Whats the Buzz About Racists?!

We see pop culture attempting to confront and alter stereotypes on the daily. From music to television and everything in between many seek out tackling these underlying racial issues in the hopes for future change. With recent proliferation of social media, it is becoming a rising trend to use this ever-growing platform to bring awareness to social issues.

Buzzfeed is one site notorious for constructing videos that highlight social issues through an interesting mix of humour and criticism. In 2014 a video titled “If Asians said the stuff white people say” was posted, which had an array of reactions from viewers. It entertainingly addressed the issue of inferential racism by reversing the racial perceptions between Asians and whites. The clip highlights ingrained stereotypes surrounding Asians, drawing attention to the generalized assumptions of this race.

The clip uses humour to address comments deemed socially acceptable, emphasizing the underlining offensive generalizations in question. Assuming that all Asians are smart, have strict parents; don’t eat with the same cutlery as Westerners and could not possibly be ‘from’ America all showcase the apparent typecasting associated with minority races in relation to the dominant and highly ignorant position of whites.

Aside from the obvious racial implications of the clip, a level of self-reflexivity arises as a result of racial perceptions being flipped on its head. Highlighting comments in such a way creates distance between the content discussed and the large white audience viewing the video. It allows viewers to form an outside critical perspective of the situation, while possibly recognising that on some level that these behaviours are similar to their own. Humour also offers audiences to reflect internally while maintaining a light-hearted front that race is not a serious topic of debate.

In opposition to these positive aspects, this clip focuses on humans’ innate desire to be able to understand and define themselves within the world. A large part of being able to reaffirm who you are is constructed through the distinction of what you are not. Pointing out obvious dissimilarities between cultures not only reinforces your own cultural knowledge, it also alienates those who do not fit within one’s understanding of ‘the norm’. In this case perceived aspects of Asian culture as exotic and strange fall into on the East vs. West ideology, as a binary opposition with no middle ground. 

Buzzfeed may still remain somewhat problematic in the way it addresses issues of race and constructed ideologies or various cultures, but if nothing else it is an engaging approach to open a discussion about the need to alter how we perceive other races.