Wow! Vending Machines Sure Have Changed Since The First Time I Went To College! #starbucks (at San Joaquin
Wow! Vending machines sure have changed since the first time I went to college! #starbucks (at San Joaquin Delta College)
More Posts from Seorsam and Others
The real victims of the super bowl. #sb50 #puppylove #whyiseveryoneignoringme
So true. Maybe on some level we worry we would not get involved, so we laugh our doubt away.
The troubling viral trend of the “hilarious” Black poor person May 7, 2013
Charles Ramsey, the man who helped rescue three Cleveland women presumed dead after going missing a decade ago, has become an instant Internet meme. It’s hardly surprising—the interviews he gave yesterday provide plenty of fodder for a viral video, including memorable soundbites (“I was eatin’ my McDonald’s”) and lots of enthusiastic gestures. But as Miles Klee and Connor Simpson have noted, Ramsey’s heroism is quickly being overshadowed by the public’s desire to laugh at and autotune his story, and that’s a shame. Ramsey has become the latest in a fairly recent trend of “hilarious” black neighbors, unwitting Internet celebrities whose appeal seems rooted in a “colorful” style that is always immediately recognizable as poor or working-class.
Before Ramsey, there was Antoine Dodson, who saved his younger sister from an intruder, only to wind up famous for his flamboyant recounting of the story to a reporter. Since Dodson’s rise to fame, there have been others: Sweet Brown, a woman who barely escaped her apartment complex during a fire last year, and Michelle Clarke, who couldn’t fathom the hailstorm that rained down in her hometown of Houston, and in turn became “the next Sweet Brown.”
Granted, the buzzworthy tactic of reporters interviewing the most loquacious witnesses to a crime or other event is nothing new, and YouTube has countless examples of people of all ethnicities saying ridiculous things. One woman, for instance, saw fit to casually mention her breasts while discussing a local accident, while another man described a car crash with theatrical flair. Earlier this year, a “hatchet-wielding hitchhiker” named Kai matched Dodson’s fame with his astonishing account of rescuing a woman from a racist attacker. But none of those people have been subjected to quite the same level of derisive memeification as Brown, Clark, and now, perhaps, Ramsey—the inescapable echoes of “Hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ wife!” and “Kabooyaw,” the tens of millions of YouTube hits and cameos in other viral videos, even commercials.
It’s difficult to watch these videos and not sense that their popularity has something to do with a persistent, if unconscious, desire to see black people perform. Even before the genuinely heroic Ramsey came along, some viewers had expressed concern that the laughter directed at people like Sweet Brown plays into the most basic stereotyping of blacks as simple-minded ramblers living in the “ghetto,” socially out of step with the rest of educated America. Black or white, seeing Clark and Dodson merely as funny instances of random poor people talking nonsense is disrespectful at best. And shushing away the question of race seems like wishful thinking.
Ramsey is particularly striking in this regard, since, for a moment at least, he put the issue of race front and center himself. Describing the rescue of Amanda Berry and her fellow captives, he says, “I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms. Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway!”
The candid statement seems to catch the reporter off guard; he ends the interview shortly afterward. And it’s notable that among the many memorable things Ramsey said on camera, this one has gotten less meme-attention than most. Those who are simply having fun with the footage of Ramsey might pause for a second to actually listen to the man. He clearly knows a thing or two about the way racism prevents us from seeing each other as people.
Source
Now that you know this is a thing, please stop sharing these memes. Poor Black people speaking candidly about various serious incidents isn’t a hilarious joke.
#yardsale winding down. Not much left, it is nice in the shade here in #stocktonca #calilife #angryorchard #PhotoToaster
Taken with instagram
Love this, cool but fun too.
My new tattoo ♥ if anyone doesn’t know I absolutely looooove Halloween. My decorations stay up year round lol. Gonna add some ghost, grave stones, and more creepy stuff.
I suppose this would make sense of jesus was real....I like it as a modern anti-christian image. Satanist or not, it works that way.
true…
Great advice!
If you vape, listen to your body. It could be telling you that you’re being exposed to harmful chemicals.
Love those moves!
If you were curious who was doing those sick martial arts moves in Black Panther, well, a lot of it actually was Chadwick…
But the extra cool stuff was Gui!
Gui DaSilva is an unsung stunt person and I just wanted to give him a nod for his amazing work and skill.
And for you anime fans… (He has the backpack.)
So true!
CALLING ALL PLL , SUPERNATURAL, AND THE100 FANS
So normally I don’t lobby for tv shows on here, but this show has had such an effect on me and everyone who has watched it that I feel like I need to give it a signal boost. The show I’m talking about is Wynonna Earp, let me start out by saying this show is amazing in every and every single way- the representation is AMAZING, there are two strong female leads, one of which has a female love interest, there’s a strong black male lead character, and for once IT’S ALWAYS THE STRAIGHT WHITE MALES THAT DIE! This show is basically what you’d get if Buffy, Jessica Jones, and Clint Eastwood had a badass, sarcastic, strong, independent, hilarious, amazing, did I mention badass? Lovechild. Or a gender-swapped version of Supernatural, HOW COULD YOU HATE THAT!? The ratings haven’t been doing well because viewership is low, but THIS is the type of shows we need on television- amazing representation, phenomenal writing, strong female, LGBT, and POC leads, and just AMAZINGNESS all around. PLEASE GIVE IT A CHANCE! Watch Wynonna Earp on Friday at 10/9c on Syfy!!!
