Uppity-Negro.com

You know that thing where you pass out from exhaustion and frustration, then come up with a solution in your sleep, and wake up at 2 to give it a try, then can't get back to sleep and the next thing you know it's 12 hours later and you're wondering why the bastard sun is still out?

Yeah, figured it was just me.

George Kelly (who, like Jason, is Not Talking about that Joe Boxer ad) sent a link to an article on Mock Spanish:

As I began to explore this question, I realized that I had also engaged a larger one: In a society where for at least the last 20 years to be called a ``racist'' is a dire insult, and where opinion leaders almost universally concur that ``racism'' is unacceptable, how is racism continually reproduced? For virulent racism unquestionably persists in the United States. People of color feel it intensely in almost every dimension of their lives. Studies by researchers of every political persuasion continue to show substantial gaps between the several racialized groups and so-called ``whites'' on every quantifiable dimension of economic prosperity, educational success, and health (including both infant mortality and life expectancy). I argue here that everyday talk, of a type that is almost never characterized (at least by Anglos) as ``racist'', is one of the most important sites for the covert reproduction of this racism. ``Mock Spanish'', the topic of this paper, is one example of such a site.

You can probably tell whether you'd be interested in the full text or not from that passage.

Heading further West until we end up in the East, there's an oft-linked trailer for the upcoming direct-to-video anthology The Animatrix, and the slightly less obsessed-over trailer for Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. It's possible the show will explain what that title is supposed to mean, but I suspect someone just thought those words looked cool sitting next to each other.

Continuing west, we end up in Virtual Harlem. No, really.

In the early 1900s, particularly in the 1920s, African-American literature, art, music, dance, and social commentary began to flourish in Harlem, a section of New York City. This African-American cultural movement became known as The New Negro Movement and later as the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance transformed African-American identity and history, but it also transformed American culture in general. Never before had so many Americans read the thoughts of African-Americans and embraced their African-American community’s productions, expressions, and style.

We wanted to convey the importance of this movement to students. We therefore developed Virtual Harlem,¹ a collaborative virtual reality (VR) tour of Harlem in which participants can travel back 80 years to see and hear historical figures, speeches, and music from that period. We designed it to help students experience the neighborhood’s life and culture on both visual and critical levels. (For a description of what it’s like to be immersed in Virtual Harlem, see the sidebar “Virtual Harlem Experience.”)

I found that link, along with the one for the GITS trailer, at Slashdot. Guess the Debian install made me curious about the pulse of the geek community. From some of the comments:

"who wants to see a VR version of a niggerfied neighborhood? niggers have infested just about every damn city there is, take a step outside, chances are ull see some trash and grafitti somwhere that can be attributed to niggers"

" I think the advantage is that in VR when someone stabs you and steals your wallet you don't have to go to the hospital and you don't really lose your wallet!"

"Well, now that its virtual `Harlem,' is there a guy that runs up to you with a tommy gun and yells, `Drop them Nikes before I blast a cap in yo' ass!'?"

" Is this a joke? Who wants to see Harlem? Has the world gone mad."

About the same as it ever was.

Some of those are from Anonymous Cowards, some have been modded as flamebait or trolling. Some are just sitting there in the discussion.

I mentioned how I tend to avoid discussions there, yes?

Oh yes, and emphasis added in the quote about the virtual cityscape. But you can probably see where the problem is.