The Radikelous Qantas PC debacle

[Scarfman]

For what it's worth, I think both the Samo and Hey Hey incidents were fine. Obviously, when you muck around with race or ethnicity, it has the potential to go pear-shaped. Usually you can figure out the intent of the person involved and use your judgement.

Samo was obviously fine about it, but someone else might not be. Dell reckons that he didn't care when someone called him a black ****, and that's cool. Good for him for rising above it. But words like that really can hurt some people, lowering their self-esteem to dangerous levels.

 

[Bruwheresmycar]

There are millions of black people who would not think it was awesome.

Never a great idea to draw attention to the colour of someone's skin.

So what if uninformed people are offended? It's not anyone's fault they didn't bother to do 5 minutes of research to gain an insight into what this whole thing is actually about. A quick google search will reveal several news sites that quote Radike saying he actually enjoyed the costumes.

 

[Jay]

At least I know now what Digby was up to with his blonde hair, he's takin' the piss out of white guys...

Or Mexicans....

 

[TOCC]

There are millions of black people who would not think it was awesome.

Never a great idea to draw attention to the colour of someone's skin.

hundreds of millions of muslims would be offended with the outfits worn in tv shows like Baywatch....

At what point do you draw the line...

 

[Hardtackle]

Clearly you never mess with the Baywatch kit

 

[Bruwheresmycar]

I read in an article that the kids feel bad about this and were apologizing on twitter or something. I hope the people complaining are happy with themselves. What a great lesson to teach kids.

"live by society's ignorant and hypocritical standards...Or be publicly humiliated and labelled as a racist nationwide"

People telling these kids they to gain a bit of perspective, need to take a super-sized gulp of their own medicine.

 

[pete88]

I really wish someone would make an official complaint about Digby's blonde hair, it's a total clusterfuck.

In all seriousness, everyone knows its offensive after the Hey Hey thing so they were asking for trouble blacking up, when I saw them on the coverage I was expecting this. It's different to dying your hair etc, there's loads of history in the US in particular around blacking up and it being completely fucking repellant and very racist, so there's good reason why people get offended.

However a little bit of restraint on behalf of well meaning types that complained would help, they blatantly weren't trying to mock Fijians or any other group. There's an intelligent debate to be had around it, but I don't think it will happen given how public debate generally goes.

 

[Scarfman]

This isn't an argument about Samo, it's just a politics thread where people take a position on political correctness. Nothing useful will come out of it. See Mr Doug's post as an example.

 

[mark_s]

This is ridiculous to me and reconfirms that there will always be a group of people that object to everything that happens.

Last words go to Radike himself "I don't know why anyone is getting worked up - that sort of reaction is just silly"

 

[08umema]

Being black/brown (bit too light to be black!) myself, it pisses me off when people get so easily offended. I thought it was a great laugh and Samo obviously did too. If I was to put white makeup on and dye my hair red and go to a Reds game should I be publicly shamed if my favourite player is Ed Quirk? I'd hope not.

 

[Hardtackle]

Fatty Vauntin might get shitty but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Go for it I say.

 

[Bruwheresmycar]

At the next Reds home game they should get everyone to rock up dressed up like these two. Get 10000+ Radike Samo look alikes in the stadium to stick it to the "i'm so offended" brigade. (like that absolute fool on the 7pm project)

 

[08umema]

At the next Reds home game they should get everyone to rock up dressed up like these two. Get 10000+ Radike Samo look alikes in the stadium to stick it to the "i'm so offended" brigade. (like that absolute fool on the 7pm project)

best idea i've heard all day!

 

[Bullrush]

Just because Samo isn't offended by it, doesn't mean that it's completely all OK.

There was time and place where some black folk thought that drinking from different taps, sitting in designated seats on the bus and being excluded from certain stores and shops was just a fact of life and that was how things were.

 

[Gnostic]

So basically the next time some Uber Nerd dressed up as his favourite sci fi charecter somebody out there has a right to be offended. FFS where does it end.

 

[DPK]

I think the intentions of the two blokes who dressed up is the key differentiation in these cases, Br.

 

[Bruwheresmycar]

If Qantas posted a picture of Wallaby players outside a mosque or something... Would people start saying "how dare they, don't Qantas know that Islamists played a part in 9/11? I'm reminded of that every time I see a mosque"...? ... (i'd hope not, but It's not much different to this case, people trying to take a particular message from a photo which is simply not there) People can find all sorts of justification to be offended by just about anything.

If someone is walking down the road wearing a KKK robe with a sign saying "this is a white country", sure rip into him, he is promoting his own racist agenda.

If 2 people dress up as their favorite rugby player, what is the problem? You don't need to look any further, that is it. No hidden agenda, no racist actions. They just went to a rugby game to support the team.

 

[Dumbledore]

This would never have blown up if Quantas hadn't posted the picture on their Twitter. There might have been a few disconcerted Americans, English, Canadians etc. watching, but it would have just blown over. These two guys clearly weren't using blackface as a symbol of racism, although without knowing the context I can see why a lot of international viewers might not have been best pleased, especially after the Hey Hey incident a couple of years back. Completely different scenario (the Hey Hey one was pretty reprehensible imo,) but still one that involved white people dressing up as blacks. Obviously there are a bunch of people out there that are hyper-precious and simply looking to take offence at anything, or for anyone. That doesn't mean the obvious response to this is to start shouting about political correctness and offering up ridiculous hypotheticals or comparisons that have very little relevence. For better or worse much of Western culture is very similar these days and it shouldn't be too hard to see why blackface could be offensive to some, even though it clearly, to us, wasn't intended that way.

 

[Richo]

A lot of these anti-PC comments are actually far more hysterical than the PC responses to the ad.

Also, the funny thing about being offended is that no one knows if another person is offended other than that person.

Edit: Dumbledore said it better. Nothing to add.

 

[chequebalance]

There goes Halloween... My Gillard wig will have to be returned.