Racefail Is Still Racism

[bensanaz]

So I was reading the latest scans from WhitestBrightest Day over on Scans Daily, and down in the comments the usual "Oh, that's not racism, that's just not thinking about it" stuff is happening (or, even better, the usual "you're looking for racism where there is none" stuff

Comments

[imperatorr]

Yeah, there really needs to be some middle ground between "harmless" and "vicious cross-burning vitriol" in public perceptions of racism. As it stands right now, if someone accuses something of being racist, even racist by unawareness, then people will leap up to deny it because to accept it would be to categorize them as being in league with skinhead thugs (or reading something in league with skinhead thugs), at least in their thoughts if not in actuality

[bensanaz]

See, I like "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist" in that the message of it seems to be "yeah, you do it, everyone does it, it's stupid and try not to do it but you can admit you fucked up without saying you're a skinhead". But maybe I'm reading into it what I want to.

[kouaidou]

I guess the question is, can there be such a thing as a midground term? I thought the original "Racefail" was quite serious and quite sincerely meant, and I'm a little sad that people have twisted it into a "lolz my bad" kind of term.

Which just makes me think that regardless of what you call it, people are eventually going to either turn it into a thing they can take offense at, or a thing they can ignore. Because if they just don't want to think about the issue, they're going to do whatever's easiest to just not think about it.

[bensanaz]

At least as I meant it, the "well, what'll ya do" comes from people commenting on it. People accused of racefail either deny that there is anything that could possibly be going on or declare themselves proud of their "political incorrectness".