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The troubling viral trend of the “hilarious” Black poor person
May 7, 2013Charles 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.
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.
(via upworthy)
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Joy-Ann Reid appeared on Meet the Press this past Sunday alongside four men. After members of the panel attacked Planned Parenthood, host David Gregory gave Reid a mere 30 seconds to respond.
This is what she said.(via lastfeminist)
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“Courage” and “inspiration” are words that get thrown around a lot in sports, but Jason Collins has given both ideas a brand new context.
(via upworthy)
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michael nesmith on tour (www.monkees.net) our pictures didn’t turn out, unfortunately and we didn’t get to do the meet and greet but it was a great show. mike played his 12 string guitar standing the whole time and the crowd surprised him with their enthusiasm.
here is the playlist from his show at the neptune in seattle, 3/30/2013:
papa jean’s blues
propinquity
tomorrow and me
different drum
joanne
silver moon
some of shelley’s blues
rio
casablanca moonlight
the grand ennui
cruisin’
rays
the prison suite: life the unsuspecting captive, marie’s theme, closing theme (lampost)
laugh kills lonesome
encore: thanks for the ride
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Mother Jones magazine on Tumblr: I am not your wife, sister or daughter 
One of the most incisive responses to some of the rhetoric we’ve been hearing in the wake of the Steubenville rape verdict is this blog post over at The Belle Jar. It articulates a discomfort many of us have with the sentiment (invoked in many contexts), “Imagine if…
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Marsha P. Johnson, transgender gay rights activist (1944 – 1992)
Little known (or recognized) in the Stonewall Rebellion that launched gay liberation, was the role of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. These two transgender activists were on the leading edge of the rebellion, battling the police, and coining the term “Whose Streets, Our Streets!”
Marsha co-founded STAR (Street Transvestite/Transgender Action Revolutionaries) with Sylvia Rivera, to help aid, feed and shelter queer/trans people without homes and those who’d runaway.
Marsha was found floating in the Hudson River shortly after the 1992 Pride March; the police declined to investigate and ruled her death suicide. Marsha P. Johnson remains a legendary figure in the fight for queer liberation as part of the struggle for racial and economic justice.
(via secrethistoriesproject)
