Surrogates and Racism

DV8 · Post by **DV8** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 9:00 am

Eva recently sent me the following excerpt from another discussion;

I just read the two graphic novels that were the foundation of the recent movie Surrogates - in reading thru all the supplementary material (i.e. mock classifieds, news articles, etc...) they posit an interesting scenario whereby people picked surrogates (the future equivalent of avatars I suppose) whose race "matched" the positions they ware applying for- which both reinforced stereotypes (black doorman, white lawyer) but also freed people from their bounds (because the person could be whatever they wanted to be)- I find the whole idea to be very intriguing. Is it still racism if it has no bearing on reality?

I think it's a fascinating idea; is it still racism or have we detached ourselves completely from race under those circumstances that we just start thinking in archetypes? Thoughts?

paladin2019 · Post by **paladin2019** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 2:54 pm

Of course it's still racism. It's also really sad in that it reinforces that teh balck man, for example, buys into the stereotype and chooses a white avatar if he wants a white collar job. It speaks volumes about self-worth if you tie your idealized form to this.

But the counter argument is what about people who get opposite gendered avatars?

Heavy_D · Post by **Heavy_D** » Thu Dec 10, 2009 10:25 am

Even if you were to detach it from race the fact that a stereotype is used is an indication that a classification is made. And isn't that what racism is in a way: classification?

Jeff Hauze · Post by **Jeff Hauze** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 5:42 am

Heavy_D wrote:Even if you were to detach it from race the fact that a stereotype is used is an indication that a classification is made. And isn't that what racism is in a way: classification?

At its most basic level? I guess, but that seems horribly oversimplified. Humans have and always will classify things. We'll continue to do so. Simply classifying something (having a name, a purpose, a cause, whatever...) doesn't equate to racism. Any of the -isms stem from using those classifications as gospel, unbending law, or fact. It's classification taken to the extreme, and ignoring all those wonderfully important parts of the empirical method that mention testing and re-testing theories.