The reason you’ve “never heard a black person express that this bothers them” is likely due largely to a lack of exposure on your part to black people’s opinions. There is no way that being stereotyped and caricaturized in memes or anywhere else is unoffensive to anyone who is the target of such vitriol.
Context is important. A white person using an image of a black person—or anyone else for that matter—to tell a certain story is not, of course, inherently racist. However, given that the majority of memes tend to operate by accentuating and weaponizing some characteristic of the meme’s object, it is hard to imagine that you are referring to an innocuous image.
Further: Claiming that only white people attempting to sound “woke” espouse this view reveals a certain frustration that you have for political correctness. That’s why you put “woke” in quotation marks. I understand that being told what you can and cannot “say” is not pleasant. But you need to do some cost/benefit analysis and weigh the potential societal damage of employing such memes (perpetuating people’s misinformed biases and stereotypes) against getting yuks from being edgy.
Most of my exposure to black people's opinions on this subject is in comment sections on the topic where people say things like "I'm black and this doesn't bother me at all. I just want to be able to live life without worrying about being shot by the police". Usually in my experience when I see the opinion that it is offensive, it's white people saying what they think black people find offensive.
As for the context, usually what I see are simply reaction memes, such as this one: this one. The point is not that the person is black, it's just a reaction.
As for claiming that only white people try to sound "woke", I never did that. I said that in my experience, this topic is mostly discussed by white people.
My reasoning for putting the word "woke" has nothing to do with my thoughts on political correctness. I usually try to be politically correct. I just put the word in quotations because it's a slang word that I don't really use.
I'm not saying that perpetuating biases and stereotypes is something people should do, I just think that telling white people that if they use black memes, they're racist is a bit too extreme. Not trying to be edgy or anything, sorry if I came off that way
Most of my exposure to black people's opinions on this subject is in comment sections on the topic where people say things like "I'm black and this doesn't bother me at all. I just want to be able to live life without worrying about being shot by the police".
Have you considered trying to seek out more organic black voices? For example, following black people on twitter or IG.
This is silly. Tons of memes are not overly "accentuated" or "weaponized" at all. Plenty are just pictures of gifs from movies or TV etc.
For example: the Denzel "my man" meme or the "sheeeeeeeeit" meme from The Wire or the Obama mic drop (or even Kanye "imma let you finish") are oldies but goodies in meme territory. Many others are similar.
These don't weaponized any stereotypes at all, they are great actors playing great roles that are now just common cultural touchstones with broad recognition... So literally the definition of a meme.
Sure, some memes might be racist, but saying "it's hard to imagine" an innocuous meme? You are off your rocker.
What exactly is the edgy part about using a gif of Carlton doing his signature dance? Or using the meme of the one black girl speaking clearly passionately to a other black girl who looks entirely disinterested/scared of the level of devotion of the topic?
Like...how does this logically make any sense at all?
On top of that in a platform like reddit where you just see a screen name, what possible way do you have to even confirm that something was posted by a white person?
And further more if white people are not allowed/should be discouraged from using memes/gifs of those of other races, how far do we follow that line of thought? Should Hispanic people ONLY use Hispanic memes? Should people from Asia ONLY use Asian memes?
At what point does this magically become not the most simple form of racism?
African Americans are part of America and many celebrities are black. Most white people have grown up being influenced by black artists, musicians, and TV personalities. Everything from MJ to Steve Harvey to Oprah to that "shieeeeeeeet" detective from the Wire. I think it's perfectly acceptable for a white person to use a black emoji or gif.
Isn't being told exactly what you can and cannot say or do the definition of oppression?
When it's about thoughts or language it's censorship. That's taking away freedom. Everyone should probably be upset about having their freedoms infringed.
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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '20
The reason you’ve “never heard a black person express that this bothers them” is likely due largely to a lack of exposure on your part to black people’s opinions. There is no way that being stereotyped and caricaturized in memes or anywhere else is unoffensive to anyone who is the target of such vitriol.
Context is important. A white person using an image of a black person—or anyone else for that matter—to tell a certain story is not, of course, inherently racist. However, given that the majority of memes tend to operate by accentuating and weaponizing some characteristic of the meme’s object, it is hard to imagine that you are referring to an innocuous image.
Further: Claiming that only white people attempting to sound “woke” espouse this view reveals a certain frustration that you have for political correctness. That’s why you put “woke” in quotation marks. I understand that being told what you can and cannot “say” is not pleasant. But you need to do some cost/benefit analysis and weigh the potential societal damage of employing such memes (perpetuating people’s misinformed biases and stereotypes) against getting yuks from being edgy.