BBC and Black Achilles Controversy: Politically Corectness Gone Mad?

[Gilrandir]

Africa is not an important market for them and the US has a 12.7% black population, plus they market a lot to Europe with a similar or lower ratio of black people.

Evidently, Middle-earth IS an important maket for the US - they made SIX movies about it. Perhaps Elves make up more that 15% of the US population. And if we remember about Dwarves and Hobbits... And Caribbeans are sure to be a majority in the US. Especially the pirate Caribbeans. And I'm apalled to realize how many wookies and hutts are actually US citizens. Or is Tatooin-americans more politically correct?

On a serious note: if the movie tells a thrilling story it doesn't matter where it is set or what is the skin color of the actors who play in it.

[Montmorency]

The point is not necessarily that everything has to be represented, but who decides what is worthy and what is not? Or when it is enough?
You said earlier in this thread (I apologize if I misremember) that black actors also want jobs, but so do disabled actors. So why should I campaign for black actors to get more jobs even if they become over-represented while disabled ones also want jobs and are still underrepresented? Of course ideally everyone would get their dream job and then there wouldn't be an issue, but that seems a bit unrealistic at this point, no?

Well, it's not a zero-sum struggle. More of one kind of representation could open the way for more of any other kind of representation, or vice versa. Furthermore, it's not that one *feature* is only ever selected in a given situation. Visual media (other than very avante-garde stuff) aren't about the disembodied abstraction of blackness or disability, or every other thing that isn't blackness or disability.

The world exists outside Hollywood and media exist outside film/TV, but for simplicity's sake let's put it all through the lens of Hollywood (most broadly interpreted). Right now, private industry (executives and agents, for instance) makes most of the final decisions on what to fund, who to hire, who to entertain, and which hires to entertain. Besides actors there are screenwriters, producers, directors, and other creative folk. If Hollywood had a permanent monopoly on what gets out and how you see it, then inclusion could look as follows:

Consider more diverse casting for the low-hanging fruit (i.e. where they are fungible in terms of narrative or setting), while also paying attention to the roles you place these characters (whether major or just background extras) into and the assumptions you attach to them.

Consider who you're hiring to develop or portray various ideas and stories. Experience and knowledge are useful in the process of creating both textual (dialogue, exposition, plot) and visual (amera view, personal appearance and behavioral presentation, symbolism) elements.

Consider ideas and creators outside the immediate safe mainstream content, or don't rule something or someone out because (you expect) it might not test well with a "Middle America" focus group.


This is just a framework to get different kinds of people on screen, to get different kinds of stories told, and old stories told in a fresh way. There is no permanent or formulaic answer, it's just something we need to be aware of.

[Husar]

Well, it's not a zero-sum struggle.

In that case there are plenty of white actors who want a job, too. And the blacks already got Morgan Freeman, Will Smith and LL Cool J.

More of one kind of representation could open the way for more of any other kind of representation, or vice versa. Furthermore, it's not that one *feature* is only ever selected in a given situation. Visual media (other than very avante-garde stuff) aren't about the disembodied abstraction of blackness or disability, or every other thing that isn't blackness or disability.

Well, that was my point, it's partially about money. And how do you measure representation if not in percent? And why would percentages not be a zero sum game? Again, Morgan Freeman already represents blacks if percentages are not an issue.

[Montmorency]

In that case there are plenty of white actors who want a job, too. And the blacks already got Morgan Freeman, Will Smith and LL Cool J.



Well, that was my point, it's partially about money. And how do you measure representation if not in percent? And why would percentages not be a zero sum game? Again, Morgan Freeman already represents blacks if percentages are not an issue.

Alright. If Freeman "represents" blacks, who represents whites?

It's a subjective issue that depends largely on popular attitudes. You can track some of it in percentages, but it would be unsatisfactory for almost everyone to define it in terms of percentages. Proportional representation in culture (which is much more than most are asking for) is not like proportional representation in politics, or you might end up arguing that if the global 1% hold 50% of the wealth, they should naturally have their interests legislated half the time (already a crude measure of power).

[Husar]

Alright. If Freeman "represents" blacks, who represents whites?

It's a subjective issue that depends largely on popular attitudes. You can track some of it in percentages, but it would be unsatisfactory for almost everyone to define it in terms of percentages. Proportional representation in culture (which is much more than most are asking for) is not like proportional representation in politics, or you might end up arguing that if the global 1% hold 50% of the wealth, they should naturally have their interests legislated half the time (already a crude measure of power).

Tom Cruise.

And yes to the rest, it's about popular attitudes, but in that case the opinion that nothing is off about the representation is just as valid.

[Sarmatian]

Ben Affleck

[Montmorency]

Tom Cruise.

And yes to the rest, it's about popular attitudes, but in that case the opinion that nothing is off about the representation is just as valid.

So that's just, like, your opinion, man? I'm sure we could use more than 5 or 10 actors for the world, my reductive friend.

The dividends are supposed to be stronger content and an easier time for weaker groups and cultures to fit into society. You can argue about the specifics and how to achieve it, but it's not the same thing or consequence as preference of pizza toppings or enjoying NCIS over CSI (or neither).

[Husar]

So that's just, like, your opinion, man? I'm sure we could use more than 5 or 10 actors for the world, my reductive friend.

The dividends are supposed to be stronger content and an easier time for weaker groups and cultures to fit into society. You can argue about the specifics and how to achieve it, but it's not the same thing or consequence as preference of pizza toppings or enjoying NCIS over CSI (or neither).

The dividends of what?More representation of blacks in Hollywood? How much more?
And which white actors do we stop giving roles to because their having roles is unfair to the black actors we need instead?
It may not be a zero sum game, but the budgets are limited...

[Montmorency]

The dividends of what?More representation of blacks in Hollywood? How much more?
And which white actors do we stop giving roles to because their having roles is unfair to the black actors we need instead?
It may not be a zero sum game, but the budgets are limited...

I repeat, there is no workable quota or long-term numerical solution. It's under continual negotiation.

Having more of any group means less of the dominant group - that's what it takes. Are you opposed to all the jobs and university slots women have 'taken' from men? It's a good thing overall that there are more women and fewer men in work and education, unless you believe in unilateral domination. But aren't men going to get pushed out at this rate, you cry. Sure: poor men. Changing economic conditions and the role and distribution of higher education will disadvantage poor men. The right approach is to address poverty and the organization of the economy, not to subjugate women. People fill multiple overlapping statuses at any given moment. You have to account for that, like juggling.

Refer to those guidelines I posted just above. There's more to entertainment than actors, more groups in need of representation than blacks, and both of these categories (actors and blacks) can be subdivided repeatedly. If 100% of actors are teenaged black girls and 100% of writers are elderly Indian men, you have a problem. If 13% of actors are black but they're all criminals, musicians, or nannies, and 5% are Asians who are all nerds, peasants, or kung fu warriors, you have a problem. Emphatically, there is no formula that can be relied upon to produce outcomes here. A formula for the whole industry based on national demographics, or the local demographics of the industry headquarters, couldn't ever make sense.

[Husar]

The right approach is to address poverty and the organization of the economy, not to subjugate women.

Isn't that the root of many issues though, including the one of black people being underrepresented? In the current economy, to get something you have to have something already (you have to be able to invest), and that stifles social mobility. Demanding that some people give more jobs to black people is like a half-arsed approach. Voting for Bernie Sanders and a more humane economic system is a much broader solution to everything.

[Strike For The South]

I love how Husar is all like "Bring all the people into Germany" while simultaneously being all like "omg why are these people complaining about representation". You're in for a rude awakening in 20 years, hoss.

[Husar]

I love how Husar is all like "Bring all the people into Germany" while simultaneously being all like "omg why are these people complaining about representation". You're in for a rude awakening in 20 years, hoss.

I don't think so.

Just because I tried to give Monty a hard time and steer him towards the argument I made in my last post, that doesn't mean I believe 100% in every argument I made in the process. I'm also fully away that half a dozen people will call this an excuse now, but that's okay, hit me. It's only half the fun when I announce that I'm going to play devil's advocate and quite honestly, I tend to momentarily forget it myself, maybe that makes it so convincing.

Most of these arguments wouldn't have any followers after all if they didn't have some kind of internal logic that one can believe in.
I'm still a socialist, don't worry.

The problem as I see it, is that this representation is even necessary to some extent because our society, perhaps even our thought patterns (as that English dude said in the interview in the other thread), are based on competition and recognition etc. So if there is a limited number of high prestige positions, it is only natural for those who have few of them to want more, but just as natural for those who have them to want to keep them. Warren Buffet isn't going to give 20% of his wealth to someone else because "it's not a zero sum game" and the other guy deserves a share as well. In a competitive world this conflict never ends and if we accept competition as a good thing I might as well want to keep black people poorer than myself for my own gain, because that proves that I'm more competitive and glorious than they are and allows me to buy more useless stuff to attempt to fill the black hole in my soul.
It's not even a racist thing, just using the advantages you have to the fullest excent, i.e. being effective and efficient like a good market participant. It's human nature and ingenuity and the reason for our wealth as the capitalist would say. Yay for humanity!

If blacks want more stuff, they shouldn't complain to the nanny state, they need to get off their arses and outcompete everyone else. If the odds are against them, too bad, they need to outcompete everyone else to shift the odds. If they even still want that then because many who make it think: "Why should I make it easier for others to compete with me now that I worked my ass off to get here?!? They shall have to work just as hard if not harder...". See, kinda slipped back into my role there. MAGA!

[Montmorency]

That's why you pressure the executive class first. If they think inclusion and sensitivity will be more profitable, they'll start inching along that route themselves. Once you have a broad-based social trend, it will only reinforce the financial calculations.

You can do and support several things at once. For instance, most of us here likely don't agree that any development of space technology/travel is an unaffordable luxury when children are still starving somewhere...

[ConjurerDragon]

...

That cartoon is a funny but completely wrong picture of history or race relations.

If the agenda presented in that cartoon would be true then
-the arabian states (who captured, traded and held slaves long before any spanish started the triangle trade and continued long after the british banned slavery) would be filthy rich because of their slavery and not because someone found oil in the sand. And they would be far richer than the US because they held slaves longer and would be that much more elevated.
- the spanish and portuguese and not the USA would be the richest nation as obviously in that picture holding slaves allows a white nation to prosper to an elevated level,
- the Confederated States of America won the American Civil War as obviously they had the upper hand due to them holding lots of slaves and being wealthy and successfull because of them while the poor idiots in the north of whom only 3 states allowed a bit of slavery stood no chance due to their poverty that did not allow them to buy even a single musket or cannonball to defeat the southern powerhouse.

So - slavery did not create the wealth of the current US as most of the wealth it did create was destroyed when a lot of the southern states was razed during the ACW, nor are "the whites" enjoying an elevated position because of being white. "White Trailertrash" exists too in the US and quite a lot of white people struggle to make an income.

[spmetla]

The picture though does show the common perception of slavery in the US. A lot of people don't know that the US didn't invent slavery, that there were black slave owners in the US and that there weren't gangs of white guys rounding up people in Africa. Slavery being such a sensitive subject means that it doesn't get taught in detail and as such people are easily fooled into the two camps of 'all whites should feel personally guilty and make reparations indefinitely' or the other camp of 'it wasn't that bad and they should be thankful they aren't in present day Africa.'
Just like the prevalent American perspective of the French military as crap due to 1940 ignores over a thousand years of the French being the very successful bullies of Europe.

Most people don't have much of an interest in history and as such will take whichever story fits their pre-conceived notions when dealing with how the past led to the present.

[Montmorency]

That cartoon is a funny but completely wrong picture of history or race relations.

If the agenda presented in that cartoon would be true then
-the arabian states (who captured, traded and held slaves long before any spanish started the triangle trade and continued long after the british banned slavery) would be filthy rich because of their slavery and not because someone found oil in the sand. And they would be far richer than the US because they held slaves longer and would be that much more elevated.
- the spanish and portuguese and not the USA would be the richest nation as obviously in that picture holding slaves allows a white nation to prosper to an elevated level,
- the Confederated States of America won the American Civil War as obviously they had the upper hand due to them holding lots of slaves and being wealthy and successfull because of them while the poor idiots in the north of whom only 3 states allowed a bit of slavery stood no chance due to their poverty that did not allow them to buy even a single musket or cannonball to defeat the southern powerhouse.

So - slavery did not create the wealth of the current US as most of the wealth it did create was destroyed when a lot of the southern states was razed during the ACW, nor are "the whites" enjoying an elevated position because of being white. "White Trailertrash" exists too in the US and quite a lot of white people struggle to make an income.

At a basic level, slavery in one area need not be identical or produce identical results to slavery in another area. Looking more closely, in the Muslim world slavery was

primarily a form of consumption rather than a factor of production.

The Spanish and Portuguese empires were indeed built on slavery. They simply did not last into the modern era - but their after-effects did for the European economy.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/humaniti...rthern-economy
http://history.berkeley.edu/sites/de...er%20FINAL.pdf
https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/han...pdf?sequence=1

Why should a slave-based economy make a state militarily invincible? Outside a few centuries in the Late Medieval/Early Modern transitional era, wealth alone (concentrated among merchants and aristocrats, as you recall) could not exert military superiority over raw population and production. At any rate, the North also profited from Southern slavery; these weren't peasants against a gleaming mercenary horde.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/humaniti...rthern-economy

Quite wrong. Slavery contributed immensely to early American wealth, American wealth increased apace outside the South following the war (and the former planter elite was not in fact dismantled), whiteness demonstrably enjoys an elevated position (I hope you at least agree that this was true in the first half of the last century). The fact that some whites are poor is an essential component of this order, not a contradiction, as their race becomes the thing identifying them with the white elite and distinguishing them from the black lower-class.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbswork.../#54ab21027bd3
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/h...onomicCost.pdf
https://voxeu.org/article/impact-us-...wealth-holders
http://www.demos.org/publication/ass...ial-wealth-gap
https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...history-216200


Your post was reckless and irrelevant casuistry.

[Montmorency]

The picture though does show the common perception of slavery in the US.

I don't think you grasped the point of the cartoon, which is to remind us that African Americans were exploited for economic gain and then excluded from the fruits of their input. Most crucially, there is irony in the common demand that black people rise to the economic level of whites "on their own merits": it's actually self-aggrandizement.

The best reparation is recognition.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I don't think you grasped the point of the cartoon, which is to remind us that African Americans were exploited for economic gain and then excluded from the fruits of their input. Most crucially, there is irony in the common demand that black people rise to the economic level of whites "on their own merits": it's actually self-aggrandizement.

The best reparation is recognition.

Valid point. Some estimates suggest as much as 30% of America's economy can be traced to the efforts of those ".6 persons" with no direct representation.

The reparations concept is a non starter, and far too many of the programs to help the poor, often black urban subclass have been mismanaged or have actively backfired.

And too many of our citizens continue to view black as lesser so as to feel better about themselves. Saddening.

[Montmorency]

Valid point. Some estimates suggest as much as 30% of America's economy can be traced to the efforts of those ".6 persons" with no direct representation.

The reparations concept is a non starter, and far too many of the programs to help the poor, often black urban subclass have been mismanaged or have actively backfired.

And too many of our citizens continue to view black as lesser so as to feel better about themselves. Saddening.

There is a common conservative argument that welfare dependency 'ruined' the black working class (or more ambitiously, the white working class as well). Apart from challenging welfare dependency theories on their own merits, it should be acknowledged that black cultures did not emerge spontaneously in 1960 or 1970.

"Backfired". The Reagan legacy is welfare chauvinism and welfare retrenchment. Maybe the cause and effect are flipped. Ideas of the purpose and utility of such programs are also divergent between interpretations (discounting the anodyne pseudo-consensus of "helping folks get back on their feet").

[spmetla]

I don't think you grasped the point of the cartoon, which is to remind us that African Americans were exploited for economic gain and then excluded from the fruits of their input. Most crucially, there is irony in the common demand that black people rise to the economic level of whites "on their own merits": it's actually self-aggrandizement.

While the above is true about slavery I don't see that as the point of the cartoon. The cartoon in my mind shows how slavery was used to get above blacks in socio-economic terms. It shows that without slaves whites would not have been as successful in the US as they were. The final cell showing a unwillingness to admit that this social station and wealth but it also does ignore that there have been efforts to help blacks up, affirmative action programs being the most well known.

I don't think there is 'common demand' for black people to rise to the same economic levels on their own merits. I think for the most part it's just a dislike for the continuance of affirmative action programs 50 years since their inception. They were certainly necessary at the time, not so much now though. The issues that affect black poverty affect every similar group of economic levels in the US. Education, security, and a sense of 'buy in' are necessary to succeed. Why spend the whole of one's youth working a legitimate job that will likely not lead to prosperity, success, and the American Dream. I've known enough people (whites, hispanics, and various pacific islanders) that collect unemployment and don't want to get a job until the unemployment checks stop coming because that's actually a pay cut, so instead they do 'under the table' The increasing costs of living in today's society make climbing out of poverty that much more difficult. Good luck getting a job if you don't have a car, a phone, and a good history of previous/current employment.

While race is an issue I think the largest issue right now is that those that are ill-educated and poor are more likely to remain so in the future. Outside of a few outstanding inventors, scholars, or athletes the road from poverty to success is getting steeper and more difficult. Large scale manufacture is no longer the step ladder up as mechanization, robots, outsourcing labor continues. The future for 'uneducated' labor looks even more dire as AI will replace even more jobs in shipping, construction, janitorial services, and manufacturing.

That's all without mentioning the ills that various hard drugs are having on the already endemically impoverished. Two of my high-school buddies are now 'tweakers' and despite past times I don't want them around my farm doing any sort of work. Addiction makes them such a liability I can't see anyone employing them for fear of theft and violence. They'll probably end up in jail or homeless as so many on that road do.

That's why I strongly encourage any high school graduates that I have come up picking coffee to consider the military. They need to get out of the influence on their neighborhood and family to break the bonds of poverty. Most are already pot heads or alcoholics at the least so they are probably not even eligible to enlist in any of the services.

The best reparation is recognition.

I don't that is ever the case. If it were then world history would have been a lot simpler and far less bloody.

[Montmorency]

While the above is true about slavery I don't see that as the point of the cartoon. The cartoon in my mind shows how slavery was used to get above blacks in socio-economic terms. It shows that without slaves whites would not have been as successful in the US as they were. The final cell showing a unwillingness to admit that this social station and wealth but it also does ignore that there have been efforts to help blacks up, affirmative action programs being the most well known.

I don't think there is 'common demand' for black people to rise to the same economic levels on their own merits. I think for the most part it's just a dislike for the continuance of affirmative action programs 50 years since their inception. They were certainly necessary at the time, not so much now though.

That's the intended interpretation. But affirmative action has been pared back to a large degree since the 1970s, in no small part due to Supreme Court decisions, and it was only ever a bandage without further sub-governmental changes. I don't think the (positive) effect has been that dramatic, though I disagree that they are unneeded today (despite alone being insufficient). Perhaps a shift to affirmative action on a class, rather than race basis, would be the right direction.

The issues that affect black poverty affect every similar group of economic levels in the US. Education, security, and a sense of 'buy in' are necessary to succeed. Why spend the whole of one's youth working a legitimate job that will likely not lead to prosperity, success, and the American Dream. I've known enough people (whites, hispanics, and various pacific islanders) that collect unemployment and don't want to get a job until the unemployment checks stop coming because that's actually a pay cut, so instead they do 'under the table' The increasing costs of living in today's society make climbing out of poverty that much more difficult. Good luck getting a job if you don't have a car, a phone, and a good history of previous/current employment.

Another topic, but there's certainly a case for streamlining welfare or assistance, and eliminating or diminishing the role of means-testing (i.e. assistance should be a floor, not a ceiling).

While race is an issue I think the largest issue right now is that those that are ill-educated and poor are more likely to remain so in the future. Outside of a few outstanding inventors, scholars, or athletes the road from poverty to success is getting steeper and more difficult. Large scale manufacture is no longer the step ladder up as mechanization, robots, outsourcing labor continues. The future for 'uneducated' labor looks even more dire as AI will replace even more jobs in shipping, construction, janitorial services, and manufacturing.

That's all without mentioning the ills that various hard drugs are having on the already endemically impoverished. Two of my high-school buddies are now 'tweakers' and despite past times I don't want them around my farm doing any sort of work. Addiction makes them such a liability I can't see anyone employing them for fear of theft and violence. They'll probably end up in jail or homeless as so many on that road do.

That's why I strongly encourage any high school graduates that I have come up picking coffee to consider the military. They need to get out of the influence on their neighborhood and family to break the bonds of poverty. Most are already pot heads or alcoholics at the least so they are probably not even eligible to enlist in any of the services.

Well, I think that to the extent there are some cultural handicaps among the POC lower and under-class they are largely continuous with the cultural handicaps of the white lower and under-class. Policies to address broad social problems could be most productive now, and less liable to disruption of solidarity along group cleavages.

I don't that is ever the case. If it were then world history would have been a lot simpler and far less bloody.

I'm unsure, but I hope you didn't interpret that as advocating a separate "black" country within America. I just meant that recognizing that there are some unique difficulties and pressures, and understanding their historical descent, spurs the mindset and policy considerations to resolve them, not as a "reparation" per se but as the present obligation of a country to its citizens.

[spmetla]

Well, I think that to the extent there are some cultural handicaps among the POC lower and under-class they are largely continuous with the cultural handicaps of the white lower and under-class. Policies to address broad social problems could be most productive now, and less liable to disruption of solidarity along group cleavages.

Sadly that is the fate of most minorities throughout the world. It's easier to hire people that have a similar background to oneself, even speaking with an accent can make people seem smarter or dumber. If someone speaks like a 'hick' do you expect a rocket scientist? We Americans hear a British accent (not all) and assume education.

I'm unsure, but I hope you didn't interpret that as advocating a separate "black" country within America. I just meant that recognizing that there are some unique difficulties and pressures, and understanding their historical descent, spurs the mindset and policy considerations to resolve them, not as a "reparation" per se but as the present obligation of a country to its citizens.

I didn't interpret it like that at all. As I said, education is key but people in general don't care about history. I have an old fashioned sense of citizenship and when talking about the obligation of the nation I feel it's also important to talk about the obligations of its citizens to the nation. Too many feel they 'deserve' things without having given anything. A degree doesn't mean you 'deserve' a 6 figure job, serving in the military doesn't mean you 'deserve' the same recognition as bone fide 'war heros'. Recognizing the past and current problems is part of the solution but it must not be allowed to be used as an excuse. If given the education and enough personal drive impoverished blacks can lift themselves up just like another ethnic group. Education and job skills is an important factor in that. No amount of preferential treatment will fix such a situation, instead you get resentment that think person X isn't qualified aside from filling a minority quota. Bill Cosby was a frequent advocate of the problems within the black community before his fall from grace:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5345290/ns.../#.WoULzainGHs

Cosby also said many young people are failing to honor the sacrifices made by those who struggled and died during the civil rights movement.

“Dogs, water hoses that tear the bark off trees, Emmett Till,” he said, naming the black youth who was tortured and murdered in Mississippi in 1955, allegedly for whistling at a white woman. “And you’re going to tell me you’re going to drop out of school? You’re going to tell me you’re going to steal from a store?”

Cosby also said he wasn’t concerned that some whites took his comments and turned them “against our people.”

“Let them talk,” he said.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/ho...ack-12442.html
How Hip-Hop Holds Blacks Back
Violence, misogyny, and lawlessness are nothing to sing about.

The rise of nihilistic rap has mirrored the breakdown of community norms among inner-city youth over the last couple of decades. It was just as gangsta rap hit its stride that neighborhood elders began really to notice that they’d lost control of young black men, who were frequently drifting into lives of gang violence and drug dealing. Well into the seventies, the ghetto was a shabby part of town, where, despite unemployment and rising illegitimacy, a healthy number of people were doing their best to “keep their heads above water,” as the theme song of the old black sitcom Good Times put it.

By the eighties, the ghetto had become a ruleless war zone, where black people were their own worst enemies. It would be silly, of course, to blame hip-hop for this sad downward spiral, but by glamorizing life in the “war zone,” it has made it harder for many of the kids stuck there to extricate themselves. Seeing a privileged star like Sean Combs behave like a street thug tells those kids that there’s nothing more authentic than ghetto pathology, even when you’ve got wealth beyond imagining.

There are certainly unique difficulties affecting blacks in the US, as descendants of former slaves it makes sense that there isn't instant love for the US when so many are still impoverished. When it's just used as a crutch for their current condition though it only creates resentment and a justification for crime. The current plight like I said though is largely a result of modern economics. The South no longer employees millions of laborers to harvest cotton and tobacco. Existing agricultural harvesting that is done by hand is mostly via migrant labor from latin america. While some will use the stereotype of 'lazy blacks' to not hire them I'd point out that seasonal agricultural labor is now set for non residents in whatever community. They come in for harvest, do their job doing long hours and when the job is done move to another place to do that. For migrant laborers it's a seasonal cash crop that pays good wages and seeing as it's not just another 9-5 they put their full into it. For the poor in these former agriculture towns/cities they miss out on that work, they won't put in the same hours and aren't part of the same labor network that affords them to then chase the next job-site. When jobs go away in a town and the poor can't afford to relocate or retrain then they get stuck in endemic poverty no matter what the race.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/us...mmigrants.html

“They like the Mexicans because they are scared and will do anything they tell them to,” said Sherry Tomason, who worked for seven years in the fields here, then quit. Last month she and other local residents filed a federal lawsuit against a large grower of onions, Stanley Farms, alleging that it mistreated them and paid them less than it paid the Mexicans.

“We have tried to fill our labor locally,” said Brian Stanley, an owner of Stanley Farms, which is being sued by Ms. Tomason and others. “But we couldn’t get enough workers, and that was hindering our growth. So we turned to the guest worker program.”
....
Mr. Stanley, like other farmers, argues that Americans who say they want the work end up quitting because it is hard, leaving the crops to rot in the fields. But the situation is filled with cultural and racial tensions.

Even many of the Americans who feel mistreated acknowledge that the Mexicans who arrive on buses for a limited period are incredibly efficient, often working into the night seven days a week to increase their pay.

[Strike For The South]

Funny how a group of people with no recourse in society would accept shit wages and shit hours.

They can't get enough workers on purpose. It's not a flaw it's a feature. It is also the point of the ICE deportations.

[Myth]

I disagree about changing an actor's race because of liberal political corectness. Like this travesty for example:



If Caesar is black then I want a 205 cm. pale, lanky dutch guy to play Shakka.

[Fragony]

I'm 1.89 will that do. Friend mine is 2.10 but he's half marrocan

[Husar]

I like that poster, I see no problem with it.
Don't we all play people of different color as children as well?
I mean before we are taught to be racist based on mere skin color, these things don't seem to bother us.

[Myth]

I don't, because i don't condone changig historical facts for the sake of a political agenda.

[Fragony]

I like that poster, I see no problem with it.
Don't we all play people of different color as children as well?
I mean before we are taught to be racist based on mere skin color, these things don't seem to bother us.

Why make it an unnecesary issue then? Keep it like that. I always wonder how many of the race-baiters ever made love with a black woman, have black friends

[Husar]

I don't, because i don't condone changig historical facts for the sake of a political agenda.

But then you also can't have GTA V because it shows a world resembling the real world but doesn't use accurate historical facts or even physics. Artistic freedom can also be applied to historical stories as long as one does not claim it's a documentary. The Greeks in 300 are also not historically accurate and Fargo claims that the events actually happened when they're actually made up. Matrix claims our world is a simulation but doesn't provide any scientifically valid sources as proof. Somehow it only becomes an issue once someone changes skin color?
If that is so, then you're probably also angry that the directors and producer of the Lion King are white when the story is about Africa.

And besides, even white actors don't look exactly like Julius Caesar, there may be a higher resemblances, but it's not accurate. And what they say isn't accurate either because we don't know what Caesar said or how he said it or even when and to whom he said something for all 24 hours of all his days.
I'm also not sure in the case of your poster it's done for a political agenda, the poster itself does not hint at that in any way.

And even then there is plenty of political agenda in film and the arts either way, so why does it suddenly become an issue with skin color but not e.g. when the agenda is that torture is good and works just fine?

[Myth]

Straw man. I do not care what race or colour a wrtier or director is, because they are not physically present on screen. I would just as vehemently dislike it if Napoleon were a freckled ginger giant or of Pocatello was asian. It is unnecessary and the only reason we are even having this conversation is because the west is so far down the tolerance rabbit hole.