How White People Subtly Reinforce White Supremacy When They Laugh at Black Names

[Bucky]

138. If we pretend it's only white people doing this, then that's an important point.

Of course the two instances I can recall people actually doing that, it was both times African American stand up comics doing riffs on stereotypical African-American names. When people put that out into the culture, it heightens racial sensitivities of all Americans. It's wrong to make fun of other cultures, but it's a fiction to assert that there are absolutely separate black and white cultures in America. So to say "when white people do it" it's misleading, because when anybody does it, it promotes disrespect of the black aspects and contributions to American culture.

So, I agree with most of the point the writer made, but I gotta call out the Apartheid like assumptions underpinning his main idea.

When we share the same language, the same broadcast airwaves, the same geography, it's inaccurate--and in fact supportive of racial discrimination--to pretend that it can ever be all white people doing one thing and all black people doing something else, or even to assert that racial designations are more important than behaviors that individuals (of any race) do.