I saw this and it made my head hurt.
Phoenix restaurant says this is a photo of coal miners.
But I see offensive blackface.
This was published in AZ Central, that is part of the USA Today Network.
Here is the picture:
That is clearly a bunch of filthy miners who went for a beer after work.
Not just that, they are clearly early 20th Century miners, so they did all that work by hand, under ground, hewing out the coal with a pick and a shovel, destined to die in their forties of black lung. So maybe a little respect is in order.
A few weeks ago, I attended a holiday party at a downtown Phoenix restaurant. I walked around to view the photographs on the wall.
Then a photograph caught my attention.
Friends said, “It’s coal miners at a pub after work.” It was a photograph of coal miners with blackened faces. I asked a Latinx and white woman for their opinion. They said it looked like coal miners at a pub after work. Then they stepped back, frowned and said it’s men in blackface.
First of all, Latin people pretty much hate the term Latinx. Spanish is a gendered language and trying to make it gender neutral by putting an “x” on the end isn’t Spanish. It’s what woke white people do to make themselves seem woke and inclusive when really they are bastardizing a foreign language. He identified the Latin woman as a women, so the correct word would be Latina. That he still chose to use the Latinx is proof positive that this person is a preening woke douche bag.
Also, the two women clearly saw the miners as miners, then back peddled when they realized they failed to confirm this woke douche bag’s confirmation bias of racism.
I asked the waitress to speak with a manager.
Of course he did, because he’s a piece of shit.
Instead, I spoke with a white restaurant owner.
Oh god, the restaurant owner is white. Now we know his opinion is worth nothing because he’s privileged.
I explained to him why the photograph was offensive. Evidently, someone else had made a similar comment about the photograph before.
So there is at least one other person as stupid as the author here. I now understand how Kyrsten Sinema won the election.
Yet, the photograph remained on the wall.
Because it’s a picture of miners; two stupid, woke, assholes just looking for a reason to be offended not withstanding.
He said he would talk to the other owners and get back to me.
The only correct answer is to tell this guy to go fuck himself with a hot curling iron.
While leaving, I asked him had he spoke with the other owners.
Dude, this guy is a piece of shit.
He had not spoken with them, but mentioned Google said it’s coal miners after work.
Yep.
Who determines what’s offensive?
Reasonable people, not this asshole.
For me, the coal miners disappeared and a film honored for its artistic merit, despite being the most racist propaganda films ever, D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” (1915) surfaces, in which white actors appeared in blackface.
This has to be some sort of neuroticism where a person actively looks for a reason to be offended in the most anodyne situation.
The white owner saw coal miners in the photograph. Therefore, it was not offensive.
The white owner – whose opinion we should clearly disregard because he’s white – is right.
Fact: The photograph shows coal miners’ faces covered in soot. The context of the photograph is not the issue.
YES IT IS FUCKING THE ISSUE! Facts are facts. You cannot totally twist something inoffensive into something offensive with your imagination and then demand other people accommodate your being offended.
If you see a bunch of Boy Scouts hoist the American flag, you can’t run around saying it looks like a lynching because here is group of males attaching something of color to a rope. That is beyond any level of reason and makes you the asshole out to ruin other people’s day.
Viewers cannot determine the intention of an artist’s work. Art also exposes society’s blind spots. Blackface is only a glimpse of a larger issue. The larger issue is the lack of representation of marginalized people and their voices in Phoenix.
A guy had a picture on the wall of a business he owns of a bunch of miners having a drink after work before they die an untimely dead from a work related illness. That has fuck all nothing to do with “the lack of representation of marginalized people and their voices in Phoenix.”
Frankly, if this author’s opinion is representative of the voices of marginalized people in Phoenix, they can all shut the fuck up because that’s cry-bullying to obscene degree.
Frequently, I enter art galleries and I am not represented in the art, which leads to uneducated curation for exhibitions.
What does he mean he’s not represented in galleries. This guy is a modern art masterpiece. An overly pretentious, useless piece of shit.
At the downtown Phoenix restaurant, my concern that the photograph of men in blackface was a threat to me and my face and voice were ignored.
If you see dirty miners and think it is a threat to you, you have paranoia problems. Your voice should be ignored by any rational person.
A business’ photograph of men with blackened faces culturally says to me, “Whites Only.” It says people like me are not welcome.
No it doesn’t. You just wanted to start some shit with a power play. To see how much you could make a white person uncomfortable by feigning being a victim of racism at his establishment.
The operators of that downtown restaurant can choose to take the photograph down, leave it up or create a title card with an intention statement. No matter their decision, I think the photograph should be taken down — sacrificing one image for the greater good.
It’s a power play.
Being woke is a mental illness. I believe that this guy is honest about his feelings. He has been conditioned to turn everything into victimization. It is Pavlovian.
I have a earnest solution to this.
Quietus.
I am going to start encouraging Quietus among the super woke.
Like Jim Jones said “We committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world.”
Protests the white cis-hertero-patriarchy with revolutionary Quietus.
Just so long as they do it outside.
[…] Reading J. Kb’s post: […]
What a f’ing dumbass.
Actually, from the interaction he reported, he sounds more schizophrenic with delusions of persecution. With some sociopathic elements.
“Mr. Crybully, show me on this photograph where The Patriarchy touched you.”
Definitely a product of a “zero tolerance” upbringing.
He probably pulled this crap throughout high school and always got his way. I would not be surprised if several students were suspended because he was offended about some BS.
Zero tolerance is a substitute for thinking.
My grandfather and most of the men in his extended family were coal miners in Wyoming in the latter ninetieth and early twentieth centuries. Fortunately he was black listed for union activity and survived the mines to die in an automobile accident at age 72. As a kid we visited mom’s home town on “Decoration Day” to place flowers on the family graves. Several graves were identified as that’s uncle _____ or that’s cousin _____. they’re not here, their bodies are buried in the mines. And yes the few family photographs taken immediately after a shift in the mines looked just like the one above. Maybe that’s why I like “Justified” so much, oh yeah, the badass marshal, and gun play don’t hurt either.
Viewers cannot determine the intention of an artist’s work.
Says the guy who’s standing in the restaurant a century after the fact, trying to do exactly that.
Look, it’s not impressionist painting. It’s a photograph, from an era when digital enhancement and alteration were literally impossible. The photographer can only capture what is there, no more and no less. And what is there is a bunch of dirty, hard-working (that’s a foreign concept, eh?) miners enjoying a cold pint after working what was likely a 12-hour shift underground.
What’s not there is an intentional effort to offend a snowflake a century later, who has never given of his/her time and effort working a job well and getting dirty doing it.
Frequently, I enter art galleries and I am not represented in the art, which leads to uneducated curation for exhibitions.
Want to know how to fix that, cupcake? Make your own art, and do it well enough that the gallery is willing to display it. Then you will be represented.
The fact you want all the exposure and success but aren’t willing to give any of your time or effort (or get dirty, as artists often do) to earn it, is very telling.
About you, not about the gallery.
A business’ photograph of men with blackened faces culturally says to me, “Whites Only.” It says people like me are not welcome.
And your screed here culturally says to me, “Whites don’t get an opinion.” It says people like me are not welcome.
If that’s how you want a business to run, then start one and make that your official, posted policy. I for one will be sure to not darken your doorstep.
Oh, but that would require you to give something of yourself, like your time and effort (I’m sensing a common theme here). Never mind, then….
JKB,
By “Quietus”, which has many meanings, I assume that you are referring to the state-supplied non-painful suicide kit, from “Children of Men”?
Yes.
At least I wasnt disappointed with the article’s comment section. That dude got roasted!
Hahaha. I like your point and enjoyed the humorous style of presentation.