Re: Patton (no, not that one)
 

I'll take your word for it. Meth was not a known thing to me until the late '90s, i.e., I didn't know of its existence until then. And I expect that I would have seen it had it been around in the early '90s given everything else I saw (which includes crack).

Re: Patton (no, not that one)
 

I can believe that. I'd like to think many of the targets of bigotry can brush it off, but I doubt anyone can 100% do so.

Agreed. Everybody is free to say what he likes if he's willing to take the risk.

Agreed again. However, if the offended party's first move is to try to censor the offending comic or boycott his or her sponsors, in the interest of free speech, the parties screaming for boycotts or firings as a first response should be subjected to extreme ridicule. (This is only as to comedy, of course. A public personality spewing bigoted crap in earnest deserves to be driven into obscurity.)

Too often, the minute a comic or pundit makes some ironic statement which offends, the first reaction is a crowd of internet bandwagon-joiners demanding his or her termination. This is a bad precedent for free speech for many reasons. First, the internet is filled with idiots who just want to feel self-righteous and belong to movements. And TV is filled with personalities seeking to create and exploit such movements, and the sorts who like to join them. The last thing we need to do is have people like Nancy Grace, George Will, or the oped board of HuffPo, and millions of basement dwellers online, screaming for a comic's head every time something potentially offensive is said.

We need to have a group of people who will, when confronted with opportunists, the perpetually offended, and the boycott-addicted, get together and say, in a resounding voice - with the fury and authority of God himself thundering to Moses - "It's a fucking joke. Lighten up, Francis."

Re: Patton (no, not that one)
 

I don't see how that's wrong. The joke kills because it rips apart a bit of really glaring illogic. The point he makes is so obvious yet ostensibly overlooked, and the delivery is so over the top, whatever your race, if you can hear it, you're laughing. Might be an, "Oooooh, that's a pretty barbed bit right there" laugh. But that's still a laugh.

And if you're going to see Rock and not feel guilty about laughing once or twice, or feel uncomfortable a whole bunch of times, you're seeing the wrong comedian.

ETA: Chappelle did this best with the Clayton Bigsby bit.

Re: Patton (no, not that one)
 

I think your perception is accurate and consistent with my own. That may be because we both live in cities and meth was more prevalent in the hinterlands, but I don't think that's the only reason. Overall, I think that the meth epidemic was later and not as severe as crack, in part because it hit in areas with lower population density. The decline in crack use and the decline in crime are not a coincidence, and even though meth use rose significantly after crack use declined it didn't bring the crime rate back up in the same ways.

I'm not arguing with or disagreeing with TM's overall point -- white people treat bad white people as an exception, or just as "other" ("they aren't regular white people, they are white trash") and do the opposite with black people ("crack is sweeping through 'the black community'".... and "isn't it nice that that black man speaks so well?", as if I should expect something different of an educated man because of his skin color).

Re: Patton (no, not that one)
 

isn't this true of how all races look at the others?

Re: Patton (no, not that one)
 

According to this book, yes.

Re: Patton (no, not that one)
 

While I've been in the Chicago area for a while, in the early '90s (when I was in HS) I was in Podunk, Indiana. Had meth been prevalent back then, I would have seen it.

I agree with the rest of your post.

Re: Patton (no, not that one)
 

I don't know, but it's a greater problem when the race with power looks at others this way.

Re: Patton (no, not that one)
 

Segregation plays a role in it. I think the more one lives in a multi-racial world, the more you look on all races as diverse and get beyond stereotypes.

Minorities, of course, have to live in a more multi-racial world than majorities, and I think that goes the same whether the minority group is African Americans in America or whites in West Africia or Mexico.

Re: Patton (no, not that one)
 

Generally, I agree. But what is happening now is one person says, "You're an asshole, I'm not going to support you or your sponsors," and that gets lumped in with "Start a world-wide boycott and remove that asshole from the air!" in people's minds. They're not the same thing.

Similarly, people tend to lump in a comedian who makes a joke that may be a bit on the edge with Imus, who basically said that dark-skinned black women have no value, or that jackass Duck Dynasty dude who said all sorts of crazy shit. There are definitely degrees whether you're talking about the actions of the offender or the boycotter. We've gotten to the point where we're lumping everyone in on one side or the other in order to make whatever extreme argument we think is the right one.

It would be awesome if everyone handled racist situations the way Kamau Bell did when he went into a restaurant in Berkeley to talk to his wife and was shooed away by the waitress. But he's a better man than I. http://www.wkamaubell.com/2015/03/2500/

TM

Re: Patton (no, not that one)
 

Nope, crack could also be and was associated in popular perception with scary black people and dangerous urban areas, which is a narrative that sells.

We've had this conversation before, and while I don't think it's entirely a coincidence, I don't think it is really as big a factor as is often asserted.

You mean it happened largely in communities who are subject to significantly less attention from our criminal justice system than those most directly associated with crack.

Re: Patton (no, not that one)
 

You both could be right. I remember reading an article about the myths of crack and the realities of meth. I also remember reading somewhere that meth has been around for a long time, but I am having trouble finding either piece showing that the two phenomenon were happening at the same time.

This piece is pretty informative about how the press runs away with a story though: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a..._meth_now.html

TM

Fucking White People Strike Again
 

On behalf of white people everywhere, I'd like to apologize for the CEO of Starbucks.

Say what now?
 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...l?ito=embedded

TM

Re: Patton (no, not that one)
 

Both true, but neither really relevant to the point I was making: that we, as a species, have no faith in each other and we don't play well together as a group. No matter what binds us.