to tell son NOT to post memes of black people

@LiesLiesEverywhere You never know judging by some responses on this thread.

What?

Oh and I used that lady because her expression was the funniest. I suppose I could’ve used this one instead.

Calm down @Zow - I didn't post it as a 'gotcha'. It contributes to the discussion, and the OP asked for opinions.
But god forbid that you're ever confronted with a new thought, eh.

I dont see how it is racist, and I'm of Caribbean descent?

Legally? What statute does that fall under?

Could have used the dog

This is absurd. The meme is nothing to do with the guy's skin colour. Can't you tell? Have you not seen it online before? It's the expression of incredulity that people want to put across. The guy in the meme does it perfectly.
Maybe you ought to learn a bit about meme culture before you go wringing your hands at your son, you will be able to offer useful guidance rather than proving you are so out of touch that he can ignore you.

This. You’ve articulated it so perfectly. It’s not obviously or blatantly racist but I can see where the concern from the Op is coming from. I think there’s a stat that shows black peope are disproportionately represented in memes or at least the popular memes that are used.

If it's saying he's giving bombastic side eye then it's actually praising him. It's not 'disgusting side eye.'

ODFOD now you can't post memes?

You've lost the plot and need to get a grip.

Bit of a straw man argument - neither myself nor the poster I am quoting said that.

I won’t engage further as it’s clear you’re someone who will make passive aggressive comments when people are trying to explain nuanced topics around race.

The largest group of the world's population is black so hardly surprising if that is reflected on line.... but yeah racism /s

Why is it racist?

Side eye applies to anyone - nothing racist.

Bombastic applies to anyone - nothing racist.

“Bombastic evolved as an adjective to describe something (or someone!) that is overly wordy, pompous, or pretentious, but the adjective is most often used to describe language (speech or writing).”

🙄

I think you're being more racist. What you're saying is akin to people whispering "black" as if somehow talking about or featuring black people in a normal, colourblind way is racist. A black person can feature in a funny meme just as a white person can. If the joke is specifically about their being black, that's different. But it doesn't sound like it is.

Excellent post. You actually are genuinely open to listening either way to people directly affected by it .

Haven’t RTFT so I don’t know if anyone black has responded to you directly but there’s someone posted a few posts up describing how they felt it was racist in a particular situation.

I also wanted to add my bit to the thread , and say the topic is nuanced. Black people are underrepresented in a lot of world advertising, art, literature and media but suddenly they’re represented widely in memes which are often expressing comical or exaggerated emotion.

Looking at the history of black people often
being depicted as caricatures and not taken seriously etc It’s not a leap to see why people may find that offensive as in the case of the (black) poster who shared their experience upthread.

It’s not necessarily a simple yes or no, but if people can’t engage critically there’s no point. There’s a lot of “just tell us why it’s racist on this thread” then when someone does explain it from their POV there’s these passive aggressive, hyper-defensive comments made.

From looking at the first few pages of this thread I can see why the few people who understand where OP is coming from bowed out and I’m bowing out too after this post - because nothing makes British people angrier and more defensive than suggesting racism and it shows on this thread 😬

For those who are genuinely interested, I won’t post links but do a quick google and read up on some educated debate on this - there’s no consensus on this even among black people but you might better understand what it’s about.

Exactly.

This is just ridiculous.

And it’s absolutely unnecessary of adults to continue encouraging the division of people by telling their young child that it would be racist to post a meme of someone BECAUSE they’re black!

If it were a racist meme, sure it would be racist. But it’s not is it? If it’s just a funny gif used to illustrate something he’s saying in conversation, why should he purposely exclude a meme and choose one with a white person?! That’s so divisive and perpetuates racism.

Your son saw a person, and you saw a ‘black person’.

yes there’s a history to racism but we need to stop it being a present - a here and now. And how can we do that if we drag our kids into our complicated thought processes? If they’re not being racist why make it about race?!

I mean, while we are at it, do you not let your son post memes if they have women in? Or any other ‘race’ of person? Or disabled people? Or gay people?

and you sound mad at him? He is clearly thoughtful and doesn’t - in his time context/era - consider it racist. So why get cross at him?

Wait, wait.

Black people aren't even allowed to be in memes now?

What's next? Black comedians being banned because that's just people laughing 'at' black people?

So ridiculous. Those memes have many variations of people of all races, animals and even inanimate objects.

How do you people manage to get through a day?

Lumping "British people" together is Xenophobia

I use this meme a lot. It's funny not racist.

nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/02/roll-safe-the-guy-tapping-head-meme-explained.html

I think the key fact here is that someone else on the group has posted a meme with a racist comment, therefore the OPs son’s post is more likely to look like it has racist intent. Whereas if all was fine on the group it might be ok. Im not black and i would be very cautious of posting a meme of a black person unless it was very clearly positive about the person in the meme.

Memes are a form of expression and reaction a lot of the time. A "this is how I'm feeling" in an image.

There are plenty of white people in them. And animals.

I would hazard a guess most people don't even LOOK at the colour of the person in the gif normally (this thread excepted as I am sure people are specifically picking the black gifs to make a point)

Is it OK for him to post memes of white people?