Racism in movies, history of racist insults

[sunlit_music]

Long and painful history of Asian and Black characters being played by white people in movies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowface

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface


Explanations on how there is a history of people insulting black people by calling them monkeys:

http://community.livejournal.com/racism_101/58003.html

Racefail, and how racist stereotypes can hurt:

http://rosehiptea.livejournal.com/499326.html

Racist stereotypes can seriously hurt. They are not 'minor' or 'trivial'. For instance, if someone portrays all of their black characters as criminals in a story, that is a harmful racist stereotype. That is because it reinforces the common racist belief that black people are all criminals.

It also hurts the feelings of black people, because they have to deal with such stereotypes everyday from books, movies, news articles, TV news, racist insults from other people. These stereotypes can indirectly lead to people avoiding black people or refusing to hire them for a job out of fear. Negative racist stereotypes have been used by some racist people to justify hate crimes they have commiteed against other races (the following link and words in italics is from violaswamp's livejournal blog):

http://violaswamp.livejournal.com/51122.html#cutid1

The subplot (of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead man's Chest) with the cannibalistic Caribs was inexcusably racist...
Not only is the portrayal of these people as cannibals historically inaccurate, but the claim that they were cannibalistic was frequently used in the past to justify massacring and enslaving them. It's like making a movie where there's a bunch of evil money-grubbing Jewish people who are plotting to take over the world. Making a movie like this would be a horrible thing to do, not just because it's inaccurate but also because this stereotype about Jewish people was used as part of propaganda to justify their being carted off to concentration camps.

I am aware that non white people can be racist. However, I think racism by white people is mentioned more often because some white countries have a much more recent longer and recent history (in general) of colonising and enslaving many other countries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonisation_of_Africa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:British_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Portuguese_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_expansion_of_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:French_colonial_empire

Link on slavery of black people in the US

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States

Link on the Holocaust in Germany:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust

I believe that racism is racial prejudice backed by institutionalised power (the following link is a fantastic resource on what racism is, and what you can do to fight it):

http://www.racismnoway.com.au/library/understanding/index-What.html

This post was edited to add more links

Comments

[systemaurora.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why it always has to be a non-white person as the bad guy. -_- I feel MUCH safer being around black guys than white guys, and I think that comes through in my stories. XD In my NaNoWriMo novel the black guy is probably one of the most upstanding/helpful/caring people (he has his flaws, don't get me wrong. XD but all my characters have flaws) and the bad guys are all white French men, lol.

I know it's sort of old news now, but did you hear about the judge in the US who refused to marry interracial couples? So agitating. :( If anything the interracial couples I know have the strongest relationships! And, I'll admit, I really think there's something beautiful about interracial dating/marriage. Emotionally and aesthetically. I hope that doesn't make me sound racist... I just find beauty in difference, I guess. :)

[sunlit-music.livejournal.com]

I feel MUCH safer being around black guys than white guys, and I think that comes through in my stories. XD In my NaNoWriMo novel the black guy is probably one of the most upstanding/helpful/caring people

That sounds awesome. :D

I'm glad that your tolerant views have shone through in your stories. A lot of non racist people out there have mentioned how they still end up writing stories about mostly white characters (I used to do that when I was in high school, even though I'm Asian Australian).

I know it's sort of old news now, but did you hear about the judge in the US who refused to marry interracial couples?

Yeah, I heard about that. :( Talk about racist and disgusting beyond belief...it's unbelievable how bigoted some people can be.

And, I'll admit, I really think there's something beautiful about interracial dating/marriage. Emotionally and aesthetically. I hope that doesn't make me sound racist

It douesn't make you sound racist. That's a beautiful way of putting it, actually. :)

[systemaurora.livejournal.com]

well, I can't take all the credit because it is fanfic based (for now), lol. But then again I did take a relatively minor character and make him one of my three major characters, so I guess I could have ignored him completely like most people do. XD