Here’s some news we think you should be aware of for today, May 4, 2012:
- Ashton Kutcher Does Brownface
- Inmates Made To Dance In Order To Use The Microwave
- April Job Numbers Are In
- More Government Propaganda: Osama Bin Laden Documents Released
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Read about it below!
Ashton Kutcher Does Brownface
Everyone is all up in arms about a dating video comedy skit starring Ashton Kutcher. In the video he plays a number of different characters, and one of them is an Indian man. Kutcher’s skin is noticeably darker than his natural tone, and it’s obvious that makeup has been applied to his face to make it brown.
Posing as Raj, Kutcher’s face is darkened as he takes on an Indian accent and rattles on about how he’s “looking for the most delicious thing on the planet,” specifically someone who is “Kardashian hot.”
The Twittersphere lit up with critics slammed the ad as racist.
“Hey, startups that are helping @aplusk get richer, can you tell him that racist brownface ads aren’t cool? Thanks!” tweeted blogger Anil Dash.
Rap group Das Racist also voiced their disappointment on the social network, urging followers to call popchips and complain.
On Wednesday, the low-cal snack company issued a statement responding to the criticism.
“The new popchips worldwide dating video and ad campaign featuring four characters was created to provoke a few laughs and was never indented to stereotype or offend anyone,” said a popchips spokesperson, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Source: NY Daily News
Is the issue that the character he plays or the fact that his skin had been darkened? Keep in mind that he plays another character whose skin has been lightened with makeup, and nobody is complaining about that. It seems that the controversy is more about the perpetuation of stereotypes related to particular races, rather than it being about Ashton Kutcher in brownface.
Because of racism, it is generally acceptable for the victim of racism to mock and joke about the perpetrator, but it’s not accepted the other way around. Ashton Kutcher (a white person–a symbol of the perpetuation of racism) violated that unwritten rule that says he cannot mock the victims of racism without expecting a backlash.
It is even unacceptable for the people of the victimized race to mock or make fun of the victims of white supremacy because it hurts the collective self esteem of the group and it damages the image that the group doesn’t want to be reinforced. Doing so elevates the perceived supremacy of whites, which is why people are so sensitive about it. For instance, consider the backlash over movies like “Soul Plane,” and how people passionately objected to the portrayal of Blacks in the film.
Do you think this video is racist? Check out the video and let us know what you think:
Source: Forbes
Inmates Made To Dance In Order To Use The Microwave Ad Gain Other Privileges
A sheriff’s deputy is now fired after an incident in which he made the inmates dance for privileges like using the microwave:
Some inmates did the worm, others chose the old school robot. Each dance was performed to the beat of hip-hop artist Usher on command from a now-fired Summit County deputy.
The inmate prize: use of a jail microwave.
The charges are revealed in an internal affairs report released Wednesday. Deputy Dominic Martucci, 35, was fired for violating the department’s policies, including a mandate that inmates be treated humanely.
Martucci is accused of ordering five inmates dance to Usher’s Yeah! song and then inviting other deputies to watch during an early evening shift on April 11. The inmates danced their way to regaining use of a microwave that they had lost earlier that day.
Source: Akron Beacon Journal
This is what people in power do–they use people in unfavorable circumstances and get them to do things to entertain them. This has happened since before the days of slavery, and happens all the time today. We see the rich exploiting powerless people for their own entertainment. The powerful people go to them and get them to sing, dance, play basketball and other sports. Those in power even craft reality shows centered around people and their unfortunate circumstances for their own enjoyment. Examples are shows like, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Operation Repo, Cops, Parking Wars, and Pawn Stars.
The guards were just doing what people in power do. How far would you go to have to have a privilege in a place where you’ve had almost everything stripped away from you? Aside from the humiliation, the inmates probably did get some level of enjoyment from the dancing, since they probably couldn’t entertain themselves like that without reprimand.
Apparently some of the inmates laughed about being made to dance, but even slaves laughed when asked to dance for their master.
April Job Numbers Are In
April job numbers are in, and according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the overall unemployment rate didn’t change that much (8.1%). Over the last month, they must have given Blacks all the jobs, because the Black unemployment rate dropped about a percentage point to 13% in the month of April–never mind that the Black unemployment rate is still significantly higher than the rest of the country.
Actually, a more likely reason for the dip in the Black unemployment rate is that people who are unemployed for an extended period of time are not counted in the unemployment stats. The unemployment stats are based on the number of unemployment claims. So, if the person has exhausted their unemployment benefits, they are no longer counted in the unemployment statistics, thereby contributing to an artificially low unemployment statistic.
Household Survey Data
Both the number of unemployed persons (12.5 million) and the unemployment
rate (8.1 percent) changed little in April. (See table A-1.)Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men
(7.5 percent), adult women (7.4 percent), teenagers (24.9 percent), whites
(7.4 percent), and Hispanics (10.3 percent) showed little or no change in
April, while the rate for blacks (13.0 percent) declined over the month.
The jobless rate for Asians was 5.2 percent in April (not seasonally
adjusted), little changed from a year earlier. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over)
was little changed at 5.1 million in April. These individuals made up 41.3
percent of the unemployed. Over the year, the number of long-term unemployed
has fallen by 759,000. (See table A-12.)
Source: BLS
More Government Propaganda-Osama Bin Laden Documents Released
The government has just released some supposed Osama Bin-Laden documents, and We’re calling bullshit on this story. These documents could all be made up for all we know. It seems like the government is just trying to keep the whole Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda story alive–essentially saying, “Look at what Bin Laden was planning!”
We know the government lies, but it seems like nobody is questioning the source of all of this information. At the end of the day, we know what all this is about–Iran and the fact that the government needs the support of the American public to wage yet another Middle Eastern war–so they have to keep fear alive.
They continue to have the mainstream media run video–supposedly taken from the compound–of Bin Laden watching TV as proof that he existed and was supposedly a threat to the USA. Do we even know that this is Bin Laden in the video? After all the time he was in the compound, there’s only one video of him and he’s watching TV? Yeah right!
These are the same people who said Hillary Rosen didn’t work for them, when we know she did. And when questioned, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that he personally knew three Hillary Rosens, so he couldn’t verify her more than 35 visits to the White House. So perhaps the White House created knew three Bin Ladens. Will the REAL Bin Laden please stand up?
And all of this comes on the heels of Barack Obama and many in the U.S. celebrating the one-year anniversary of Bin Laden’s death. The new Freedom Tower in NYC became the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere during this phase of construction and Obama even made a surprise trip to Afghanistan to solidify a deal that the U.S. will be present there until at least 2024. Yes, America is great!
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