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The Black Culture Thread |OT X| Thread's Up, Don't Lurk

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Kreed

Member
Also agree with this as well.

I won't deny saying you can find beautiful women across the board from different ethnicities, but just in my lifetime, I've been more attracted to black/hispanic women more so than white/asian women.

At least the ones I've come across.

I think that the whys of attraction is interesting to talk about, but the phrasing of it as a "problem" kind of irked me. I probably took it the wrong way though.

Just to make sure I'm 100% clear, if someone said to me "I prefer dating men or women with dark brown skin tones over ones with lighter skin tones", that's not an issue IMO, because you've laid out a physical characteristic you prefer over another and it isn't attached to a social constructed label.

The "problem" occurs when people focus on the label/their idea of what the label represents and not the person. So take the person in the earlier example, but let's say this person said "I prefer dating black men or women because I prefer dark brown skin tones". And then this same person sees someone who is black, but of lighter skin tone than dark brown, and another person who is asian but of darker/brown skin tone. Is it still a genuine "preference" if this person then says "I prefer the black person over the asian one" despite the asian person having the physical preferences they like? Or, what if this person didn't know the woman with the darker/brown skin tones was asian, but then when they found out, this person became less attractive to them?
 

Gorillaz

Member
villain origin story. Gonna go to the league and be the most lethal shooter in history. Openly anti-politician, specifically tells kids not to vote, etc.

little man legit about to be on some demonic shit now, probably gonna try to do some space jam shit and steal other people's height and skills
 

DY_nasty

NeoGAF's official "was this shooting justified" consultant
^birth of the emperor eye

i5hUAG7VIddd5.gif

this talk reminds me of when obama sonned this little dude because he said he rather go to college just to play ball

start at the 18:35 mark

lol obama. poor kid probably gonna turn into cam calloway

man i'm gonna miss him as president... if for nothing else than the fact that he talked some of the best shit ever.
 
This kind of stood out to me a couple days ago



Is there anything wrong with that?

I'm biased but I don't think so, most of all white women aren't attractive to be but there are a few. I don't think I could be with a white woman because at the end of the day I'm a black man with black man's problems and I need someone who can relate to that.
 

harSon

Banned
Another issue is the fact that the safety net for these kids aims low in terms of where and what their lives are being redirected too. I've worked with at-risk youth, ages 14-21, as both a city and non-profit worker. My biggest gripe with the system is that the bar is too low, due in great part to the performance measures laid down by the federal government.

For those that work within work readiness programs, our performance goals are graded on three things: placement, training and remedial services. I'll focus on the first two. As far as the state of California is concerned, a client is successfully placed if they work one hour of one day (or attend post secondary/advanced training for the same allotment of time) in the quarter following the exit from your program. You're not held accountable for their ability to keep a job. You're not held accountable for advancing their careers, or finding them employment relevant to the training you've provided. You're not held accountable for helping to improve their salary, if they come into the program already working. The people I work with do amazing work, and we're working with the hardest to serve, but it's a tad bit ridiculous we're being held to such jokes of a metric.

The types of trainings that are provided, while providing Nationally Recognized, tend to be stuff like ServSafe (Food Handler Card), NRF (Customer Service), Security Guard training, etc. Basically certifications catering to real low level, entry level employment - and likely for jobs that are going to net them minimum wage or damn near close it. Unfortunately, there's not really anything that's going set them on a path towards a career - which is what these Youth truly need.

Granted we're working with a demographic that is low-income, and home to a whole host of barriers (pregnant/young parents, HS dropouts, offenders, etc) - so we're basically trying to get them to a point where they're ready for the work force. We definitely serve a purpose in that regard, but my biggest issue is the fact that there's not many programs that capture our Youth at the tail end of our services - and provide them with something that's going to set them on a path towards an eventual career. Something like Year Up: http://www.yearup.org - who provide 6 months of training for IT and then find you a 6 month internship at a local employer (places like Google, Yahoo, etc).

We need a lot more of that. There's a massive hole in the pathway from at-risk/troubled Youth to legitimate career, and State/Federal governments really need to focus a lot more on bridging that disconnect instead of simply grooming kids to fill low-level work.
 

Jacir

Member
Highlight of the weekend is the all star fashion show

What! Why? I came to watch bball. Next thing u know it'll just turn into a game conference where only 2k n NBA live come announcing stuff. It gets duller every year. Lebron hasn't given ppl what want in a dunk contest either.
 
I have to imagine he said "it's good" in Japanese, like that prince playing basketball skit from Chapelle Show.

Even better. He tells him that he doesn't allow people that act against him to look down on him.

Then he shoots the ball and says "lower your head."
 

cdyhybrid

Member
Open Steam and it lands me in the store showing me a $0.99 game that's basically Unreal Tournament except you're shooting dinosaurs.

Pray for me and my wallet, brehs.
 

Opiate

Member
Just to make sure I'm 100% clear, if someone said to me "I prefer dating men or women with dark brown skin tones over ones with lighter skin tones", that's not an issue IMO, because you've laid out a physical characteristic you prefer over another and it isn't attached to a social constructed label.

The "problem" occurs when people focus on the label/their idea of what the label represents and not the person. So take the person in the earlier example, but let's say this person said "I prefer dating black men or women because I prefer dark brown skin tones". And then this same person sees someone who is black, but of lighter skin tone than dark brown, and another person who is asian but of darker/brown skin tone. Is it still a genuine "preference" if this person then says "I prefer the black person over the asian one" despite the asian person having the physical preferences they like? Or, what if this person didn't know the woman with the darker/brown skin tones was asian, but then when they found out, this person became less attractive to them?

Right, it's really hard to tell the difference.

As a more direct example, random distribution of preferences alone would indicate that some people would, naturally, just happen to prefer lighter skin to darker skin. It should happen, just like some people would naturally prefer straight hair or prefer curly hair. The problem is that a hugely disproportionate amount of people seem to prefer light skin such that it doesn't seem to just be chance. I am a white man; if I happened to not particularly like darker skin on women, that is not in itself a problem. But what if 95% of men happen to feel like I do? Well, then that's a problem. There has to be some cultural influence at work, and it's putting black women at a huge disadvantage.

It's a great example of how racism tends to work today, in my experience: it's rarely possible to pinpoint individually. A cop who kills a black kid may individually have been justified; it happens. A white guy who isn't in to dark skinned women may just naturally have that preference; it happens. A black guy who loses out on a job to an Asian guy may not have been racially profiled; he may have just lost the job fair and square. It happens.

The racism is only clear when you zoom out and look at the larger picture; a suspiciously large number of black kids are getting killed by police. A suspiciously large amount of men (and women) seem to prefer lighter skin. A suspiciously large number of black men seem to lose out on jobs than would seem likely based on random chance. In any individual case, it could just be an honest but unfortunate event; sometimes police are forced to shoot people, sometimes people just have physical preferences, sometimes people apply for jobs and don't get them. But when you look at 1,000 examples, the odds should even out, when in reality they don't.
 

Opiate

Member
"Quantum racism."

Basically, yes. I'm sort of frustrated that it's an idea I've noticed and expressed for a long time, but I didn't get credit for it on GAF :(

The example I've always liked best is a black man applying for a job against two precisely equally qualified white men. For any individual job, it actually is entirely appropriate for the black guy to lose out; his odds should only be ~33%. There's no reasonable way to call that racism. The odds were against him, just as they were against the other white guy who also didn't get the job.

But what if he applied for 100 jobs with those same 2 white guys, and he only got offered 5 of those jobs? Then somewhere in there, something is being skewed. He's only getting 5% of the jobs when he should be getting 33% -- but it's impossible to tell which are which. You don't know which ones are the jobs he lost fair and square, and which ones are the jobs he lost because Mr. CEO is suspicious of a guy named Jamal.
 

Kreed

Member
Basically, yes. I'm sort of frustrated that it's an idea I've noticed and expressed for a long time, but I didn't get credit for it on GAF :(

The example I've always liked best is a black man applying for a job against two precisely equally qualified white men. For any individual job, it actually is entirely appropriate for the black guy to lose out; his odds should only be ~33%. There's no reasonable way to call that racism. The odds were against him, just as they were against the other white guy who also didn't get the job.

But what if he applied for 100 jobs with those same 2 white guys, and he only got offered 5 of those jobs? Then somewhere in there, something is being skewed. He's only getting 5% of the jobs when he should be getting 33% -- but it's impossible to tell which are which. You don't know which ones are the jobs he lost fair and square, and which ones are the jobs he lost because Mr. CEO is suspicious of a guy named Jamal.

The big issue I've had with having this discussion over the years on this forum/in real life is that people choose to believe that their physical attraction preferences have not been influenced by any outside social factors and that they've developed these feelings naturally. A big part of this is people not wanting to be labeled "bad/racist" for these feelings but that's another issue.

But as you said, when you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, it becomes clearer that these outside factors exist and people should at least evaluate why they may feel this way. Example, there's a video Mumei/others have posted a couple of times where a group of black children are asked to choose between two toy dolls (white and black) which doll is prettier, and the black children all choose the white doll.

The video is much easier to grasp since it's black children saying a doll of another ethnic group is prettier than their own group because in most societies it's "natural/acceptable" for people within the same group to find people (dolls in this case) within that same group more attractive than people from other groups since they mostly interact with people in that same group. But in a "melting pot society" like the United States (supposedly), even the "correct" choice becomes problematic since everyone wants to be treated equally by all groups.
 

Opiate

Member
The big issue I've had with having this discussion over the years on this forum/in real life is that people choose to believe that their physical attraction preferences have not been influenced by any outside social factors and that they've developed these feelings naturally. A big part of this is people not wanting to be labeled "bad/racist" for these feelings but that's another issue.

But as you said, when you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, it becomes clearer that these outside factors exist and people should at least evaluate why they may feel this way. Example, there's a video Mumei/others have posted a couple of times where a group of black children are asked to choose between two toy dolls (white and black) which doll is prettier, and the black children all choose the white doll.

The video is much easier to grasp since it's black children saying a doll of another ethnic group is prettier than their own group because in most societies it's "natural/acceptable" for people within the same group to find people (dolls in this case) within that same group more attractive than people from other groups since they mostly interact with people in that same group. But in a "melting pot society" like the United States (supposedly), even the "correct" choice becomes problematic since everyone wants to be treated equally by all groups.


That's not specific to racism: it's really hard to convince people that the things they like and care about are significantly a consequence of what culture has told them to like. It's very hard to internalize the sense that something you're so passionate about may not have come entirely from yourself, and that you your passions, your successes and your failures may be significantly caused by exogenous factors outside of your control.

It borders on a free will debate, frankly. Do you like video games because that's just what you happen to like by your own volition, or do you like video games because your demographic was heavily targeted via advertising by huge companies that make video games? Did you cultivate the taste organically, or was the taste gradually instilled in you by people who stood to profit from it? Usually the answer is "a little of both."
 

cdyhybrid

Member
Just installed XCOM after buying it at the end of the year...do I play Enemy Within or Enemy Unknown? Completely new to this game, if it matters.
 

Africanus

Member
It is sort of interesting how I cannot exactly relate to Opiate's mention of the disproportiate push of entertainment careers towards African Americans. As the son of immigrants, I was always directed towards a career in S.T.E.M. field, with particular emphasis on the medical aspect because my parents are a physician and l&d nurse. As such, I never felt any sort of pressure regarding this rap or basketball. I suppose it is a difference in ideaology and opportunity.
 

Furyous

Member

Is anything sacred anymore? Why won't they let all these fictional characters be white?
Motherfuck racist comic nerd. I hope we spoil all your hopes and dreams. I hope all future versions of your favorite character contain interracial relationships just to fuck with you.

Obama is the greatest mad-making President in our history. He made THEM so mad that they vote against their own interests to spite him. He's sonned Republicans repeatedly over the years. Someone needs to put together a mixtape of his classics. People kept telling me in 08 that I would vote for him because he was black. I thought about and was like, you know what, you're right that is a good idea. People vote for candidates because of race and religion all the time. Motherfuckers voted for Romney in order to receive an across the board tax cut that saves millions of dollars each year.
 

DY_nasty

NeoGAF's official "was this shooting justified" consultant
Is anything sacred anymore? Why won't they let all these fictional characters be white?
Motherfuck racist comic nerd. I hope we spoil all your hopes and dreams. I hope all future versions of your favorite character contain interracial relationships just to fuck with you.

Obama is the greatest mad-making President in our history. He made THEM so mad that they vote against their own interests to spite him. He's sonned Republicans repeatedly over the years. Someone needs to put together a mixtape of his classics. People kept telling me in 08 that I would vote for him because he was black. I thought about and was like, you know what, you're right that is a good idea. People vote for candidates because of race and religion all the time. Motherfuckers voted for Romney in order to receive an across the board tax cut that saves millions of dollars each year.

real shit

it wasn't about him being black for me. a lot of it was about him being black to others

(and mccain/palin being worse than a UFC card in 2015)
 

cdyhybrid

Member
I'm doing the first mission after the tutorial, and it has me send my Heavy (the only guy that survived the tutorial and thus isn't a rookie) up on a roof, where he immediately bugs out and can no longer move.

Neat.
 
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