Josiah Duggar: Part 5

[VeryNikeSeamstress]

On 17/02/2018 at 6:18 AM, HarleyQuinn said:

I remember when the Jonas Brothers were big and the Disney Channel essentially had all their young stars wearing promise rings.  

I remember South Park having fun with this.

Spoiler

 

The blackface/racism discussion has me remembering a gig I took a few years back that left me feeling uncomfortable. The owner of a well known vegan food company threw a white party in a posh condo overloking English Bay in Vancouver. All attendees wore white, and they had three servers wearing bodypaint (I was one of them). What I hadn't expected was that all our bodies were painted black with accents of neon colour, and we were serving the snooty (mostly caucasian) party guests champagne and canapés all night. Seriously, WTF?!!

[llg1234]

Pretty cheesy, but also kinda cute 

 

[onekidanddone]

47 minutes ago, llg1234 said:

Pretty cheesy, but also kinda cute 

 

These fundy brides keep getting younger. She looks 14. 

[Plexus31Wife]

8 hours ago, llg1234 said:

Pretty cheesy, but also kinda cute 

 

Hmm... Don't see a ring there! Perhaps she still has time to jump ship. 

[Four is Enough]

I thought she was holding her hands in the shape of a heart....

[Gillyweed]

How old is Siah now? The beard makes him look so different!

[justmy2cents]

16 minutes ago, Gillyweed said:

How old is Siah now? The beard makes him look so different!

He's 21. Will be 22 in August.

[Queen]

As a European I wouldn't use the word race to describe human beings. The Finnish word for race is often used in racist contexts, and the idea that we are of different races is in itself seen as problematic by many. I wonder if it has to do with our history of eugenics in Europe (~1920s to 1940s/50s), where the different "races" were hiearched and if you belonged to an "inferior race" you didn't deserve to reproduce or sometimes even live. Having forms where you have to fill in your race (among other informaton) also sounds weird to my European ears.

I think some of the European dynamics about racism differ from the American version. That does not mean we're less racist, hell, we let thousands of people die in the Meditarrenian sea just because we don't want them! But aside from skin colour, there are many other aspects that define your worth and status just as much if not even more, like nationality, language and religion. (Of course they also matter a lot in the US.) What makes you human or sub-human in European history could be a matter of if you are Protestant or Catholic, for example. The natives of Scandinavia, the Sami people, are genetically the same as the Finns, our languages are related, but we have oppressed them a lot, we still do to some extent. 

[L1o2u3]

As a German, I'd never use the word race nor things like interracial or mixed couples etc. ... For me, skin color isn't any different than eye or hair color. We all have one, but we don't all have the same. 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

35 minutes ago, L1o2u3 said:

For me, skin color isn't any different than eye or hair color. We all have one, but we don't all have the same. 

I thought the same. But PoCs here on FJ had the admirable patience to explain how they can't afford to be colorblind. In an ideal world it would work as you say. But PoCs can't forget, they can't do as if their skin tone and their features matched those of the majority of the population. Being colourblind is a luxury. While in my personal relationship with my irl friends I don't really care what colour they are, as a member of an unequal society I can't forget. We can't pretend it's all right because on a personal level we don't behave as racist idiots.

[Timetostoplurking]

Someone upthread posted a very well worded explanation of the word “race” and how we in the US use it.  It doesn’t have the same meaning for us as it seems to for Europeans.  We use that word differently.  However, I would never just outright ask a person what race they are.  It’s just not a phrase I use. I would have to know a person very well before I would ever ask about their ethnic background.  It’s really none of my business.

[IReallyAmHopewell]

I wish 'Siah would shave--he looks too much like Josh.

On 2/20/2018 at 10:58 PM, onekidanddone said:

These fundy brides keep getting younger. She looks 14. 

Probably acts it, too..... Probably writes their names in hearts in her Bible journal.....

So next will it be Jer or Jed? I say Jim Bob is holding out for a double-double wedding: Twins for both sets of twins in a doube marriage. lol... Think of the ratings!

[Rachel333]

4 hours ago, Queen said:

there are many other aspects that define your worth and status just as much if not even more, like nationality, language and religion.

I don't know about Europe in general, but it seems like classism is different in the UK than it is in the US. The way British people talk about class makes it seem much more immutable than it is in the US. Classism is a huge problem in the US too, but it seems to be another area where we just think about those social categories differently as a result of having a different culture and history.

[PainfullyAware]

I used to subscribe to colorblind race theory as well but then I learned a lot about the privilege of belonging to the normalized majority race. Being white I have the luxury not to think about my skin color and can be seen as an individual. For racialized groups their skin colour is all too often made an issue  - reinforcing the category of Other. It can be as simple as not finding color appropriate make up and bandaids, to being asked to explain the "black perspective" on an issue, to having to go to more job interviews before finally getting hired, to pernicious stereotypes, wage gaps, and more overt forms of racism (a la KKK). Privilege is being able to ignore the impact of belonging to a social group. One day I hope skin color will be like eye color and we won't have stereotyping and racism and privilege. In Ontario the anti-racism office is pushing to collect stats on race so we have an understanding about trends in wage, education, income, etc. It's hard to fix inequality and develop policy if we don't understand what we face....but in some ways I wish it didn't have to work like that. I feel uncomfortable saying my race but I know that's part of the white privilege and normalization process.

[AtlanticTug]

On 2/22/2018 at 11:50 AM, IReallyAmHopewell said:

So next will it be Jer or Jed? I say Jim Bob is holding out for a double-double wedding: Twins for both sets of twins in a doube marriage. lol... Think of the ratings!

God that will be a lot of ice cream sundaes/hot dogs in the church parking lot...

[scoutsadie]

On 2/20/2018 at 10:09 PM, llg1234 said:

Pretty cheesy, but also kinda cute 

 

I agree with the poster above who said she appears to be about 14. Also, every time I see her, I see Jessa, with slightly different features.

[Cleopatra7]

I’m going to use a slightly different example to explain how blackface negatively impacted European attitudes about race. Tintin in the Congo was the second adventure of the beloved Fraco-Belgian cartoon character, and to say it’s problematic would be an understatement:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_in_the_Congo

The basic plot is that Tintin goes to the Belgian Congo to smash up a diamond smuggling ring run by Al Capone (!) and has various other hijinks with the native people and fauna. All of the Congolese people are depicted as blackface stereotypes and are further shown to be dumb, primitive, and superstitious. Furthermore, they look up to Tintin because he is white and Belgian, not simply because he’s the hero of the story. There is even a scene in the black and white version of Tintin in the Congo where the titular hero is shown teaching a bunch of Congolese children about their “homeland,” Belgium:

http://en.tintin.com/albums/show/id/26/page/0/0/tintin-in-the-congo

(scroll down to find the image in question)

In the color version of the book, Tintin is shown teaching a more innocuous math lesson, but keep in mind that Tintin is supposed to be fourteen, according to his creator Hergé. Other than being white and Belgian, what business does Tintin have teaching anyone (incidently, I think it’s hilarious how some Europeans complain about immigration, when their governments were telling people in their colonies for decades that they should think of Britain, France, Belgium, etc. as their motherlands).

To be fair, Hergé himself came to realize how problematic Tintin and the Congo was, and he tried to do better in his subsequent works by actually doing research rather than rely on stock stereotypes. But keep in mind that the main people who would have read Tintin in the Congo would have been impressionable children in conservative Catholic homes (Tintin was originally serialized in a Catholic magazine). How could such a story not help but normalize and justify the brutalities that characterized colonialism in the Belgian Congo? The blackface imagery simply reinforced the belief that the Congolese were fundamentally different from the white Belgians at a biological and cultural level, which made it easy to other them.

[Sky with diamonds]

2 hours ago, AtlanticTug said:

God that will be a lot of ice cream sundaes/hot dogs in the church parking lot...

Is it too much to hope for that another wedding will be as tasteful like JinJer's wedding was? 

Too much to hope for. 

[Cleopatra7]

It’s interesting to hear about how in much of Europe the word “race” (or whatever it’s equivalent is in the language in question) is akin to breed and essentially taboo. In the US South, people will just walk up to you and ask, “What are you?” Or, alternately, if they want to be more subtle (but not really), “Where are you from?”

[SapphireSlytherin]

9 minutes ago, Cleopatra7 said:

In the US South, people will just walk up to you and ask, “What are you?” Or, alternately, if they want to be more subtle (but not really), “Where are you from?”

I don't know what part of the US South you're referring to, but I have never heard anyone ask "What are you?" And the only time I've ever heard anyone ask where someone is from, is when they've just moved to town.

[Cleopatra7]

2 minutes ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

I don't know what part of the US South you're referring to, but I have never heard anyone ask "What are you?" And the only time I've ever heard anyone ask where someone is from, is when they've just moved to town.

I’m originally from Atlanta. I’ve heard the  “what are you/where are you from” thing directed at my mother, since she’s light-skinned to be point where other people, total strangers in fact, assume she’s Asian (she identifies and has been socialized as black but does look like it). I can only assume that racial ambiguity confuses a lot of people, especially in a country and especially in region that operates on a black-white dichotomy. 

[SapphireSlytherin]

Well then, clearly, these people have no home-training (as we say in my part of the South).

I'm sorry your mother has had to deal with these boors. They're classless. 

[Rachel333]

I've heard a lot of racially ambiguous people say that they often get asked, "What are you?" A friend of mine from New Zealand has said she gets that question a lot so it's not just an American thing.

[ihaveanexamintwodays]

8 hours ago, Cleopatra7 said:

I’m originally from Atlanta. I’ve heard the  “what are you/where are you from” thing directed at my mother, since she’s light-skinned to be point where other people, total strangers in fact, assume she’s Asian (she identifies and has been socialized as black but does look like it). I can only assume that racial ambiguity confuses a lot of people, especially in a country and especially in region that operates on a black-white dichotomy. 

I'm from the South as well (born, raised, couldn't imagine living anywhere else lol) and I've been asked this. I'm very clearly Asian, though not the super-stereotypical eastern asian look, and I don't usually mind getting asked about it whether it be "What are you?", "Where are you from?", "Where is your family from?", "What is your/your family's nationality?", etc. A lot of people are just curious, though every once in awhile some stranger or another is straight up offensive. If I'm asking someone else I try and stick to the "where is your family from" - or if they have a unique accent or surname or something I'll ask about that specifically to clarify that I'm not trying to be intrusive or rude. That's just my philosophy on it, anyways, haha.

[nastyhobbitses]

On 2/22/2018 at 3:35 PM, Timetostoplurking said:

Someone upthread posted a very well worded explanation of the word “race” and how we in the US use it.  It doesn’t have the same meaning for us as it seems to for Europeans.  We use that word differently.  However, I would never just outright ask a person what race they are.  It’s just not a phrase I use. I would have to know a person very well before I would ever ask about their ethnic background.  It’s really none of my business.

I've been curious before, but I generally keep my mouth shut and let the person bring it up themselves (it comes up pretty readily)...or I search their surname on Google to figure out their approximate ethnic background if it's really eating at me to know. There was one girl in my Mandarin class in college who was clearly Asian in appearance, but definitely not East Asian and I couldn't discern nationality from her name, which didn't sound like any Asian language/naming tradition I knew of, and I was so curious that I searched her last name and found out she was Cambodian. Later she brought it up on her own and it was pretty cool to talk to her about what it was like being Cambodian-American (she was first-gen, her parents had seen some shit during the Khmer Rouge, and besides all that, Cambodian culture is just very interesting). 

It's a bit of an internal war between my interest in people's backgrounds (part of my job is doing background checks on people and companies) and other cultures, and my desire to not be nosy or weird to people.