Stop making jokes about rape

[ailbhe]

All of you. Prison rape, stranger rape, date rape, grey rape, real rape, rape-rape not like rape-rape, stop making jokes about rape.

Because it's not funny. And goodness knows you can't possibly claim it's edgy or original. Stick with something fresher, newer - chicken-crossing-road jokes, perhaps. Lightbulb jokes.

And while you're at it, stop making excuses for people who want to be allowed to make jokes about rape without being criticised for it. If they're going to joke about rape, they're going to be criticised for it, because it's not funny.

Um, except for this probably very triggering clip with an unusual perspective on the tired old rape joke, which even I found funny. And painful, but only because she is so, so right, and what she says is so, so true.

Comments

[birke]

She does have an effective way of putting that sense of the inevitable. "Dark, alone, man. This could be it."

(I read the comments on your LJ and agree that she used mock African-American speech patterns for most of the routine. I've noticed that white people do it to add colour and flavour to their language, notably when they're being aggressive and insulting because A-A vernacular is seen as especially good for that.)

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I don't find that clip funny at all, actually. Yes, male strangers behaving erratically late at night are scary, and I'm sorry that happened to her. And fine, he was the one who overtly brought race into it, but I'm not sure his assumption was unreasonable, given the likely differences in their life experiences. Does a false assumption really justify her faking African-American speech patterns for most of the rest of the skit? What might the same story look like from his point of view, as someone who has presumably been dealing with racism and perhaps poverty all his life, and doesn't actually appear to have made any move to assault her? He followed her, yes, but for all we know he was going to ask her for money, or a light, or wasn't interested in her at all, but had just decided to give up waiting for his mates or whatever else he was actually doing pacing in and out of the alley in a very attention-grabbing way (not the most likely move for an actual rapist.)

The skit also seems to me to perpetuate the false dichotomy that a fear that is primarily motivated by experience of sexism cannot also be secondarily motivated by racism, and the false perception that it's even possible for a white person in a modern Western society not to be a racist, at least to some degree. I think the famous Schrodinger's rapist post makes her point much better, without the intersectionality fail.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched the clip, and now for the sake of my blood pressure I don't think I will (thank you, lj user="lizw"> for the warning). The discussion reminds me of this essay:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/crommunist/2012/01/16/shuffling-feet-a-black-mans-view-on-schroedingers-rapist/

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks for that link - very interesting. This in particular:

The other point I want to make here, which goes back to my objection to anti-black racism being used as a rhetorical device by those who will never face it, is that black people engage in tons of behaviours to make white people feel safer. We do this all the damn time. We make accommodations in speech, behaviour, dress, mannerism, conversation topic – a wide diversity of adjustments that we make in the presence of our white friends. We want them to feel comfortable around us, and we accept the inherent racism of the need for such changes. The fact that you rail against its manifest unfairness is indicative of the fact that you have no idea we’re doing it – which means, in turn, that we’re doing it well.

... is something I know but have never come across articulated so clearly.

[ailbhe]

The clip made me think of that essay, a lot, actually. She seemed to be making almost but not quite the same point - from a different angle, but almost but not quite the same point.

[ailbhe]

Gosh, I didn't even get that she was faking an accent/speech pattern. I must watch it again to see that, because I missed it entirely. I imagine that will change the flavour of it significantly.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

*nods* The first example that comes to mind right now is "I'm a racist? [pause] Yo' cheap!" I'm pretty sure the second part of that is not her native speech pattern, though of course as a non-USian I am not an expert. (And of course it's adding classism to the list of problems with the piece.)

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I so so so hear you. *sigh*

What is with people wanting to do allegedly 'edgy' things and yet not having the courage to accept the negative consequences that at least some people will think badly of them for it?

[the-same-sky.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree more.

I didn't fancy watching the clip, so I don't have an opinion on that. But everything else you wrote: yes.

[ailbhe]

It took a bit of gritted teeth but it did make me laugh. Wryly, but definitely laugh. Bitter.

Now I need to get the oomph to go back and watch it again to see what I missed about race the first time.