I got a racist email this weekend.
I’m blogging about this with some trepidation—I haven’t asked the sender’s permission to reprint any of her comments here, and I’m not comfortable going into very much detail. But the incident is really bothering me, and I can’t seem to let go of it, which is why I’m handing part of it off to you. Sorry about that.
The email showed a photograph of the White House Rose Garden with a watermelon patch photoshopped in. The ‘joke,’ is, of course, that a black man will soon move into the White House, and watermelon has a derogatory connotation when connected to black people. Except that this isn’t a joke at all.
I’m not sure where you draw the line between off-color humor and outright racism. And I certainly find some politically incorrect humor worthy of a good laugh—you can’t avoid offending everybody all the time. But wherever that line is, this photo is pretty far on the other side of it. A few emails exchanged between the sender and myself only made me angrier—the implication was that I was overreacting to a ’silly joke’ and that I shouldn’t let it upset me. The sender and I are on the opposite ends of the political spectrum, so perhaps she thought that my bleeding heart was too sensitive, or that I was offended that Obama was made the butt of a joke. But I don’t think so.
I’m about the whitest white girl ever. I fit into almost every other majority: white, straight, raised in a Christian faith. I’ve lived almost entirely in big cities with relatively large minority populations. When I was kid growing up in Dallas and Indianapolis, I went to school, church, soccer practice, and ballet class with white kids and non-white kids. Which is to say that I have been, perhaps more than I realized, incredibly sheltered from racism. I know it exists, that it’s not just a toxic memory from the 1960s and earlier. Friends have even shared personal stories. But I’ve certainly never experienced it, never really witnessed it first-hand.
Perhaps it’s strange, then, that I had such a strong reaction to this photo. Although I tried not to, I almost certainly offended the sender with my reply, in which I pointed out that it did upset me, and that it should upset both of us. Our nation has an ugly history in slavery and Jim Crow laws. We don’t need to repeat that, especially for the benefit of—of what? A cheap laugh? I don’t know what pleasure people get from racism, or why people choose to propagate it. I don’t understand the close encounter I had with racism, and I can’t imagine how a black person would have felt seeing that photoshopped image. Maybe because I’ve gone 30 years without intimate knowledge of racism that seeing it exposed so close to me is so shocking, so hard to understand. Maybe because I’ve always been able to look at racism academically, removed from its emotional force.
Condoleezza Rice made some extraordinary remarks on November 5 of this year. She said, “But one of the great things about representing this country is it continues to surprise; it continues to renew itself; it continues to beat all odds and expectations… As an African American, I am especially proud because this is a country that’s been through a long journey in terms of overcoming wounds and making race not the factor in our lives. That work is not done, but yesterday was obviously an extraordinary step forward.”
I guess that whatever our color or experience, we’re all still part of that long journey, falling backward, plodding forward.
Hi. I’m looking forward to your comments on this post. But please don’t make personal ones about the sender of the email: although her decision to forward it appalls me, she is not a horrible person, so don’t go there. Thanks.
So, I don’t know what to think. It is a wacky email to forward and I can see the concern.
Do you remember that photo from your former classmate that I posted? The one with ‘Hillary?’ So, I thought that was funny – but it can also be considered sexist and policically incorrect.
I do not find the watermelon patch funny.
I venture without certainty the idea that perhaps if I were an African-American with my same sense of humor I’d maybe find it funny – and I only mean me. I easily laugh at myself and parts of my identity.
On the other hand when my brother goes off on how women are the weaker sex biologically/physiologically speaking, my head explodes even though a tiny part of me thinks he’s sort of right.
Kristy
I’m reminded of when Tiger Woods was winning his first Masters, and Fuzzy Zoeller made an inappropriate crack referring to Tiger as ‘boy’ and telling the media to “tell him not to serve fried chicken next year.”
Is it okay if I assume the role of humorless pedant? (if only I could pretend that I’m good at that role because I’m a terrific actor)
Both the picture and Zoeller’s comment are reactions to instances of a group of people in an isolated, insular community (pro golfers, occupants of the White House) suddenly having to accept something considered as “other” (with connotations of “lesser” and “anathema”) in their midst.
Both are examples of a powerful element, a majority, being uncomfortable with suddenly having to play nice, to share the clubhouse. It is, I think, a reaction born of fear. A deplorable fear.
Neither of them are actual jokes. There are no punchlines, nothing at all to them other than making someone out to be smaller or less competent or just marking them, again, as “other.”
Did you ever ask/get a response as to why the forwarder thought the image was worth forwarding?
I can understand the desire to lampoon the powerful, but there’s nothing other than an asinine stereotype to tie watermelons with President-Elect Obama, and lampooning and satire without a specific connection to the target falls, at best, short of the mark.
To move on to something else, I don’t know if there’s genuine pleasure in propagating racism, just like I doubt there’s genuine pleasure in propagating sexism or homophobia. Or if there is, it’s the pleasure in control and assuring that the propagator is exerting the control, or is at least part of the group that’s on top. It [propagating a negative -ism] is an act of smallness, and like above, fear. It’s an act neither necessarily intentional nor conscious, it can be picked up from parents, friends, and media and transmitted while there’s no critical thought about what, precisely, is being said, what that might mean, what the possible intent of phrasings and word choice might be.
I think the maybe about having the racism exposed so close to you is why it was so affecting. The sender blindsided you with this, no? And I think that if you tried not to offend when you explained why you found the image offensive you did exactly the right thing. Argumentation (in the debate/discussion sense) in good faith is good and right.
@scott
I think that hits the nail on the head. I grew up white, straight and male in a very rural area, and ended up in big cosmopolitan cities. I used to get alot of stuff like this from people and family back home, and responding the way lmb did is how I got most of it to stop and some of the people who sent it to think long and hard about why they were sending it on, and whether or not it was really funny.
I’ve heard the theory that the only good “insert racial/ethnic/regious group here” joke is one where you really can insert any group into that slot and the joke still works, still has a punchline. To do this it can’t depend entirely on racial stereotypes. I’m not totally convinced that this theory accurately demarcates the line between “off-color humor and outright racism” but I think it might at least point to the region where that line lies.
not funny, and good for you for telling the sender you were offended. I don’t know that we’ll ever be able to totally eradicate racism/ sexism/ homophobia etc, but I bet it would be much less widespread if more people just spoke up in the face of stupidity. Otherwise well-intentioned people like your friend forward (via email or through more traditional means) inanities like that all day long. Imagine if everyone who got them, instead of silently cringing on the inside, simply said: “that’s not funny, dude. that’s just stupid.”