04.02.2020
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On A Russian Nagpo@gro joHow can Asterix & Obelix be racist? It’s about Celts and Romans, both nations were Caucasian, with no presence of Nubian or other Black people down there at the North in Gallia at that time. I really don’t understand that baitsuo stuff like making anecdotic narrations about ‘Black Sir Arthur’s knights’ or ‘Black Chinese taoists’ just because of false understanding of equality and justice. There should be a borderline between a racist belief and a true fact.I understand, of course, that a cultural context defines what is racist / offensive and what is not. A joke made by a police officer escorting enchained Black illegal immigrants to a court and comparing himself to a slave driver would be most likely regarded as an offence in the USA and just as a joke in Russia (because we never had a race-based slavery background, but a different form of slavery instead).To me, stating these comics being racist is like calling ‘rasist’ Amos Tutuola’s books because they don’t feature any character of Caucasian race, or calling a ‘racist’ any talk show anchored by a Black celebrity, with Black guests and targeted for Black audience.Like. On gro jo“@gro joHow can Asterix & Obelix be racist? It’s about Celts and Romans, both nations were Caucasian, with no presence of Nubian or other Black people down there at the North in Gallia at that time.”Is this a Russian joke or are you as ignorant as your question makes you sound?

If you are a true fan, you’d know that they even ended up in North America before Columbus! Plenty racist depictions of Africans in these comic books. You may not think so, just as I don’t think that Russian women being depicted as ugly is “anti-Russian”, as far as I’m concerned, but that only speaks to our mutual ethnic blind spots!Liked by. On Solitaire@ KartoffelThat’s a good question. I just ran across an essay discussing this. The author gives examples of changes that have been made to books by authors or publishers. Mostly he talks about the conundrum to parents concerning how to handle racism in children’s books and movies.I don’t agree with everything he says in the essay (for starters, I think he adheres too much to the idea that not discussing racism will shield his children from it and is too cowardly about addressing their questions).

But it seems a good starting point for grappling with this issue.Like. On A Russian Nagpo@SolitaireHow telling that you didn’t address whether the black people in chains would think it was a racist slur or just a joke. Do you think their feelings would be different if it happened in Russia instead of the U.S.?Their feelings would be the same as those of any other prisoners. Otherwise they would be treated either as bad as the white prisoners, or a little bit better (becsause of being foreigners). That’s different from racism.’ll add that there are also racist stereotypes of Native Americans in the comics about Asterix’s adventures in North America.Still no African Americans in America before, say, 1500s, as gro jo tried to put it. Not even in comic books (where, to the best of my knowledge, the Celts are passing for Native Americans).Is this what you call ‘a racist stereotype’?

Or the way of picturing the Indians (any example?)? But that’s a comic book, where the things are supposed to be oversimplified by default (just like any baizuo point of view). By the way, do you find ‘baizuo’ being a derogatory / insultive term? I only use it to sum up certain oversimplified views.Like. On gro joGro jo’s snipe was aimed at A Russian Nagpo, but I see you were the one who wrote the comment.“A Russian Nagpo@gro jobeing an ‘expert’ on Asterix and Obelix you ought to know that!– I never stated I am”That’s apparent. You don’t know what you’re talking about.“It’s your logic (if there is any) I don’t understand, not English. And, generally speaking, the ad hominem argumentation you are trying to put here is, mildly speaking, quite an embarrasment for yourself,”Oh dear, I see that I have to break it down for you, how tedious.I wrote: “Plenty racist depictions of Africans in these comic books.” You ‘brilliantly’ replied: “@gro joAre there really any Africans?

NA Africans in the pre-Columbian time in comic books, seriously?Still no African Americans in America before, say, 1500s, as gro jo tried to put it.”The gro jo you speak of lives in your imagination because you failed to grasp the fact that the exclamation mark placed before “Plenty racist depictions of Africans in these comic books.” indicated that two thoughts were being expressed. The “they” in the following sentence referred to Asterix and Obelix, not to pre-Columbian blacks. “If you are a true fan, you’d know that they even ended up in North America before Columbus! ” The “Plenty racist depictions of Africans in these comic books.” referred to other books in the series that depicted Africans such as Baba the pirate. Next time you wish to comment on something I write, have the decency to know what you’re talking about and read what I wrote with care, it will save you the embarrassment of having things explained to you as if you were a two year old.Like.

On@ KartoffelI’m really at a loss what to do with these older works which are classics but ridiculously racist and sexistShould they be read by children? Does an introduction comment like the one qouted really help?For written stories changes to the text can be made, but pictures? Also these changes have their own problems.I think that changes to the original works (texts/pictures) should not be made. In no way!The best approach would be to have an introductory comment or chapter explaining the context where/when the work was created or is referring to, etc.My take on issues like the ones raised by this thread were developed in another thread, “Black Pete”.

See one of my comments there:Like. On gro joI already know all this stuff about Pushkin. Russia became a language of high literature due to the genius of black African ancestry. I also know that African American entrepreneur, Frederick Bruce Thomas a/k/a Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas became very rich in Russia before the October revolution.Our disagreement has nothing to do with any of these things.

You misread what I wrote, and went on a diatribe about something you wanted to get off your chest. I explained to you the difference between what I was saying and what you thought I was saying. Let’s agree to drop the subject.Like. On A Russian NagpoIt’s interesting how this ‘colonialism for chldren’-topic was rendered in a Russian cartoon Three Bogatyrs on Distant Shores (2012), where the characters were sent to a tropical region by a group of conspirators (led by a witch).The natives are pictured as uneducated, naive (they are surprised by a trick for children, don’t know how to make fire and worship the bogatyrs as half-deities whose coming was predicted in a prophecy, so they are actually literate), and they are opposed to a huge gorilla (an obvious reference to a King-Kong movie).Like.

On Afrofem@ Solitaire“I just copied and pasted the URL for the image. Sometimes that appears on Abagond’s blog as a link, sometimes as the image itself.I don’t know how to ensure the image appears, although I suppose there’s code for it.”I’ve found that the image file designation like.jpg,.png or.gif has to be the very last bit of code on the URL for the image to show on this site.If there are other characters appended to the end of the image (a lot of newspapers do that for their own reasons) or even a question mark (?) after the image file designation, the image url will just show up as a text link.Like. On A Russian Nagpo@SolitaireThe entire ‘golliwog effect’ can be explained by biology, not ‘racist culture’.

I remember my first experience when seing an African person in the real life (and I was about five years old then).In a single-race environment one’s own race would be considered as a ‘norm’, cfthe first Japanese pictures of Portuguese Europeans end later up to the members of the Black Ships crew led by commodore Perry (or the modern anime and manga characters who are usually very ‘white’).An African Portuguese sailorBut usually ethnical jokes, wheather offensive or not, tend to low the tension down (as it is the case at least with one African country after a civil war).Like. On Solitaire@A Russian Nagpo“free African sailors seem to be an impossible thing during the slavery time”Why would it be impossible?Have you never heard of the Moors of Portugal and Spain?Look closely at the hair of the men depicted in the left of the painting you last posted. It appears to be tight close curls — African hair, not Arab.Anyway, I don’t understand why you are introducing these Japanese paintings. Their depictions of non-Japanese people are nowhere as unrealistic as those of blacks in Tintin and Asterix. Nowhere does someone’s lips take up the entire lower half of their face. No one has white eyebrows.Like. On Solitaire@ A Russian NagpoSo basically when black people today (like Abagond who wrote this post) object to this type of racially biased artwork, your response seems to be:1) It doesn’t look racist to me.2) Japanese people drew Europeans in a similar way.3) It’s normal for a single-race culture to do this.Is that a correct summary or have I missed something?“A culture or growing up within environment composed of one’s own race only makes the idea of one’s own race be the only ‘norm’.”This begs the question of why it still happens today.

There are people of black African descent living all over Western Europe, yet this style of representation is still used by the French, the English, the Belgians, etc. Why has it been used in the USA for centuries when black people have been present from early colonial times and the nation was never compsed only of one race?Like. On A Russian Nagpo@SolitaireThis begs the question of why it still happens today. There are people of black African descent living all over Western Europe, yet this style of representation is still used by the French, the English, the Belgians, etc. Why has it been used in the USA for centuries when black people have been present from early colonial times and the nation was never compsed only of one race?Sorry, but the other Europeans’ mental faults are none of my business now.

The rest of your summary of my points seems to be OK for me. My current culture is multiracial and non-racist (though it’s ethnocentric, but that differs). If people somwhere outside of my cultural milieu practice e.g. Ritual mass killings or human sacrifice, or prefer to suicidally jump down from roof buildings on a regular basis, I am not the person to cure their mental deseases, nor to join their perverted company.As for the rendering the pictures, you seem to miss the Japanese cultural code and the context. The whites are rendered either as comical characters or demons, while the Japanese pictures are drawn to make the impression of semi-godlike warrior spirits.

In other words, the Japanese (even the Kabuki theater character playing a demon or an evil-doer) are spared from ‘losing one’s face’, while the Europeans are not.Like. On gro jo“free African sailors seem to be an impossible thing during the slavery time”Wrong.In 1813 the US navy counted 15% of its personnel as black.“The U.S. Corrosion of conformity your tomorrow rar.

Army was soon established and accepted blacks; the U.S. Navy was created in 1798, accepting black sailors as it had during the revolution and continuing to do so throughout the nineteenth century.”“Around 1856 (Benjamin) Bradley built an engine that was capable of propelling the first sloop-of-war (a small warship carrying guns on one deck) at the rate of 16 knots an hour. His engine was the first ever created that was powerful enough to run a war ship. Bradley was unable to patent his invention under the United States law because he was a slave. He did however sell this engine and earn enough money to purchase his freedom. His date of death is unknown.Bradley’s invention dates two years after Commodore Perry showed up in Japan.

Black sailors had served in the US navy since 1798.Like. On Solitaire@ A Russian Nagpo“Third, when you see a hurtful object as a concept, or as a combination of cause and effect, it doesn’t hurt that much.”Mary Burrell did put it into context in her statement upthread:Leopold The Second and his exploitation of the Africans in the Congo and his cruelty of subjecting them to oppression by making them harvest rubber, and cutting their limbs off when they didn’t make the quota. This TinTin is racist and full of ugly stereotypes about Africans. This is just revolting.One could easily argue that putting this artwork into context makes it hurt more. It adds insult to injury.Like. On A Russian Nagpo@SolitaireOne could easily argue that putting this artwork into context makes it hurt more. It adds insult to injury.A context is to be determined by the environment or by a culture.

I think this is a good illustration of the difference (which I thought to be a stereotype, but so far our communicative scenario seems to follow the pattern).The scene from a Russian 90’s cult film Brat (The Brother) is about a Russian guy named Danila Bagrov who occasionally became a killer and whent to the USA to help his brother. Meeting a compatriot Russian prostitute, the three prepair crawfishes they caught on an open fire where they are stalked by an African telling them this is a wrong type of food.Danila (D) uses the Russian word similar to that what sounds like a derogatory term in English but, having the same origin, means somtheing more like ‘African’.

The following dialogue between Danila and the prostitute would go in English like this:The Prostitute (P): You shouldn’t have called him African.D: Well, who is he, then?P: He’s Afroamerican.D: What’s the difference?P: To them, this word is an insult.D: But that’s how I was taught at school. China is populated by the Chinese nation, Germany, by Germans, Israel, by Jews, and Africa is populated by Africans.I don’t find it racist or hurting not just because I am unaware of atrocities in the Belgian Kongo, but rather because there is no a racially insultive term or view for Blacks in my culture.(There is also an interesting interpretation of this conflict scene by most of Russian audience, but that’s another story).Like. On Solitaire“which I thought to be a stereotype, but so far our communicative scenario seems to follow the pattern).”Well, you certainly seem to be insisting that everyone see through your Russian lens, or at least that they give you leeway because of your Russian lens.But this isn’t a Russian site. It’s run by an African American.

The lens here is predominately that of the African diaspora. For that matter, the Russians in that movie clip were in the U.S., and the one guy was defending his right to say things Americans find offensive. I guess it’s not only Americans who can be ugly and boorish when stepping outside their cultureLike.

On Solitaire@ A Russian Nagpo“there is no such a thing as ‘right perception’, remember?)”Well, that’s just your perception, isn’t it? So it, too, is not a right perception. I think there are some Star Trek episodes along these lines. 😁BTW, then just replace “Russian lens” with “whatever group it is you identify with lens.” Please excuse my confusion, since you use “Russian” in your moniker, linked to and translated a clip from a Russian film, keep bringing up Russian attitudes towards slavery and black people, etc.Like. On A Russian Nagpo@abagondAs a cause for an ultimate effect, an intention is of course important, but what we would call ‘a personal mindmap’ also matters. If I occasionally and without any intention hurt someone, this doesn’t mean a person is not hurt just because ‘I didn’t mean it’.

The effect, however, would not be entirely the same as with a deliberately caused trauma.I’m saying that most of the commentors here perceive ‘Tintin in the Congo’ as a racist work and I don’t, both types of perception are caused by our personal mindmaps on interracial relations multiplied by a collective ‘tacit knowledge’ (which, again, would be different for each person in this thread). Hence, ‘there is no such a thing as ‘right perception’.

A perception of an object as a disgusting, pleasant or neutral doesn’t make it disgusting, pleasant or neutral per se, only in a relation towards the object felt.If here were persons with a third or fourth types of personal track on interracial relations, we’d have a third or fourth types of perception, etc., like a) racist; b) non-racist; c) both-racist-and-non-racist; d) neither racist, nor non-racist.Hence, there is no such a thing as ‘right perception’.Like. On A Russian Nagpo@Solitaire1) Nothing like using abstract philosophical reasoning to dismiss the lived experiences and valid opinions of POC. This is just another way of saying “anything but racism” and thereby avoid having to put oneself into another’s shoes and grapple with unpleasant realities.2) Why the sudden coyness?1) Nothing like abusing logical thinking to impose your mind matrix on alternative life versions. If I hadn’t created a cause to experience an effect of a certain type of a suffering for a life, why should I accompany another person in his or her diatribes or lamentations? Just for a sake of some perversed understanding of humanity and solidarity?You know, in my country you don’t always have to be Black to be treated by police like a Black can be treated in yours.2) Why coyness? If you want to be accepted by a group, you have to find a middle point between their interests and yours.

The word ‘sudden’ suggests that your mind pattern for my speech behaviour differs from my actual intentions, which, in turn, proves that you don’t understand it thoroughly. Sorry, but this is the best English I could offer 😀Here’s another illustration on interracial communicative relativity (from 34:02 to 40:40, especially from 39:52 to 40:40).Like. On A Russian Nagpo@SolitaireHumanity and solidarity are perverse?!? Please elucidate!I think your feeling is based on wrong understanding.

Humanity doesn’t always mean solidarity. Perversed humanity, as is the case with most baizuos, doesn’t always mean compassion. Solidarity, perverted or not, doesn’t necessarily mean any form of humanity, perverted or not, etc.In my mind, it is more important to be compassionate than being humanistic or sharing solidarity with a person who suffers any kind of a physical or emotional pain. Feeling a compassion for a beggar doesn’t mean I should become a beggar myself. Moreover; becoming a beggar myself, I could hardly help any beggar at all.As for the second part of your question, I sea the whole thread here as informative source about how people of different post-empire or post-colonial (or neo-colonial) states tend to picture the Other in their popular visual narration. So this blog and this thread are about bigger issues than just artworks or comics.Like.

On Solitaire@ ARN“I think your feeling is based on wrong understanding.”Now, now. You’re contradicting yourself. If there’s no such thing as a right perception, neither can there be a wrong one.“In my mind, it is more important to be compassionate than being humanistic or sharing solidarity with a person who suffers any kind of a physical or emotional pain. Feeling a compassion for a beggar doesn’t mean I should become a beggar myself. Moreover; becoming a beggar myself, I could hardly help any beggar at all.”Since when does sharing solidarity mean you have to become something different than what you are? That’s just silly.If you were at all compassionate, you would stop whitesplaining on this thread.

Tintin Au Congo Pdf

That’s all it would take.You don’t even know enough about these artists to have an informed opinion. You originally thought the reason Gro Jo said the Asterix comics were racist was because they didn’t include any black people and went off on a diatribe about ahistorical representations. You kept insisting there were no black characters in Asterix until finally given visual evidence. You made a stupid mistake about there being a gorilla in Asterix.

You didn’t know the context of Tintin vis-a-vis the atrocities of Belgian-ruled Congo, and when informed of it you dismissed it as unimportant to anyone living today. But your ignorance hasn’t stopped you from whitesplaining right and left.Like.

On BrothawolfI remember that Tintin had an animated series that came on HBO which was moved to Nickelodeon. I think the series was produced by a French-Canadian animated studio. I loved the cartoon, but was ignorant of the comics. I don’t know when or how, but I found out more about the character and the comics and discovered the volume about the Congo.

Tintin in america

Needless to say, I was a shocked, but not entirely surprised.White people everywhere have this unanimous concept on how to portray black people to support white supremacy and European colonialism.Like. On A Russian Nagpo@gro joNow seems you are addessing an imaginary Russian Nagpo in your head. Did I say anything about the USA slavery? Or ‘being black means to be a slave’?I’ve repeated several times here that there was no race-based slavery in Russia, which means that there is no reason for me thinking of Blacks as of people inferior to Whites.My comment was about the Portuguese slavery, where the black slaves also had Japanese or Korean slaves in their possession and, supposedly, could in some circumstances have ‘a state of a relatively free slave slailor’ even having some slaves of their own.Like. On SolitaireMost African slaves in Europe in the Sixteenth Century were not indentured for life. A freed court slave might become a musician or manage to put by a fair amount of money. The man in “Portrait of a Wealthy Black Man” (pictured) wears a jewel in his turban, a glowing pearl earring and a heavy gold chain on top of his fur collar.

An African servant gave birth to a son whose father later became pope. The mixed-race boy, Alessandro, grew up to be the first Medici Duke of Florence.Easily the most illuminating work in the show is “Chafariz d’el Rey in the Alfama District”, a large, panoramic view of a busy quayside in Lisbon. White Portuguese mingle with black knights on horseback, vendors, boatmen, water bearers and slaves; Africans are believed to have made up a tenth of the city’s population.Like. Search for:. Recent Comments.Afrofem on.Origin on.Origin on.gro jo on.on.bigbig40boy on.abagond on.Solitaire on.Solitaire on.abagond on.abagond on.abagond on.abagond on.gro jo on.thatdeborahgirl on. New Stuff. Good Stuff.

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