How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life | Hacker News Reader

How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life

nytimes.com

14 pointsnoobermin12 comments

She's the person who tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”

From the author of the article:

  I began to suspect that it wasn’t racist 
  but a reflexive critique of white privilege — 
  on our tendency to naïvely imagine ourselves 
  immune from life’s horrors.

Yes. I make Sacco's kind of joke all the time (in private), and it's also meant to be a comment on racism itself. This kind of joke was common in the late 70s and early 80s (see movies like "Blazing Saddles" or Richard Pryor's "Live on Sunset Strip". In those days anyone was allowed to satirize racism that way, black or white. I think it was healthy, because it robbed racism of its power, sort of like saying Voldemort's name. Now... not such much.

Almost like we have entered an era of public shaming, where third parties either out of honest mistake or willful ignorance take things out of (unspoken) context and turn them into shit storms.

That was the gist of the article.

It seem to ignore one variant of willfulness thought. The one that weaponize it in an attempt at getting someone removed from some position or other.

You don't do this and expect to be in PR long.

There may be something to that--I'm not sure that I've seen racism shown recently in a humorous and mocking light. Maybe treating as such a serious issue grants it undeserved legitimacy.

Watch any standup comic who is not 100% WASP.

For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CmzT4OV-w0

?? you're saying that people don't make racist jokes ironically? You seem to be missing out on about half of the world of comedy and jokes between friends. In summary, I'd question if you have any sense of humor.

That crosses into personal attack, which is not allowed on HN. Also, please stop posting ideological rants. You've been doing it a lot, and such comments don't belong here.

A dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9039274. Also the recent discussion of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10773808.

this could only happen in a world full of wussy whiners. media grasping at straws trying to find white racists, inventing them in MOST cases, ignoring the racism of people of color directed towards whites, and taking on a small slice of "cases" where they defend people blamed as being racist and paint them victims. It's all about the story, forget the truth of the matter.

She made a weak joke, didn't really fit the template of a good joke, one that can reach a lower common reptilian brain, she flubbed that, but anyone who gave two squirts about it is more guilty than any racist. Because it proves those reactionaries are after people, that they want to destroy them.

Those people, those losers who go through life wanting attention and can't hold claim to any accomplishment, those who meant to hurt her reputation are incredibly toxic to society.

> those who meant to hurt her reputation are incredibly toxic to society.

It seems to be a large portion of the media (mostly up-and-coming or your average spokes hole) and people who like to believe twitter is important for influencing public opinion...as opposed to other hive-minded individuals who believe twitter has this kind of power. Twitter shaming always appeared to be a bunch of ninny clucking to me.

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