A Complete Guide to 'Hipster Racism'
by Lindy West
People benefit from racism—hell, I benefit from it every day—and things that benefit powerful people don't just suddenly get "fixed" and disappear because Halle Berry won an Oscar or whatever. Modern racism lives in entrenched de facto inequalities, in coded language about "work ethic" and"states' rights," in silent negative spaces like absence and invisibility, and in Newt Gingrich's hair. And in irony.
-snip-
So racism went underground. Sure, you can't say racist things anymore but you can pretend to say them! Which, it turns out, is pretty much the exact same thing. There are a couple of strains of "ironic racism" making the rounds right now, and a couple of typical defenses.
1. "Tee-Hee, Aren't I Adorable?" This category includes things like wide-eyed acoustic covers of hip-hop songs, suburban white girls flashing gang signs, and this Tweet from Zooey Deschanel: "Haha.
RT @Sarabareilles: Home from tour and first things first: New Girl episodes I missed. #thuglife." See, it's hilarious, because we aren't thugs—we are darling girls, and real thugs are black people who do crime! Oh, hey, can I call you back? I need to sew more ric-rac on my apron. I hope a black person didn't get into my ric-rac Kaboodle and steal all of it! JK, LOL. RIP, Whitney.
read: http://m.jezebel.com/5905291/a-complete-guide-to-hipster-racism
= new reply since forum marked as read
When people are trying to be sensitive about race but they don't know what to say, they usually go with, "Well, race is a complicated issue." Except, no, it's not. Race is one of the least complicated issues that there is, because it's made up. It's arbitrary. It's as complicated as goddamn Santa Claus. Oh, that guy's mom was half-black, which makes his skin slightly more pigmented than mine, which therefore means that he's inherently 12.5% lazier than me? Science! Um, no. What's actually complicated is our country's relationship with race, and our utter ineptitude at talking about it. We suck. I mean, I work on it every day, and I'm still a total fuck-up. But this new scheme someone came up with—where we prove we're not racist by acting as casually racist as possible? Not our best, white people. Not our best.
Makes sense to me. Race is just as complicated as Santa Claus because it is made up. Invented. No biological basis. Race is a social construct. But just because race is invented it doesn't necessarily mean that none of those examples could be racist. I don't know whether all of them are necessarily, but that's a different question.
I'm not bothered by the informal tone of this article or the fact that it is apparently unedited. It's just some blog post.
Zooey Deschanel and Sara Bareilles tagging their messages with #thuglife... That's racist.
For the exact reason given in the article.
Not everyone can detect it. Takes practice. Opinions may vary.
(because all African-Americans are criminals, according to right-wing mythology 
)
Example of use: "I moved to the suburbs because all kinds of welfare mothers, gangbangers, and thugs moved into my neighborhood."
Translation: "I moved to the suburbs because some upwardly mobile African-Americans moved into my neighborhood."
To me it is part of black culture that describes and asks questions about how to survive in a difficult environment.
It is associated with Tupac Shakur. Hopefully that's a fair description.
Zooey D & Sara B weren't talking about republicans. They were talking about black people.
If anything Zooey D & Sara B were making fun of themselves for engaging in behavior that is so safe and stereo-typically suburban and white.
They are making fun of themselves for having such an easy life in comparison to thuglife where every day is a struggle for survival. But by invoking #thuglife as a comedic foil to contrast with their own safe bourgeois existence, they end up reinforcing the stereotype of black people as thugs, while also reinforcing the stereotype of white girls as having easy lives where their biggest problem is catching up with their soap operas.
But the overall point of the article was about the trend toward increasing use of ironic racism, and different common patterns it takes. That Zooey D thing was only one example of many in the article.
There are also a bunch of good examples through the link in post #6 below. thanks
