3 ms·

How can you be ironically racist, and why is that better than racism?

• tombert 8y ago
  In hindsight you are right, but I'll give you the mentality that 14-year-old-me had: Basically, the idea of being racist is so absurd, that by being ironically racist I'm poking fun at the racists, not the races. It's not a completely ridiculous notion (though it's abused heavily); satire is a common tactic for comedy. Clearly people go too far, and I don't think it's a good excuse to say "it's just satire".
• menacingly 8y ago
  The same way you can be ironically anything. It's not immune to modifiers just because it's offensive.
  • tombert 8y ago
    I mean, I do think it's way too easy for someone to say something horrible, and then get off with no consequences because they claim it's just a joke (or locker room talk... cough). I'm not exactly sure where we draw the line socially. I don't really have a problem with something like The Colbert Report, but I also really hate the "shitlord" movement that seems to be happening.
• 101001001001 8y ago
  If you look inside a persons mind, an ironic racist says racist things simply to make fun of people who get too easily offended by racism. Someone who is actually racist says those things and also believes them. Ten years ago, in white suburbia, saying “nigger” was worse than murdering someone. It was clear that a social feedback system had developed where the least racist person was considered most virtuous, leading to people doing all kinds of rediculous things in order to be least racist, the denial of common sense and logic and true statistics became like a thorn in the mind of anyone who was not swayed by herd mentality. It was in this atmosphere of deadly seriousness about racism that it became outrageously funny to say racist things. Just like every other anti-racism effort by white affluent people, it only made everything worse and made racism funny. I guarantee that without this atmosphere of hyper-anti-racism, people would not have been saying “nigger” on early 4chan. As 4chan got more popular the average iq went down and the proportion of people that really meant it increased.