Another gem in exposing the micro aggressions we often don’t think twice about, building upon the hilarious If Gay People Said the Stuff Straight People Say and If Asian People Said the Stuff White People Say videos.
I know sometimes it can be uncomfortable to have to face these jokes, and we often want to have a knee-jerk reaction and say “I don’t do that!” and look away, or dismiss these scenarios as not realistic, but the truth is that these comments happen all the time, most of the time probably from people who are well-intentioned.
But your intentions don’t matter much when it comes to doing something that makes people feel like an object, or makes them feel different or like they don’t belong.
As a straight white person, I feel like there’s something we can learn from all of these videos if we’re honest with ourselves. It’s not about feeling guilty about oppression, it’s about taking a look at ourselves to see if we contribute in any way, and then stopping whatever we’re doing.
Once you know better, you can do better. Not to mention the fact that these videos are really, really funny.
h/t Colorlines
yeah that’s pretty awful. I hope the meaning comes through.
PS. My apologies for the grammatical errors. Google Voice Recognition sucks.
You know I hate to be the devil’s advocate here, but I can’t help noticing it is almost always white academics who write articles like this. Now I as a teacher I like to tell my students just on the first day of class something along the lines of Spike Lee’s famous words, “white men can’t jump.” I ask if anyone is offended by the statement. The only reaction I have ever received from any person of color in any classroom has been a muffled laugh and a nod of the head. As a white man, I simply am not… Read more »
Ben, we all have things that strike a nerve with us. There are some things I can joke around about myself but there are other things that are completely off limit, that hit too close to home. Just because you’re not offended by the “white man can’t jump” catch phrase, doesn’t mean that other people can’t feel offended by other stereotypes made about them. Plus the likihood of your inability to not jump affecting how much you are paid, if you get a good education, get a good job or get looked at differently when going to buy a car,… Read more »
Well, I’m going to have to disagree with you about my vertical leap having no affect on my life. Spike Lee is certainly not white. Should we give him a pass simply because he comes from a historically oppressed minority in the US? He is certainly of a socioeconomic class far above my own. Should that matter? Frankly, I don’t really care. He’s right. And funny. And at least in my experience those with the greatest sense of humor with regards to racial jokes are people of color. Those with the highest number of nerves to be struck tend to… Read more »
Erin, I love your comment.
Ben, just remember that while Spike Lee may have more money than you, he still can’t get a cab in midtown Manhattan. You seem to have an issue with white academics, but I assure you that with good reason Blacks are usually very sensitive to race jokes. If ethnic humor is really funny and is not meant to demean, the joke would be just as funny without the ethnic baggage. And the mixture of race and sex is toxic. Maybe I was standing in the line for Asian businessmen when they were handing out genitals, so I cringe when I… Read more »
I’m a white, heterosexual woman. It always catches me off guard just how much each little segment resonated with me or that I could identify with because I’ve heard or seen it somewhere else before enough to be familiar with it. It was shocking that every stereotype was familiar to me. You don’t even always realize just how familiar these points are until they are brought right out. There wasn’t a clip that didn’t resonate here. If people just remember that people just want to be talked to like a human being and not talked to because of their skin… Read more »
I b
Many years ago when i attended a brooklyn HS in the late 70’s I had long thick wavy hair……nice enough that middle aged women cursed me on the subway over it. I had a fair amount of black girls at school stroke it both with and without permission. Eldest daughter went to elementary school in the S.Bronx for a few years ago…….Had the same thing happen from both girls and boys….pretty white girl w/ blond wavy hair was uncommon.
It is a human issue, not so much a racial issue
Most of it is a racial issue, but you’re right that a LOT of it is people just being rude.
Nobody ever touched my kids’ hair without permission, but people were constantly touching my friend’s child’s hair, who was biracial and had (still has) a beautiful and perfect head of “wooly” (as her mom says it) hair. It was pretty absurd to behold. People commented on my child’s extremely long white-blonde hair, but they didn’t touch it the same way.
It is almost always a racial thing, but not always offensive. The racial angle is more than an add-on; it is the crux of the matter. In graduate school at Cornell University I shared an apartment with a Croatian who had very curly black hair. He preferred going to my black barber with me because a black barber can cut any type of hair and his almost nappy hair was no problem for a black barber and if he had stingy blond hair that would not have been a problem either. When we were in Serbia a group of school… Read more »