Friday, July 18, 2008

early morning thoughts


i'm getting into this habit of waking up an hour early 3 days out of the week to exercise. why? because i'm realizing (based mainly on some of our pics from Hawaii) that i really need to lose weight. so that's what i did this morning. i woke up bright & chipper (please include some tongue in cheek in that one) at 5:15 am and headed to the fitness center in our apartment complex.

while i'm on the treadmill, listening to tunes on my iPod, i'm also watching MTV2 (with the sound off). i watched some show that seemed to have a focus of premiering new music videos. this one was for a new song by LL Cool J. after the video was done, they went to 3 people who started commenting about something. presumably the video. i have no idea what they were talking about because, again, the sound was off. 1 of the 3 commentators was The Game. If you don't know who he is, he is a rapper known for his hits like "how we do" and "westside story". during this commentary, he was also wearing this shirt from the demockratees website.

seeing the shirt made me think. partially because the guy who started the demockratees site is a native american who is fighting against all that holds native americans back. that then made me start thinking about the many facets of racism and how it affects so many aspects of our lives.

i remembered my social studies teacher in 9th grade. he was african-american, and i wonder how he felt teaching from a book that was most likely edited & written by caucasians, which then only reflected their viewpoint of history. although maybe i should say "our" viewpoint since i am caucasian as well. i just don't agree with that viewpoint anymore. one example i thought of is the teaching of christopher columbus as a hero. in reality he's closer to jeffrey dahmer than a great discoverer. not only did he never actually touch north america, but when he was in central america he stole from, murdered & raped the indigenous people there for his own selfish gain. i don't think that's someone we should honor with a national holiday. at best, he should be forgotten.

2 comments:

GadflyGimp said...

Are gas prices keeping Native Americans down? Huh... hope that shirt does them well.

GadflyGimp said...

Hey, guys. Wanted to voice my opinion on something and was curious of your take on it.

Now, admittedly, I am not as fired up about racism as the both of you are. I can't imagine what you have gone through and experienced firsthand, Julie and I won't pretend to have that comprehension. My experiences as having grown up with an obviously apparent (uh... you can't really hide a wheelchair) have taught me explicitly that no one can really KNOW what someone else is going through. But I digress...

Anyway, a beer commercial on t.v. made me start thinking about some things along the lines of the reinforcement of racist ideology in popular culture. I'm speaking in regards to the (I believe; I'm not a big domestic beer drinker, so forgive me if I am wrong) Miller Chill commercial. If you haven't seen it, it essentially is summed up as such... a white male goes into what appears to be a predominately Hispanic (Or "Latino"...though I sometimes question the validity of that term as it seems to have been coined for the sole purpose of schlepping crap to Spanish-speaking Americans) bar. He orders this Miller Chill beer, and a Latina female starts sweating and then gives him a "come hither" look...

I mean... what the heck? Can you get MORE offensive (I know you can, but I'm using that for effect here) ? I mean you have so many bases covered here... A) first of all you're assuming because you put some lime in a beer that all Hispanics will love it B) a "gringo" who buys such a beer will have women dancing and throwing themselves at them and C) isn't that both racist AND sexist?

Now, I know beer commercials were never really the bastion of good taste, but still...

Wondered what you two thought...