My that cardThis was my final that card that I exhibited at exhibition and had read in class. It centers around an experience that I faced with discrimination on the internet and common stereotypes of white people. It deals with the common internet joke of calling white students school shooters. I decided to make a collage of different internet jokes that I found on popular apps like Instagram and Twitter. To the left is the image I used on my final that card.
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Final Writing |
My DM on instagram chimed and I grabbed my phone to look at it. It was a video of cartoon animals all riding a school bus and they were talking to one of the animals who then pulls out an assault rifle and starts blasting around the bus. The message attached to is was addressed to me and it said “damn you need to chill” and “this is you”. I was shocked, I wondered if this was meant as a joke or an insult. I have been sent and seen many more of these internet memes stereotyping white kids as gun loving and violent. The only reason this was sent to me was because I was white and the stereotype exists that white people shoot up public places. I wondered why people though this? I'm not a violent person. It made me question the way I was acting maybe I was too violent maybe this person was trying to send some kind of hint. It has happened many more times after that. I wore a long coat that hung past my waist almost like a trench coat and someone said in what they thought a joking manner if I was hiding a gun under there. I have been reluctant to wear it again because of that. I have even been witness to this happen to other white students I know. Some people have even talked behind a white students back about how they don't want to get him mad because he might put them on his hit list or take out a handgun from his bag. I was expected to laugh, but I realised the joke was also about me. Recently the day I wrote this I overheard a student tell one of my white friends that they look like they are about to shoot up the school in their ID photo. The disturbing thing about this is people see as a normal thing that is ok to laugh about.
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