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Race, rape, tattoos and names

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Shalin Ren Payne

A depressing study of how people respond to stereotypically black and white names

This is about a lot more than just names; in the end, I’m not sure how much names have to do with it.

For instance, Darren Wilson, the former Ferguson police officer who shot and killed Brown, described the black 18-year-old to a grand jury as a demon-like, dead-eyed giant who charged at him through a hail of gunfire — a callback to old racist tropes of ‘giant negroes’ attacking police and innocent people.

Did Wilson actually use that language? Michael Brown was not a small man.

Raven-Symone Apologizes for Discriminatory Comments After Getting Called Out by Her Dad

The co-hosts watched and commented on a viral video of the most “ghetto”-sounding names, after which Raven said, “I am very discriminatory against words like the ones that they were saying in the video. I’m not about to hire you if your name is Watermelondrea. It’s just not going to happen. I’m not going to hire you.”

Comments below.

Georgia man charged with raping fiancée’s 12-year-old daughter while babysitting

Eight-year old Maya Angelou was raped by her mother’s “fiancé.”  One after another, the reports of similar events just keep coming.  One’s heart grows numb.  I have to believe the likelihood of such abuse is much less when the adults are married.

I know nothing about Raven-Symoné.  The names that are used in the “viral video” were definitely not used in the above-mentioned study.  “Watermelondrea” is not one of the names in the video; rather, it is the name of a character in a series of videos that mock stereotypes, as Flip Wilson did with his character “Geraldine.”

Raven-Symoné’s politically correct critics need to admit that some names, like some tattoos, express self-loathing.

Some folk
some times
marginalize
themselves.

Other names in the news:
New York mother throws baby six stories to her death
Body found in freezer may be missing 11-year-old Florida girl
Australia suitcase child identified, linked to murdered mother

Related: Choose your name
Related: A tattoo is a permanent blemish

Reblogged 2022-09-22.