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What’s ‘digital blackface?’ And why is it wrong when White people use it?

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What's 'digital blackface?' And why is it wrong when White people use it? | CNN

WWW.CNN.COM
If you're White and you've posted a GIF or meme of a Black person to express a strong emotion, you may be guilty of wearing 'digital blackface' -- a modern-day term for an insidious form of racism.


Hopefully this provoked a bit of introspection here about the ways in which we use such imagery in our daily lives. There are many times, here included, in which the line gets awfully blurry on whether or not the subject of a meme or gif is the butt of the joke or not. And when it is that they are, how much of that is ultimately laughing at stereotypes of the minority group the subject happens to be a part of.

 

I also don’t think this sort of subtle racism is limited to whites. I see it a TON with regards to Asians and Blacks by my Mexican in-laws, for example.

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CitizenVectron

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Something to think about, for sure. To start discussion:

 

When I use response gifs, I typically do it because of either:

  • A specific phrase I am looking for from a movie or show (e.g. "Nothing to see here!", "shiiiiit", etc)
  • A specific expression (e.g. someone throwing their hands up, facepalming, etc)

So, assuming that the gif is not intended to make fun of the person inside it (which I admit is hard to judge as the original intent/meaning can change, etc), what are the safe limits of use? e.g. a common response gif/image I see used (and that I have used) is:

 

Think About It GIF by Identity

 

Would it be out of bounds for me, as a white person, to use it? Genuinely curious, because in that specific case I don't see any harm or insult, but I also know that I'm not the person to judge that, necessarily. I know the article focuses on strong emotions (and in the same way, it could easily be seen as sexist to always use gifs of women when you want to post an "emotional" reaction, etc), but curious how far this extends to.

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Zaku3

Zaku3

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I don't personally care what memes you use so long as its funny. Jokes are a gateway to the id so maybe it's something that can actually be identified. I just want whites to be I think it's the anti-racist camp atleast.

 

Edit: Are those 23 and me things worth it. I don't know exactly where the Arabic in me comes from. 

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Reputator

Reputator

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I don't think anyone here uses gifs for any reason other than it fits the idea they're trying to express.

 

But I can see people arguing that it's too hard to tell if a particular gif is fitting because it's an X-race that expressed it uniquely, and if the person using the gif wasn't the same race, then that's automatically racist.

 

Which seems like a dangerous slippery slope.

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Commissar SFLUFAN

Commissar SFLUFAN

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13 minutes ago, Zaku3 said:

I don't personally care what memes you use so long as its funny. 

 

The entire point of the article is that's simply not good enough - not even remotely close.

 

Quite frankly, my personal tolerance level for the use of memes has all-but-evaporated because they've loooooong outlived their utility as a "witty" form of expression (if that ever existed to begin with!)

 

They're now so far beyond the point of being old and tired that they're now actively well with the realm of boring and aggravating.

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CitizenVectron

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25 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

The entire point of the article is that's simply not good enough - not even remotely close.

 

Quite frankly, my personal tolerance level for the use of memes has all-but-evaporated because they've loooooong outlived their utility as a "witty" form of expression (if that ever existed to begin with!)

 

They're now so far beyond the point of being old and tired that they're now actively well with the realm of boring and aggravating.

 

They also are often tied to ignorant and bigoted media (even just through the passage of time and changing norms), though of course many people online wouldn't know that.

 

However, I have some good news for everyone here—Gen Z hates gifs (especially reaction gifs), so if you're a millennial (which we mostly all are, with a few Gen Xers) then you can safely give up your gifs and justify as being hip and with it.

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b_m_b_m_b_m

b_m_b_m_b_m

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7 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

They also are often tied to ignorant and bigoted media (even just through the passage of time and changing norms), though of course many people online wouldn't know that.

 

However, I have some good news for everyone here—Gen Z hates gifs (especially reaction gifs), so if you're a millennial (which we mostly all are, with a few Gen Xers) then you can safely give up your gifs and justify as being hip and with it.

 

Fuck them kids - Michael Jordan dot jay peg 

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Ominous

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58 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

you can safely give up your gifs and justify as being hip and with it.

“I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!

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Guest

Guest

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Some of this reminds me of what Chappelle claimed to be a reason he quit his gig with Comedy Central and the Chappelle Show.

 

He said something along the lines of he started to notice white people on the set were laughing at the wrong things a little too often. I would guess most racial and ethnic minorities have had the experience of the discomfort resulting from watching their majority culture friends laugh at something related to their culture in a way that didn’t sit quite right.

 

It usually isn’t something obviously mean spirited, but it happens, and it can be a really sad reminder that you don’t fit in as much as you may have thought or wanted.

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Commissar SFLUFAN

Commissar SFLUFAN

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29 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Some of this reminds me of what Chappelle claimed to be a reason he quit his gig with Comedy Central and the Chappelle Show.

 

He said something along the lines of he started to notice white people on the set were laughing at the wrong things a little too often. I would guess most racial and ethnic minorities have had the experience of the discomfort resulting from watching their majority culture friends laugh at something related to their culture in a way that didn’t sit quite right.

 

It usually isn’t something obviously mean spirited, but it happens, and it can be a really sad reminder that you don’t fit in as much as you may have thought or wanted.

 

I suppose one of the "benefits" of my current mental state is that I rarely find anything even moderately amusing anymore.

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TheShader

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2 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

They also are often tied to ignorant and bigoted media (even just through the passage of time and changing norms), though of course many people online wouldn't know that.

This is why people need to listen to those affected, quite honestly. Often times when a community(Or a member of said community) comes forward and says 'Hey, this popular image/joke/meme is hurtful' the normal human reaction seems to be to collectively say 'fuck off, I think it's funny'. This community is not immune. There was a particular member here that I won't name names at this time that brought up how hurtful a certain 4chan charging lasers gif was(Although can't quite remember if this was during the last days of IGN, or the early days of Bad Cartridge/D1P). I remember a ton of people, maybe even myself in my younger stupider days, pushed back with 'BuT iT'S jUsT a JoKe, It'S fUnNy' and posted the gif tons of times in respone. It took some pushback before it was finally banned from use.

 

In retrospect that user shouldn't have had to endure that. It should have been something that was respected and moved on from. And, obviously, in retrospect, class-A that gif is a class A example of shitty racist meming.

 

People tend to know their own identity/community/culture, and it seems one of the hardest thing a lot of us have to adjust to is accepting that someone knows those things about themselves better than we do. Especially when it comes to humor because the default seems to be that if a group of people find something, anything, funny that is therefore acceptable due to the majority being in agreement.

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Guest

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1 hour ago, osxmatt said:

That article is the pinnacle of low quality Sunday clickbait. 


If this one doesn’t tickle your fancy, there has been plenty of other discussions of “digital blackface” over the last 5 or 6 years, including within the realm of academics.

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Keyser_Soze

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4 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

However, I have some good news for everyone here—Gen Z hates gifs (especially reaction gifs), so if you're a millennial (which we mostly all are, with a few Gen Xers) then you can safely give up your gifs and justify as being hip and with it.

 

Gen Z hates gifs but loves reacting with videos!

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