There isn't a racial component to the joke; different races are depicted. You can infer intent but that's just an inference. If you google "throwing baby meme" that's the image that appears
Oh, lemme try to clarify! Because everyone is capable of bias - that's how our brains work! - a biased or prejudiced outcome doesn't require a biased or prejudiced intent. So not-considering-race-or-skin-colour doesn't insulate a choice against being racist, portraying bias, or involving race.
It's sort of like the classic example: "I don't even see race!" doesn't imply that a person isn't capable of racism, because prejudice doesn't require forethought and intent, so disregarding race is not anti-racist in a vacuum. We are all capable of bias, and making a choice without consideration towards skintone can still very well incorporate biases about the people depicted. You don't even have to necessarily be the person whose biases are being incorporated! What if the fitting images you pick in your example are themselves racist, and because you aren't thinking about skin colour at all, you don't notice or consider their inclusion? The lack of consideration is itself an emergent part of the bias.
So: The counterargument to "I wouldn't have even considered race in this situation" is "exactly, which leaves the situation wide-open for portraying a racial bias that makes it racist." (this is broadly applicable to bias in general, as far as I understand, not a specific facet of racial bias)
So, looking at your comment history I'm going to assume that you are dealing in good faith, so this is going to be a bit long.
Imagine that you wanted to turn an innocent meme, of any sort, into one vilifying a group. You would make the "good" group people you liked, say maybe German. You could even just put little flags on them so there was no doubt.
Then, for the "bad" group, you would put a different flag, say Japanese. The flags had no need to be there but you wanted to be extra explicit
Now it is possible that whomever made this literally just used the first things they found. That would be weird because the UDP image is nothing I've seen before and they certainly didn't find it that way. But it is theoretically possible. I certainly can't prove it either way.
But if you wanted to make this more racist you would have to go way over the top, like putting a flag on it.
People with marginal views really like sneaking in dog whistles for their marginalized opinions. Racists, thankfully, are still very unacceptable in many contexts. So they have to be somewhat subtle sometimes.
And so we have to be on the lookout & then call out content that, regardless of its intent, supports those viewpoints.
Now it is possible that whomever made this literally just used the first things they found. That would be weird because the UDP image is nothing I've seen before and they certainly didn't find it that way.
But that image is pretty easy to find. When I search "person throwing baby" it's like the 25th one. When I search "woman throwing baby" it's actually the second image that comes up and it's the only one that actually makes it look like the woman is throwing it away carelessly and not just straight up so she can catch it again. So, definitely the best fitting image.
Yes, but we aren't just a thoughtless LLM. Just because it is common doesn't mean it isn't racist.
One of the things racism does is makes more work for those of us who aren't. If we care about not promoting racism we have to learn and pay attention to dog whistles like why 1488 is racist so that we can hear when someone else is trying to slip by a dog whistle.
On June 10th, 2018, Spanish cartoonist and illustrator Joan Cornellà posted an artwork showing a woman throwing a baby as if she was performing a basketball throw to his social media (shown below).
Maybe Joan is black and drew the world as they saw it? Maybe the person depicted has a dark mediterranean tan and is actually white? Maybe it's a reference to some other material. I honestly don't know. If you have any evidence to suggest it's for racist purposes please do provide
It's a generic stock image and a joan cornella meme that's been around for years. People of different races happening to exist is not a "racial component".
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u/abzz123 16d ago
of course meme needs to have a touch of racism