Anil Dash responds to Popchips' racist disaster

[drwex]

http://dashes.com/anil/2012/05/fixing-popchips.html

Anil Dash just got about 1000 more cool points in my book. This column, which you absolutely should read, is his view on the racist ad campaign put out by Popchips and how to cope with the mess that has been created.

I think he's brilliant because he's going way way way beyond the typical response and digging into the heart of the matter, naming all the players involved (yes, the company is at fault but they're far from the only ones), and giving his thoughts on what each of them ought to do now. You might disagree with the specifics of his suggestions, but I hope you'll be as impressed by his approach, which I think is comprehensive and forward-thinking. It's a very 21st-century/networked-world way to respond.

I recently tried to explain to my kids that one of the reasons I didn't watch Revenge of the Sith was that I was uncomfortable with the racism of the previous two movies. Racism? they wanted to know, what's that about?

How do I explain to them that racism doesn't just mean there are racist individuals? Racism exists because there are social systems all around us that make some kinds of negative stereotyping seem OK. Racism exists because people don't think about how their words and actions will affect people different from themselves, or who have different outlooks. Racism exists because people nod and pass along rather than engaging their brains. Dash's brain is fully engaged and he's got good things to say as a result.

Comments

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Great read, thanks for posting it!

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. I think one thing that so often gets missed is that intent doesn't change effect, and that making a racist ad doesn't mean that the people who did so were consciously doing so, but it does mean that there's stuff to change. And unfortunately a lot of people on both sides of most of these things seem to think it's /always/ an inherent personal thing rather than sometimes a matter of not seeing the culture one is swimming in.

[dcltdw]

Great article; thanks for linking.

Interesting comment about Revenge of the Sith. The racist commentary had vaguely registered on me at the time, but it never occurred to me until now that I, Star Wars fan that I am, might skip the movie because of that. Hurnh.

[drwex]

I've never been that big of a fan, particularly of the second set of movies. or the revisionism, frankly.

Han shot first. (Which I also discussed with my kids, and the difference in showing consequences between the original trilogy and the second set of movies, in which the protagonist's lack of morality is accompanied by an utter lack of consequence.)

[dcltdw]

I wonder if our age difference plays a large role here. I remember an MIT contemporary put it really well once: growing up, she saw lightsabers and that's what she latched onto: the hero with the lightsaber. I look at the various sword replica catalogs, and none of them are particularly appealing, because none of them are lightsabers. Sure, the sword prop made for Aragorn looks fabulous, but well... it's not a lightsaber. :)

The revisionism was terrible, yes.

It's funny, because as a universe, I think the Star Wars universe is very dark, and thus not particularly compelling. But the story and impact of personal agency is very compelling. This is why I never really got the whole Star Wars / Star Trek foodfight: I like the (relative) utopia of the Star Trek universe, but that's more about this team of awesome going forth, which is just totally different, not better or worse, than the story of this individual of awesome going forth.

All of which is a longabout way of explaining why the racism stuff never particularly got high on my radar. That, and of course, a desire to not examine too closely something I liked from my childhood.