Racism meets regional bigotry

[loyalsister]

In this strange post on twitter it's difficult to distinguish between the two. It's an slam towards MO, and by extension the south. Does anyone else pick that up in this Mark Twain style piece of trash?


Missouri’s reecshun ta Michael Sam’s announcement bustid myths

N’ neerly three decades n’ college football, t' Univesty o’Missouri defensif’ line coach had come ta view summ'r team-bildin sessyuns as a typicallee unevantfil tranen camp exercise. So he wasn’t spectin differnt un a swelteryun’ day las August wen he gatheret 15 players n’ a nondescript, windowless meetin room un t' furst floer o’t' Mizzou Athletic Tranen Cumplex....

http://www.lasangelestimes.com/2014/02/11/missouris-reaction-to-michael-sams-announcement-busted-myths/?utm_source=TW&utm_medium=Las+Angeles+Times+-+SNAP&utm_campaign=SNAP%2Bfrom%2BT%27Las+Angeles+Times

[Scootaloo]

1. Actually it's a comedy blog

The joke is taking articles from the Los Angeles Times, and re-writing them in a phonetic southern accent.

[loyalsister]

2. Kind of like how Amos and Andy

and all of the over the top stereotype bits are comedy. Bigotry is not always intentional.

[Scootaloo]

3. You have no idea why Amos and Andy is offensive, I take it?

It wasn't because of the vernacular. it was because it's two white guys, pretending to be black, portraying blacks as idiots, in a period where whites were actively oppressing and harming blacks.

Now if you want to tell me white southerners are in the same place as blacks when Amos and Andy were playing, and this site is just like that, by all means. Just don't expect me to take you seriously at all. because frankly it would be a fucking idiotic claim.

[loyalsister]

4. And you have no idea what I was saying

Amos and Andy is just one of many Comedy bits that is offensive. They didn't just put on make up and talk like educated black men. They played up stereotypes. While I was growing up I remember seeing white people imitate how African Americans speak.

Is that not what the author is doing?

[Scootaloo]

5. So no, you don't understand

The crucial thing with Amos and Andy was the power differential, with white people (the powerful) not just using stereotypes but consistently negative stereotypes, to belittle blacks (the powerless.) This served to reinforce the status quo of white power over blacks. Not just the vernacular used, but the acts themselves were denigrating and insulting.

This site you have takes actual articles from the LA Times, and apparently runs them through some sort of "translating" program to generate this result. The articles are still exactly the same, it's just that a particular accent is shown in text.

It's no mer uffensiff den iffn I waz ta type it all oop inna Canadian ackscent, fer shore, b'eh?

[Sissyk]

6. +1000

Nailed it said this white, southern gal.

[loyalsister]

7. You are missing it because you don't understand the culture

How is the text that conveys ignorance not pressing the negative stereotype of people from the south as ignorant?
The worst part is that, for the most part Missouri is not culturally southern. But, the African Americans in MO tend to speak using a southern dialect. If that pice were presented here, the assumption would not be that it was written by a southerner. It would be presumed to have been written by an African American.

[Scootaloo]

8. I understand the culture perfectly well

I was born and raised in Alabama, friend. I grew up in southern culture, my entire family harbors southern culture, and my understanding of southern culture is why I'm such a big critic of it.

What conveys ignorance? It's a phonetically-written accent. Does having an accent make someone ignorant? If so, what does not having an accent sound like?

Also, Missouri has diddle-squat to do with it, except that it's an LA Times article about Missouri - amid hundreds of other LA times articles given the same treatment on that blog.