Viral racism: old stereotypes make a comeback on forums
A forum thread compiles viral videos presenting racial stereotypes disguised as analysis. It debates ebonics, biological determinism and free will. Pseudoscience at its worst.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Viral racism: when forums recycle old racist clichés
A collection of viral videos that were circulating five months ago on a current affairs forum has revived old racial stereotypes wrapped in pseudoscience. The thread, titled “Blacks and flying wigs”, piles up dozens of YouTube links with supposed examples of low IQ, a Nigerian accent among Black Americans, or incivil behaviour. All of it seasoned with the old refrain that “you can take the black man out of Africa, but you can't take Africa out of the black man”.
The centrepiece of the debate is an attempt to elevate “ebonics” to academic status, a concept that a quarter of a century ago some American universities tried to institutionalise as a language in its own right. The discussion dismisses it as “nonsense” and “crap”, without addressing its actual linguistic basis, and drifts into zoological comparisons (dog breeds) and parallels with other minorities such as the Roma or Punjabis.
The heart of the matter: free will or biological determinism
The forum even raises whether Black people “do evil consciously or whether it is simply their nature and they lack free will”. This dichotomy, which recalls sixteenth-century theological debates about whether indigenous people had a soul, is brushed off by one participant with a “let's not start with that nonsense”, which precisely shows the fatigue with an argument that never gets resolved.
The gravity of the thread lies not in its originality —each stereotype could be decades old— but in its persistence and in the ability of online spaces to recycle them without context or scrutiny. Genetic science has spent years dismantling the concept of biological human races, yet in these spaces it still works as currency.
Related threads on the forum
A collection of viral videos that were circulating five months ago on a current affairs forum has revived old racial stereotypes wrapped in pseudoscience. The thread, titled “Blacks and flying wigs”, piles up dozens of YouTube links with supposed examples of low IQ, a Nigerian accent among Black Americans, or incivil behaviour. All of it seasoned with the old refrain that “you can take the black man out of Africa, but you can't take Africa out of the black man”.
The centrepiece of the debate is an attempt to elevate “ebonics” to academic status, a concept that a quarter of a century ago some American universities tried to institutionalise as a language in its own right. The discussion dismisses it as “nonsense” and “crap”, without addressing its actual linguistic basis, and drifts into zoological comparisons (dog breeds) and parallels with other minorities such as the Roma or Punjabis.
The heart of the matter: free will or biological determinism
The forum even raises whether Black people “do evil consciously or whether it is simply their nature and they lack free will”. This dichotomy, which recalls sixteenth-century theological debates about whether indigenous people had a soul, is brushed off by one participant with a “let's not start with that nonsense”, which precisely shows the fatigue with an argument that never gets resolved.
The gravity of the thread lies not in its originality —each stereotype could be decades old— but in its persistence and in the ability of online spaces to recycle them without context or scrutiny. Genetic science has spent years dismantling the concept of biological human races, yet in these spaces it still works as currency.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (40 replies).
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