As has happened before, I'm not sure if this meme's brilliance is intentional. It could easily be the case that the intended idea here is just "hohoho it's funny to tell racist jokes!" And, if so, fuck the person who made it. (That's probably the intended interpretation, sadly.) I choose instead to interpret it the way it first struck me, which is as a joke about the ubiquity of internet racism. The top half of the meme is the setup for the joke. The bottom half the punchline. What makes it effective is that we're trained to expect racism when we see a black face on the parts of the internet where memes tend to be traded. Rather than getting a racist punchline, we get a punchline that reflects on the prevalence of racist punchlines.
The "look both ways" phenomenon is very real. The lived experience of people of color is filled with petty indignities and direct insults and all manner of racism. Yet even so, they aren't exposed to all the acts of casual racism out there, thanks to how savvy people are now about when to voice racist thoughts. About when it's "safe." I've called it "two beer racism" before, the way in which casual social settings and alcohol can bring it out of people. People often say, hey, you're hanging out with the wrong people. But adult life means being in social situations where you aren't always with people you know and trust. (When I dated a sorority girl for years, and had to go to a lot of functions... yeah.) There's this terrible moment where you can see people sort of looking around and deciding, hey, we're all white people here. You're reminded that a 19 year old woman from Long Island can be just as racist as an 80 year old man from South Carolina. And the truly sickening part is the assumption that it'll be okay. Because if this person is saying this racist shit at this party, under the theory that nothing bad will happen because of it, at how many other parties has that racist thing been said, and nothing bad has happened because of it?
The mind-blowing thing is that such people will deny that they've been racist at all (and in fact become incensed at the accusation). As I've said before, they see racism not as a behavior or utterance but as an existential state, and since racists are bad people and they are not bad people, they cannot be guilty of racism. That's part of the reason why I have started arguing for an orientation towards entrenched material inequalities and away from fighting casual emotional bigotry. It's just too easy for people to compartmentalize and deny. The fact is that precisely because this racism is hidden, it's impossible to quantify. So you get into these intensely aggravating arguments where people deny that the problem is as widespread as you think, and because there's no evidence you can pull out to prove the point, you go around in circles. It's just an issue on which I'm no longer willing to argue. I am tired of fighting an endless battle against people who require only the veneer of plausible deniability to remain unconvinced. No good ever comes of it.
As far as Charles Ramsay goes, do I think that people can simply appreciate someone with a lot of personality who rescued four people? I believe they can want to do that, but I also believe that enjoyment borne out of someone's mannerisms and language can bleed into offensive stereotyping even when the person so doing has no intention of doing so. I also think that, even if you're interpreting a person like Ramsay in an enlightened way, if you share his video and participate in his "memeing," you're likely bringing him to the attention of people who will see him in a troubling way. Does it suck that racism means we can't just appreciate interesting human beings for who they are? Yeah. It sucks. That's what racism is. It gets into everything and infects everything and makes you question what offense is roiling around under the surface.
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