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Secretly Filmed Movie Highlights Tehran’s Gutsy Rock Scene
[Quote:]
Long before Iranian civilians tapped Twitter to alert the world about bloodshed on the streets of Tehran, the country’s young music fans routinely subverted the nation’s rigid regime by going online to get transfusions of American rock ‘n’ roll.
The fruits of those furtive sessions can be seen, and heard, in No One Knows About Persian Cats. Winner of a Special Jury Prize at 2009’s Cannes Film Festival, the movie about Tehran’s underground rock scene was filmed secretly, run-and-gun style, in 17 days by director Bahman Ghobad.
“Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black” – Tim Wise
[Quote:]
Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure – the ones who are driving the action – we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.
So let’s begin.
Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.
Woz has fun with leaked iPhone T-shirt
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True story, I swear!
May I point out that the tea-party guy with the rifle was black?
That would be some of the tea-party guys.
Especially the first one who were portrayed as a “racist, arm wielding man fighting against healthcare reform, disturbing a public meeting” then poof.. the camera moves up and he is black.
May I point out that the tea-party guy with the rifle was black?
There were some black soldiers fighting with the South in the Civil War. That does not mean slavery wasn’t an issue in the war.
Nobody said that the tea party issue – which is not racism – is nonexistent. The healthcare reform – which, lets admit it, is broken -, the idea that Obama is introducing a socialist system – he doesn’t – are the problems.
I love how now everyone tries to push racism onto it – “you don’t like my ideas, you are racist!!”
But, lets not forget that whenever people start the “white men are running the tea party!” and “tea partiers are racists, because they are white!!” they are racists too.
Thanks for this link, to make such an “reversal” experiment can yield very interesting results and illuminating insights, regardless of the original group.
I remember an experiment which was done at my university in the 90s. A student group took a typical feminist pamphlet which were widespread on campus at that time, simply swapped “women” and “men”, and published the modified text in the local student information paper.
This triggered a medium scandal. The angry mob yelled “Who wrote that chauvinist-fascist piece of s***??? Off with their heads!”
Racism and primitive chauvinism is widespread among radicals. Regardless of “left” or “right”. Often a slight change in perspective (like Tim Wise has done here, or the students at my university) can very efficiently demask it and show the dangerous ideology behind it.