Racist Jokes are Still Racist

at some point in time

every black person encounters the n word

no matter who you are or where you come

from you hear it

it’s not always grand or exciting or

dramatic but it happens

a kid on your sports team your classmate

on the bus a party with some loud wrap

my first encounter was somehow more

underwhelming than any of those

it wasn’t from a clansman it wasn’t from

someone’s parents it wasn’t even from a

trump supporter

for me it was in a youtube video about

five years ago now i was watching funny

videos with my friend

i couldn’t tell you who or what but i

could tell you that i heard

a word i never thought i’d hear in that

moment i felt

a mess of emotions i was confused i was

a bit anxious i didn’t quite

get it but then i turned to my friend

and he was shuffling

in response to a 20-something-year-old

white guy on the internet saying the

n-word

he smiled and laughed in this little

tidbit of internet racism he found humor

now let’s fast forward to early 2020

when i started thinking about this

i could not walk across the cafeteria at

my school without hearing something

racist

sometimes it was just the n word with an

a a hard r some other variation

often times though it was a bit of more

complex

racial humor some joke at the expense of

a minority group

in the year 2020 i could not walk across

my school’s cafeteria without hearing

something racist

let that sink in i could not walk across

the cafeteria in a public high school in

2020

without hearing a racist comment it’s

not all reserved for the schoolhouse

though

it follows us through online games onto

youtube and into social media

as frequently as people do make racist

remarks hidden under the guise of a joke

in real life

they make astronomically more online the

online disinhibition effect makes us

more likely to say things we wouldn’t

ordinarily say

through social media because a screen

distances you from other people

and the result offensive memes running

rampant across the internet

now i’m going to digress for a second

here but bear with me for a bit of

context to make sure everyone is caught

up

in the simplest terms possible means the

jokes

they derived from richard dawkins

definition which was a unit of cultural

transmission

but as we understand them now memes are

primarily jokes or tidbits of humor

spread between people over the internet

similar but slightly different spread in

order to make their friends happy

spread in order to make yourself seem

funny spread in order to get likes and

validation

you’ve seen them before there are minion

memes cat memes

and a whole lot of others anyway

this is all fine on the surface of

course because really there’s nothing

inherently wrong with a 13 year old

seeking lights to bolster their

diminishing ego

but a problem arises when we get into

how likes can be quickly acquired

in this digital age when the human

attention span appears to be declining

in order to get a lot of likes you have

to compete against millions of other

people for your viewers attention

that means that while someone is

scrolling you’re swiping through their

feed on or their explore page

you’re competing to catch their

attention and make them stop long enough

to like your post

so while a lot of wholesome means do

exist memes that employ

a shock factor are very present and very

real too

it’s a total coincidence that slim jim

and big chunkers are popular memes

at no point did anyone in 2020 see an

abnormally large bug’s money

from 80 years ago and start genuinely

laughing at it

is not entirely pure comedy it’s a

convoluted form of shock humor

the jokes arose from the absurdity of

the humor shocking

those who saw it and they faded into

obscurity

once that absurdity was played out shock

humor isn’t always so simple though

it’s not always so clean

it is socially taboo to be racist even

races don’t like to be called that they

prefer the term

race realist no one is supposed to say

racist things or express racist ideas

online because society has determined

that those things are bad

everyone my age knows that genuine bona

fide racism is a disgusting thing

which means that no one would ever

expect you to be that

people can adjust themselves to expect

anything you have to throw at them

if you’re just throwing something silly

and random around what they’ll never

expect though if you just say get back

to picking cotton

they’ll never expect anyone to type

guacamole n-word penis

in other words edgy humor found on a

13-year-old white boy’s tick-tocks

finds its staying power in the racism

and the inherent shock value that it has

what we ought to realize though is that

everyone involved in a meme transaction

is a human being

usually a young person and what they say

online cannot stay online

i acknowledge the online disinhibition

effect earlier and

it still has merits yes people are more

likely to say stuff through a screen

than they would in real life

but what they say online done

does set a president for what they say

in person

chonkers femboy weeaboo these aren’t

words that entered the high school’s

vocabulary from nowhere

they became popular online and then they

became popular in real life

according to a virginia tech study the

percentage of people aged 15 to 21

exposed to extremist content online

rose 13 from 2013 to 2016.

this means that 7 in 10 of us were

exposed to extremist ideas in 2016.

so much like fem boys and big chunks

than other internet trends

it follows that racist joke sneak into

reality

which takes me back to 2020 in the

cafeteria

waiting for in line for lunch when

someone yells a hard r

essentially we referring to generation z

have entered a state

where despite being a group of people

totally morally opposed to racism

are comfortable with being racist as

long as it’s for a joke

in our addiction to social media in our

shortened attention spans

in our pursuit of validation from

internet strangers racist

jokes have thrived and there are a whole

host of problems associated with it

first let’s take off our humor lenses

for a second

if a white man looked at me with a dirty

look on his face

and said we should bring back slavery he

would be racist right

he would be characterized by those

around him

his behavior would be generally frowned

upon society would not condone his

actions

he said a racist thing he expressed a

racist sentiment

there was something inherently wrong

with him saying those words it demeans

me it carries a history of negative

connotations

it perpetuated racial tensions

if we were to change the circumstances a

little let’s see the white man

is the white man is an acquaintance of

mine and a situation arises

it’s a true story where he says we

should bring back slavery

and everyone starts laughing the racist

statement is still racist

nothing about the sentence changes i am

still hurt and damaged by him saying

it no matter how the context or intent

changes the racism stays racist

and the negative effects persist it

still hurts me

it still carries a negative history i

mean it’s about slavery for crying out

loud

it still increases racial tension

all our normalization of racist jokes

does is give

white men a filter to which they can

express their internalized biases

some people will argue that it’s not all

bad though some people will tell you

that it toughens us up

which it does those with more exposure

to racist humor respond more positively

in the face of racism

and that can be interpreted as take as

taking power away from racists

but does it is me not being angered by

racist taking power away from them

is their goal to make me mad the way i

see it all it does

is disarm me when i’m berated with

racist jokes

i don’t have the energy to fight back

anymore all it does is make it less

likely for me to argue when someone is

going on a tangent about ethnostates

what’s worse even if i did find a way to

selectively

argue with the genuine racist out there

because of the way we perceive humor

they could play it off as a joke

it’s one thing if a black comedian wants

to make fun of the notion of racism

and arrest racist power from the hands

of the oppressor

but if ricky from alabama says it it’s a

very different story

i mean for starters a white guy being

racist means my expectations

so it wouldn’t have any real shock value

not a joke

but more importantly is no longer about

making fun of racists

of racism it’s about desensitizing us to

it

which once again takes me back to 2020

the last time

i reached a point in my life with

someone yelling the n-word with a hard r

did not phase me over span of five years

as i and my peers became more and more

immersed in internet culture and

internet humor

i gradually became so desensitized to

racism that a loud

brazen heart art did not shake my

conscience

ever since my first moment of awkward

hesitation an eventual refusal to say

anything

i seem to have dug myself further and

further into

a hole of racist humor and at that point

i believe in myself

i struggled with regret for a very long

time regret that since sixth grade i

smiled and i nodded and i laughed

everything offensive so that my peers

wouldn’t hate me

that’s a lot of regret for a high

schooler to bear by themselves

let alone a middle schooler yes we

should all be more firm in our

in our in our opposition to racist humor

no we shouldn’t try to maintain

pleasantries with smiles and chuckles

when faced with racism

but how can you expect a middle how can

you expect middle and high schoolers to

fight racism

when they don’t know what’s a joke and

what’s real how can you expect the young

people children

to stand up for themselves when they get

caught triggered whenever they do

how can you expect racism to ever end

when the shield of a troll face protects

every racist

how can you expect a middle schooler to

look a shark in the maw

and then have the courage or skill to

defang it

you can at some point i needed to

consider that maybe the kids telling me

to pick cotton were at fault

and i shouldn’t have had to correct them

maybe the kids asking me for the n-word

passes were wrong and that’s final

they’re wrong maybe the only duty i have

is to myself

and their failure to see their issues is

on them

the burden falls on the white parents

who gave their kids unrestricted access

to social media

before they’re old enough to manage it

for themselves the white children who

in their pursuit of likes never thought

to consider our perspectives

and rejected any criticisms we had the

white members who promote and push this

garbage content

that has aid in the destruction of a

woke generation

now i’ve done my part i’ve stood my

ground

at this point the burden falls on each

and every one of you in the audience

who is racist at my expense and the duty

is to fix

that behavior the duty to fix that

behavior

that’s firmly on your shoulders

i’d like everyone my age who makes

offensive jokes to stop for a second

if you don’t think you make them you

probably do because we all do

so just stop for a second and think

about the people you’re

touching think about how helpless they

are to defend themselves

think about the little black boy

surrounded by all his white classmates

think about the issues that your jokes

bring along with them

and empathize with us all of us and make

an effort to help us

be free from racism

thank you