Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Have you ever been in a mostly white office and noticed how many reaction GIFs are of black people?

The term to Google here is “digital blackface”.

If you bring this to more people’s attention my guess is that reaction GIFs will become less prevalent in your office.




No, the term to Google here would be "misinterpreting inclusive cultural norms as appropriation".


One of these has 57,000 results and the other one has zero.


You kind of need to search without quotes, and you’ll get very appropriate results.


It is amazing the lengths people will go to find something to complain about.


Like… "other people using reaction GIFs".


We need a Godwin's law for things being described as "-ism".


or anything -esque.


Geez people find a new thing every day to get offended about. Amazing.


Sure, Jan

I don't think there's any solid evidence of disproportional use of of one ethnic group by another. You can certainly find individuals who thoughtlessly or deliberately do that but generalizing that to some random population (eg of office workers) is likely wrong.


I think that's just some form of confirmation bias you've formed, as I've never noticed that. I will say most of my offices have been multi-cultural, but even then, I've been on and led teams of white-only males that never succumbed to even posting these gifs. I guess guilting people into censoring their choices is a point of action, but I think the entire process should just be faded out. Slack admins don't need to allow these plugins. Theres nothing stopping people from literally going to giphy.com or whatever, but that's not why it's popular -- and it's definitely not why FB is shelling 400 million for it.


Digital blackface is not my idea, nor is it something I noticed. (I am white.) Someone else explained it to me. I was probably a bit skeptical that a funny GIF of Oprah could be linked to Jim Crow, but in the historical context of blackface there are some unavoidable similarities.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: