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