Today in Racist Fuckery (11/19/14): In the town of Sullivan, roughly 60 miles east of St Louis, and in the shadow of months of unrest over the death of Mike Brown, a group of high school seniors thought it would be a great idea to play powder puff football in blackface. Lord, deliver us from the ignorance!
Wearing Blackface, Sullivan High School Seniors Play Game of Powder-Puff Football
When a dozen teen girls in blackface ran onto the Sullivan High School football field November 5 for a powder-puff game, Jennifer Schmidt recalls her gut reaction as, “Oh my gosh.”
“And then I thought, ‘Oh, they don’t mean anything by it. Just let it go. No one thinks anything of it.’ I didn’t think anyone did,” says Schmidt, the principal of Sullivan High School. “Evidently, someone did.”
Evidently indeed. Photos taken during the game show twelve members of the senior class wearing dour expressions beneath full-blown blackface, and someone at the game shared those photos on Facebook. The reactions to the photos have been rippling within the small town of Sullivan (60 miles southwest of St. Louis) ever since.
The girls, says Schmidt, have been “very embarrassed and shocked at some of the responses they’ve gotten, because I think some people had some stuff on Facebook and got the wrong intention.”
The powder-puff football tournament is a yearly tradition at the school, says Schmidt. Organized by the junior class, each grade fields a team, the football coaches stand in as referees, and members of the boys’ varsity football team act as coaches. The entrance fees from the tournament benefit prom.
"It’s just a fun kind of fundraiser," Schmidt says. "There were a few people in the crowd, not a lot. It was cold."
Photos of the game later appeared on the athletic department’s Twitter feed. Schmidt tells Daily RFT that photos were intentionally taken at a distance, to the point where it’s impossible to discern the painted faces.
Schmidt adds that it’s been common practice for the senior girls’ team to wear face paint during the powder-puff football tournament, essentially as a parody of the eye black football players normally wear to decrease glare from the sun and lights. The face paint also serves to “to intimidate the underclassmen.”
According to Schmidt, in previous years the girls have wore combinations of the schools’ colors — black and gold. But when the senior girls arrived prior to the November 5 game, they discovered everyone had brought the same color face paint — black.
"So that’s what they wore," says Schmidt. "There was nothing racial about it. They didn’t have any other intention other than to just try to intimidate the underclassmen."
Schmidt tells Daily RFT that the school hasn’t taken any disciplinary action against the students in the photos.
"I can assure you they will not be wearing black face paint again," she says. "In fact, we’re probably just going to end the face-paint thing, and nobody wears any at all."
Seriously, the rest of the article is a pretty decent read. Talks about the larger discussion one of the students is leading about Blackface. Be warned though— it features pics and commentary on Mike Brown/Darren Wilson Halloween costumes. #staywoke
"The girls were shocked"
Shocked? That people are offended by blackface?
Nobody’s that sheltered
The one day I talk about white feminism and how they don’t care about others and this pops up
What I wanna know is, what the fuck were they thinking? And what kind of punishment will these thugs get?
"It’s just a fun kind of fundraiser,"
Being racist is a fun kind of fundraiser
GOG.com kicked off its DRM-free Big Fall Sale Finale this morning, putting more than 700 games on sale until Tuesday, November 25. The sale is split into two 48-hour periods, the first a "recap of flash deals" that rapidly come and go, and a second...
The three-fingered salute used by Katniss and the other rebels in The Hunger Games have been adopted by pro-democracy activists in Thailand. And as a result, a movie chain in Bangkok has cancelled screenings of Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1.
"No doubt Wilson, who shot and killed unarmed black teen Michael Brown, has received more favorable treatment than any target of any investigation in St. Louis County history."
Movies sprinted to make the most of the potential wonders and horrors of cyberspace. For your entertainment and viewing pleasure, this supercut brings you the best of 90s computing in all its grandiose and cringeworthy glory.
Nordnet, a bank based in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, has created a commercial that offers a comically transparent look at bank commercials to promote their transparent banking. The commercial features an actor who explains the fact that he is a paid actor and narrates every action he makes in the commercial to an absurd degree.
Nordnet has released two other commercials with the same actor in a similar comedic style. One commercial highlights that the actor can’t say Nordnet is, “The gratest [sic] place to save and invest in the world,” and the other commercial encourages viewers to trust random people with all of their savings.
Do you want to cast love spells? Exorcise demons? Subjugate your enemies? These and other arcane invocations can be found in the Handbook of Ritual Power, an 8th-century, 20-page codex that has been translated and published by two scholars of religion and ancient history.
(Est. 1917) "Deutsches Institut für Normung e.V. (DIN; in English, the German Institute for Standardization) is the German national organization for standardization and is the German ISO member body. DIN is a Registered German Association (e.V.) headquartered in Berlin. There are currently around thirty thousand DIN Standards, covering nearly every field of technology." (Wikipedia)
(For example, DIN 25449 sets the standards for design and construction of concrete components in nuclear facilities, and DIN 1451 is the standard for typography used in transportation and administrative documents of the German Government, as established in 1936.)
Opinion/Notes: While the logo remains nearly the same — the "D" has been condensed a little (making a surprisingly big difference) and the lines have been thickened — the story here is about the identity around, literally, the logo. Hinting at the ISO A paper standards and the Fibonacci sequence the identity introduces an adaptable grid that always makes sure you notice the logo and establishes a recognizable visual system for all of DIN's corporate materials. Perhaps it straddles the fine line between simple and boring but the notion of a highly standardized grid seems perfect for the organization and I really like adaptability and rigor it balances.
Select Quote: "Almost everyone is familiar with the German Institute for Standardization. On the job or at home, we encounter standardized products and services every day. However, the world is more than DIN A4. Based on newly developed positioning, the CD of DIN was updated. A strong key visual was created that brings together the full spectrum of dynamic market needs under one umbrella. It was developed based on the principle of surface division and inspired by the rules of the Fibonacci sequence.“
The Fibonacci sequence and the international paper size diagram as sources of structure. The grid's usage and possible orientations.The grid applied to brochures.The grid on multiple items.The grid, many times, on a picture.
TV-over-the-Internet startup Aereo has filed for bankruptcy, bringing to a close its long-running copyright battle with US television networks. The filing comes at a time when there actually had been a bright spot on the policy horizon for Aereo. The FCC is set to consider whether some types of online streaming should be considered cable systems.
Aereo was created to use a system of using tiny, dime-sized antennas to send broadcast TV signals over the Internet. By renting one antenna and separate storage space to each customer, the company hoped to remain within the bounds of copyright law, despite not having permission from the television networks for its transmissions.
The fight was waged in federal courts around the country. The US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled in Aereo's favor, but the decision was overturned this summer by the Supreme Court. Aereo ceased doing business shortly thereafter.
Today's Seattle Times reports that Seattle Police Department COO Mike Wagers has invited the man into police headquarters to meet with him and tech staff to discuss how he could receive video regularly. As a condition of the meeting, he has dropped the public records request.
"I’m hoping he can help us with the larger systemic issue—how can we release as much video as possible and redact what we need to redact so we can be transparent?” Wagers told the newspaper. “What do we have to lose? We have nothing to hide. There are no secrets.”
Like, I know it's really high up and difficult to clean, but you gotta at least get up there with a damp towel before you're on national TV with Webber calling the game. You know they're gonna show it.
By a vote of 229-191, the House has just passed a GOP-sponsored bill to ensure that a more "balanced panel of experts" will advise the Environmental Protection Agency. But critics say it will reduce the participation of independent scientists in favor of those with financial ties to industry.
Boston is my natural constituency. You’ve got a lot of overeducated, underemployed people drinking good cocktails. Those people are always fun to talk to.
If you're a childless man who shops for clothing online, spends a lot on cable TV and drives a minivan, we know certain data brokers are going to assume you are overweight.
With limited free time for reading, tight publishing markets, and the rise of e-readers, people have been sounding the death knoll for the book for quite some time. But they haven't died. Not even close. So what is it that makes them so enduring?
Appearing in the December issue of the journal Icarus, this beautiful geologic map of big ol' asteroid/minor-planet Vesta was created by a team led by planetary scientist David Williams, from data collected by NASA's Dawn spacecraft during its 15-month orbit of the oblong object between 2011 and 2012.
'Bread and circuses or (more generally) food and entertainment, regarded as typically satisfying the desires of the mass of the people; hence used allusively of anything which pleases and pacifies the people, thus helping a government to further its political ends.'
Sio Moore and Khalil Mack were so excited about the Oakland Raiders being on the verge of their first victory of the season that they forgot the game was still going on. That's the only explanation for this prolonged celebration that forced Oakland to call a timeout before getting hit with an offsides penalty late in the fourth quarter in its win over the Chiefs.
Granted, this is Week 12 and the Raiders are finally getting off the schneid. It's been a while, so we can't really blame them. Still, classic Raiders.
Super Opinionated.
GOG.com kicked off its DRM-free Big Fall Sale Finale this morning, putting more than 700 games on sale until Tuesday, November 25. The sale is split into two 48-hour periods, the first a "recap of flash deals" that rapidly come and go, and a second...
