It goes on to say, “Ultimately, black people and black images are thus relied upon to perform a huge amount of emotional labor online on behalf of nonblack users. We are your sass, your nonchalance, your fury, your delight, your annoyance, your happy dance, your diva, your shade, your ‘yaas’ moments. The weight of reaction GIFing, period, rests on our shoulders. Intertwine this proliferation of our images with the other ones we’re as likely to see — death, looped over and over — and the Internet becomes an exhausting experience.”83
Most Movies are Racist
When the War for Planet of The Apes (2017) trailer was released, one of the apes could be seen wearing a blue vest, and so Black Lives Matter activist Deray McKesson (whose trademark look is wearing a blue vest) cried “racism,” believing the producers were mocking him.84 Even many of his own supporters thought it was a ridiculous claim and he was delusional.
After comedian Jordan Peele’s Get Out was nominated for a Golden Globe for best comedy, black people on social media freaked out thinking it was racist to call the film a comedy, and said it should have been in the horror category. This was more evidence, they thought, of “oppression” of black films. It turns out that the writer and producer actually submitted the film for the comedy category himself because he saw it as a dark comedy.85
The movie is a “social thriller” about a group of old rich white people who kidnap black people and have their brains transplanted into their bodies so they can continue to live in the young “strong” black bodies. It was said to be a metaphor for how white people allegedly “live off the labor” of black people.
Producer Tim Burton, who made films like Edward Scissorhands (1990), Beetlejuice (1988), and The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), caught the eye of the Diversity Police who caused him to trend on Twitter due to their complaints that he cast too many white people in his films.86
Apu, the Indian convenience store owner in The Simpsons, was then targeted because he is “a problematic stereotype.”87 One social justice warrior even produced an entire documentary on his quest to have Apu removed from the show! Hank Azaria, who voices the character, then publicly said his “eyes have been opened” and he’s willing to “step aside” from playing him.88
When the remake of Stephen King’s It was released in 2017, that too was problematic because it was full of “white, straight, able-bodied males.”89 The classic Gone With the Wind (1939) which takes place down south during the Civil War and resulted in the very first Academy Award given to a black actor (for best supporting actor) was scheduled to be shown at a Tennessee theater as part of their annual Summer Movie Series in 2017, but the screening was canceled after concerns and complaints that the film was “insensitive” to slavery. “The social media storm this year really brought it home,” said the president of the theater company.90
When Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out in 2015, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry (who is black) went off on a bizarre tangent painting Star Wars as racist because Darth Vader’s costume is black. “I know why I have feelings — good, bad, and otherwise — about Star Wars. And I have a lot. I could spend the whole day talking about the whole Darth Vader situation,” she said, which got her a strange look from a panelist at the table, who replied, “Really? You could?”91
“Yeah, like the part where he was totally a black guy, whose name was basically James Earl Jones. While he was black he was terrible and bad, awful and used to cut off white men’s hands, and didn’t actually claim his son. But as soon as he claims his son, goes over to the good, takes off his mask and he is white — yes, I have many feelings about that.”92
When Star Wars: The Phantom Menace came out in 1999 many critics called one character (Jar Jar Binks) racist because he sounded like a Rastafarian from the Caribbean. Other characters in Star Wars (like Nute Gunray) are also accused of being racist because they sound like they have an Asian-American accent.93
After Star Wars: The Last Jedi came out, Variety thought they would investigate the racial makeup of the writers and directors for various films in the franchise and lamented that, “96% of its film universe writers and directors are white men.”94 Shortly after their “investigation” was published, other articles followed suit.
Mashable declared, “Star Wars’ obsession with white guy filmmakers is hurting the franchise” and said that by “continuing to hire only white men, Lucasfilm is not helplessly reflecting some unfortunate but unchangeable norm. It’s making an active choice to reinforce a status quo that rewards white men while systematically shutting out anyone else.”95
“Baby Got Back”
When actress Blake Lively attended the Cannes film festival in 2016 she posted a photo on her Instagram showing off her curves and her gown with the caption, “LA waist with an Oakland booty” referring to the popular 1990s Sir Mix-a-Lot lyrics from his song “Baby Got Back.”96
Millennials who are too young (or weren’t even born yet) when the song was popular thought she was insulting black women, and they tweeted so much hate about her that she started trending on Twitter. She was simply making fun of how big her butt had gotten since she was gaining weight from her pregnancy. Sir Mix-a-Lot said he was surprised by the backlash she received and defended her.97
When Rapper Kendrick Lamar brought a fan on stage to rap along with him to one of his songs during a concert in Alabama, he stopped the show in the middle of the performance to berate the girl in front of the whole audience after she used the word “nigga” (which is in the lyrics) because, as you know, there’s a huge double standard about white people not being “allowed” to say the “n-word” even when singing along to their favorite rap songs.
Of course, the n-word has an “er” on the end, not an “a” so it looks like there are two “n-words” not one, despite “nigga” supposedly being a “term of endearment” among blacks, but white people are still denounced as “racists” when they say it out loud or even type it. And most black people fail to see that it is actually racist to demand that white people should not be allowed to use a word that black people throw around all day like it’s nothing. Even using the word in any context is seen as the equivalent of stringing up a black person from a tree or burning a cross.
Comedian Louis CK (who’s white) has a hilarious bit about this hypocrisy where he talks about words that people are offended by and says he’s offended by the n-word. “Not nigger, by the way,” he continues. “I mean ‘the n-word.’ Literally, whenever a white lady on CNN with nice hair says ‘the n-word’… you say ‘the n-word’ and I go ‘Oh, she means nigger.’ You’re making me say it in my head! Why don’t you fucking say it instead, and take responsibility… just say it, don’t hide behind the first letter like a faggot. Just say nigger.”98