Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Racist Trending Topics on Twitter


By Brianna Savoca
On Wednesday morning, "#thingsdarkiessay" was the second highest treding topic on Twitter.
Thousands of tweets piled up by the minute, and by 10:30 AM, #thingsdarkiessay became the number one trending topic. By 11:00 AM, Twitter removed the hashtag #thingsdarkiessay from the trending topic list.

Reviewing the tweets on #thingsdarkiessay, many users claimed Things Darkies Say was a South African inside joke.

Things Darkies Say is not a joke to me. It is pure racism.

Humor used tastefully is enjoyable, funny, and enhances people's moods. Things Darkies Say is completely distasteful, unenjoyable, not funny in the least, and puts me in a angry, bitter, agitated mood.

Things Darkies Say is racism wearing a mask of humor.

Things Darkies Say perpetuates the negative stereotypes of the black race, especially with a duragatory word like "Darkies" in the title. Perpetuating stereotypical words and phrases like "massa," and "the darker the berry the sweeter the juice" shows a complete lack of respect for the black race.

Where is progress in South Africa? Many South Africans risked their lives to fight Apartheid, a legal system of racial segregation. Now some South Africans find it a funny joke to degrade the black race?

While South Africans claim Things Darkies Say is an inside joke, inside jokes do not work very well in a global, public forum like Twitter for all the world to read and judge.

My judgement rules against Things Darkies Say.

10 comments:

  1. Grow up. it's a joke and come down off your pedastol. I'm going to start a trending topic thats #thingshumorlessbutkindahotbriannasavocasays

    ReplyDelete
  2. You ask where progress is in South Africa? Have you visited the place lately.
    Context is everything. That topic was started with no malicious intent at all. It was meant to be funny and not to harm.
    Do you have the right to shut me down just because your context and frame of reference is different from mine? Nobody on Twitter is forced to participate in any Trending Topic.
    If you don't like it, don't look!

    ReplyDelete
  3. DARKIE has offended a lot of Afro-Americans who ironicaly refer to themselves as n!ggaz,create offensive meaningless music and curse every second,wow! thats something.We werent even degrading ourselves we were just poking fun at our lovely unique and vibrant culture and language while the Americans were still snoozing,they woke up and created a monster out of nothing.If you wanna talk progress just pay us a visit and pen it down on your blog.I am an African,black and a proud darkie....lastly i thot twitter was Global

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh cookie pookie woo! Oh tiddly, widdly middly moo!

      Delete
    2. Oh cookie pookie woo! Oh tiddly, widdly middly moo!

      Delete
  4. Hi Brianna, I really appreciate your views on the matter, I understand that the term is offensive and a racial slur but considering the context. The fact that it was started by South Africans should be taken into consideration, the term Darkie isn't considered a racial slur over this side of the big pond, there's even a clothing line called darkie I'm sorry that the word 'caused offense to you.
    I feel that everybody could have handled the situation better, a conversation could've started and we could've all came out of the episode with a better understanding of each other, instead the whole thing was reduced to the same childish mud slinging that you see on this comment thread.

    PS: I find it troublesome that twitter censors the trending topic list!

    Peace

    -AQUILOGY

    ReplyDelete
  5. DARKIE has offended a lot of Afro-Americans who ironicaly refer to themselves as n!ggaz,create offensive meaningless music and curse every second,wow! thats something.

    Yes ALL black Americans, even most black Americans act this way. That was sarcasm, and what you did was generalize, and shows your lack of knowledge of black american culture.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Instead of always stating how the blacks are the ones being stereotyped against please come to South africa and see for yourself that they arent all innocent,whites are being persecuted too but its just not made public the police for are abusing there power,its even in the laws that a black person are first choice to getting a job rather than a white person,in universities if you want to study medicine you have different specifications based on your colour...Do you think thats fair.I dont believe this Darkie thing is right but neither is what is happening in S.a. now and a agree with Siditty

    ReplyDelete
  7. Twitter often has racist trending topics, but they are usually racist against white people. Like right now, #onlywhitepeople is a TT, and it's mostly blacks tweeting insulting stereotypes with that hashtag.

    Oh, and Twitter isn't removing it, either.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Grow up dearie. You're supposed to be a 7th grade teacher - not a 7th grader!

    ReplyDelete