Since no-one is going to read a response to an anonymous comment...

[littlegirltoast]

In response to my Canada Day excerpting of the White Mice play, I received the following anonymous response from someone in Toronto just this morning:

"…was an attempt to draw in an audience who might otherwise have been resistant to hearing a condemnation of whiteness, but who could benefit the most from it."

Jesus. Of course if such blanket

Comments

[littlegirltoast]

Why isn't there a HOSPITAL for people who are FINE???

[batyatoon]

I lol'd.

-- except then it occurred to me that there is the notion of preventative medicine to keep people from getting sick so that's maybe not the best analogy

but I still lol'd.

[littlegirltoast]

okay but preventative medicine doesn't really take place much in a hospital does it? I must protect my joke! haha

[anonymous]

"Look, bud. "White" isn't an ethnic group. It's an infrastructure

[littlegirltoast]

You're failing to categorize your terms consistently. You are also failing to distinguish between the ethnological theories of Hitler and my own. You are also misplacing where the comparison takes place between North American genocide and Nazi strategies. You are also mistakenly restricting the definition of "infrastructure" to necessarily less applicable in cultural theory than structure with no prefix. You also keep telling me how you feel about yourself and I don't care, in part because you have intentionally obscured your identity from me so I have no instinctive empathy to fight off but also because it has absolutely nothing to do with anything I'm trying to talk about

[a_clear_job]

"If you want to dump all over all whites for the crimes of some, perhaps I should condemn you for the misogyny of other rap artists."

this is the most bizarre comparison i have ever heard. i have to assume that the anon poster knows nothing about your near-constant constructive criticism of misogyny in rap music, or in music in general. but that still doesn't explain the false logic. unless of course, "all whites" is the name of one person, or you are secretly every rap artist ever. ok, the latter is almost believable, i admit.

[littlegirltoast]

ha the thing I find weirdest is the idea that race (imposed externally) and genre (a way of going about something totally voluntary) are analogous at all.

[a_clear_job]

true! but sometimes genre is imposed externally and with no rhyme or reason, and other times it starts as nothing more than a descriptor (independent, alternative, shoegaze), and morphs into a definition of a particular sound/aesthetic or is co-opted by industry to sell records.

[human_loser]

I have to admit I am more closely familiar with this play than a lot of people, and concede that the poster has not had the benefit of hearing the play performed (because reading it doesn't really give you more than an idea of what happens in the room), but I do find it puzzling that his main criticism seems to be that you should focus on behaviour, not skin colour, and the play's overarching statement really is that race (as a construct) is about behaviour, not skin colour.

[littlegirltoast]

Given his mangling of the meanings of the words in the Hitler quote, it's hard to be altogether surprised that he may have misunderstood the finer points of the thesis of this scene, let alone the whole play.

But I think it's worth noting that he didn't directly dispute the play at all, just ME.

[anonymous]

I was going to let this go but your subsequent threads on tolerance and intolerance were inspiring by coincidence.

http://archives.chbooks.com/online_books/inoculations/white_mice_characters.html

The Actors’ Relationship to the AudienceA good way to think of the predicament of doing the play is to imagine that the production team is from another galaxy and has come to Earth to check things out. Upon arriving the team finds these artificially constructed ‘races’ - not only does the ‘white’ race treat everybody else like shit but they seem for the most part to keep themselves totally deluded about the severity of the situation. Coming to the conclusion that the white people must be mentally retarded, the production team from another galaxy decides to help out by putting on this small play

[littlegirltoast]

This is creepy. Identify yourself or GTFO, I'm not playing this anonymous shit anymore.

If you don't have an LJ, you can log in using Facebook or like a dozen other services.

I'll be happy to explain what you don't understand about the construction of race (or anything anyone has said about it so far, including its role in the play) when you come back on an honest tip.