I said I’m not talking about racism against white people. I think it’s racist because the joke appears to be that white people have disposable income and like to travel and do adventurous things. So, to me, it’s saying non-white people don’t have money and don’t travel or do fun things. And I think that’s bad. I don’t feel like I’m doing backflips to get to this conclusion, I genuinely don’t understand how it’s not seen this way by everybody else.
I interpreted it as a stereotype of certain privileged classes of white people that are so out of touch with the struggles of the world that they don’t realise how dangerous it is to try this. In fact, I think there has been cases of upper/middle-upper class people who have gone on these kinds of tourism-pilgrimage and have ended up dead.
That’s a stretch, and ironically, such a black and white perspective. At the end of the day, it’s just a meme. A meme joking about one group of people’s extreme form of recreation is not making the absolute claim that non-whites don’t do any of these things.
But, there is truth to the statement that white Westerners are able to travel more with disposable income. Facts are not racist. Pointing those facts out in a lighthearted meme is not racist, to white people nor non-white people.
Would it be racist to make the claim that white British people were able to colonize several countries while Thailand was not? No, because that’s a historical fact; one that also explains why white Westerners today have more disposable income on average than non-whites.
In a roundabout way, you want to point at this meme and say it’s racist against non-whites but this was most likely made by a non-white person pointing out what they have noticed in our country, pertaining the subject of race and socioeconomic background. That being said, there are plenty of extremely impoverished white people in America. That doesn’t negate the truth of this meme though.
I don’t think “it’s just a meme” or “it’s just stating the facts” will ever be a good defense against racist stereotyping, so I’m going to ignore that line of argument. Fair enough if it was made by a non-white person trying to poke fun at white people, that makes it better, but that context isn’t obvious to me at all. I guess it’s easier for Americans to infer, which brings us full circle
I said I’m not talking about racism against white people. I think it’s racist because the joke appears to be that white people have disposable income and like to travel and do adventurous things. So, to me, it’s saying non-white people don’t have money and don’t travel or do fun things. And I think that’s bad. I don’t feel like I’m doing backflips to get to this conclusion, I genuinely don’t understand how it’s not seen this way by everybody else.
I interpreted it as a stereotype of certain privileged classes of white people that are so out of touch with the struggles of the world that they don’t realise how dangerous it is to try this. In fact, I think there has been cases of upper/middle-upper class people who have gone on these kinds of tourism-pilgrimage and have ended up dead.
Yeah it makes sense from that perspective, thanks for the explanation!
That’s a stretch, and ironically, such a black and white perspective. At the end of the day, it’s just a meme. A meme joking about one group of people’s extreme form of recreation is not making the absolute claim that non-whites don’t do any of these things.
But, there is truth to the statement that white Westerners are able to travel more with disposable income. Facts are not racist. Pointing those facts out in a lighthearted meme is not racist, to white people nor non-white people.
Would it be racist to make the claim that white British people were able to colonize several countries while Thailand was not? No, because that’s a historical fact; one that also explains why white Westerners today have more disposable income on average than non-whites.
In a roundabout way, you want to point at this meme and say it’s racist against non-whites but this was most likely made by a non-white person pointing out what they have noticed in our country, pertaining the subject of race and socioeconomic background. That being said, there are plenty of extremely impoverished white people in America. That doesn’t negate the truth of this meme though.
I don’t think “it’s just a meme” or “it’s just stating the facts” will ever be a good defense against racist stereotyping, so I’m going to ignore that line of argument. Fair enough if it was made by a non-white person trying to poke fun at white people, that makes it better, but that context isn’t obvious to me at all. I guess it’s easier for Americans to infer, which brings us full circle