Do White People Really Know What Racism Is?

January 12th, 2012 - By Veronica Wells

Franchesca Ramsey’s YouTube video, “Shyte White Girls Say to Black Girls” might have come along a little late in the history of the “Shyte say” meme but it’s certainly created the most controversy. While all of the videos paint a very stereotypical portrait of the group they’re imitating, Franchesca’s video has been flagged as “reverse racism.” She even went on Anderson Cooper’s new show to speak about the video and defend herself against claims that statements made in the video were racist.

Check out a short clip from the show below

Racist, eh? The word gets thrown around entirely too much, by people of all races, that perhaps we’ve become desensitized to it. For those of you who might need a refresher course racism is, according to Merriam Webster, “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” I had to read that a couple of times so to state it more plainly, racism means a person believes that because they are of a particular race they are superior to a person of another race.

A second definition states that one can show prejudice or discrimination to a particular person because of one’s racist beliefs.

Judging by those definitions it’s clear that Franchesca’s video does not fall into either one of those categories. She is not stating that black people or anybody is better than the people who make these statements to black women. What it does do is highlight some of the ignorance believed and expressed by some people…who happen to be white.

Very few things in this world are absolute. When the “Shyte Black Girls Say” video came out, I didn’t see myself in 99 percent of the jokes he made. (I’m not going to lie, I love to say “It’s hot/cold in here.” or “That’s my song, turn that up.”) But I still found humor in it because I’ve heard plenty of black girls say those same things. And if those crying “reverse racism” were honest with themselves they’d find the same is true about Franchesca’s video.

Not for one minute do I believe that all white people express such ignorance as some of the statements made in her video; but I’ve also seen,  experienced and been privy to conversations about enough of those comments to know that there are white people, whether they mean harm or not, who have used some of those exact phases or asked those same questions. There’s nothing wrong with being ignorant. Our experiences on this earth only explain so much. There is a problem, however, in being confronted with your ignorance and choosing to ignore it while pointing the finger at the one trying to educate you.

In all honesty, I can’t help but feel like white people, who are coming to the racism game a little late, might not truly know what the word, the belief and the corresponding actions might look like.

What do you think, was Franchesca’s video racist? Have you seen or heard people using the “racist” term incorrectly?

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  • KD

    If a white person put on an afro wig and imitated a black person in a video where the black character was portrayed as an idiot, it would be labelled racism. If white people painted their faces black and portrayed characters that embodied black sterotypes for an audience to laugh at, this would also be called racism. Yet this video is not racist because it’s black people and a blonde wig, and the movie “White Chicks” is not racist because it’s black people painting their faces white. Double standard?

    • http://franktalker.blogspot.co.uk/ Franklyn Aloysius TALKER

      It is your statement that is the double standard, since Black people have no political power in the US and, therefore, cannot be institutionally racist.

      This means that racism is only politically effective when Whites do it and any racism committed by Blacks can simply be ignored by Whites – one of the many privileges of White supremacism that you enjoy and promote here.

      • the truth

        Where did you pull that statement out of? It has no backing, incredibly little truth, and entirely lacking intelligence. What KD said is in fact a double standard and the idea of institutionally racist does not apply whatsoever to KD’s statement or the article.
        Also, your grammar lesson for the day, whites and blacks should not be capitalized because they are only an adjective not a proper noun.

        • http://franktalker.blogspot.co.uk/ Franklyn Aloysius TALKER

           One cannot prove a negative, so it is your statements that are ‘entirely lacking intelligence’ – especially as you never want Frank TALKER to answer your question, just in case He can out-answer you.

          ‘Also,
          your grammar lesson for the day,’ Negro and Caucasian are capitalized,
          but Black and White are not? Is this because Whites like you want
          to pretend that these latter words only refer to skin color when they
          actually are being used – in context – to refer to ethnicity.

  • http://franktalker.blogspot.co.uk/ Franklyn Aloysius TALKER

    The question suggests dangerous, life-threatening naivety.

    Of course, Whites know what racism is since they are the direct
    beneficiary of it. When the sun shines and you feel good, you know what
    sunshine is!

    To claim otherwise is to allow Whites to claim that what they do or do
    not do is not a matter of personal choice: A racist ploy last used by
    the Nazis at Nuremberg – ‘I was only following orders.’ Any implication
    that Whites do not know what racism is lets them off the hook; thereby
    making their guilt and shame at all the unearned benefits they receive
    that much easier to bear.

    A thread that runs through all such questions is that racism is the same
    as any other kind of discrimination, when Blacks know that
    institutional racism is never practiced by Blacks against Whites. The
    idea being that Whites have suffered as much from racism as Blacks. But,
    when asked for historical examples, Whites can furnish none because the
    historical record proves that the White race is the racist race.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/BT7YFIRRRA47424YFDEJDLJZGA Aaron

    I love how it’s seemingly impossible for black people to be considered “racist”….just the way most carry themselves around white people, the things they say…I’m a young white male with a shaved head and I can’t tell you how many black guys have said “what’re you a skinhead?” or “you some kinda nazi?” give me a break, so i don’t like having to wash my hair, that doesn’t mean i’m a skinhead it means i’m lazy, and i like the look of my scalp, big deal, black dudes shave their heads all the damn time. that’s like me coming up to a black dude with a really poorly done tattoo and saying “oh you must’ve gotten that in prison” it’s competely ignorant. i don’t care how you wanna look at it, at least around where i’ve grown up, black people are groomed to be racist and lookout for the white guy, it’s complete bulls**t, be your f****** selves and not what MTV shows you. also, if black folks can say “n****r” so incredibly freely so too can us irish, as if our ancestors weren’t slaves themselves, look it up. you aren’t entitled to certain treatment because of being born a certain color, as if that’s something you achieved, or something you even chose, it was an accident, quit having so much god damn pride in a genetic accident. all of you, italian american, irish american, african american…who the f*** cares, you haven’t accomplished anything simply by being born what you are.

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