“White Fragility” author Robin DiAngelo claimed that adult comedy TV shows allow white people to be “self-consciously” racist.
DiAngelo defined alleged racism in comedy during an April interview with YouTuber Joseph Jaffe, which was flagged Saturday by a non-profit called Mythinformed, Fox News reported. The author claimed shows such as “Family Guy,” “South Park” and “The Simpsons” give white people an “excuse” to be racist.
“Comedy is, I think, an excuse to get to be racist, right? I think TV shows like ‘Family Guy’ and ‘South Park’ and maybe ‘The Simpsons’ allowed White people to be racist self-consciously,” she told Jaffe. “Like, I know I’m being racist and therefore it doesn’t count and it’s OK.”
“I don’t think it’s benign to do it in a joking way,” she continued. “And there is a concept in comedy called punching up, there are very different power dynamics and it doesn’t hurt in the same way. It doesn’t invoke a deep, deep centuries-long history of oppression when you poke fun at say, White people. But it’s very, very different when you poke fun at people of color.”
The author argued that racist jokes “reinforce” racism and that a white person must be conscious of particular ideas and stereotypes in order to “resist” racist ideologies. (RELATED: Second Largest Teachers Union Encourages Members To Get ‘Enlightened’ Through Texts On ‘Antiracism’ And ‘White Fragility’)
“So how do we deal with laughing at a racist joke? We recognized that in those moments we were reinforcing those ideas and those ideologies. Let’s use [former President Donald] Trump as an example when he talked about Mexicans being rapists, I would never say that, but it’s not like I never heard it circulating that I’ve already absorbed and fortunately I have the consciousness now to resist it,” DiAngelo said in the interview.
“And so many white people think they’re just exempt from all of that, so yes, you laughed at it [a racist joke] in the past, recognized that it has contributed to your basic framework of racism, but now you can see it and you’re going to challenge it.”
DiAngelo, a prominent left-wing activist, argues that “racism is the foundation of Western society” and that “white people benefit from the racial hierarchy,” her website states. In her 2018 book “White Fragility,” DiAngelo discussed the alleged “counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.”
In February, LinkedIn removed a course led by DiAngelo titled “Confronting Racism” that taught students how to be “less white.”