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vrijdag 25 mei 2012
NATO RAIDS 8
Baron Cohen's Propaganda 2
Blackface, Brownface, Yellowface, Arabface, Jewface, and Purpleface
8 MAY 2012
9 COMMENTS
Blackface, Brownface, Yellowface, Arabface, Jewface, and Purpleface
Ashton Kutcher recently embroiled himself in some controversy by starring in a commercial for Pop Chips. He was featured in the ad in brownface. Kutcher used brown make-up to darken his face in order to play Raj, a Bollywood producer “looking for love.” Many Americans of South-Asian ethnicity were offended and protested the racist stereotyping of Indians. Duly chastened, Pop Chips removed the ad.
Comedian Hasan Minhaj, himself of South Asian ethnicity, didn’t think this sufficient and issued a video response blasting Pop Chips:
The Huffington Post also wrote an article about Minhaj’s response:
One common reaction to the ad’s use of stereotypes, both on Twitter and in comments, has been, “How is this any different than Sacha Baron Cohen doing ‘Borat’?”Minhaj’s response was decisive: Borat is not in brownface.“As a man of Jewish descent, Sacha Baron Cohen uses the character of Borat to ridicule antisemitism, misogyny, and bigotry,” Minhaj told HuffPost. “What was the point of the ‘Raj’ character? Oh yeah, to sell Pop Chips by blatantly laughing at Indian people.”
In fact, Sacha Baron Cohen has now appeared in Arabface in the heavily anticipated movie The Dictator. Cohen depicts Admiral General Shabazz Aladeen, a fictional Arab character.
You know how many Americans have protested this movie? Exactly three and a half people. There is absolute silence, approving acceptance, and in fact gleeful admiration for the blatant racist stereotype that is the movie’s main character.
As Hasan Minhaj explained, the reason Pop Chips thought they could get away with brown face is
because that’s the way it is now. They wouldn’t do that with any other ethnicity. There’s a barbecue flavor of Pop Chips. Why didn’t you make him black faced and Tyrone? Why didn’t you do that? Because you knew you would get f*@king buried, Pop Chips, that’s why!
Well, at least Pop Chips removed the ad. It’s even worse for Arabs and Muslims: nobody has given two damns about The Dictator. If a major motion studio made a movie about a character in blackface, yellowface, or Jewface–they “would get f*@king buried.”
I know what you’re going to say to justify it: Cohen portrays a tyrannical Arab dictator, not just any ole’ Arab. Here’s why I’m not buying it. Can you imagine, just for a fleeting moment, if an Arab Muslim dressed up as an evil Jewish person–in Jewface no less–and made a movie out of it? Can you imagine how “f*@kingburied” that person would be?
If Sacha Baron Cohen is justifying racist stereotypes under the guise of “just portraying an evil Arab tyrant”, could Arabs make a major motion film featuring a Jewfaced actor–complete with hooknose, dreadlocks, and a skull cap–starring as an evil Israeli politician? If an Arab American or an American Muslim did such a thing, we all know how “f*@king buried” they’d be.
But, here we have Jewish actor, Sacha Baron Cohen, depicting an Arab in a racist way. The double standard is obvious: a Jewish person can get away with playing a stereotypical Arab Muslim, but an Arab Muslim would be likened to Adolf Hitler if he portrayed a stereotypical Jewish person.
Cohen’s mother was born in Israel and Cohen himself spent time in Israel. He also has associated with a Zionist movement, Habonim Dror. Thankfully, Habonim Dror is actually very moderate in its views towards Palestinians. Naturally, none of this is a crime, but it certainly means he is all the more audacious in portraying an Arab in Arabface. Imagine, for instance, the reaction of the media (Fox News!) to an Arab Muslim who is part of CAIR–or an Iranian American with ties to Iran–portraying a Jew in Jewface. Any Arab, Muslim, or Iranian who did such a thing would be “f*@king buried” alive in America. He’d lose his job, be labeled an Anti-semite, and become a social outcast forever.
Really, the truth is that one simply cannot imagine a major motion film being made using any other type of face: can you imagine the outcry over blackface? Is there even a question about that one? We’ve seen the reaction over brownface: the Pop Chips ad was removed. (Meanwhile, The Dictator marches onward without a single peep from any corner of American society.) As for yellowface, I sincerely doubt that Sacha Baron Cohen could get away with painting his face yellow and squinting his eyes. Jewface? Yeah, right!
The rules are clear:
Blackface? Not a chance!
Brownface? Maybe, but probably not.
Yellowface? No way, Jose!
Jewface? You Anti-Semite!
Arabface? We love it!
Stereotyping and racism against Arabs and Muslims is perfectly OK, because they occupy the lowest rung of the social totem pole in America.
I know people will rush to justify The Dictator, “because it’s funny.” I’m not denying it’s funny. I’ve seen the trailers and they are, quite honestly, hilarious. But, does being funny give one a pass to be blatantly racist? If a white actor made a comedic film in blackface, portraying a tribal African in native dress–with a bone through his nose and riding a cheetah–would this be acceptable so long as the jokes were funny enough?
True, comedy is a special world, but I just can’t imagine too many white comics making fun of blacks in a pejorative way and then justifying it by saying “it’s just comedy!” Certainly, black comedians can poke fun at their own community, just as Jewish comedians do to their own community. But, making fun of another race–especially one which historically has been at loggerheads with your own (i.e. white vs. black, Jewish vs. Arab, etc.) seems to me to be very questionable.
Another justification will be raised, which is that Jewish comedians, including Sacha Baron Cohen himself, make fun of Jews also. As I said above, it’s one thing to make fun of your own community. It’s quite a different matter to attack another. Furthermore, there’s a difference between relatively benign* (yet unhelpful) stereotypes (i.e. black people are good at basketball, have large you know what’s, etc.) and very malignant, extremely hurtful ones (i.e. black people are violent, prone to criminality, are apes, etc.). The jokes about Jewish people that Jewish comedians make are almost always of the former type and not the latter. Meanwhile, racist portrayals of Arabs and Muslims are often of the latter type, depicting them as violent terrorists and oppressors of women.
Compared to prevailing Arab and Muslim stereotypes, Ashton Kutcher’s Raj was significantly less offensive. How an Arab Muslim would long to be the “exotic”, funny-talking Apu character from the Simpsons instead of Achmed the Dead Terrorist. Trust me, you’d rather be stereotyped as the guy who works at a convenience store than the guy who blows it up.
*To be clear, I am opposed to all racist stereotyping, whether benign or malignant. The word “benign” is itself a bit misleading, because even these stereotypes have associations with malignant stereotypes: for example, black men being nothing but gladiators or sexual beasts. On the other hand, I recognize that it would probably be difficult to eliminate all stereotyping in comedy routines. Poor Russell Peters would be left with 2 minutes of material. Certainly, however, even Russell Peters understands and respects the difference between “benign” and malignant stereotypes.
Nonetheless, I have a huge problem with the fact that we define non-white people by their race. All we see, at least when we look at minorities, is a black face, a yellow face, and a brown face.
Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.
The Empire 800
Military Detention for Journalists
A local boy tries to get a peek in the viewfinder of a journalist's video camera as US Army soldiers with the 1-320 Field Artillery Regiment, 101st Airborne Division conduct a patrol in the village of Saidon Kalacheh in Arghandab Valley north of Kandahar. Reuters/Bob Strong
The important question of whether the military may hold US citizens and foreign nationals in indefinite detention came to a head recently in two important forums: a federal court in Manhattan and the House of Representatives. On May 16, US District Judge Katherine Forrest ruled unconstitutional an important section of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012, finding that it threatened US citizens with military detention for First Amendment–protected speech and associations. Two days later, taking up the NDAA for 2013, the House rejected a rare bipartisan proposal to bar the military detention of people apprehended on US soil. At the same time, it approved language that appeared to mandate that all foreign nationals who can be tried in a military commission must be tried there rather than in civilian criminal court.
About the Author
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These developments underscore the remarkable fact that more than ten years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the scope of the government’s power to use military authority to lock up human beings indefinitely remains fundamentally unclear. Indeed, it was that very ambiguity that led Judge Forrest to rule an important part of the NDAA unconstitutional. There is undoubtedly a legitimate place for military detention in the context of an armed conflict, so long as it conforms to the laws of war. But it is deeply disturbing that a decade into the conflict with Al Qaeda, there remain serious doubts about the extent of that awesome authority. Still more troubling is the apparent fact that the government is unwilling to erase those doubts.
The federal lawsuit challenged Section 1021 of the NDAA, which authorizes the indefinite military detention of people who are “part of or substantially supported Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces.” Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, and several other journalists and activists sued, claiming that the law was so overbroad and vague, they feared that their writings and associations might lead the government to lock them up in military detention.
At first glance, their fears may seem unfounded. In the decade since 9/11 the government has held only two US citizens in military detention in connection with the conflict with Al Qaeda, and both were alleged to have done much more than write an article or interview a terrorist. Yaser Hamdi was captured in 2001 on the battlefield in Afghanistan, carrying a weapon and accompanying a Taliban regiment. Jose Padilla, apprehended on arrival at O’Hare Airport in 2002, was said to be a member of Al Qaeda who had come here to commit a terrorist attack. Even Hedges’s and Chomsky’s harshest critics are unlikely to view them as being situated as Hamdi and Padilla are.
And Section 1021 itself expressly affirms that it does not “affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens,” language insisted on by Senator Dianne Feinstein when people began objecting to the NDAA’s potential application to American citizens. That language seems to state that the law has no effect on US citizens at all. And President Obama said in his NDAA signing statement that “my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens.” He has been true to his word.
Given that state of affairs, most observers expected the court to dismiss the complaints of Hedges et al. and throw out their case for lack of standing (to challenge a law, one must at a minimum show that there is a credible threat that it will be enforced against oneself). The administration’s lawyers argued just that. And they had several facts in their favor: no one in Hedges’s or Chomsky’s position had been placed in military detention; the law on its face said it did not expand detention authority over US citizens; and the president had said he would not use military detention against Americans.
But when pressed by the judge at a hearing on the case, the government’s lawyer obstinately refused to assure the plaintiffs that they were free to engage in their conduct without being confined in a military brig. The government appeared to want to keep its options open. That desire, coupled with the open-ended and undefined character of terms like “substantial support” and “associated forces,” led Judge Forrest to conclude that the plaintiffs had a reasonable fear that they might be subjected to the law. If they couldn’t, she reasoned, it would have been simple for the government to say so. On the merits, she determined that giving the government the power to detain on the basis of undefined “support” to undefined “associated forces” was both too broad and too vague. The government has the power to detain, she confirmed, but such a significant power must be subject to narrower and more clearly articulated limits. Forrest preliminarily barred the law’s enforcement against the plaintiffs.
The government is certain to appeal. But it need not. It could—and should—resolve the matter simply by making clear to the district court that plaintiffs’ conduct is not “substantial support” of Al Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces, and therefore they need not worry about military detention. The fact that Justice Department attorneys were unwilling to say so is more worrying than the statute itself. Perhaps they thought they could prevail without making such a concession. But what possible downside is there to saying that people are free to write articles about Al Qaeda or interview its members without fear that they are providing the “substantial support” that leads to military detention? The ball is squarely in Obama’s court to reassure the American people that his administration respects their rights.
The other place this problem could be resolved, at least in theory, is Congress. It could amend the NDAA to make clear that it does not permit detention based on First Amendment–protected speech, and does not authorize the detention of US citizens. But that body has long since proven itself incapable of solving problems about civil liberties in the struggle against terrorism. In its latest intervention, the House refused to bar the military detention of people apprehended in the United States and has simultaneously insisted that, whenever possible, foreigners be tried in the military commission system, even if a civilian criminal trial would be simpler, more legitimate and more effective (as has consistently been shown to be the case for ten years).
We have long known that we cannot expect rational action from Congress on these subjects. But the administration’s conduct in the lawsuit against the NDAA suggests it has lost its capacity for reason as well. Terrorists aim to induce fear and irrationality in their targets. Are they winning?
donderdag 24 mei 2012
Iran 356
'Kucinich: US 'Sanction Warfare' Makes Real Iran War Inevitable
War mentality has saturated Washington and arms merchants want to benefit, says Congressman (d) Dennis Kucinich. He opposes sanctions against Tehran that could lead to war, and is sure the US should forget about trying to conquer other countries.
Video By RT - Posted May 23, 2012
DK: There is an overwhelming sentiment in the Congress to get tougher with Iran. But what is the basis of it? We are being told we should not have any contact with them, we are being told that we should not be negotiating with them, we are being told that we should get ready for war. All that is wrong. What we need to do is to have direct negotiations. We need to be talking with Iran and we need to stop this vainglorious notion that somehow we can settle our differences with Iran through war.
RT: How many colleagues of yours share your views?
DK: 10-11 out of 435 members. But the American people are not prepared for this country to get into another war. If Mr. Netanyahu wants to pay for war – that's up to him.I would advise against it because I think Israel's security would be undermined by an attack on Iran. But the Unites States should not, cannot and must not be dragged into a war by any other country which calls itself our friend. If you are friends with someone, your friends don't get you into trouble – your friends help you to stay out of trouble. And unfortunately we have some friends that want to get us into trouble.
RT: Your colleagues say: why does the US have to take the first step? Let Iran do it first. What do you think about that – I mean Iranians are not sweet-talkers either.
DK: The United States is taking a lead on this. So, we should take the lead on diplomacy. If Congress sends a message to the world that says "Look, we don't have to talk to you, we don't want to negotiate with you, we will wage war on you if you don't do our bidding. That's not how you treat people, that's not the way that you solve things, that's not the way that you create a safer world. We must use diplomacy.
RT: Diplomacy is making concessions. Why do you think some of your most hawkish colleagues hate the thought of it?
DK: We have to think differently, we have to believe that peace is possible. What we have is the type of thinking coming out of Washington that says "war is inevitable". When you say "war is inevitable" you actually create a war of self-fulfilling prophecy. We have to stop thinking in terms of war.
RT: Even if Iran makes all the concessions, it seems the sanctions will still be there. Do American policy-makers like being constantly on the edge of war?
DK: Sanctions are another form of war, sanctions are just a step away from shooting. The mindset that exists here in Washington is generally the mindset of brinkmanship going right to the edge. The problem with that is that there's always room for miscalculation especially when part of the prevailing mentality says "you can't even have contact with the other side". Imagine for a moment, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis if Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy were not speaking to each other. It was the fact that they communicated that caused the crisis eventually to be resolved.
RT: Do you think it's eventually all about the US wanting to overthrow the Iranian leadership one way or another?
DK: The people of Iran have never let a foreign power determine through invasion what the outcome is going to be. The people of Iran are very concerned when their nuclear scientists are assassinated. How does that happen? Who is doing that? We should forget about trying to conquer other countries: that's an old model, that'd an old thinking from hundreds of years ago. We tried that in Iraq – it did not work. We have tried that in Afghanistan – it did not work. We keep trying that in Libya – it does not work. Their people want us to try that in Syria – it will not work. And it is not going to work in Iran, and the sooner that we understand it – the better it is, because we'll look at what our options are.
RT: 70% of Americans say 'Yes' to diplomacy with Iran. Do you think the lawmakers hear their voices?
DK: Every member of Congress has improved hearing when we get close to an election. So if we are far away from an election, it sometimes becomes more difficult to hear. And there are other voices: voices of other interest groups, voices of arms merchants, of war contractors, of people who just make money out of a war. They don't care where the war is and who it hurts – they just want money. Members of Congress have to be wise when they are being plagued by interest groups who may want them to vote in one way, but it would be a way that would be adverse to the interests of the American people.
RT: How happy are people in Congress when it comes to war?
DK: I've seen this phenomenon: most Congressmen are relatively placid, peace-loving people. But something happens when we are on the threshold of conflict. I saw this happen when the US government made a decision to bomb Serbia. These people were placid and reasonable, but suddenly this war fever moves in and war fever has a way of inflecting peoples' thinking – it's like a virus.
RT: What's the general mood in Congress with regard to Syria?
DK: It's mixed. There are members of Congress and Senate who have been calling for intervention. But intervention on whose behalf? The more you look at it, there are so many different groups playing in Syria right now. US intervention could bring about a triumph for Islamic fundamentalism. Just because you intervene, doesn't mean you are going to get the results that you want. Actually that's an ironclad rule, that intervention will get the opposite results to what you want!'
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