Hypersensitivity And Panic: Race Issues Behind South Park
1220 words Hypersensitivity and Panic: Race Issues Behind South Park
Since the government issued some policies to make racial discrimination illegal and Since President Barack Obama succeeded in stepping on the American political stage, it seems America has entered the post-racial era. However, even though the U.S. has made an improvement in terms of racial issues, it is not easy to completely change the whole nation’s attitudes towards minorities. In fact, stereotypes and panics about minorities still exist. Among them, one popular stereotype is that minorities are hypersensitive to race issues, which is partially derived from the whites’ panic that the population of minorities will exceed that of whites. This can be best illustrated by …show more content…
However, when Randy, who is himself white, is called “N----r guy,” he seems very sensitive to the slur, and even asks the Supreme Court to ban the term “N----r guy.” South Park here satirizes the belief of white Americans that minorities are oversensitive about racial jokes or racial slurs. In this episode, instead of banning of “N----r”, the Supreme Court bans the term “N----r guy” when it is applied to a white person. This episode also indicates that some racial jokes and slurs do hurt feeling. White Americans just cannot understand such feelings if they do not experience in person. As Stan says, “…Token, I get it now. I don’t get it. I’ve been trying to say that I understand how you feel, but I’ll never understand. I’ll never really get how it feels for a black person to have somebody use the ‘N’ word. I don’t get it…” (South Park, 2007). Therefore, although the whole society has been taught to eliminate racial discrimination for a long time, quite a few Americans can never have the same sense as minorities when they hear some offensive words. So they might think minorities over react to racial issues. On the other hand, racial discrimination still exists. For example, Token is the only black student in South Park Elementary. To some extent, the name, Token, is a reflection of tokenism which means some almost all-white schools will admit only a small number of minority students to show they do not discriminate against minorities. Therefore, given such discrimination, it is hard to count the reactions of minorities about racial issues as
Since the government issued some policies to make racial discrimination illegal and Since President Barack Obama succeeded in stepping on the American political stage, it seems America has entered the post-racial era. However, even though the U.S. has made an improvement in terms of racial issues, it is not easy to completely change the whole nation’s attitudes towards minorities. In fact, stereotypes and panics about minorities still exist. Among them, one popular stereotype is that minorities are hypersensitive to race issues, which is partially derived from the whites’ panic that the population of minorities will exceed that of whites. This can be best illustrated by …show more content…
However, when Randy, who is himself white, is called “N----r guy,” he seems very sensitive to the slur, and even asks the Supreme Court to ban the term “N----r guy.” South Park here satirizes the belief of white Americans that minorities are oversensitive about racial jokes or racial slurs. In this episode, instead of banning of “N----r”, the Supreme Court bans the term “N----r guy” when it is applied to a white person. This episode also indicates that some racial jokes and slurs do hurt feeling. White Americans just cannot understand such feelings if they do not experience in person. As Stan says, “…Token, I get it now. I don’t get it. I’ve been trying to say that I understand how you feel, but I’ll never understand. I’ll never really get how it feels for a black person to have somebody use the ‘N’ word. I don’t get it…” (South Park, 2007). Therefore, although the whole society has been taught to eliminate racial discrimination for a long time, quite a few Americans can never have the same sense as minorities when they hear some offensive words. So they might think minorities over react to racial issues. On the other hand, racial discrimination still exists. For example, Token is the only black student in South Park Elementary. To some extent, the name, Token, is a reflection of tokenism which means some almost all-white schools will admit only a small number of minority students to show they do not discriminate against minorities. Therefore, given such discrimination, it is hard to count the reactions of minorities about racial issues as