Botkinettes' website has had a facelift!

[Marian the Librarian]

Botkin also organized his own pseudo-intellectual tours, not unlike the old VF revisionist history ones. He was in Russia masquerading as an expert in Russian art a year or so ago.

Uh-huh - there was a video, now unfortunately made private, where ol' Geoff could be heard barking "It's SISSY ARCHITECTURE!" when he saw the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Here's the thread, just for old times' sake:

viewtopic.php?f=108&t=20949&hilit=attn+uk+botkins&start=40

[salex]

Geoff Botkin often talks about how Godly Men should be building their 'estate'. I find myself picturing a vast tract of land with some sort of castle-like mansion, and stuff like stables and servants' quarters. :shock:

HE must admire Joel Osteen

[Palimpsest]

Uh-huh - there was a video, now unfortunately made private, where ol' Geoff could be heard barking "It's SISSY ARCHITECTURE!" when he saw the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Here's the thread, just for old times' sake:

viewtopic.php?f=108&t=20949&hilit=attn+uk+botkins&start=40

Thanks for finding that thread, Marian! I was looking for Botkin goes to Russia and skipped over the UK thread. Now does Botkin père look more like Lenin or Rasputin?

Geoff Botkin's inflated resume reminds me of Cherry Stones.

"Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief,

Or what about a cowboy, policeman, jailer, engine driver, or a pirate chief?

Or what about a ploughman or a keeper at the zoo,

Or what about a circus man who lets the people through?

Or the man who takes the pennies on the roundabouts and swings,

Or the man who plays the organ or the other man who sings?

Or what about the rabbit man with rabbits in his pockets

And what about a rocket man who's always making rockets?

Oh it's such a lot of things there are and such a lot to be

That there's always lots of cherries on my little cherry tree."

A.A. Milne. Now We are Six

I'm busy today so I shouldn't take the time write a full Botkin parody, but it is so tempting. :lol:

[Geechee Girl]

Doug's dress up fancy party shit was just that, stupid dress up fancy party shit. I'm not treating non-white people as a homogenous mass, I'm saying being of Puerto-Rican descent and dressing up as Pocahontas during her time in England for a party doesn't seem much more offensive to me than someone of Middle Eastern descent dressing as a Geisha for Halloween because she also has straight black hair and dark eyes and thinks the costume will work. Is it appropriating someone's culture? Yes, to some extent. But it is not suggesting that Middle Eastern and Japanese people are the same because they share a few physical traits.

For some people, myself included, would find the bolded very offensive. Ohio Uni's Students Teaching About Racism in Society created a campaign a few years ago to get out the message that culture is not a costume.

2011-2012 Posters: ohio.edu/orgs/stars/Poster_Campaign.html

2013 Posters (for some reason they aren't all loading on the same page)

ohio.edu/orgs/stars/Home.html

[nausicaa]

For some people, myself included, would find the bolded very offensive. Ohio Uni's Students Teaching About Racism in Society created a campaign a few years ago to get out the message that culture is not a costume.

2011-2012 Posters: ohio.edu/orgs/stars/Poster_Campaign.html

2013 Posters (for some reason they aren't all loading on the same page)

ohio.edu/orgs/stars/Home.html

I've seen those posters, in fact I even thought of them as I was typing up my original comment. I guess the difference to me is dressing up as a particular element associated with a culture (flamenco dancer, geisha, Greek goddess, or a historical character like Pocahontas or Cleopatra) isn't the same as sticking some feathers in your hair and putting on a deerskin dress and shouting "I'm an Indian!" The latter makes it seem as if an entire group of people is just something to be caricatured and exoticized. The former to me is no different from dressing as a Viking warrior, the Saint Pauley girl, or Queen Victoria. A geisha doesn't represent all Japanese women, it was a particular role that some women had. Particularly if someone dressing as a geisha or Cleopatra were to put effort into making it somewhat historically accurate and not just a complete joke (e.g., an actual kimono versus some "sexy Asian doll" get up).

I definitely understand where that poster campaign is coming from; I have seen some cringe worthy Halloween costumes. But the answer doesn't seem to me to make any non-European costume off limits.

(Also, do not Google "racist Halloween costumes" if you want to have any hope for humanity. Just don't. :shock: )

[CyborgKin]

Was it offensive for me and a number of my coworkers (not all Caucasian) to dress up in prohibition-era costumes (complete with fedoras and hip flasks) and pretend to be part of that culture, given that the vast majority of us weren't even Americans and have no connection to and little understanding of that culture? I imagine most of us just threw together something that matched whatever sterotypical image of a mobster or flapper we'd developed from old movies and such.

[RoscoetheCat]

OK? :pink-shock:

I have never read much on this group before but the post on Tangled was bizarre. Apparently, it was bad for the heroine to immediately assume that the woman WHO LOCKED HER IN A TOWER for years didn't have her best interests at heart. Isolating your child from all human contact and keeping them in solitary confinement is not seen as a sin or wrong against the child? :pull-hair:

[Geechee Girl]

nausicaa, I appreciate your thoughtful reply. The geisha costume example really stuck out to me because I feel it perpetuates stereotypes of an ethnic/cultural group. Circling back to the photo of Lourdes as Pocahontas, casting her as whatever POC DIAPT needs to complete his cosplay cast is distasteful. The costume is lovely, the character he put on her isn't.

[CyborgKin]

I'm disappointed they didn't do a post about Frozen as a followup to the one on Tangled. Surely they could find some lesson to teach from ElizElsa and Anna Sofia. Not that I've actually watched either film myself, but you know how internet pop-culture osmosis works.

[Palimpsest]

Was it offensive for me and a number of my coworkers (not all Caucasian) to dress up in prohibition-era costumes (complete with fedoras and hip flasks) and pretend to be part of that culture, given that the vast majority of us weren't even Americans and have no connection to and little understanding of that culture? I imagine most of us just threw together something that matched whatever sterotypical image of a mobster or flapper we'd developed from old movies and such.

No. Because, you were not mocking an ethnic or cultural minority were you? And, as you may have noticed, not all Americans are Caucasian. :)

Not addressed to Cyborgkin, but a general comment:

For me this is quite a simple issue. If you (general you) find out that dressing up in a stereotypical costume of another ethnicity/culture (and you can throw religion in under culture) upsets and offends even a small number of people of that ethnicity/culture then why do it? And why waste time arguing with them that they shouldn't be offended? People's feelings are their feelings.

Picking a costume that doesn't offend people is very easy. If you unknowingly dress in a culturally/ethnically insensitive costume, then you will probably find yourself being educated. If you knowingly dress in a costume people find offensive, simply to be offensive, then you will be judged.

Of course, there are many horrendously racist Halloween costumes out there. However, "but lots of other people do it" is not an excuse. If you go to a costume party dressed in a KKK costume, draped in the Confederate flag, as a Nazi, as a Geisha, or as Pocahontas - then expect people to give you the hairy eyeball. You may be indulging in your right to express yourself. Others get to express their objections to your behavior.

I find Pocahontas a particularly problematic example. The White Man's version of history is of the heroic young woman who converted to Christianity and helped John Smith, fell in love with a settler, etc. The other side of the coin is that she was either abducted and brainwashed, or a young woman who betrayed her own people, rejected her religion and culture and -- is basically a traitor. We don't know what her motives actually were, but the Pocahontas story is not a slushy Barbara Cartland romance.

Lourdes dressed as Pocahontas for Douggie's cosplay seems to be one of his attempts at grooming her. He was elevating her within the VF community with very unpleasant motives. I don't know if she knew that her costume might offend some people, but I'm sure the Tool didn't give her much choice about wearing it.

[lilah]

But the entire vision put forth by VF assumed that there would be servants, or maybe even slaves, given how much this crowd loves the antebellum period. On the one hand, VF says that SAHD should be a universal thing for all women of all backgrounds. But at the same time, it's difficult for a single wife to run a big household by herself, which is why even middle class women had servants until relatively recently. I always got the impression that people like the Botkins and the Phillipses imagined themselves as Victorian ladies and gentlemen, which explains their love of flowery language, antebellum imagery, racist children's books (e.g., Elsie Dinsome or the Henty books), and the resurrected cult of domesticity on steroids.

However, the original cult of domesticity never stated that all women could aspire to be "real women"; women of color and poor women were excluded from being "real women," not just because of their inferior social position, but because they had to work away from their own homes to make the households of "real women" run smoothly. Hence, I think Lourdes was always pegged as hired help by the other VFers, and not the kind of girl who could really aspire to be a "beautiful maiden" like the Botkinettes, because of her class and race. If Lourdes wasn't the victim of covert and overt racism at some point, I would be surprised.

Thank you for pointing this out! Most of the examples of biblical womenhood (including the ur example of the Proverbs 31 woman) require some sort of servant or slave labor

[Hane]

Re their article, "What Every Christian Girl Could Learn from Kate," I thought, "I bet they don't mean Kate Botkin." Fun fact: they seem to omit the fact that Kate Middleton and Prince William almost certainly cohabited before marriage, and that she had a legit university education.

[Columbia]

I'd love to know what kind of conversations have been had around the Botkin dinner table re: R.C. Sproul Jr. and Ashley Madison. I get the impression that they're pretty big fans of his.

[CyborgKin]

Re their article, "What Every Christian Girl Could Learn from Kate," I thought, "I bet they don't mean Kate Botkin." Fun fact: they seem to omit the fact that Kate Middleton and Prince William almost certainly cohabited before marriage, and that she had a legit university education.

Speaking of Kate Botkin, she's been writing a lot about Doug Wilson lately.