this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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It's a fair point. Racist caricatures are racist to people beyond the government. It's not okay
Don't really care about the votes, but surprised to see the people at lemmy are racist as well.
But i guess it was obvious anyways, "making fun of Asians and Arabs and non black minorities isn't racism, it's just a joke!"
There's more nuance to this subject than you're implying. It is not the case that either we can't make any reference to race/ethnicity or else Lemmings don't care about racism. Making reference to race or cultural insignia doesn't automatically make something racist.
In other words, there is a middle ground here. Blackface is an obviously hurtful representation of black people that harkens back to when white people saw them as inferior. On the other hand, many middle eastern men wear this particular head covering and there is nothing hateful about it's inclusion into the picture.
But the problem is using the whole ethnicity's cultural wear on a meme about a group of people being bad or evil makes people associate all middle eastern people as bad people.
It's just something our brain does, and that's why it's best not to do it in the first place. I'm sure a lot of people have terrible opinions about certain minorities because their friend or their aunt told them about how one person from that race treated them poorly. People always extrapolate that across the whole race.
See, I agree as well that the government in the post is absolutely awful. But just looking at the picture, it just seems to look like a rather insulting caricature of middle eastern people; even if that was something you didn't do intentionally
I think this is a completely logical reasoning. I'd wager that if you had led with this explanation instead of jumping into calling people racist you would have made a better impact.
Also, this reasoning is more along the lines of "may add to racist caricatures" rather than "this is a racist caricature". In that case it makes sense to "avoid just in case" rather than a directly racist act in itself.
If your goal is to educate people to make an actual impact, then avoiding jumping into hyperbole and attacking people directly should be your goal.
Remember to attack the argument or action, rather than the individuals.
Additionally, when someone jumps right into hyperbole and aggressive language towards people, it becomes more of a show as if the goal to be seen as righteous rather than being focused on education and making a real impact.
Wow, I'm amazed that you're having to explain this to people?! I thought we knew this already?? Good on you for taking the time to patiently explain it so clearly for those that somehow missed that memo! Legend! :-)