University of Alabama student Elizabeth Dennis recently changed her Facebook profile image from Piglet, a Winnie the Pooh character, to an altered Piglet image that was in blackface with one hand holding a watermelon and the other holding a bucket of KFC Fried Chicken, with the word “Niglet” underneath. 
After it got around that the photo was up she posted a new pic and added the following confession “the profile pic was a joke ... Sorry if I offended.”
Well, as an African American, I am offended...and I am a very open-minded and tolerant guy who is NOT easily offended. However, as soon as I heard about this story, a few questions came to mind:
1) Who would possibly see this as a joke?
2) Why would Elizabeth apologize about offending people when obviously that was her intent?
She really is sorry that she got caught or "called out," not that she actually posted the image.
3) Do many white people really see black people as human caricatures who walk around eating fried chicken and watermelon?
4) Why am I offended by racist actions, images, or comments? Shouldn't I just ignore their racism and attribute it to ignorance?
5) If she is racist, should she have a right to be so without being ostracized?
This is America. We have "freedom of speech." We also have the right to love or hate who we want to love or hate.
Despite my offense to racist actions, images, or comments, I can't possibly agree with banning people from expressing their true feelings, if not only because of my agreement with the following quote from Chomsky.
"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." -Noam Chomsky
Do I despise Elizabeth? No! Do I despise what she did and the obvious hateful, racist implications? Yes!!! Do I believe she has the "right" to be racist? Yes.
3 comments:
although I agree that she has the right to her opinions and feelings, I would like just 30 seconds with her racit ass and she would be okay to eat soft watermeln and soft fried chicken because she would be missing a few teeth. Why don't we dress her image in a straw hat, cut off ragged pants and a threadbare shirt, sit her on the sifde of a lake and rename her Elizabeth Dennis "aka" Tomasina Sawyer
She may be racist, but she did this for the attention. YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and a host of other sites have allowed the ordinary to become famous. She knew what she was doing. She knew that this would give her attention. This was her personal site and as much as I despise her depiction it was not placed on a public site. Though the public could view it. But, she knew that this would give her 30 seconds of fame. I hope it gives her more than she bargained for and that she is given the proper feedback from the african american community at her school. She may of course simply be stupid/air-headed but either way she needs to understand that what she does has consequences.
It was a clever joke, despite it barely getting a chuckle out of me. "Nig" ryhmed with "Pig," which sets the "Niglet" joke up. If it bothers you much, then you would probably freak out at some real racism.
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