• DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    Saying “This isn’t racist because it is based off of a similar meme that originated in China” has big “I can’t be racist when I say the N-word because I have a black friend.” energy.

    • AmarkuntheGatherer@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      It’s less that and more “ohh, it’s fine when they say it, but when I say it, it’s racist” which isn’t reasonable in the first place for the n-word, but doubly so in this case since we know there’s a lot of racism going around in the HK independence “movement.”

      • ghost_of_faso2@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        Daily reminder HKs minimum wage is 1 dollar for servants and 5 dollars per hour for workers, they have the highest rent in the entire world yet some of the worst living conditions and historically have only had 49% of there parliment able to be elected, the other 51% is 8 western buisnessmen.

        HK separtists advocate for the above because they are the lucky enough ones to be above the slave class and they want this relationship to continue, and for things to remain the same rather than for things to get better via intergation with china, which would give the HK working and underclass access to cheap housing via mainland China, who have 90% house ownership rate vs HKs like 17%.

        Source;

        https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/5/1/not-enough-hong-kongs-low-paid-get-32-cent-minimum-wage-bump

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_domestic_helpers_in_Hong_Kong

          • ghost_of_faso2@lemmygrad.ml
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            1 year ago

            Nah, they basically split there highest democratic chamber into two, with one half being elected and the other half appointed unelected people to represent UK buisness interests, they have a majority over the elected half.

            Also to clarify the small minority of the other half have more voting power than all of the other elected members, to effectively give them a majority.

            HK has essentially been a autocratic imprealist state serving the bougie of HK and UK interests since it changed hands to the UK.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_development_in_Hong_Kong#Under_British_rule

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Council_of_Hong_Kong

            As you can see here, they ‘permitted’ HK residents to elect half of the people in the chamber, with them (the UK) retaining control of the other half (while still retaining the deciding vote) and that China actually offers them full democracy, unconditionally.

            The founding members of what is reffered too in HK as ‘ExCo’ (with the other chamber usually its ‘LegCo’)

    • ReadFanon@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      I challenged this notion with a lib the other day.

      The watermelon originated in Africa. That doesn’t mean that the vile caricaturised depictions of black people eating watermelons is somehow not inherently racist.

      You can also look to the origin and continuing usage of the swastika, especially in Asian cultures, as another example here - you aren’t going to tell me that the right-angled unicode swastika being used by westerners on the internet isn’t done in service of fascism 99% of the time.

      And on that matter, don’t let erm-ackshually dorks tell you that the 90 degree swastika wasn’t used by Nazis and isn’t representative of them. One of the most famous depictions of the Nazi swastika is a right angled one:

      https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1214749781387436032/pu/vid/450x360/o0Nxlts0lffM8lUv.mp4

      • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        “The watermelon originated in Africa. That doesn’t mean that the vile caricaturised depictions of black people eating watermelons is somehow not inherently racist.”

        That’s not what is happening here tho. You can’t claim that every cartoon where a black person interacted with a watermelon is racist.

        Just like here you can’t claim it just cuz the character is yellow it is racist.

        Pooh is used cuz dude looks like Pooh… Not cuz he’s yellow. The fact that Pooh is yellow too doesn’t suddenly make it racist.