Mitigating Factor: Race? by Bytemite

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Mitigating Factor: Race?

POSTED BY: BYTEMITE
UPDATED: Thursday, October 7, 2010 17:26
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Wednesday, October 6, 2010 4:37 PM

Saw something that I thought you guys might have opinions about.

Black girl tackles a white girl with a prosthetic leg fighting to get at something in a competition.

My initial inclination is to think very poorly of the character of anyone who tackles someone with a prosthetic leg in a physical competition, especially if no tackling is required. It really seemed like a cheap shot to me.

But maybe this is in someway justifiable in the mind of the black girl. I don't know. I've never been in her shoes. It doesn't seem justifiable to me in reality or in any other circumstances I can think of.

Thoughts?

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Wednesday, October 6, 2010 4:46 PM

CHRISISALL

What competition?
We need more intel here...

The laughing Chrisisall

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Wednesday, October 6, 2010 4:57 PM

BYTEMITE

>_>

Okay. I'll confess. My family watches the tv show Survivor, and I usually sit by and work on my computer. Occasionally something on the show catches my attention.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5847146/survivor_nicaragua_is
_naonka_the_most.html

And the thing is, NaOnka has been disdainful of this girl with the prosthetic limb since the start of the game. The girl with the limb has never once complained about being disadvantaged, even won a race in the past against NaOnka when she insisted that she prove she deserve to be on the game. NaOnka still calls the girl with the prosthetic "weak."

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Wednesday, October 6, 2010 5:07 PM

CHRISISALL

It's like pro wrestling, sort of scripted to produce reaction.

The laughing Chrisisall

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Wednesday, October 6, 2010 5:13 PM

BYTEMITE

I guess. But that aside, pretending it's real. Would that ever be okay?

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Wednesday, October 6, 2010 5:45 PM

YINYANG

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

I would be inclined to say economic class is the issue, more than race. They're playing for a million dollars, after all, and someone lower on the economic scale (which does tie in with race because minorities do tend to be poorer) would have a reason to fight harder. NaOnka's a PE teacher; Kelly B.'s in med school, so obviously there's a big class difference.

On the other hand, I think the fact that NaOnka's black and Kelly B.'s white is a factor in the way the story gets spun. Our society has historically, and even to some extent still today, viewed black people as inherently more aggressive, violent, etc. And it seems to me like you are accepting Kelly's portrayal of herself as an innocent victim:

Quote:
Black girl tackles a white girl with a prosthetic leg fighting to get at something in a competition.

Kelly B. fought for the clue, too; it wasn't as one-sided as you've made it seem.

Overall, I don't think that this specific incident really made NaOnka seem all that bad, compared to all the other things she's said about Kelly B. In a weird way, it actually seemed more respectful to me to treat Kelly B. as a threat, rather than treat her with kid gloves because she's an amputee. Plus, I really think NaOnka would have tackled anyone to get at that clue first.

---
Firefly fan since 2006
Survivor fan since 2000

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Wednesday, October 6, 2010 6:02 PM

BYTEMITE

Quote:

Black girl tackles a white girl with a prosthetic leg fighting to get at something in a competition.

I was describing in as simple a way as possible what happened that bothered me. I figured saying they were both fighting over something was pretty straight forward.

Quote:
And it seems to me like you are accepting Kelly's portrayal of herself as an innocent victim:

I might agree with you... If it hadn't been for the utterly inexcuseable comments NaOnka has been making. If Kelly B. was making racist comments to justify NaOnka's dislike, not only am I reasonably sure Survivor cares more about drama than it does making the white girl look good but I'm also sure that they would broadcast those comments.

Kelly DOES seem like an innocent. Maybe it's selective editing, but I can't see at all where NaOnka's dislike came from in the first place. I'm trying to understand it, which is why I asked the question in my first post wondering about if I'm just missing something because I've never been in NaOnka's shoes.

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Wednesday, October 6, 2010 6:39 PM

YINYANG

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

Quote:
I was describing in as simple a way as possible what happened that bothered me. I figured saying they were both fighting over something was pretty straight forward.

But the way you phrased it, to me, made it seem like NaOnka was the only one that was fighting, and Kelly B. was completely passive, and that's not what actually happened.

Quote:
I might agree with you... If it hadn't been for the utterly inexcuseable comments NaOnka has been making. If Kelly B. was making racist comments to justify NaOnka's dislike, not only am I reasonably sure Survivor cares more about drama than it does making the white girl look good but I'm also sure that they would broadcast those comments.

Kelly DOES seem like an innocent. Maybe it's selective editing, but I can't see at all where NaOnka's dislike came from in the first place. I'm trying to understand it, which is why I asked the question in my first post wondering about if I'm just missing something because I've never been in NaOnka's shoes.

Maybe NaOnka's bigoted because she's ignorant; I don't know. I do agree, though: NaOnka's being very ableist* towards Kelly B., and the things she's said about throwing Kelly's leg in the fire, etc. are really nasty. And Kelly is innocent when it comes to all that.

But, in this specific incident, I don't think Kelly's completely innocent. She doesn't have to say anything overtly racist for her actions to come from/play into racism. She doesn't have to intend to be racist, either. Nevertheless, I think the end result is that there is some racism involved in the way people have responded to this incident.

I mean, that article questioning whether NaOnka's the most evil player in Survivor history strikes me as a very disproportionate reaction. NaOnka may talk about wanting to throw Kelly's leg in the fire, but just in the last two seasons there's been a player, Russell, that actually burned people's possessions, along with dumping out everyone's water in their canteens, letting the team's chickens go, and deliberately going after women to be in an alliance with him because he viewed them as stupid. I don't see how NaOnka's actions so far have risen to that level of badness.

*Prejudiced toward disabled people.

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Wednesday, October 6, 2010 6:45 PM

BYTEMITE

True. That was just the first article I could find. It does seem biased.

By fighting, I meant to suggest everyone involved was fighting. I was trying to be non-specific about the nature of the competition because I didn't want to have to admit I was talking about Survivor.

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Wednesday, October 6, 2010 6:51 PM

BYTEMITE

Maybe she's just trash talking, but none of us are used to that kind of trash talk, so we aren't picking up on what she's intending more as jokes?

I've heard trash talk that I've thought really should have turned to fisticuffs, seeming so targeted at what should have been sore points, yet everyone just treated them as a really good burn.

So maybe in that, tackling her really was some kind of respect, and the gloating afterward was just trash talk.

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Wednesday, October 6, 2010 7:20 PM

YINYANG

You were busy trying to get yourself lit on fire. It happens.

Quote:
By fighting, I meant to suggest everyone involved was fighting.

Gotcha. I take back what I said about you seeming to accept Kelly's spin.

Quote:
I was trying to be non-specific about the nature of the competition because I didn't want to have to admit I was talking about Survivor.

I understand that feeling. Some people, on this board and elsewhere, really turn their noses up at reality TV.

Quote:
Maybe she's just trash talking, but none of us are used to that kind of trash talk, so we aren't picking up on what she's intending more as jokes?

I've heard trash talk that I've thought really should have turned to fisticuffs, seeming so targeted at what should have been sore points, yet everyone just treated them as a really good burn.

So maybe in that, tackling her really was some kind of respect, and the gloating afterward was just trash talk.

That makes sense to me, and it fits in with the goal she talked about during tonight's episode of trying to get in Kelly's head and rattle her. Her comments are still way over the line IMO, but I can see how she might not think so, that she might consider it "just part of the game."

Although, at the same time, isn't trash talk usually more of a public display in/for a group? But that could just be the editing, too. Plus, I guess it is public, just in a different way, given it's on national TV.

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Thursday, October 7, 2010 5:26 PM

DREAMTROVE

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
It's like pro wrestling, sort of scripted to produce reaction.

The laughing Chrisisall

Chris nailed it. They probably want you thinking that. After all, they don't call it programming for nothing.

And no, it would never be okay. In my experience, blacks do not think of whites as the oppressor on an individual level. Groups of blacks sometimes form in which the leaders of those groups (gang leaders, sometimes religious leaders, etc.) teach that whites, collectively, are the oppressor. The minions of such an ideology are probably a threat to any stable society in the same way their white neonazi counterparts would be, the same as Al Qaeda or anything of that nature.

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