I was reading an interview with Jamie Foxx where he spoke about the controversy and arguments about the movie Django Unchained that he stars in. Several critics have said that the film is racist and disrespectful. I’m not going to comment on the film, but I loved this quote he gave:
As a black person, everything is racial and it is always bad. If I attend a buffet at a promotional event and see little trinkets of cheese, I go: ‘What is this? Haven’t you got some black people coming? This is white people’s food!’
But then if I come in and they have chicken and watermelon laid out, I go: ‘Tsk! They think we only eat this stuff!’ We always say it is bad because we always get the bad end of the stick.
He’s saying this is a tongue-in-cheek way, but recently, looking at my Twitter feed, I feel like the web industry could learn a lesson from this as there’s been a lot of negativity lately. I’m not saying that the issues that have caused some of this negativity needn’t be addressed, but maybe, we as an industry should stop trying to see the bad in everything.
I’m proposing that the next time you see something you disagree with or don’t like, try and think of at least one good about it before you start ranting about it publicly. You might discover that your rant isn’t needed or at the very least, it might make your argument a more informed one!
Liam, I was reading this post thinking ‘this is definitely written by an Englishman’… As a fellow countryman, I fully agree with you that we have a tendency to offer a negative opinion, comment, argument, point – call it what you wish – before we say something positive…
Why do we do that? I too am guilty of this, and I think it is a English/British trait (unfortunately). I know the quote is by the American Jamie Foxx, but I always regard Americans as being a much more positive nation than we are.
Cheers. Lee from Feetus.co.uk