Was Ellen's tweet really racist?

[Propertyquandry]

here

I'm really surprised at the outrage over this. I cannot even see how it can be seen as casual racism. He's just been declared, once again, as the fastest man on the planet. Everybody loves him and she makes a joke basically alluding to the fact that he'd get her where she wants to go quicker than anything else. He even retweeted it, and not at all in a negative way. All the talk of riding him like a mule. It's a mock up of him giving her a piggy back ffs! It seems if he was white or she was black it would be ok.

[Propertyquandry]

But the responses are trying to extrapolate (i need my thesaurus) something that isn't there.

As for the club scenario, I think if you asked 500 men, black and white, to discuss it they'd overwhelmingly deduce he was an older bloke trying to hit on an attractive young women. I think very few would allude to him thinking she was hyper sexual due to her skin colour. I may be wrong but I think most men wouldn't even register that as a 'thing'.

[AdjustableWench]

I may be wrong but I think most men wouldn't even register that as a 'thing'.

I'm absolutely sure you're right about this, especially if 'most men' in this scenario are white.

And yet, Alice Walker (for example) has written about this kind of negative portrayal of black women. This makes me suspicious about how white men view black women, because I'm inclined to think that Alice Walker probably provides a better analysis of this than the average white man.

[avamiah]

BengalCatMum,
Totally agree with you.
It's just so ridiculous.
It's just ignorance.

[TheDowagerCuntess]

Ellen is clearly not racist.

That doesn't mean that things she (or someone else who's not racist) says aren't always culturally sensitive. Wittingly or unwittingly.

It's not up to white people to say if something's racist or culturally insensitive. It's just not.

Casual sexism and racism is just as insidious as out and out prejudice and discrimination. More so, often. It's what the hateful, ingrained stuff rests on.

[avamiah]

Let's forget the word Racism for the moment .
Any thoughts on Publicity?,
and that this would be News everywhere?

[Dontyoulovecalpol]

I agree, I'm fed but with crap on Twitter being "news" too.

[avamiah]

Who invented Twitter?
What is the point of it and why do people use it?

[TheDowagerCuntess]

No idea about the point of Twitter, it seems to cause nothing but grief.

[Propertyquandry]

TheDowager, I agree with your last paragraph wholeheartedly. I think a 'don't sweat the small stuff' approach to both racism and sexism is a dangerous attitude to embrace. I just don't agree that simply because a handful of people deem something offensive then it becomes so. Especially if the only basis for that offence is the mere fact that one person involved is black and the other, white. Even when it's glaringly obvious to everyone else, including most African Americans posting about it on Twitter, that race was a superfluous fact in this case. There is a small lobby of African Americans who believe that all inter racial marriages are wrong as they believe the white partner is always seeking to dominate the black partner especially if the relationship is between a white man and a black woman. They lobby for t.v shows not to depict such relationships. Their viewpoint may be valid to them but that doesn't mean they get to decree many people's living relationships as an offensive act.

[Propertyquandry]

loving relationships

[AaronBleurgh]

I think the fact Bolt himself retweeted it (and they're friends in real life) says everything. If he didn't take offence, it's not up to everyone else to put a spin on it that was neither intended or implied.

[TheDowagerCuntess]

And Twitter being a highly public platform, means people wade in with their opinion / take on the matter...

[Qwebec]

Her intentions were certainly not racist, but I agree that it is culturally insensitive. Making the joke in private with him would have been fine. Making a public statement of it is a very different matter.

[Brittanyspears]

Saying that some AAs are against interacial relationships is really reaching. They were actually illegal in some states only a fee decades ago (see Loving case) I think you will find whites are much more anti it and still are.
Hollywood movies rarely depict it as they know white audiences will not like it.
Look at the bile that is poured on the Kardashians because of their choice of partners. Mostly thinly veiled racism (i realise they are hated for other reasons too.)

As for Ellen - is she racist? no!
But she is intellegent enough to know the deep racial historical sensitivities of the US. The meme echos the old stereotype of The Buck or The Coon.
And as for twatter being news, this lazy "journalism" needs to stop immediately. Its boring and so Daily Fail.

[CheerfulYank]

Some AAs are against interracial relationships My best friend (we are white) is married to a black man and most of the outright, to-her-face prejudice she gets about it is from black women.

I do think you'd have to be American. We have had, and continue to have, such a terrible racial divide. :( It certainly wouldn't strike me as racist. To me it's no different than, say, Ellen photoshopping her self onto Michael Phelps' back and saying that she's going to have him swim her down to Hawaii or something. But I'm white. So.

There was furor recently over a GapKids ad that showed a group of girls. A tall one was resting her arm on the head of a smaller girl. The tall one was white and the smaller girl was black. I didn't think anything of it...it's just something people do sometimes, isn't it. But it was called out as a microaggression.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

There the stuff we all know is racist. Even racists.

Then there's stuff that racists deny is racism, even though everyone who is not an overt racist knows it is.

Then there's the stuff that white people don't see because of privilege, which only PoC 'get'.

Then there is stuff that even some black people, including Usain Bolt maybe, may not see because of internalized racism.

We are all swimming in a racist sea and sometimes it's hard to see the water.

I don't know which one this is. I am absolutely sure Ellen didn't mean it that way.

[TheDowagerCuntess]

Stating the slight obvious, but Usain Bolt is not AA, so he won't necessarily interpret it the same way as one of Ellen's countrymen (women).

You can't legislate for people's opinions, and in this day and age - thanks to the Internet - were all privy to each other's in way we've never been before in history.

You say something - you leave yourself open to someone taking umbrage at it. When you're famous and you say something on Twitter, multiply that by a zillion.

[CoolToned]

I'm sure she wasn't being racist. But yeah, I can see how it could be misconstrued as racist.

[Tootsiepops]

I think this article should be compulsory reading for any white person starting or participating in a debate about what is / is not racist:

goodmenproject.com/featured-content/white-fragility-why-its-so-hard-to-talk-to-white-people-about-racism-twlm/

[MrsTerryPratchett]

Basically, if you're a man, listen when a women tells you something is sexist. I understand that because I'm a women and a feminist.

As a white person I can translate that into some kind of understanding that when a black person tells me something is racist I should STFU at least. I didn't on a thread about Canadian politics and should have. Every day is a school day.

[TheDowagerCuntess]

Exactly this ^^ It shouldn't be hard.

[CheerfulYank]

Yes I think we can all be assured that Ellen certainly did not mean it in a racist way!

[MapleandPear]

I'm fed up with crap on Twitter being news

I'm more fed up with stuff in the Daily Mail being news, frankly. Why should journalists dictate what the news is?

[Hensintheskirting]

Are the people who see it as racist being racist? They are seeing "black" and "white" - others are seeing Ellen being funny with Usain. If it was John inverdale riding on a woman athlete would it be sexist?