[FuzzieAlum]

This isn't my forum, but I think this conversation is fascinating at showing how different people, esp. from different racial perspectives, react differently to racial topics.

When I saw the site, I assumed it was mocking white people. Most of us white people don't know all that many black people, but if we get close to one or get along with several, we think we are just the coolest, most racially open person. Look at some of the threads on the forums here - "My (NPC) sorority chapter is sooooo diverse - we have one black girl!" There are a lot of white people who get along with the black woman down the office hall, but if that white woman is walking down an emptry street and sees a black man walking towards her, she starts to get nervous.

I took the site as saying not that "blacks say things like this" but as "we white people are dumb@$$es for thinking black people really are impressed with our pathetic attempts to prove ourselves non-racist." It shows the world of delusion most of us live in. I think, morever, the people it is designed to provoke are white ones - we're the ones who believe, after all, that racism is dead and black people should just love us.

It's a shame that it's being taken differently, but that's the danger of using satire or parody to make a point. Some people won't get that it's parody, others will disagree with what point it is making, and others think some topics should be off-limit to humor. Right here we have reasonable people disagreeing about what his point is, which considerably dilutes it (no matter who is right about what he is trying to say, because maybe it's not me).

However, I do disagree with one point - white folks do have the right to enter the racial debate, parodically or seriously. They might not be right, they might not understand, but the moment they are excluded is the moment they stop taking the claims seriously. I think it's hard to have a meaningful diaglogue about race without including all races in it.