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Ask A Native New Yorker: What Should I Do About My White Neighbor's 'Thug Life' Doormat?
- Thread starter entremet
- Start date
You don't do anything cause at the end of the day it's still just a doormat. That said, that's just a shitty doormat and neighbor would probably run at the first sight of any actual gang shit.
Next week on Ask Gothamist:
Dear Gothamist - I'm pretty sure I caught my white neighbor making pho at home. How do I let her know this kind of cultural appropriation is THEFT and not ok? Also, from the way it smelled I could tell it wasn't authentic, not even close.
Dear Gothamist - I'm pretty sure I caught my white neighbor making pho at home. How do I let her know this kind of cultural appropriation is THEFT and not ok? Also, from the way it smelled I could tell it wasn't authentic, not even close.
IDK why but that picture's fucking hilariousReplace it with pictures of WWE Superstar Bayley.
Nah don't feel like educating y'all. Don't be mad when you step on a mayonnaise packet every day tho
And why, exactly, are people in this thread supporting harassing someone for being white (and moving into this neighborhood)?
#frasierisashitshow doormat should be enough retribution.
Or just stop finding inane reasons to be upset? "Welcome Home"? Who the fuck does she think she is deciding where my home is or isn't?
Or just stop finding inane reasons to be upset? "Welcome Home"? Who the fuck does she think she is deciding where my home is or isn't?
I am sure this person still does mock gang signs in photos.
White people doing gang stuff for humor was killed forever with the Steve Martin and Queen Latifa "comedy" Bringing Down the House.
White people doing gang stuff for humor was killed forever with the Steve Martin and Queen Latifa "comedy" Bringing Down the House.
Probably because few people ITT seem to understand what exactly about a doormat begets such hate.
Who is hating?
And it's about what's printed on the doormat, not the doormat itself. It could say a racial slur and it would still be "just a doormat".
Hate was too strong a word, you're right. Though I do find the "mayonnaise packet" harassment jokes a bit off-putting.
All right, then let me rephrase that as "a seemingly inoffensive phrase printed on a doormat".
Why is mayo so offensive to y'all? Is there a history of oppression about mayo that I don't know of? Does mayo impede your life in American society? Why is it off putting.
For real. I feel like I'm in crazy land nowadays with all this bullshit.
Why are we assuming "thug" doesn't refer to a white person in this case?
The meth-addicted criminals where I grew up were 'thugs' but they weren't black.
The meth-addicted criminals where I grew up were 'thugs' but they weren't black.
"Can't forget Bobby if I did I'd feel gypped - like my sandwich ain't a sandwich without Miracle Whip" -Method Man, NYC Everything
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imagine coming into this thread telling people to get over it and then crying about mayo jokes
Is your purpose with these jokes to mock someone based on their race, national origin, and/or color?
I mean, it clearly is, and the above question is rhetorical, but you can put forth a denial or deflection if you wish.
Is your purpose in this thread to defend and protect white people while ignoring any and all slights to black people (what this thread is about)?
I mean, it clearly is, and the above question is rhetorical, but you can put forth a denial or deflection if you wish.
A predictable deflection, and you've got my preemptive blessing to copy this as an inaccurate reply to me.
User warned: personal attack
did cagey post on page 1? no
did cagey post on page 2? no
did cagey post on page 3? no
did cagey post on page 4? yes
when cagey posted, did he interact with the topic of the thread in any way shape or form? no
did he rush to defend white people? DING DING DING
did cagey post on page 2? no
did cagey post on page 3? no
did cagey post on page 4? yes
when cagey posted, did he interact with the topic of the thread in any way shape or form? no
did he rush to defend white people? DING DING DING
Trolling on top of defending users making race based insults. Is this permitted?
How am I trolling for calling out a common derailment tactic? Rolling into an ongoing discussion about gentrification/anti-blackness just to complain and shift the discussion to how white people feel. It's tired.
Again, you had absolutely no thoughts to express in this thread until someone said something about white people.
Someone should replace it with this.
No, they should use that doormat.
What's off-putting to me is entertaining the thought of harassing (or even just mistreating) a white person based on having "thug life" on their doormat, or joking about that. And I thought there was an association between mayo and white people, I felt white person-mayonnaise associations come up often in these sorts of threads, so I mentioned the mayo.
Surely what the thread is about, when there's not a single post in this thread that details how exactly this slights black people. If you don't want to be the one to talk about it, cool. But don't fault people for failing to see what's wrong with "Thug Life" written on a door mat. You want the discussion to revolve around how this slights black people? I'm being as sincere as I can, I'd love an explanation we can discuss.
Without an explanation, this comes off as a bizarre and comical situation to most people who read this thread.
Thought the answer was pretty well reasoned and would probably work out that way.
That is to say, the person who puts this floormat out probably doesn't know that some people find it offensive to them, and they're likely the kind of person who is very sensitive to that type of thing but they genuinely do not know it can be offensive. They think it's a funny, kitsche, ironic meme -- a Home Good's welcome mat with comic diamonds on it and "thug life" in a playful font -- so they probably don't mean it to be offensive, though knowing that people can be upset by this, they'll likely apologize and remove it.
That is to say, the person who puts this floormat out probably doesn't know that some people find it offensive to them, and they're likely the kind of person who is very sensitive to that type of thing but they genuinely do not know it can be offensive. They think it's a funny, kitsche, ironic meme -- a Home Good's welcome mat with comic diamonds on it and "thug life" in a playful font -- so they probably don't mean it to be offensive, though knowing that people can be upset by this, they'll likely apologize and remove it.
Could be worse. Could be a frat guy living that Chug Life. Imagine getting upset over a novelty doormat. lol
So coming from an Italian family, if a neighbor put out a rug that said "mob life" should I be offended? Or is their something different about thug life that applies more harshly? The article didn't really tell me why it's insensitive or why it's taking someone else's culture (is thug like a minority term only or something? Could have sworn it's existed for a long time)
the problem with that is that the idea that "thug culture" is something people want to keep as 'their own'.
I don't believe most people particularly want to identify as violent drug addict misogynistic criminals, or have that as a common perception of 'their culture' unique to them.
Just incase other people read my quote in your post, that sentence wasn't written by me but the response from Gothamist I was quoting and responding to :)
I agree. I think it's also worth noting that this welcome mat is almost definitely an appropriation of hip hop music culture, which itself was an appropriation of gang culture from the 80s and 90s. I think some people can reasonably still be offended by it and it's good to talk to someone about how that could be offensive to them, and they'll probably think differently though tit.
Though, Let's remember, most hip hop artists who sing lyrics about gang culture, or thug life, never experienced that life.
This article says it better than I can because you can't get further from gang culture than a big dumb white bird on the internet: https://hiphopdx.com/editorials/id.2060/title.keep-it-real-hip-hops-changing-views-on-authenticity#
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Yeah, sorry, I nested the quote to try and make that clear
But the mat is itself is ironic, acknowledging that the life is not their own.
Appropriation is when you take from another culture, but the mat does the opposite. It reinforces and pokes fun at the divide.
Not really. From the OP article:
This itself is a tenuous claim, people pay tribute to all sorts of dead artists through all sorts of products. Putting a quote on a doormat isn't going to be viewed as stomping on the legacy of something by most people.
The use of irony in this case significantly weakens the argument that it's harmful appropriation at all, as the repossession is itself undermined by the acknowledgement that the owner of the mat is not earnestly claiming to be a part of the culture.
Edit: sorry for double post.
Good point or even tying back into the original story, hip hop gang pop-culture has long appropriated from Italian mafioso pop-culture. And even Mafioso culture was an appropriation from an earlier authentic culture before it. A running theme in the Sopranos (taken from most mafia non-fiction), and other mob pop culture, is that these guys didn't start "Acting like mobsters" until they saw how mobsters were "supposed to act" by watching The Godfather and Goodfellas.