Halle Berry says Hollywood is racist, DU screams "reverse racism"

[SemiCharmedQuark]

Thanks to Ultraist for attempting to set things right. Again, it's just a few bad apples screaming the loudest but it's still frustrating.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3030967&mesg_id=3031701&page=

[Karenina]

1. Thanks for posting this here!

I was about to do so myself. What, oh what to do about them UPPITY NEGRESSES??? Check out this thread on Essie Mae Williams ( do take note of post #74):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1187349

And an earlier one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1064491

:wow: :wow: :wow:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

5. Well she should be damn grateful she gets anything!

And hey, she can buy lots of chicken and corn bread with that after all. What else does she want???

[Brewman_Jax]

2. I read those

the functioning level of ignorance is absolutely staggering. Makes you want to :puke:

I don't know which is worse, watching the excuses for racism or the denial thereof. And it's a lot of the same faces. :eyes: Too bad ignorance doesn't get an immediate tombstone.

We need to call it what it is, it's not "racism" in the dictionary sense, I see that all the time. It's a racial caste system, for it bestows unearned privilege to the upper caste, and adds extra burden to the lower castes. I hope that it places responsibility on those who would maintain this evil system, and doesn't allow for easy denial from those who benefit.

[mark414]

11. that's the worst

anytime a thread comes up about racism and you try to present a different view, people will reply with a copy and paste from an online dictionary.

i KNOW what the dictionary definition of racism is, thanks ignorant poster...but there are a lot of people on here who absolutely cannot understand that you don't have to call someone a nigger to be a racist

[Brewman_Jax]

20. Were you agreeing?

I lost your meaning in your second paragraph. :shrug:

[mark414]

22. yes yes, agreeing

sorry for the confusion

i was sort of talking to the folks who love to post those dictionary definitions

i agree with you 100% and it is so sad to see people so ignorant

[msgadget]

3. I saw the Halle thread .

Some people are so generally BITTER and prove the conservatives right about liberals not wishing anyone to be rich. I think her money and fame make it hard for some to understand how there are even fewer quality roles for black women than white. But, it's ALWAYS been that way and maybe someone will take heed if SHE has as hard a time as those before her.

But the "hush money" thing for Mrs. Washington-Williams...no words.

I wonder at the motives of some of these thread starters. Why talk about Halle in GD and not here or in the Lounge UNLESS you have some little thing in the back of your mind you want to validate? If it had been asked here it'd have been worthy of consideration and a reply.

[Solly Mack]

4. Oh, the thread has gotten worse. Now some are saying she's

made a career out of showing her breasts and sex scenes in movies.

Somehow nudity and sex scenes make Halle a worse actress than others who do nude scenes and sex scenes..and they just "can't respect her anymore"

:eyes:

[kwassa]

6. Part of this is just the DU disease

People making extreme statements to get attention. I don't think the person in question knows much about Ms. Berry.

Many years ago I worked in the motion picture industry. Here are the problems Halle faces:

1) Hollywood is a cruel business for all actors, of any race. The ratio of working to non-working actors is very, very tiny. In the old days, less than 10% of SAG members made more than $10,000 a year at acting.

2) Those that achieve some fame often find it very temporary. There are actors on successful series that can never find important work again after the series ends. Many one-hit wonders.

3) It is geared towards the young. Actors over 30 are much less marketable, of either gender.

4) It is harder for women, as the roles diminish greatly as they approach middle-age. The young and beautiful often find a very temporary success, but there are always new young and beautiful people to replace them.

5) It is harder for minorities, though better than it used to be. There are now more outlets for black actors, but mostly in sitcoms, with few good dramatic roles in series or films. A few black actors are making very big money, though, something that never happened before.

6) Most of the jobs out there are stupid, as are most films. No getting around that. Most require little-to-no acting ability, but require more that someone look a certain way.

7) Hollywood is actually politically quite liberal, but is is SHOWBUSINESS. Notice the word "show" and the word "business". Art is nowhere in that description.

8) Hollywood is risk-adverse, partly because movies cost so much money to make, which is why a successful film or series creates copycats. Also, why roles become stereotypes, and why stereotypes exist.

9) Hollywood is best at escapism, not reality, partly because it is so unreal in an of itself.

10) Most people in the business are not particularly well-educated. They grew up watching movies, mostly. Many never went to school to study film, or acting, and tend to repeat what already has been made.

11) and as P.T. Barnum once said, no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

7. Yeah, but what bothers me is the rather large number of people agreeing/

making those statements. For some reason peope who consider themselves "progressive" are still so incredibly ignorant about race relations.

For example, I pointed out that studies have shown that across the board, whether he works at burger king with no education or has a PhD in Chemical Engineering, a black man will earn less than a white man on average. Not just less, but significantly less. And what response do I get? Some guy saying "well that's not true in the military! They don't ask about your race when you're getting your paycheck". Yeah, but...unfortunately pay increases come with promotion. So, I would wonder, how the rates of promotion vary by race in relation to percentage represented in military.

[kwassa]

8. The military has been relatively progressive, compared to many

industries, or so I have read. I would have to look up details. I know black people who made it into the middle class through military opportunties, as a number of my father-in-laws family have done.

There was recently a very good article on income differentials showing how there are backward differentials in relative incomes.

I'll see if I can look it up.

[kwassa]

9. here is the article I was looking for

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5932-2004Dec16.html

Black Baby Boomers' Income Gap Cited
Study Says That, Economically, Generation Has Not Improved Over Its Parents'

By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 17, 2004; Page A02

excerpt:

Forty years after the end of the baby boom, black Americans born between 1946 and 1964 "are no better off relative to whites than their parents and grandparents" were in terms of income, according to a new Duke University study.

Black baby boomers are still earning about 66 percent of what their non-Hispanic white age peers earn, Duke sociology professors Angela M. O'Rand and Mary Elizabeth Hughes wrote in "The Lives and Times of the Baby Boomers," which was released Wednesday. That is about equal to the income earned by foreign-born Hispanics, O'Rand and Hughes said.

Black baby boomers did not close the income gap, even though they were the first generation to come of age after the civil rights era, the researchers said.

"African Americans have made their way more into the middle class than before," Hughes said in an interview. "But when you look across the board, you don't see the type of equality Americans would like to see. It suggests there are very deep root causes here, not one-answer causes."
(more in the article)

[SemiCharmedQuark]

10. Thanks!

[Solly Mack]

33. Thank you. Saving this...sometimes, saying "here, read" is easier

than saying "hear me"

[Lorien]

12. Former film industry person here, too

and I agree with all of it. It's a ruthless, money driven business-not generally focused on "art". Politics are liberal (mostly)-but the majority of people I know in the industry are consumed with studio politics, not National politics. It takes a lot of schmoozing to stay on top.

A former intern of mine is a good friend of Ms. Berry's, so I guess I was particularly sensitive to the bigoted, nasty statements made about her in that thread. Our mutual friend James probably would not have done as well in the business without her. Both of them are really good people; he's not rich, by any means (a CG animator and union officer) but she invites him over for board game night at her house every so often, and has hooked him up with a few jobs. I witnesses racism directed at James first hand years ago, when I overheard one of my white southern male peers yelling at him "fetch me some coffee, boy"! I had a few words with that man, obviously. :grr: Anyone who believes that racism, sexism and ageism don't exist in the film industry is simply deluding themselves.

[Karenina]

13. Excellent rundown Kwassa

and SPOT ON. Hollywood aside I was taken completely aback by the SCREAMING subtexts of many of the posts on that thread. #100 nearly knocked the breath out of me...

[Misunderestimator]

19. OMG I missed that...

it sounds like the same argument for why women aren't succeeding as much as men in science and math... what fucking gall.

[Lorien]

41. That one just about made my head explode

I've had similar comments directed at me in my field-mind bending, f*cking gall indeed!

[Karenina]

42. It's still bubbling...

I've been on this board for some time now, and have STUDIOUSLY AVOIDED getting involved in threads about race. Sometimes the slap in the face is bearable, however the denial from those, once I've said "OUCH that HURT!" who fancy themselves "colorblind liberals" is NOT. The DENIAL is so much worse than the insult.

[Solly Mack]

35. You're gonna make me read that thread again!

be back with an edit in just a minute.

on edit:

Damn. That one has other telling posts within the thread as well.

[Solly Mack]

37. Did this make it to the other thread? 'Cause it should!

Your points are dead on.

[Lorien]

14. Those have to be freeper trolls

Berry's sex scenes in "monster's ball" took nerves of steel. She's a sensitive, quiet person, by all accounts, so I have to respect her more for taking on such a roll.

[Solly Mack]

36. I suspect at times that some are "freepers" but I fear that far too

many are (in theory) "my side"

It's not the "freeper" ranting that leaves me cold but the glad-handing coupled with the subtle, but oh so present, veins of racism from those who claim to know better.

[msgadget]

39. Very well said.

After the confederate flag threads I can't blame it on trolls.

[mark414]

16. wasn't swordfish such a big deal

because before then she had REFUSED to do nude scenes???

[tishaLA]

29. After she won her Oscar, the LA Weekly ran an interesting piece

abolut Halle winning an Oscar for exposing herself, just as Denzel had won one for being an asshole. Let me try to find it....

Here it is. I think it makes some valuable points--perhaps points the posters in the Berry thread in LBN can't really negotiate. Anyhow, I think it's interesting and I encourage you to read the whole thing at the link.

But from the much more modest room where I sat at home, the black mini-sweep was a Pyrrhic victory at best. Look a bit beyond the dazzling significance of the awards themselves -- and in these victory-starved times, that can be tough -- and you have the dull residue of two performances that, for all the thespian elaborations by Washington and Berry, are at their core ironclad black stereotypes that have been with films and pop culture so long, we don't question their viability as real characters anymore (if indeed we ever did). The roles were not so much created as occupied by the latest people willing to spend the two or three months it took to shoot them: If Washington playing a cop whose thug bravado gets the best of him in Training Day and Berry as a poor, uneducated single mom and wife to an incarcerated absentee dad on death row in Monster's Ball mark some kind of artistic breakthrough for black actors, then please, somebody stop me. As a former actor, I hasten to add that I'm not objecting on principle to single moms and conflicted policemen who are black, or any other color; any role can be transcendent, of course, and the academy in fact has favored protagonists who are underdogs or fringe-dwellers in an inimitable American sense -- Norma Rae, Taxi Driver, Coal Miner's Daughter. But these characters were all intimately examined and thus read larger than the circumstances of their lives, while the black antihero remains stubbornly exempt from such examination and so almost always reads as criminal and immoral or, at the other extreme, victimized and noble. Washington must be given a world of credit for nuancing potentially hollow men in his career -- the restive slave in Glory, the wrongfully imprisoned Hurricane Carter -- but the critical lather over Training Day felt more like collective relief that he was finally letting go of the good guy and playing what all black men are born to play: hoods. With all the swooning over his performance, I went to the theater expecting to see a complicated morality tale along the lines of The Godfather or Casino; what I got instead was Menace II Society with an updated soundtrack and the nervous white presence of Ethan Hawke as big bad Washington's rookie sidekick.

It was Hawke, by the way, who was the guy with a fleshed-out back-story and something to lose, the sympathetic character caught in the terrifying flotsam of black nihilism, with Washington as its grinning tour guide. Training Day was to me the latest addition in a sorry but hugely profitable genre of film I've dubbed ghettotainment, which since the '80s has purported to depict urban realism but in fact churns out a kind of sociological pornography that is more fantasy than anything real. Call it Survivor with production values. For all his skill, Washington could hardly overcome the traps of Training Day, though maybe he deserves an award for surviving the project with his famous dignity intact. People have said I shouldn't complain about his win -- the academy gives prizes for subpar performances all the time when the actor has a sterling body of work that has been overlooked once too often. Washington certainly qualifies for this sort of political payback, but that it would be paid for Training Day says less about politics and more about the kinds of roles the moviemaking elite is most comfortable seeing black actors in, and what they're most comfortable rewarding them for.

I AM FAR LESS CONFLICTED ABOUT HALLE BERRY. While I appreciated her acknowledgment, once she tamed the hysteria, of forebears like Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge, I didn't appreciate her baring her ass and generally stooping to conquer in Monster's Ball. I don't think Lena or Dorothy would, either. Not because black women shouldn't be naked onscreen or hew to some impossible double standard of public image, but because everybody involved in the film had to smell the stink of possible exploitation in the camera lingering for five minutes on a black woman having butt-grinding sex with a white stranger on her living-room floor. A black woman who was dressed in short skirts, hot pants or tight T-shirts in practically every frame for no good reason. (Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich had a good reason, but what's Berry's excuse?) And here was a film ostensibly about the perils and pitfalls of racial exploitation, falling all too willingly into the ditch more than once; that tendency tainted the movie for me early on, and the fact that Billy Bob Thornton wound up, like Ethan Hawke, being the white rube guided to some personal illumination by the black icon didn't help. But Berry turned out to be in the right place at the right time, the clear beneficiary of a movement within the academy -- the counter of all the mudslinging and vicious Oscar campaigning -- that it was high time to give the best-actress statue to a black woman for the first time in its history. It was unquestionably overdue. Berry has no sterling career but provided enough of an opportunity with Monster's Ball, and the academy took it. The most distressing thing is that she may have even done a credible job in the movie, as Washington may have too, but the damning context in which they did it renders the question superfluous.
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/19/cakewalk-kaplan.php

[Solly Mack]

34. Thanks!

I better understand why Training Day bothered me so much.

[mark414]

38. why

Why Halle have to let a white man pop her to get a Oscar
Why Denzel have to be crooked before he took it

of course o'reilly attacked jadakiss for that line but he asked a very powerful and meaningful question

[Old Mouse]

15. This is just a reminder

of the growing undercurrent of comfortable racism that is creeping back into our society. I am shocked that even here at one of the most liberal sites there is a majority attitude that there is no race problem, only complaining minorities.

[Lorien]

17. Not only racism, but sexism too

both are making a huge comeback, I fear. Sometimes I wonder if those making the most racist and sexist comments aren't trolls, but from what I've observed at DU, a large number of those calling themselves "Democrats" actually have swallowed a significant number of GOP memes. Tolerance, empathy and compassion are often considered a "weakness" around here, just as I suspect they are on FR.

[Misunderestimator]

18. That thread just blew me away... important to keep in mind that it was

just a few ignorant and stubborn posters, as you said. Frustrating doesn't start to describe it. I thought the weeks after the election blaming the entire democratic party failure on gays wanting to be married was exhausting... sheesh.

This seems to top even that... Halle, although she is black, is not allowed to describe her experiences with racism, because 1) she is only half-black, 2) she's famous so she should actually be devoting her entire life and livelihood to making the world better, anything short of that and she is just greedy and selfish, 3) she isn't a good enough actress to be discriminated against, and 4) some people just like to read their own posts and see how far down insanity-path they can go without offering any insight or resolution. (on edit... to clarify, that was a summary of the hateful posts... I think Halle is a terrific actor)

And I'm willing to bet that 100% of those particular posters on that thread are white, and mainly men. It's distressing to see that a female poster was making such idiotic arguments, though I admit I've met a lot of women who just don't care about their own oppression and civil rights, so why would they care about hers...

[Misunderestimator]

21. And look at this one....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3028732

[SemiCharmedQuark]

23. Oh...my. That is absolutely one of the worst threads I've ever seen.

"black after black"

Wow.

[Misunderestimator]

24. Even worse that the Halle thread, IMO

[SemiCharmedQuark]

25. Definitely. The opening post sounds like it was written in the 50s.

You really held your own in it though...kudos to you.


I wonder how they'd like other "opinions" served up to them?

[Misunderestimator]

26. LOL... I think those "opinions" would be ignored just as all of them were

It never ceases to amaze me that people can be beaten over the head with a sense-stick by numerous posters, and they still keep chanting their little script. I truly do believe that some of these posters really ARE here just to incite controversy and give democrats a bad name... otherwise... it's just unfathomable to me.

(and thanks :))

[Karenina]

27. Meine ficken Fresse...

:puke: :puke: :puke: :argh:

[Misunderestimator]

28. Appalling, isn't it?

:mad:

[Karenina]

30. Those MONOLITHIC

Blacks, Jews, Raghead-sandniggers, Gooks, Yurpeans are_____________ (fill in the blank).

[Misunderestimator]

31. Yup... that about sums it up...

add fags and dykes and girls and wetbacks and even white trash... there you have it... unbelievable.

[msgadget]

40. But, notice something about the guy

arguing the most strenuously that blacks have drunk the koolaid - his profile icon is missing. So, he's basically one of those who revel in spewing sh*t online in complete anonymity.

You hung in there with him but he was hopelessly married to his opinion and used the thread to say something that had been bugging all hell out of him all along.

[philosophie_en_rose]

32. Anti-racism = Reverse Racism (sarcasm alert)

You see, if racists are rubber and liberals are glue, whatever they are bounces off of them and onto you. :eyes:

Racism is a powerful and frightening influence in both society and in individuals. However, as understandable as it is for privileged people to be uncomfortable, it is hardly comparable to real racism.