Sunday, November 11, 2007
Racism Today
This week, our class visited some artwork in Chicago. We saw many images in which Indians were portrayed in one way: as naked, violent, and savage creatures. It amazes me that there is such a low level of outrage over these blatantly racist figures. It seems that some groups of people are still being persecuted, but know one really realizes it. For example, I've seen many commercials for a popular restaurant chain. Bennigan's slogan is "Feed your inner Leprechaun". It confuses me how such an obviously offensive phrase is taken so lightly. I even saw another commercial advertising a new product that said, "What would the Irish do to a steak? add beer!" It is ridiculous that I've never heard anyone complain about these advertisements. I understand that free speech is free speech, but you'd think they would get rid of those commercials for the sake of business.
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3 comments:
I totally agree with your post. Racial profiling has now become kind of justified by art. What if, for example, an Asian artist had sculpted a a serious piece of a white man as an overweight, poorly dressed, dumb-struck hillbilly? I doubt that if would go anywhere in the states. And why are we allowed to do this to this specific minority? They were the first Americans, really. I think its a major sign of ignorance on the caucasian person's behalf.
I do understand that some of these figures do portray racism and offensive steriotypes, but with the Bennigan's slogan, they are just trying to be humorous. It is a bad steriotype that all Irish people are drunks, but sometimes you have to take a step back and laugh at yourself- if you live life too seriously, you will have no fun.
I beleive it was kanye that said "racism's still alive, they just be concealing it." Many people may believe that a lot of racism died with after the civil rights movement, but as andrew pointed out it is everywhere still, but in different forms. And i feel that there is a lot of artwork that shows racism and it can be offensive, but thats just the way most art is.
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