding ways to entertain themselves. This show is only three episodes in and it isn't a mass cultural phenomenon. The discussion is entirely within the realm of select bloggers and the agitators at Salon. If anything it is evidence of the how stratified the media landscape has become. Could you imagine a niche show like this both being made and discussed so even 15 years ago?

    Unrelated:
    For reasons I don't fully appreciate, black viewers don't mind seeing black men make fools of themselves on all-black sitcoms (ask Martin Lawrence). But on "white sitcoms," black characters must always be saner, smarter and wiser than white characters. They can NEVER do anything foolish or funny- at most, they can comment sarcastically on the foolishness of white characters (*like Benson on "Soap" or Florida on "Maude."

    You can act foolish in front the family, but not in front of the neighbors.

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