Several years ago, I attended one of Kent Hovind’s seminars in St Cloud — it was genuinely the worst talk I’ve ever heard. It was over-long, it was shallow, it was a succession of lies, and it was full of really bad cornpone jokes — some of which were anti-semitic or marginally racist. It was terrible.
It seems the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree. Kent Hovind’s son, Eric, was affiliated with a pair of clowns spawned from Creation Science Evangelism, in something called The T.R.U.T.H. Group. They put out YouTube videos, including this one from several years ago. These are really bad YouTube videos. Prepare yourself for some astonishing trash.
First, the content here is worthless: they’re going on and on about the taxonomic revision of Brontosaurus to Apatosaurus, which occurred in the 1970s after more specimens had been found. This transition was not a big deal; it’s expected and unsurprising that taxa defined by partial skeletons can get renamed with the discovery of more examples, but of course creationist dumbasses think it’s somehow significant or cause for doubt.
No, what will make your jaws drop isn’t the vapid point they’re making, but how they make it. For some unfathomable reason, they chose to dress up as Professor Dhing Dhong (with coke bottle glasses, buck teeth, and a Japanese accent straight out of 1940s propaganda cartoons) and Professor Shama Lama (with skin stained orange (?), wearing a fez, and using a ludicrous Indian accent). Believe me, I couldn’t believe it myself.
Are you charmed yet? Watch the performance.
Racist as fuck.
They try to defend themselves in the comments with the same argument Ken Ham uses: creationists can’t be racist because they believe all the races are descendants of Noah.
There’s only 1 human race, my friend. No nationality is any more advanced than any other nationality. We ALL got off the same boat (Noah’s ark) together. How about you? What’s your explanation of the different nationalities. I’m curious, according to evolution, which one’s are more preferable than the others?
Evolution doesn’t argue for higher or lower, but I know one thing: the Bible claims they’re all descendants of Noah, all right, but by their vicious little myth, one race is cursed to servility.
I thought about going through some other T.R.U.T.H. Group videos to see if they were all this shamelessly bigoted, but I couldn’t bear it. One was enough.
No. The still images were quite enough, thank you very much.
Nationality = Race?
The only thing I’m surprised about is that they left the comments open.
It seems a habit of religious nuts to cry persecution and disallow comments.
I remember when a lot of liberals were defending Stephen Colbert when he made use of such racist tropes.
What strikes me is the sheer gratuitousness of it. There’s no reason why race had to be brought up at all with this. They could just as easily have done a Jerry Lewis Nutty Professor impression. In addition to the obvious benefit of *not being racist*, it would actually fit better in their attempt at depicting the “know-nothing smart guy” trope. But nah, racism.
The big difference between this and what Colbert did was that Colbert was lampooning racist attitudes and these guys are just racist.
this is what I like about the internet what ever you post publicly it is there for all to see for ever!
there is no way to change it. It is public property.
uncle frogy
Hitler was a creationist.
https://coelsblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/nazi-racial-ideology-was-religious-creationist-and-opposed-to-darwinism/
“iron law of Nature–which compels the various species to keep within the definite limits of their own life-forms when propagating and multiplying their kind.”
“This urge for the maintenance of the unmixed breed … prevails throughout the whole of the natural world … The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger.”
So according Eric Hovind Hitler was not a racist.
Sure.
This video/justification is amazingly close to this skit by Mitchell & Webb.
Yikes! Hey, Creationists! The 1930s called and they want their racial stereotypes back!
To their partial credit, their ethnic stereotypes are about a century more advanced than their understanding of science.
I bet those characters go over real good at the church social after Sunday service. The African with the bone through the nose, they had to stop doing, however. Seems it causes Miss Daisy to snort her punch through her nose, ruining her Sunday best and she complained to the good Reverend.
Speaking of creationism and racism:
–http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/racism.html
–http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/05/dr-west-meet-dr.html
In Christianity, if you think of something then it is automatically brilliant – because god wouldn’t let you think of it if it wasn’t.
I want to thank PZ for watching this, so I don’t have to. The warning light on my stupid-o-meter was reading toxic, so I turned the video off.
DPB, that is where you are mistaken. When Colbert was lampooning the Washington football team, he made use of a nine year clip of him doing that “Chinese” accent, and he was criticized by some for doing that the first time around. In other words, he know that clip was racist and yet he used it anyway.
And you are defending him for that.
Thank you for proving my point.
Janine the jackbooted emotion queen:
You forgot to mention that Colbert is a misogynist too. When he did that clip using the stereotyped Chinese accent, he was using it to demean and degrade the female intern of the show who had made his tea for the bit he was doing. Even though the Colbert show was a parody of right-wing conservative “news” shows everything Colbert did on that show was an accurate reflection of his true beliefs. Just like when Carroll O’Connor played Archie Bunker on All in the Family, he wasn’t just portraying a racist character, he was expressing his true beliefs that white Europeans are superior to all other ethnicities. You are 100% correct in believing that when actors and comedians use satire and irony to mock racists, bigots, and misogynists, they should never themselves exhibit any ethnic stereotype, because, by doing so, they automatically become racist, bigoted, or misogynist themselves. Here’s a link to the bit in question. You can see how much of a racist Colbert really is and how he is, in no way, an actor using parody, satire, and irony to mock people who really are racist, bigoted, and/or misogynist.
http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/xul3qa/intercepted-satellite-feed
@ David Rutten (#9)
Was that just an excuse to post a Mitchell & Webb video, or do you really believe the two are similar?
They claim not to be racist, and yet Ham’s descendants are conspicuously not represented. Where’s the blackface character? Was Inspector Sambo Hambone (complete with leopard-print loincloth, spear, and septum bone-piercing) on assignment when this investigative video was being recorded, or did he make his contribution in bales of cotton?
Daniel of the Truth group is the moron that Eric did the museum visit with.
Where they set upon showing how badly educated the two are.
http://youtu.be/40lR_v_w78U
Based on my experiences, religion in America is more often than not used as a means of looking down upon others. The proof of this is in how American Christians completely forget everything that is supposed to be the core of Jesus’ teachings, such as “Judge not, that ye be not judged”, “Love thy neighbor as thyself”, or “Whatever you do to the least of your brethren, you do unto me”. While professing to be True Christians©, they treat the poor as takers that deserve their financial status, scream about setting up nationalized health care, and treat anyone not in their chosen group as fundamentally tainted.
Within this context, endemic racism in those who consider themselves to be more devout is to be expected.
“…at the church social after Sunday service … causes Miss Daisy to snort her punch through her nose…”
If you mean the Miss Daisy who had Hoak as her driver, she was Jewish.
Today’s creationists are revisionists of their own history. It is they who used to claim “god put the waters there to separate the races” (see: Loving v Virginia) until it was no longer socially acceptable to say. They probably still believe it, they just don’t say it out loud anymore.
@johnmarley (#18), the justification; “it can’t be racist because there’s some truth in it” struck me as similar. Except of course M&W aren’t idiots and torpedo the argument almost immediately whereas T.R.U.T.H. doesn’t understand that a single non-racist aspect does not turn the whole thing non-racist.
Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.
Whoa! I just saw most of 1970s British sitcoms.
and nobody needs an excuse to post Mitchell & Web.
I just went to the T.R.U.T.H. web site, and it reminded me of an observation someone made a long time ago. If you see an organization or ‘nym with some attribute like “truth” in the name, you can usually bet you’re about to get the opposite from them. Long tradition of this, with the the Russian paper Pravda (Truth) being a prime example.
@ David Rutton (#24)
True, but, as PZ pointed out, the video in the OP didn’t even make that argument. There was not a single non-racist aspect, there wan no reason other than racism to use those caricatures.
Mykroft:
See also: many, many “family” organizations.
I like how they confuse “races” with nationalities. And how they completely cannot understand anyone else’s point. And how their defenders are poor writers.
Holy crap.
I don’t imagine this will be positive for their long term strategy. Cluelessness and stupidity eventually take care of themselves I guess.
Bronze Dog wrote:
Or anyone with “Skeptic” or “Rationalist” in their nym. Or any organization with liberty or freedom in their name. Or…
Based on my experiences, religion in America is more often than not used as a means of looking down upon others. The proof of this is in how American Christians completely forget everything that is supposed to be the core of Jesus’ teachings, such as “Judge not, that ye be not judged”, “Love thy neighbor as thyself”, or “Whatever you do to the least of your brethren, you do unto me”. While professing to be True Christians©, they treat the poor as takers that deserve their financial status, scream about setting up nationalized health care, and treat anyone not in their chosen group as fundamentally tainted.
Within this context, endemic racism in those who consider themselves to be more devout is to be expected.