If I had to give two words to describe this video, they would be hilarious and accurate…and I ain't mad about it. As a black girl who went to school with a lot of white people, in the south no less, comments like these were so common, it's more than a little ridiculous.
This video is the spawn of the "Sh*t Girls Say" video that surfaced less than a month ago which brought along "Sh*t Black Girls Say" "Sh*t Black Guys Say" "Sh*t Asians Say"--you get the picture. It's basically turned into a meme and while it's mostly comical, some of the stuff does raise a few eyebrows when you think about the actual context. Sure, we're not getting offended when we show it as a parody, but when it's actually happening?
Let me give you an example:
Somewhere in this video, the girl says something along the lines of, "The Jews were slaves, but you don't see us complaining about it." One day at my job, I found a piece somewhere on the Internet that spoke on how black people don't want an apology for slavery, they just want people to address the fact that it happened…there's no museum to commemorate the fact that this entire country was built on the backs of slaves…and before we get into any sort of disagreement about how bad slavery was for other races, let's consider the fact that if a white slave had a baby, that child was not considered the property of the slave's owner…but I digress…anyway, there hasn't been any sort of formal recognition of slavery in the United States. So we start having a discussion at the news desk and eventually someone else decides to pop their head in and she looks me dead in the eye and says, "You know, I get tired of hearing black people complain about this--I mean, no offense Ashley, but my ancestors are Irish, we went through the same thing and things are fine now."
Hold the entire eff up.
My anger at her wasn't as much about the fact that she compared her Irish ancestors to mine…but more because after that discussion started and I tried to explain the fact that she was wrong, the conversation morphed into one about rights and how things are still unequal for black people…and she kinda wanted to blame black people for the problems…and I mean, I guess she's kinda right considering that we can't change our skin color to look more like our Irish brethren. What crappy luck, right? I know.
All that being said, the video really brought the whole situation back to light for me because it's something that isn't really talked about. Sure, it's joked about among friends and every now and then a couple of my coworkers (who were completely shocked that she'd say something like that to begin with AND are white) jokingly say: "Oh c'mon Ashley--you don't know what a real struggle is--I mean, look at my Irish ancestors."
