The fact that they used imagery that could be so easily interpreted as anti-semitic shows a massive level of cultural insensitivity, and absolutely paints them badly either way. I can’t imagine any other company putting that out without realising what it could represent. At best, they’re ignorant bullies with no self-awareness. At worst, they’re also anti-semitic and using their social platforms to spread hate.
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Yeah I think this is the point at which our interpretations differ. I acknowledge that this image can function as anti-Semitism due to the similarities between this and well known anti-Semitic imagery, however this is only in the eye of the beholder, and thus I can’t define it as something that is inherently anti-Semitic. I think that distinction is actually really important, and it does take a logical leap to get from this being resemblant of that imagery to having the same inherent meaning.
I just think that there’s no way a picture of a man with a sloped head, massive nose, weird eyes, fixed grin and graspy hands, produced and distributed for the purpose of mocking and harassing someone who, at the very least, has a Jewish surname, can ever be read as anything other than anti-Semitic.
I think if you decline to accept that this constitutes racism, even of an inadvertent kind, then you’re setting the bar far, far too high.
I don’t decline to accept it at all. I absolutely acknowledge it. I am not going to draw my own conclusion because I don’t feel I have enough information to understand the intent, and for me, that is the fundamental linchpin between fact and speculation. I would rather focus on the things that I know to be true than the things that I think might be true, as they’re more robust.
I think Uli Behringer might be a raging anti-semite. However, I don’t know that for sure, so I will suspend judgement on that basis, because if I’m wrong, I could do harm by propagating such a view.
I know that he’s a massive arsehole, and I’ll happily propogate that view on the basis that I know it to be true due to the actions he and his company have taken in this instance and many others.
@TRAINTRACS @swanage_fan @ehg if you really wish to talk about this, please let’s do it in private.
Politics-related discussions systematically end in flame wars.
i’m very much finished with this topic, officer
Sure, whatever.
I didn’t want to interrupt too much, but it seemed to go nowhere really.
Thank you for your understanding.
Aaaaaaaaaaargh oh god.
If you acknowledge that this self-evidently racist image is indeed racist, then… why do you keep saying you can’t tell if it’s racist or not, or that it would be inaccurate to say that it’s racist, or keep going back to the question of intent when that’s not relevant to whether or not the image itself functions in a racist way?
I’m out at this point too, sorry. Please, please have a think about the completely baffling and infuriating logical inconsistency of what you’re arguing for here.
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This is basically it. I don’t think it’s fair to make accusations that you can’t substantiate, and I don’t think it’s generally good practice to make assumptions about such things. The issue here is that if you go around saying someone was anti-semitic, when to their knowledge, they were just making a very above-board joke, you stand to cause harm to that person, alienate them, and make them resistant to your cause in general, however righteous it may be. I don’t feel any need to have my mind made up about everything, and I would rather be accurate in my beliefs and statements than incorrect or judgemental.
If someone sees me doing a nazi salute when I was actually just putting my rucksack on and had one arm up for a second, in such a way that may have resembled a nazi salute, I wasn’t racist, but I appreciate that I appeared racist. I don’t believe I should be held accountable for that. Even if that person was a holocaust survivor with terrible PTSD and I caused them to have a panic attack, I would of course feel terrible, but I still don’t think I should be called a racist.
Holding people accountable for other people’s interpretations of them, regardless of context or intent, is how censorship happens. Context is important.
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I have to agree with @TRAINTRACS on this.
The long nose is obviously a reference to Pinocchio (aka the liar).
The rest of the face is a caricature of Peter Kirn.
Jewish people were depicted by nazis with a particular nose, but not Pinocchio’s.
The weird accent is a French one (rather well done btw, all the more considering it’s been done most likely by a German talking in English).
It’s French people that are mocked by this image, not Jewish.
And I must say that as a French loving wine and casually sniffing corks for truth, I don’t even feel offended.
IMO the antisemitic argument does’t hold a second, hence @TRAINTRACS asking to be proven the opposite.
It even deserves the cause, making B opponents look like they are easily offended when the bullying (and even more, harassment as it’s been repeated) is something that can’t be accepted and is the true subject.
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[million year long farting noise]
Your contribution to this discussion has been valuable. Thanks.
[farting continues]
Oh good grief. Absolutely the last thing I’m going to write here, but your whole post is utterly absurd and borderline offensive in itself. Sorry for going off on you here, but I have to deal with this stuff all the time and it is mindbendingly annoying.
The intent might have been for the picture to look like Pinocchio, or like Kirn, or to make a lazy joke about French people, or whatever other weird things might have been running through Uli’s head. But none of that is relevant for assessing the impact of Behringer choosing to publish this specific image: what it means in the world when it is published and people view it, not what it meant in their heads when they came up with the idea.
And the image itself is CLEARLY reflective of anti-Semitic tropes, whether deliberately or not. It was also published as part of a sustained harassment campaign targeting a journalist who at the very least has a Jewish name, and who I believe (but haven’t yet confirmed) is in fact Jewish himself.
The criteria for determining whether or not something is racist is not whether the person who made it was thinking racist things when they did it, but whether the thing itself functions in a racist way. Why is this so hard to understand?
It doesn’t matter one bit what accent is used in the video, or what you think as a French person, or what Uli intended when he came up with the idea, or whether or not the average Behringer employee has swastikas on their bedroom wall, or anything else related to the intent behind the image. None of that changes the functional impact of the image as it appears in public, which is, for the millionth time, INARGUABLY anti-Semitic.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHH.
Please please please please step back and think very seriously about why you’re telling someone you don’t know, whose family background you have zero knowledge of that a thing that is very clearly racist in its impact and function REGARDLESS of the intent behind it is in fact not, actually racist.
Imagine Behringer had posted a video involving crude caricatures of, I don’t know, an African with big thick lips and coal-black skin eating a watermelon, and having the absolute brass neck to tell someone on an internet forum who might very well themselves be black that “Oh well, I don’t know if Uli Behringer is a racist so who can say really”.
Also, sorry, but it is absolutely risible that you’re moderating this conversation and shifting bits of it out of public view when it’s absolutely transparent that you have zero understanding of what the words or images at issue here mean or represent or function as. I don’t really care, but honestly, if you’re going to be in charge of how these discussions are overseen, please at least take the time to think about this stuff with slightly more rigour than you have been so far.
Right, I’m done. Well done, I guess - you have been so utterly immovable in your refusal to think about what this stuff actually means that you’ve convinced someone that calling out racism isn’t worth the bother. Great job, hope you’re extremely proud of your efforts today.
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I actually think this is subjective.
Upon first seeing the cartoon B produced, this old awful anti-Jewish propaganda cartoon came to mind. And, without my mentioning it to them, two other friends messaged me saying they saw some anti-Jewish undertones in the image B produced.
I can’t speak to Uli’s true intentions, only he can. But the fact that the image they produced passed through so many hands internally, on the way to YouTube is very problematic.
great post and it’s profoundly depressing that you had to write it in the first place. i also share your concerns about a moderator getting involved in this way
If you’re incapable of putting on a backpack without making people think that you’re giving a Nazi salute, then maybe you need to rethink how you’re putting your backpack on.
Similarly, if Behringer are incapable of telling a joke without LARGE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE IMMEDIATELY RAISING THAT JOKE’S VERY OBVIOUS VISUAL SIMILARITY TO ANTI-SEMITIC TROPES then maybe the problem isn’t with the people making those associations???
JUST A THOUGHT???
ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH
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for all that i’m intensely exasperated by the willful stupidity of this thread, i can’t stop laughing at the idea of some dude who can’t help writing racist songs by accident and giving random seig heils while trying to put his clothes on. what a cursed life that must be
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