Racism | By James
If there's possibly anything worse than outright racism, it has got to be what has become the fad amongst the everyday Joe - commercially powered racism. Now almost every industry has a racist element. I see it everywhere. I guarantee that you can't walk down any street in the world without seeing it. Ok, for the benefit of those wise-asses and literary critics, any street with the exception of those having no posters, stores, people, cars, or anything man-made. I wanted to say 'every' fast food - and I use the term lightly - 'restaurant', but that's not true because there's always one person who will invariably mail me telling me that off the coast of Yemen, behind a really big tree, two tins of baked beans and a rotting corpse there is a MucDoonalds, and I - the poorly researched writer - have missed it out. So anyway, of the fast-food joints that I've come across, I've not yet seen one, which does not have racist mascots.
Take Burger King, they have 9 mascots, which are slapped all over the windows, and on random boxes of the greasy shit the pawn of as food. Anyway, these mascots are kids, and of these kids 2 of them are Afro-Americans, no Asians and no Hispanics. I doubt that Burger King is un-interested in the (easily) exploitable Asian market, as I live in Malaysia (where?), which is in South East Asia - and there are at least 4 Burger Kings within a 20-mile radius of where I live. Anyway, the white kids, have really flashy or at least respectable names, which staple the White Anglo-Saxon Race as smart, athletic and (most importantly) cool, while the Afro-American kids have shitty second hand looking clothes and cheesy grins. These names include Wheels, IQ and Whiz Kid, whereas the coloured kids were named Jaws and Lingo. Why is it that it's the white kid who is the most intelligent of the group? Why is it that it's the white kid who has the cool shades and the trendy jeans and why oh why is it that after the box-office success of Police Academy, it has become customary that all Afro-American people do accents and speak different dialects?
Like the rest of the population, I've watched the Lord of the Rings. And what struck me most were not the outstanding special effects, nor the amazing action scenes, it was the fact that in an entire cast of American actors, the Orcs have British accents. Now try as I may, I just can't figure out what this is trying to say. It then dawned on me, that probably nine out of ten movie villains have saucy European accents.
What are probably the two biggest movies of this year - The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, have an absolutely gargantuan difference in the number of Afro-American characters compared to the number of White characters. Hogwarts has if you watch the DVD with super slow-motion and a magnifying glass, 5 visible Afro-American students (one of which is apparently doing a sports commentary course whilst at the school of Witchcraft and Wizardry), and the Two Towers - in a movie featuring Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins and hybrids of both - has not a single Afro-American character. Whatsmore, they have elves who look like they wear Nivea Visage's Facial Whitener, and key characters like Saruman the White.
The same holds true in Star Wars. It's only in the latest installations that Samuel L. Jackson has played the sole Afro-American in George Lucas' universe. I also find it typical that in the original Star Wars episodes, only the major villain - Darth Vader was dressed in black. But even then, at the end of the movie, he of course takes of his mask to reveal that he is in fact white (and Luke's father). Is George Lucas trying to go one step further than standard racism and tell us that inside, actually everyone is a white person just trying to get out?
In the music industry, the issue of racism is not as clear-cut as it is in the fast food or movie industry. The issue of racism has gone so far in musical terms to (unofficially) restrict both the genre and even the words that are used in both White and Afro-American songs. Take an average band like Blue. Three white guys and one black. Instantaneously you know exactly what this means - Only the Afro-American guy is allowed to rap, nod his head to the beat and say the words 'Yeah' and 'Uh' in their songs. Admittedly it would seem strangely out of place to have the white dude saying 'Forizzle my nizzle yo', but the only reason for this, is that racial stereotypes are so set in stone now that being different is far from embraced - it is rejected as, well, weird.
I hope that I have opened your eyes to everyday racism, just like how Morpheus showed the Matrix to Neo. I'm going to end this article now and hope that it has left an impression on you. Be aware of stereotypes and don't subscribe to them - yell "Wassup yo!" if you are Asian, eat only flied lice and Kungpow chicken if you're a Hispanic, and if you're an Afro-American, then ummm say something in Spanish.
* all article and graphical content is property of james & louis - 'suckball'