Two white female students at Grapevine High school in Texas are finding themselves in hot water after recording a hateful, racist rap which includes such lovely ideas as hanging black boys from trees. As punishment they were asked to write an apology. Their response shows that they have no idea what they’re talking about:
The girls repeatedly threaten to kill black boys who look at them sexually and make stereotypical references to black penis size, in addition to homophobic comments and offensive remarks about Latino and Asian-American students. The girls, however, insist they are not bigoted. “The song does not portray in any way how I actually feel about people,” one of the girls wrote. “I am a very open-minded person and I enjoy being part of a diverse family and diverse community. I am being raised to be respectful of all people, cultures and differences.” The other girl said they were only mirroring the society they grew up in.
Ah, what? Is there some way we can keep people this dense away from society?
Team Blackness also discussed an anti-vaccer who has found herself in quarantine after her whole family got whooping cough, the mayor who doesn’t want to release body camera footage, and we break down The Weeknd’s song “Earned It” with hilarious consequences.
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jim
even money that one of these dim wits ends up representing the great state of texas in congress.
Calouste
Well, if she means by that that suburban Texas is full of white racists, she might have a point.
sweetgreensnowpea
a complete and thorough side note, with apologies…that pharrel williams “happy” is now the theme song for a pharmaceutical acne prescription drug.
bullshit is hard to outrun…
Arclite
Podcast direct download link is broken. It’s been broken every single time. Does anyone have an alternative way of downloading the podcast?
MaximusNYC
And it’s double-posted… like always.
sweetgreensnowpea
white/black. gay/straight. rich/poor, beautiful/not so beautiful…there isn;t a day i don’t apologize to the earth for the obliviousness of humans…
scav
White girls admitting they don’t have the internal gumption to be anything but pale, passive, perfectly reflecting surfaces of whatever surrounds or is projected upon them? Don’t mess with Texas, they’re a hall of fun-house mirrors, being all respectful and all with their lynching and shit.
I mean, a Whole Two Years ago, how could they have a clue about racism, homophobia, basic kindness, indoor plumbing and the fact that the internet is public! 2013, fur gods sake, the Dark Ages, I mean!
Mike J
@Arclite: Add _TWIBnation at the very end, right before the .mp3
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/twibiu/TWR_677_TWIBnation.mp3
If you want you can remove everything before traffic.libsyn.com.
Steve
Those girls are no better, or worse, than the myriad hip hop and rap artists weaving violence and hate against others, including women, into their lyrics. In fact maybe those girls learned from that culture and being from Texas has little to do with it.
Amir Khalid
I had two comments up here and they’ve disappeared. Pout.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@MaximusNYC:
It’s super funkydoodle today, because I get one set of comments if I come from the thread below and a different set of comments if I come from the thread above. That usually doesn’t happen.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: They aren’t gone — they’re in the double-post comments.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
It’s weird. I click forwards from John Cole’s Sooner post and I get the comment thread with mine at #1. I click backwards from Zandar’s post about Jeb and I get this comment thread.
cokane
High school students… seriously guys?
Shell
Add this to the list of non-apologies (classic: Sorry if you were offended..)
Theirs: “It’s not my problem, it’s yours.”
Slugger
Racism’s greatest strength comes from the fact that we only define the most outrageous acts as racist. These girls can and do say that they are not racist because there are worse actors out there. “Good” people can’t be racists, only the Byron dela Beckwiths are racist. In this way good people enable racism.
mattminus
OMG! Two 14 year old girls said something stupid! This is serious business and we should probably make sure that their lives are ruined forever!
Shell
A happy article for a Friday afternoon: Doggy Photo booth!
http://petapixel.com/2015/04/09/doggy-photo-booth-helps-shelter-get-dogs-adopted/
Arclite
@Mike J: Awesome, thanks Mike!
Arclite
@Shell: Or, “It’s not my problem, it’s society’s.”
Suzanne
@Steve: Sadly, I agree with you. Rap is possibly one of those arenas where race is probably less of a knock down the social hierarchy than sex. They hear lots of sexist, hateful lyrics in it….and then make their own racist, hateful words back. People are assholes. News at 11.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Suzanne:
IIRC, it’s been pretty well demonstrated that the biggest audience for “gangsta” rap is white teenagers. It ended up crowding out s lot of the other genres for quite a while because white suburban teenagers just couldn’t get enough of it. Give the people what they want, I guess.
Bonnie
The whole state of Texas needs to slide quietly into the Gulf of Mexico.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Truth.
From my observation, women of any color are more marginalized in hip-hop (both the performers and the listeners) than minorities. This is one of those social places where I think it is far more advantageous to be male than it is to be white.
All of which is to say that these girls are assholes, following in a long tradition of assholery.
srv
I, for one, think we should be making examples of 14 year olds.
srv
Check this now radioactive female programmer’s lament about brogrammer’s sensibilities
http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/programmer-denied-job-clubbing/
MomSense
LMAO at that whole segment.
Karen S.
@mattminus:
I grew up in a predominantly white Chicago suburb. I knew white girls like this. When we were all in junior high school and high school together, some of them, when they bothered to notice me, had no problem calling me the N word. Or they’d giggle when their white boyfriends would call me the N word. So yeah, they were 14 when they did this, but you know what? I did have white classmates at that age who somehow knew better than to say anything like that.
Do I want these Texas girls’ lives ruined forever? No, but I’m glad they were caught, and I’m glad they’re being mocked for it. Maybe that’s just the 14 year old in me who never got back at those bigoted classmates from years ago. It’s petty and childish, I know. I think I’ll now try to be the bigger and better person I guess I’m supposed to be.
WaterGirl
@Shell: That’s so awesome! I wonder if the flashes are what brings out all the different doggie faces.
mattminus
@Karen S.:
Their school and parents should definitely be addressing it, but I’m baffled that its a thing that thousands of adults are discussing. And, since the internet never forgets, this is now on their permanent record.
kc
So now we DO think rap lyrics mirror character?
Just trying to keep up here.
Visceral
@kc: Ironically only when it’s white people doing it.
Steve
Karen s…I assume you are black….have you ever used the n word with your friends? What do you the about blacks calling blacks the n word?
Steve
Think
Petorado
This nation’s rash of school shootings has proved that crazy talk coming from teens can mean that there is something more serious lurking below. The video could have been some girls mimicking what they’ve seen elsewhere, and maybe it’s all a front. But people who know these girls better, and the context of the situation, may see more hiding beneath the surface that is let on in news reports.
But it’s irksome to see this attitude that saying the words everyone wants to hear about a bad situation somehow fixes everything. Those words are supposed to mean you’ve changed your mentality about the offending actions, and it doesn’t appear these girls get that.
Karen S.
@Steve:
No, I’ve never used that word with among any of my friends who come from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. But I don’t represent ALL black people, because you know we’re not a monolith, so you can shrug off what I’ve said if you like.
ItAintEazy
@Karen S.:
And just imagine what all those little shitbirds are doing now.
Paul in KY
@srv: She was late to the interview. Major no no, there.