Is cotton offensive to black people?

[IIOY]

Dec 15, 2014 10:03:20 GMT -5 josieposy said:

I gotta tell you I'm feeling some sort of way about the quote button right now.

Do you remember The Nest, where people could have a 26-quote string in their post?

I'm crying at major setting a flame quota before the flame-ee is required to respond.

[iammalcolmx]

Dec 15, 2014 9:51:49 GMT -5 flgirl said:

I have been wanting to respond yo this thread for days but resisted because this is what happens on this board every time a subject like this comes up. There isn't a spirit of dialog or understanding. Instead it is "this is how to felt about it" and anyone who has a different view will be called names, told their ignorant and the pile on begins. Then the post deteriorates into accusations and apologies and absolutely nothing productive. When we lurkers were asked why we don't post, this is why I don't.

Also are you SERIOUSLY saying there is no dialogue on this issue?  As I recall there were two posters early on who expressed a dissenting opinion about this topic. We replied to the first, had a conversation , and now all is well. The second one didn't go as well however everyone asked the poster to stay to gain a broader view.The latest contre temps is with a poster who is extra on a regular basis so that shit doesn't even count.

The point has been explained in a civil manner OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

You don't post on the board because you can't handle topics that involve racism?  If you have no interest in gaining a broader view and would rather be defensive then yeah maybe you should keep on lurking.

[josieposy]

Dec 15, 2014 10:05:40 GMT -5 @smorriso said:

Dec 15, 2014 10:03:20 GMT -5 josieposy said:

I gotta tell you I'm feeling some sort of way about the quote button right now.

If my posts got out of hand, sorry. lol. I was on my phone the greater part of last night, and it's a PITA to take out certain quotes. I realize it's a PITA to read it all in one post. 

I also realize the irony in quoting you in this post to respond. 

No, I'm kidding. I'm actually kind of impressed that some of you managed it so well.

[josieposy]

There are ways to say things here that don't create pile-ons. Anyone who has lurked here that much would know that.

[NewOrleans]

sandsonik, I thought about this thread a lot last night and this morning.  I would like to offer you this example from Elie Wiesel of what amounts to a very apt comparison.

In his preface to the newer translation of Night done by his wife, he talked about the impossibility of capturing his experience in language.  He said that words had come to mean something entirely different afterward.  Hunger, thirst, fire, and chimney were not just hunger, thirst, fire, and chimney anymore.  He said that he would try to use words but they would "conjure up other images, other silent cries."  That is exactly what people in this thread are saying.  To us, it is a chimney.  To Wiesel, it was a murder weapon.  To white people, it is a decorative ball of cotton.  To people who have inherited the legacy of slavery, it is a tiny ball of economic oppression.

Wiesel goes on to say that he knows that his account, the witness's account, will not be well-received. because "it deals with an event that sprang from the darkest zone of man."  He says that only people who experienced it will know.  And here we are.

No one here is asking you to experience the same reaction to cotton.  No one is even asking you to see it as a reminder of slave work.  They are asking you to acknowledge that SOME BLACK PEOPLE see it that way.

Here is the Wiesel piece I was comparing.
www.ed.psu.edu/englishpds/10-11/heeter/Night_files/Elie%20Wiesel-Preface%20to%20Night.pdf

[cookiemdough]

Dec 15, 2014 9:51:49 GMT -5 flgirl said:

I have been wanting to respond yo this thread for days but resisted because this is what happens on this board every time a subject like this comes up. There isn't a spirit of dialog or understanding. Instead it is "this is how to felt about it" and anyone who has a different view will be called names, told their ignorant and the pile on begins. Then the post deteriorates into accusations and apologies and absolutely nothing productive. When we lurkers were asked why we don't post, this is why I don't.

Really? This is the only thing you have to add to the discussion? No opinion on the article, no opinion about the historical context, no opinion about whether black people should be sensitive to this, no opinion about whether cotton is the fabric of your life? This is it, a hand slap about lack of understanding? Lolololololololol

[tacosforlife]

Dec 15, 2014 10:29:14 GMT -5 cookiemdough said:

Dec 15, 2014 9:51:49 GMT -5 flgirl said:

I have been wanting to respond yo this thread for days but resisted because this is what happens on this board every time a subject like this comes up. There isn't a spirit of dialog or understanding. Instead it is "this is how to felt about it" and anyone who has a different view will be called names, told their ignorant and the pile on begins. Then the post deteriorates into accusations and apologies and absolutely nothing productive. When we lurkers were asked why we don't post, this is why I don't.

Really? This is the only thing you have to add to the discussion? No opinion on the article, no opinion about the historical context, no opinion about whether black people should be sensitive to this, no opinion about whether cotton is the fabric of your life? This is it, a hand slap about lack of understanding? Lolololololololol

[NewOrleans]

Dec 15, 2014 9:51:49 GMT -5 flgirl said:

I have been wanting to respond yo this thread for days but resisted because this is what happens on this board every time a subject like this comes up. There isn't a spirit of dialog or understanding. Instead it is "this is how to felt about it" and anyone who has a different view will be called names, told their ignorant and the pile on begins. Then the post deteriorates into accusations and apologies and absolutely nothing productive. When we lurkers were asked why we don't post, this is why I don't.

[wawa]

I'm ignoring the various dramas for the moment to point out something that I think may be getting lost, and is something I absolutely would not understand if it weren't for the ongoing racial dialogue on this board -

It's not just that it's cotton. Very very few black people are likely wandering about being pissed off that folks wear cotton. It's that from the sound of the display it presents cotton stalks and barrels full of just picked cotton as this old-timey, all natural, feel good kind of thing. But it's something with a much much more mixed bunch of feelings for a huge segment of the population.

It's the same issue with parties with plantation themes. It's not that hoop skirts and crinolines are offensive as such, it's that presenting something that calls up a dark dark period in our history as lovely and pleasant and wholesome and full of good feelings is offensive. It minimizes the damage that was caused during that period and requires that you only pay attention to the lovely clean aspects of it and ignore those sad dirty parts.

does that make any sense?

[jillboston]

Dec 15, 2014 10:27:00 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

sandsonik, I thought about this thread a lot last night and this morning.  I would like to offer you this example from Elie Wiesel of what amounts to a very apt comparison.

In his preface to the newer translation of Night done by his wife, he talked about the impossibility of capturing his experience in language.  He said that words had come to mean something entirely different afterward.  Hunger, thirst, fire, and chimney were not just hunger, thirst, fire, and chimney anymore.  He said that he would try to use words but they would "conjure up other images, other silent cries."  That is exactly what people in this thread are saying.  To us, it is a chimney.  To Wiesel, it was a murder weapon.  To white people, it is a decorative ball of cotton.  To people who have inherited the legacy of slavery, it is a tiny ball of economic oppression.

Wiesel goes on to say that he knows that his account, the witness's account, will not be well-received. because "it deals with an event that sprang from the darkest zone of man."  He says that only people who experienced it will know.  And here we are.

No one here is asking you to experience the same reaction to cotton.  No one is even asking you to see it as a reminder of slave work.  They are asking you to acknowledge that SOME BLACK PEOPLE see it that way.

Here is the Wiesel piece I was comparing.
www.ed.psu.edu/englishpds/10-11/heeter/Night_files/Elie%20Wiesel-Preface%20to%20Night.pdf

you are so freaking smart.

[cville]

Dec 15, 2014 9:51:49 GMT -5 flgirl said:

I have been wanting to respond yo this thread for days but resisted because this is what happens on this board every time a subject like this comes up. There isn't a spirit of dialog or understanding. Instead it is "this is how to felt about it" and anyone who has a different view will be called names, told their ignorant and the pile on begins. Then the post deteriorates into accusations and apologies and absolutely nothing productive. When we lurkers were asked why we don't post, this is why I don't.

When one side of a "dialog" is people saying "these feelings you (group to which I don't belong) have are wrong" well, then, I can see how the spirit of "why don't you just shut the hell up" imbues the conversation.

[NewOrleans]

Dec 15, 2014 10:38:46 GMT -5 jillboston said:

Dec 15, 2014 10:27:00 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

you are so freaking smart.

You must be mistaken.  I am only capable of groupthink.

[Velar Fricative]

I'm okay with us being groupthinky about racism. Other things I'm okay with us being groupthinky about:

How much Ted Cruz sucks
Cute kittens and/or puppies
Megan Heimer spreads misinformation
Rapey otters

In all seriousness, there aren't a lot of emotionally-charged issues discussed here like racism. Of course this was going to get heated after certain posts, and rightfully so.

[tacosforlife]

Dec 15, 2014 11:05:46 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

I'm okay with us being groupthinky about racism. Other things I'm okay with us being groupthinky about:

How much Ted Cruz sucks
Cute kittens and/or puppies
Megan Heimer spreads misinformation
Rapey otters

In all seriousness, there aren't a lot of emotionally-charged issues discussed here like racism. Of course this was going to get heated after certain posts, and rightfully so.

You forgot Kwanzaa cake.

[NitaX]

Dec 15, 2014 9:51:49 GMT -5 flgirl said:

I have been wanting to respond yo this thread for days but resisted because this is what happens on this board every time a subject like this comes up. There isn't a spirit of dialog or understanding. Instead it is "this is how to felt about it" and anyone who has a different view will be called names, told their ignorant and the pile on begins. Then the post deteriorates into accusations and apologies and absolutely nothing productive. When we lurkers were asked why we don't post, this is why I don't.

I know everyone else has done this, but Imma do it anyway. I don't know if you missed it, but WAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY back on Pages 1 and 2, there was a lot of civil dialogue on this issue. Everything goes South when folks show trying to tell people who have thoughtfully explained why offense was taken to "Get over yourself." "It's condescending to explain cotton to Helen." "Get over yourself for being offended because you were assumed to have a job."

We've gone through this thread and explained context to a group of people who have in last week admitted they don't know what the song Strange Fruit was about. As a result, we're having more discussion around the way black folks view cotton. How we aren't in fields taking photos or driving by it thinking nothing of its existence and history.

I don't know why this post seems to be some singular issue of Get Over Yourself when the white cotton boll is stained with the blood of those enslaved to pick it. 

So, if this issue in all its discussion of historical context scares you off then ...

[gottadobe]

Dec 15, 2014 10:05:39 GMT -5 @soudesafinado said:

Let's get this clear right now. The only "other side" to this issue is that black folk who are offended by this because of its connection to slavery shouldn't be.

And I'm not even a black folk that is offended by the cotton stalks, I am offended by people dismissing that it has hurtful connotations for some people when used in the way BB used it. Im offended by "eh, it doesn't bother me so just get over it."

Yeah, this isn't really the thread/topic to bring up opposing sides.

flgirl if you truly don't understand on this topic, just defer.  There is nothing to debate here.

[gottadobe]

Dec 15, 2014 10:06:33 GMT -5 @majorwife said:

lol ok

your move flgirl

Oops, I missed the cut off.

[SallyJ]

NewOrleans Thank you for your post. I was planning to also come back to explain that words have various connotations depending on your world view. I am also a firm believer that when my intentions do not match the perceptions of the person I am communicating with, then I have failed at communicating my thoughts, not that their perception is wrong. Your post said both of those things in a much more articulate way.

[meshaliuknits]

Dec 15, 2014 11:38:26 GMT -5 @songforyou said:

Dec 15, 2014 9:43:50 GMT -5 susquehanna said:

I am sincerely curious about whether the packaging on this product from Bath and Body Works is offensive. I have purchased this product in the past without a thought about it being offensive, but after reading this article, I see now how it could be. (This is Sea Island Cotton, which was named after Sea Island, Georgia):

www.bathandbodyworks.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=4379381

This takes me back to the time when I was not offended by cotton.

When you were just offended by the heinous smell of this shower gel?

[NewOrleans]

Dec 15, 2014 9:43:50 GMT -5 susquehanna said:

I am sincerely curious about whether the packaging on this product from Bath and Body Works is offensive. I have purchased this product in the past without a thought about it being offensive, but after reading this article, I see now how it could be. (This is Sea Island Cotton, which was named after Sea Island, Georgia):

www.bathandbodyworks.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=4379381

IMO, this discussion has not been about whether an image of cotton is or isn't offensive, or assigning a new meaning to cotton for everyone.  It's been about what extra meaning cotton imagery can hold, what emotional baggage the imagery carries, that has been discussed.  It was about the differing meanings the same image can hold to different parties.  The controversy happened because some people wanted to invalidate the image's meaning held by others.

[sandsonik]

Dec 15, 2014 8:41:11 GMT -5 hopecounts said:

Dec 15, 2014 3:57:42 GMT -5 sandsonik said:

To be honest, I really don't believe that.  I'm mistaken for a clerk every other time I go shopping.  The store clerks here - and probably most places in the United States - are much more likely to be white than black.

In any case, I resent the implication that a clerk is the bottom of the barrel, someone you look down at.

I look down at no one based on their job and think our society is really fucked up in that the people who do the most awful jobs generally get paid the least.

That's part of the point despite it not fitting the reality Black Americans are still disproportionately thought to be staff/'the help'/worker rather then shopper.
Which regardless of what you think of clerks is a significant case of othering Black Americans. 
Many whites don't assume a Black Person is in a store to shop but to work, which means they don't see them as the same on a certain level. 

Yeah, I just don't relate to that in any way shape or form.
I don't think that people who are working are not on my level.  My town is so predominately white that when I see a black person at Walmart, I assume they travelled specifically to shop at the Super Walmart instead of the regular walmart.  I'd be much more likely to peg a white person as an employee than a black person.

But thanks for the lesson in how all white people think!  It's been enlightening

[sandsonik]

Dec 15, 2014 10:27:00 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

sandsonik, I thought about this thread a lot last night and this morning.  I would like to offer you this example from Elie Wiesel of what amounts to a very apt comparison.

In his preface to the newer translation of Night done by his wife, he talked about the impossibility of capturing his experience in language.  He said that words had come to mean something entirely different afterward.  Hunger, thirst, fire, and chimney were not just hunger, thirst, fire, and chimney anymore.  He said that he would try to use words but they would "conjure up other images, other silent cries."  That is exactly what people in this thread are saying.  To us, it is a chimney.  To Wiesel, it was a murder weapon.  To white people, it is a decorative ball of cotton.  To people who have inherited the legacy of slavery, it is a tiny ball of economic oppression.

Wiesel goes on to say that he knows that his account, the witness's account, will not be well-received. because "it deals with an event that sprang from the darkest zone of man."  He says that only people who experienced it will know.  And here we are.

No one here is asking you to experience the same reaction to cotton.  No one is even asking you to see it as a reminder of slave work.  They are asking you to acknowledge that SOME BLACK PEOPLE see it that way.

Here is the Wiesel piece I was comparing.
www.ed.psu.edu/englishpds/10-11/heeter/Night_files/Elie%20Wiesel-Preface%20to%20Night.pdf

I acknowledge that.

[flgirl]

Dec 15, 2014 10:01:26 GMT -5 @majorwife said:

ok. i think we need to make the limit 6 replies to an lurking OP before allowing them a chance to post before feeling attacked.

one more spot open. lol

To be clear this is what I am saying. It becomes about defended you self instead of a trusted dialogue. When I returned an hour later I had 14 notifications. Most of them requiring a long response. Certainly discourages me and other lurkers

[iammalcolmx]

[flgirl]

Dec 15, 2014 10:06:45 GMT -5 @dyermaker said:

Dec 15, 2014 9:51:49 GMT -5 flgirl said:

I have been wanting to respond yo this thread for days but resisted because this is what happens on this board every time a subject like this comes up. There isn't a spirit of dialog or understanding. Instead it is "this is how to felt about it" and anyone who has a different view will be called names, told their ignorant and the pile on begins. Then the post deteriorates into accusations and apologies and absolutely nothing productive. When we lurkers were asked why we don't post, this is why I don't.

I'm dying to know what you mean by subject like this. Race issues?

The OP had the intent of illustrating to white people, who already had a platform for expressing their opinions by putting the display out there, that there is another perspective they should pay attention to. So pardon me if I say that nothing constructive is to be gained by someone continuing to dismiss the very valid POV of people that ARE able to draw the historical connection.

Actually it doesn't seem to matter what the topic is.  It is a valid POL and so is the Irish and potatoes and the Jewish with swastikas. Lots of things can be symbolic for a group of people or, hell, for just one person. I really didn't read anyone "dismissing" this POV. It is hard to talk about a sensitive subject without emotions running high. It even effects reading comprehension and the ability to not attack someone.

[pixy0stix]

Dec 15, 2014 12:44:32 GMT -5 flgirl said:

Dec 15, 2014 10:01:26 GMT -5 @majorwife said:

ok. i think we need to make the limit 6 replies to an lurking OP before allowing them a chance to post before feeling attacked.

one more spot open. lol

To be clear this is what I am saying. It becomes about defended you self instead of a trusted dialogue. When I returned an hour later I had 14 notifications. Most of them requiring a long response. Certainly discourages me and other lurkers

Here's what I find discourages lurkers.... well nothing. It's all in your head. The onus isn't upon us to allow you to join the dialogue. You have to do that yourself. 

And I'm not sure what to say about requiring a long response. Sorry that we require people to actually think and articulate their views?

[cville]

BRIEF TIME OUT:

Okay, we need to take a break on the Irish Potato Famine because this is annoying me. The potato famine was terrible because POTATO crops failed and, as it had been a staple/main resource for the poor of Ireland, they were left with nothing to eat.

The potato famine wasn't about resorting TO potatoes, it was about the absence of the once-prevalent potato. And like 10,000 political and socioeconomic issues, including a sharecroppingesque farming system designed to keep the poor and disfavored from ever ascending. FULL CIRCLE.


/time out over

[pixy0stix]

Dec 15, 2014 12:58:00 GMT -5 cville said:

BRIEF TIME OUT:

Okay, we need to take a break on the Irish Potato Famine because this is annoying me. The potato famine was terrible because POTATO crops failed and, as it had been a staple/main resource for the poor of Ireland, they were left with nothing to eat.

The potato famine wasn't about resorting TO potatoes, it was about the absence of the once-prevalent potato. And like 10,000 political and socioeconomic issues, including a sharecroppingesque farming system designed to keep the poor and disfavored from ever ascending. FULL CIRCLE.


/time out over

I thought that was sandsonic's point (I'm going to LOL if I have that name wrong). That because the potato was a symbol of the hierarchy of British oppression it was equivalent to the cotton boll. However the Irish seem to be able to get over it, so why can't blacks overcome the cotton imagery.

[NewOrleans]

Dec 15, 2014 12:36:08 GMT -5 sandsonik said:

Dec 15, 2014 10:27:00 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

I acknowledge that.

ok, good!  The other part of acknowledging it is doing so without dismissing it just because it doesn't line up with your experience.

[cville]

Dec 15, 2014 13:00:49 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Dec 15, 2014 12:58:00 GMT -5 cville said:

BRIEF TIME OUT:

Okay, we need to take a break on the Irish Potato Famine because this is annoying me. The potato famine was terrible because POTATO crops failed and, as it had been a staple/main resource for the poor of Ireland, they were left with nothing to eat.

The potato famine wasn't about resorting TO potatoes, it was about the absence of the once-prevalent potato. And like 10,000 political and socioeconomic issues, including a sharecroppingesque farming system designed to keep the poor and disfavored from ever ascending. FULL CIRCLE.


/time out over

I thought that was sandsonic's point (I'm going to LOL if I have that name wrong). That because the potato was a symbol of the hierarchy of British oppression it was equivalent to the cotton boll. However the Irish seem to be able to get over it, so why can't blacks overcome the cotton imagery.

Yeah, other people seem to have it backwards.



ALSO, IDEA FOR COMMUNICATING THE POV!!  So, hey, would it be totes mcgotes cool for some British folk to decorate an Irish history museum with some diseased-looking potatoes?  No?  SEEEEEEEE?!?


ETA:  also, please keep in mind that I'm giddy from an SS explosion on ML so I'm not making much sense.  It's jokes and gif time over there.