Buzzfeed as Evidence for Racism?

I’m so sorry to have to do this to you… But I’m going to make you watch this Buzzfeed video (BuzzFeedYellow). I think it touches pretty well on two concepts mentioned in last weeks’ lecture: New Racism and Micro-Aggressions.

So this video, “24 questions black people have for white people” by the Youtube channel BuzzFeedYellow (which is associated with the website www.buzzfeed.com) shows a group of black Americans asking questions directed at white people. 

These questions seem to be spawned from instances of micro-aggressions and stereotyping experienced by the people in the video who are asking white people specifically why they do those things or why they think those things are o.k, for example:  “why do you always want to touch our hair?.”

While controversial (in the Youtube community) this video does raise some points mentioned in the week 2 lecture. 

Points such as non-white people facing micro-aggressions, as one girl asks “why am I supposed to teach you how to twerk? I don’t know how to twerk”, questioning the stereotype that all black girls can twerk or dance. As stated in the lecture, as an isolated incident, micro-aggressions like the assumption that you can twerk aren't especially harmful. I mean, if someone found out you had British ancestry and asked you to teach them Morris dancing you probably wouldn’t be heartbroken and join white power to get revenge. However, when these small things occur over and over again they can build up overtime and cause problems, further straining race relations.

The questions in this video hint at numerous instances of micro-aggressions faced by these few people, which I find alarming as it is only five people who are all employed at the same place, who probably associate with a mutual group of friends who probably live in a similar area. This tiny group has experienced enough micro aggression that they made a Youtube video targeting an entire race in response. It seems to serve as evidence for a huge amount of inferential racism occurring, or at least much more than I thought there would be when the concept was mentioned in the lecture.

Or, if you can’t buy that, look no further than the comments on the video. Comments (with hundreds of up-votes) claim the (admittedly poorly titled) video is racist itself. One comment “Why doesn’t Buzzfeed have a ’26 questions white people have for black people, video?” with 290 up-votes indicates a level of “New-Racism” as the commenter assumes white people and black people are on a level enough playing field to suggest this video is racist towards white people or suggests some kind of inequality towards white people. Even when most of the questions in the video point to obvious instances of everyday racism towards black people. This indicates a lack of understanding of 'race' and modern racism on the part of thousands of viewers who may not all do the things questioned in this video but cannot deny that the people who did were white and cannot deny that these things questioned in the video don't happen to they themselves.

In summary Buzzfeed should stop making controversial click-bait video titles as to not evoke the wrath of the ‘justice’ seeking viewers so we can all take note of the content in the video itself and learn to stop touching peoples unique hair-doos.

Thanks for reading. 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuVMJmC0V98