While I am an extremely white person who certainly burns quickly in direct sunlight, I have yet to actually burst into flame in the manner of a Tolkeinesque goblin (or more properly Orc, if we may pedantically whitesplain). It turned out she had previously posted tweets that make fun of white people in various ways, such as saying we “burn faster in the sun,” making us akin to “goblins.” She also notes how much she enjoys “being cruel to old white men,” and claims we have appropriated the sport of lacrosse. But the new white people jokes are so mean! Take, for instance, tech journalist Sarah Jeong, who recently joined the editorial board of the New York Times.
Nobody gets mad about those kinds of white people jokes anymore. Even the eminently respectable Ta-Nehisi Coates recently mused how white people’s legendary inability to dance may be an unfair stereotype. And we’re not just talking about the toothless old-school gags of white people enjoying excessive amounts of mayonnaise, or our terror of spicy food, or our outsize devotion to the endless left turns of NASCAR. Perhaps in response to the liberation of white people from their rhetorical chains just like the Irish once were liberated ( fact check notwithstanding) from their “real” chains, a lot of folks are making fun of white people.
Opinion Joy Reid: Everyday racism is the small, daily reminders that we're still not equal
