Now originally this was not the racist meme it was now. It was just a gag in a Sonic Lost World review.
So as far as the look of Knuckles in this meme goes there is nothing wrong with that. It’s just supposed to look goofy. The problem comes in what the meme is all about. Which is “haha black people sound funny”.
This is not the first time this has happened, white people and non-black people of color making fun of African accents and AAVE (despite appropriating it themselves) is nothing new. But it wasn’t funny back then, and it’s not funny now. It was never funny.
In particular the joke makes fun of Ugandan people and the Clicking that is used in several African languages. I am pretty sure all of you know that, so don’t even pretend you don’t know. If you are at least 20, chances are you grew up with media that made a reference to this at some point. But for reference:
“Click languages, a group of languages found only in Africa in which clicks function as normal consonants.”
Now making fun of the way certain ethnic people in Africa speak is bad enough, but when you do this…
That’s when you go way past the “Haha it’s all good fun” excuse. I look at this and all I can think of is 4chan type racists memes. Which is fitting because I am pretty sure this meme was started by 4channers and redditors.
Listen, just don’t be a jerk. Don’t make fun off people for their language. Especially people that for years and years have been made fun of by media for these same reasons. And if you are white, plain and simple, you are racist.
Now I wanna bring out another point; people have been using the excuse that “well the director of the movie that inspired this meme liked it so it’s okay!” and to that I say, no, it doesn’t work like that. White people always do this. They say something racist, and then they try to find that one person of color to validate them in their racism so they get a get out of jail free card.
If you care so much about what black people think, then tell me why it only matters when they agree with you, but when countless of black folk tell you “Yeah, that’s pretty racist” then you stop caring. And you know, if the meme was not racist to begin with, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, we wouldn’t people trying desperately to cover their racism in any ways they can by finding someone to validate them on it.
And you know what, this is tiring now. The way you white people always do this. Every time a new game or movie or show comes along you always wanna make it plainly racist, because god-forbid people of color and especially black people enjoy an online game without some white guy telling them how they’re totally not racists while putting anti-black caricatures everywhere and throwing the N word every other sentence.
Please, this is really not the time. It’s February, have some respect. Be positive to black folk in fandom instead of perpetrating the same old anti-black routine fandom always do. And even beyond February, just try to do better. And those of you that just see racist things in fandom and let it pass or enable the worse ones, you are complicit too. Stop being racist, stop justifying it, and let this unfunny meme die.
Me 