Kirk Cameron’s—wait, no—James Cameron’s latest epic Avatar is now playing, and if you’re like me, you’re thinking to yourself “big fucking deal.” I can’t see myself watching it anytime soon. Cameron’s work generally bores me to tears, and Avatar looks like no exception. I don’t care about his fancy-pants VFX; the trailer simply bored me. People I know who have seen it in 3D rave about its epic visuals, but from what I hear about the basic storyline my initial reaction to the trailer is being confirmed.

When I watch the trailer, I see absolutely no emotion in the CGI characters’ face. None, and that’s the dealbreaker. Looking into the CG characters’ eyes, I see the same dull expressionlessness I saw in the characters of

Robert Zemeckis’ 2007 atrocity Beowulf (which had to be stopped less than 20 minutes in). In 2009, if you spend 10 years making a film and you can’t even match the emotional quality of Gollum in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), then you did something horribly wrong.

Other than the ostensible style-over-substance quality of the film, something about the story itself makes me loath to give both time and money to this movie. One review online has convinced me that I am right to not waste either: When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like “Avatar”? by Annalee Newitz. Newitz sums up Avatar as a film where “a white man who was one of the oppressors [of those fancy blue creatures that are thinly veiled stand-ins for North American indigenous people] switches sides at the last minute, assimilating into the alien culture and becoming its savior.” In other words, it’s Dances with Wolves, but in space!

Avatar is a fantasy about ceasing to be white, giving up the old human meatsack to join the blue people, but never losing white privilege. Jake never really knows what it’s like to be a Na’vi because he always has the option to switch back into human mode.

Sound a little heavy for an analysis of a sci-fi movie? If you think that movies are just movies and that their sole contribution to our social schema is entertainment and therefor critiquing their treatment of race is absurd, then I’m guessing you are both white and really need to read this from the comment section to Newitz’s piece (comment posted by Moff):

Of all the varieties of irritating comment out there, the absolute most annoying has to be “Why can’t you just watch the movie for what it is??? Why can’t you just enjoy it? Why do you have to analyze it???”

If you have posted such a comment, or if you are about to post such a comment, here or anywhere else, let me just advise you: Shut up. Shut the fuck up. Shut your goddamn fucking mouth. SHUT. UP.

First of all, when we analyze art, when we look for deeper meaning in it, we are enjoying it for what it is. Because that is one of the things about art, be it highbrow, lowbrow, mainstream, or avant-garde: Some sort of thought went into its making — even if the thought was, “I’m going to do this as thoughtlessly as possible”! — and as a result, some sort of thought can be gotten from its reception. That is why, among other things, artists (including, for instance, James Cameron) really like to talk about their work.

Now, that doesn’t mean you have to think about a work of art. I don’t know anyone who thinks every work they encounter ought to only be enjoyed through conscious, active analysis — or if I do, they’re pretty annoying themselves. And I know many people who prefer not to think about much of what they consume, and with them I have no argument. I also have no argument with people who disagree with another person’s thoughts about a work of art. That should go without saying. Finally, this should also go without saying, but since it apparently doesn’t: Believe me, the person who is annoying you so much by thinking about the art? They have already considered your revolutionary “just enjoy it” strategy, because it is not actually revolutionary at all. It is the default state for most of humanity.

So when you go out of your way to suggest that people should be thinking less — that not using one’s capacity for reason is an admirable position to take, and one that should be actively advocated — you are not saying anything particularly intelligent. And unless you live on a parallel version of Earth where too manypeople are thinking too deeply and critically about the world around them and what’s going on in their own heads, you’re not helping anything; on the contrary, you’re acting as an advocate for entropy.

And most annoyingly of all, you’re contributing to the fucking conversation yourselves when you make your stupid, stupid comments. You are basically saying, “I think people shouldn’t think so much and share their thoughts, that’s my thought that I have to share.” If you really think people should just enjoy the movie without thinking about it, then why the fuck did you (1) click on the post in the first place, and (2) bother to leave a comment? If it bugs you so much, GO WATCH A GODDAMN FUNNY CAT VIDEO

Don’t be passive. Go tell McDonald’s what you think of this ignorance.

UPDATE (9/12/09): I have asked McDonald’s UK corporate office to comment on the policy outlined in the above notice. I’ll post their response when/if they issue one.

UPDATE (9/13/09): I’m starting to wonder if this is actually a clever hoax. First, there is no date on the document. Second, is a the use of the word “decent” when they really mean “descent”. Possibly just a typo, either way it is worth noting.

When we hear stories about it in the media, it is usually surrounding the issues of women suffering eating disorders vis-a-vis the daily bombardment of images and messages in the media and popular culture espousing a certain aesthetic standard for women. The message they receive is that “beauty looks like this; and if you don’t look like this, then you are not beautiful.”

North American culture being predominantly white-oriented, the stories we hear in the media are typically about young white women who believe they are overweight, that their breasts are too small, that their lips are too thin, etc. This distorted self view is so deeply ingrained that it drives them to obsessively work to alter (or “correct”) their appearance, sometimes putting their health at risk.

There is another dimension to the issue that often does not come up in mainstream discussion, and that is race. This heartbreaking—if not eye opening, at the very least—montage popped up on my radar today by way of Twitter thanks to Kwame Zulu Shabazz and his blog, Thoughts of a Ghetto Intellectual, where he brings up yet another often overlooked dimension.

For a great read on the subject of internalized racism, head on over to Alas, a blog to read Karynthia’s post. If you have any personal stories on the subject of internalized racism, please share in the comments below!

Eric Schweig talks to CTV News. August 15, 2009. (CTV)

Erick Schweig told CTV News that when the first responders arrived, the firefighters started making racist comments. According to Schweig, one firefighter said “That’s what you get for drinking Lysol all day.” A paramedic on the scene pointed to a crowed of aboriginal children that had gather and told Schweig to get “his children out of the way.” Needless to say, it was a stunning display of the opposite values one would want in a first responder. Here we have a firefighter who jumps to a conclusion based on racist stereotypical (that Aboriginal people are all lazy drunks) and a paramedic that in a group of Aboriginal people either a) they all know each other or b) they’re all related. No need to make inquiry, no need to bother with finding out the facts. These two sure don’t have time to waste empathy on some drunken indian. Fuck you Ira Hayes, we’ve got white people to save.

Anthony O'Brien "Dudley" George (March 17, 1957 – September 7, 1995)

You know who else was overheard making racist comments about Aboriginal people before one died? The OPP at Ipperwash, and by “one” I mean an unarmed Dudley George, and by “died” I mean shot by police, while unarmed. The exchange of the two OPP officers went a little something like this:

Cop #1:  Is there still a lot of press down there?

Cop #2:  No, there’s no one down there. Just a great big fat fuck Indian

Cop #1: The camera’s rolling, eh?

Cop #2: Yeah.

Cop #1: We had this plan, you know. We thought if we could get five or six cases of Labatt’s 50, we could bait them.

Cop #2: Yeah.

Cop #1: Then we’d have this big net at a pit.

Cop #2: Creative thinking

Cop #1: Works in the (U.S.) South with watermelon.

(You see, all them injuns loooove beer and all them negros loooove watermelon… get it?)

Racism in this line of work is, unfortunatly, not that uncommon. A quick Google search will easily bring you stories of racist attitudes and incidents found among nurses, firefighters, and police. And until the people involved in overseeing these public services gets serious and treats it as the systematic problem that it is, we will continue to hear the same stories of the same bullshit for a long, long time.

Qasimali Baig, a 59 year-old journalist who has lived in Vancouver for 22 years, was returning from evening prayer at his mosque. He had just boarded the bus in East Vancouver when a white man at the back of the bus got up, raced towards Baig yelling “Bin Laden is coming. All these Muslims are bad people,” before landing a blow just above Baig’s left eye.

The bus driver stopped the bus and called for police, who responded quickly. What Baig’s fellow passengers did was run away. That not one person stood up and took any sort of action against what was an overtly racist attack speaks louder than the idiocy of the attacker’s motives or his preceding declaration that all Muslims “are bad people.”

Being witness to a sudden outburst of violence, regardless of the motivation behind it, is an unnerving experience. I understand how the first thought, or rather instinctual reaction, of the bystanders was to make sure they were themselves out of harms way but that after that first blink wouldn’t you think someone—at least one person—would have snapped out of it, regaining function of the rational part of their brain and leap into action? If you were in Mr. Baig’s situation, wouldn’t you want or hope that one of your fellow human beings would come to your aid?

During the summer of 2003 I was one of the performing artists employed by the City of Hamilton, Ontario to perform on the sidewalks in the downtown core as part of a cultural program. One sunny afternoon—it was either a Saturday or Sunday, I can’t recall which one—I was one my way to perform at the intersection of King and James. This intersection is arguably the busiest intersection in the entire city (population > 680,600). It is where Hamilton is divided east/west and north/south, it is the main entrance to the Jackson Square mall, it is where nearly a dozen public transit routes converge—it is the heart of the city. In other words, on a sunny weekend afternoon in the summer, you will find no shortage of people there.

On this particular afternoon I was about 60 meters (65 yards) from the intersection when I noticed across the street, right at the north-east corner of King and James, two men beating another man. They had him pinned, bent over backwards on a fire hydrant; one holding him down while the other punched him repeatedly in the face. From where I was—60 meters away, and across the street with cars driving by—I could hear the victim moaning in pain as he received blows to the body and face. I also happened to noticed that there was a crowd of at least two dozen people—some waiting for a bus, some waiting to cross the street—that were less than 5 meters from the assault happening in broad daylight, and that they were doing nothing to intervene.

I spotted a man talking on his cell phone heading into the mall and interrupted him, pointing to the attack across the street and asking him to call the police. I then turned and darted across the street (carrying the heavy wooden box in which I carried my musical instrument—it was a sitar, in case you were wondering) to help the man.The time from when I first noticed the happening assault to the time I arrived at his side was probably less than five minutes, and by that time the two attackers had already started to head north on James street. Their victim rolled from his position bent over the hydrant to fall on the pavement below, face down.

When I got to him, he was barely conscious—that was the first thing I noticed about him. The second thing was that he was aboriginal. His two assailants, of whom I did get a good look and was able to positively ID to the police, were white. All three appeared to be of the same age, somewhere likely around 40 to 45 years old. Those are all the facts about the three that I know. Whether or not the victim and the attackers knew each other is unknown to me. What the motivation behind the assault was—whether it was motivated by racial hatred, or something completely unrelated to race—is unknown to me. The crowd of bystanders that either ignored or failed to notice the mid-day assault was mostly composed of people who, like me, were white.

Two white men beat an aboriginal man to the point that he lost consciousness in the middle of the day while an audience did nothing. It can’t be said if the attack was motivated by race or not; but what about the motives of the inaction by the predominately white bystanders?

If all three men were aboriginal, would someone have stepped in? Likely not. What about if all three were white? Impossible to say for sure, but quite possible to imagine someone acting to stop the assault or at least come to the aide of the victim afterwards.

What if the victim was white and the attackers were aboriginal? In a blue-collar industrial city like Hamilton, Ontario (think of the town the TV show “Roseanne” took place in), it’s likely the aboriginal two would have ended up in the hospital.*

By looking at the different likely outcomes of the situation based on simply reversing the racial identities of attackers and victim and we can reasonably assess the bystanders’ attitudes and extrapolate their motivation for not acting in any way, shape or form.

(As an aside, the fact that the victim was aboriginal—as opposed to belonging to any other visible minority—is especially significant. In both Canada and the US, I have been shocked by the utter lack of any basic empathy for the aboriginal people of North America that has been expressed by some individuals who I would otherwise describe as being very progressive thinkers. Why we can so easily feel shame and sometimes even guilt over what our ancestors did to the people of Africa, yet have little or no empathy for aboriginal people who are still fighting oppressive policies and living conditions today, is a bit bewildering.)

So we have two instants to compare of white-on-non-white violence. Set aside whatever motive there is behind the attack and focus on the motives of the people witnessing the violence and ask yourself, are they not coming to the victim’s defence because they are reluctant to get involved at all? Or are they not coming to the victim’s defence because he is not white?

* Hamilton, Ontario gained dubious notoriety on the world stage back in September of 2001 when, less than a week after the September 11, 2001 attack on the US by Muslim extremists, a Hindu temple was burned to the ground by arsonists who couldn’t tell the difference between Hindus and Muslims.