ive seen a few other posts about this that didnt get a lot of notes because i know it makes nonblacks uncomfortable (😐) but you people need to start examining why so many of your reaction pics and gifs and memes are of black people being expressive or literally just existing because its not a coincidence. it directly correlates to how black people are seen as overemotional and overreactive, the sassy black woman and the angry black man stereotypes and so on. like you really need to ask yourselves why such a large portion of the most used reaction memes this year are images of black celebrities like wendy williams and oprah and why non sequitur memes including dababys face seem to be so inherently funny to everyone, and if you are contributing to this problem.
this video explains it well:
"White people and nonblack folks using black memes and GIFs to express their emotional labor on black bodies contributes to what American literary critic Sienne Ngai calls 'the animatedness of black folks', A.K.A. seeing black people as hyperbolically emotional and expressive, particularly black women and [q word] black men."
in the video khadija also talks about how this relates to blackface and minstrelsy and about the appropriation (and butchering) of aave in online spaces, and cites these articles on the subject of digital blackface that i also recommend:
Are you part of the problem?
Author(s): Erinn, Wong | Advisor(s): Acevedo Butcher, Carmen
