mmhm : WTF

Dunno the girl on the right staring like a psycho. The one in the back having a "what the flying fuck" expression. The little baby looking like it just saw a dog shit in it's own mouth. The mom ... I don't even have to talk about the mom. Those victorian era/amish looking dresses for the girls. The "improvised" hairdos for all of them.

Also living in the 21st century everyone dressed in late 70s early 80s clothing like that automatically looks funny to me.

Please enlighten me, what exactly does any of this have to do with the color of their skin or what you perceive my observations about that to be? There is not being racist and then there is trying soooo hard not being racist that you can't see the lulz in a clearly hilarious picture because you're so afraid of laughing at something.

Show me the same picture with any other ethnicity in that configuration and I'd still find it funny, especially with the bobbing heads. Furthermore, how am I being racist if the first thing I thought of was this when I saw that picture in motion? Clearly I must hate black people.

Let me tell you something, I'm a German. People have been calling me a Nazi all my life. If I was bitter and defensive about things I have nothing to do with I'd still get angry. I'm over that. Now I laugh at funny things. It's called growing up. If you're telling me I'm racist for laughing at a funny image that happens to contain black people ... you need to grow up. Come back and school me when I start generalizing people with other skin colors for stereotypes. Then we can talk.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points5 points 1 year ago*

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What you're doing is piling up a vast amount of anecdotal reasons that you don't think you are being racist when you're already convinced that you're not being racist. What the hell am I supposed to convince you of in this argument? That you're lying to yourself?

This is the problem with any argument about racist humor. I have to somehow convince you that this joke is completely reliant on taking a picture of a relatively normal black family and making their heads move in a way that is widely known as stereotypically "black", which itself isn't necessarily negative racism, but the idea of this being funny in and of itself is demonstrably a negative perception assigned to a general aspect of perceived black culture.

All the while, the only burden you have is of providing any number of personal anecdotes about why you in particular don't find this racist. I can't force you to see yourself as racist. It's not an argument I'm interested in pursuing.

[–]r0ckarong -2 points-1 points0 points 1 year ago

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I'm just trying to understand what anyone could see as racist about this. It's a fucking animated GIF of a funny looking family photo.

I've got a problem with the idea that you would know what a "relatively normal black family" looks like. How? I am asking you? Is that not racism in itself? Making assumptions about how a certain group of people looks? I am quite sure that you could show me about a hundred family portraits from the 80s of black families and only a very few would be absurd like this one. So you've made an assumption about black families.

Then you're talking about the way their heads are made to move in a "widely known stereotypically black" fashion. WHAT THE FUCK. That is even more racist. I know dozens of completely pasty white people that have never met a black man in person that move their heads exactly like this while listening to music. I fucking do it, albeit way faster, when listening to Metal music. Arguably one of the most famous memes is the Night at the Roxbury GIF that I linked to earlier. That's whiter than white and that's why it is funny. Because it just looks goofy bobbing your head like that to a beat even though it's great fun and a natural reaction. It looks goofy on EVERYONE.

This is exactly what I meant. You're trying so hard not to be racist that you operate within these stereotypes since you need them to identify racism. For someone who's actually not racist these things don't even exist.

Also, I don't understand yet again how a picture of an arguably absurd looking family portrait, modified to show a natural human reaction to certain types of musical rythms could possibly be (and these are your words): "a negative perception assigned to a general aspect of perceived black culture". It's funny looking people, looking even more goofy because they are bobbing their head. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BLACK PEOPLE. Calm the fuck down. I think you are way oversensitized. That's what I was trying to say about the Nazi thing. I used to be like that until I realized that the only way you can get rid of stereotypes and bigotry is not to think in their categories. Not even for identifying them when they are used. Sure, every now and again a racist remark will hit me out of the blue but that is because I don't think in their terms. You apply a filter to the things you see, you have a set of conditions that you acquired that you perceive to be racist stereotypes. By adopting these as means for filtering your perception you adopt them as your perception. You see racism where there is none simply because you aren't capable of taking a step back and seeing the overall impact. In this case you construct a racist demeanor into the people's enjoyment of this picture whereas it's simply a funny picture. And why? Because your filter is set to notice only your preset conditions for racism. You see black people and your first alarm goes off, that's one of your categories to look out for. Then you see a head-bob and that's another trigger because you have taken the "that's a black thing" over into your thinking. Now you're bracing for racist impact while people just goof off about how funny this looks.

I'd be happy, nay, glad to find out which kind of argument you'd be interested din pursuing.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points4 points 1 year ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

[–]r0ckarong -1 points0 points1 point 1 year ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

And you don't even have the decency to explain to me where I am wrong in your opinion? How is this a case. You're folding your arms going: "See just what I thought you would say" without even making clear what your point is. I call that poor conversational skills at best.

Where is your "factual" evidence for the racism? What kind of veiled insults are you referring to? For someone who's trying to make a point about a better thought out perception of the world you're making a pretty bad case with your lack of argument. I'd even go so far as to speculate you didn't even read any of what I just wrote. 2 minutes to read half a page of text and make up your mind with valid points? You must be a genius.

I'd rather be called a racist for the rest of my life than having to deal with people that wanna tell me they're better than me but don't care to elaborate even how they arrive at that conclusion. Have a good day. I can live with false accusations that have no merit, but I can't accept false claims of superiority without even the slightest hint of justification or reasoning for that assumption.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points4 points 1 year ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

Barraging someone with insults about elitism is pretty common in these kinds of arguments, but there's nothing inherently elitist about seeing something as racist where other people don't.

What you've done is turned this argument into the textual equivalent of a shouting match by providing a nearly endless set of personal examples of why your thought processes don't make you racist, when in fact the argument was never about whether or not you were racist in the first place. This is what I meant about not being able to argue at all from my side - your argumentative position has framed the discussion in terms of your personal experiences, which I could obviously never argue against.

I would go even further and argue that a consciousness of racist artwork and humor is preceded by the formation of a person's sociological imagination. Taking that argument to its logical conclusion, I would posit that the platform from which you choose to view the world is too narrow in terms of the validity of your personal experiences, and that a true discussion of racism - which is a cultural, not personal, phenomenon - requires two parties with the ability to exclude their personal experiences from the talk.

In short, I think your argumentation in sum is faulty and comprised primarily of invalid evidence, and I choose not to rebut said evidence.

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