Racism

I was all prepared today with another edition of "Things that made me laugh". I've been saving them on my phone, in a notebook in my purse, and on my laptop. But instead, I'm going to share a news article that hit my homepage this evening. Before I share the article, you need to know the person whom it is about. The beautiful young lady pictured here is Amandla Stenberg. She play Rue in the new Hunger Games movie (the one I wrote enthusiastically about just yesterday). Honestly, she is almost exactly as I pictured Rue from the book.


And here is the news article I promised-
Actors Amandla Stenberg and Dayo Okeniyi definitely hit it big when they landed the roles of Rue and Thresh, respectively, in "The Hunger Games."

But the relative unknowns playing tributes from District 11 in the dystopian saga (which scored a historic $155 million its opening weekend and rave reviews) are the subject of an offensive debate among a few, totally clueless fans of Suzanne Collins' blockbuster young adult novel, as pointed out at Jezebel.

Why? Although both Rue and Thresh are described as having "dark brown skin" in the book, some bigoted fans, oddly enough, object that both Stenberg and Okeniyi are black.

Complained one fan on Twitter: "Why does rue have to be black not gonna lie kinda ruined the movie."

Added another ignorant fan: "Why did the producer make all the good characters black?"

"Why is Rue a little black girl? Stick to the book, dude," said another.

In something of a spoiler tweet, another fan admitted he was "racist" when he learned of tragic Rue's racial identity.

Another tweeter even uttered the "N" word in decrying adorable African-American actress Amandla Stenberg's race.

"I'm still pissed that Rue is black," wrote another.

"Ewwww rue is black?? I'm not watching," another person wrote.

The Tumblr blog "Hunger Games" Tweets was first to decry the shocking, offensive trend. "The reactions are all based on feelings of disgust," the blogger wrote. "These people are MAD that the girl that they cried over while reading the book was 'some black girl' all along. So now they're angry. Wasted tears, wasted emotions. ... This is a BIG problem."


I would also like to add a few things from the "Hunger Games Tweets" Tumblr mentioned above (because of course I went there to catch up on what was going on before I blogged myself!). Here are a few more quotes-

" [quoted from someone else]-The best way to keep racism alive is to talk about racism.

Nice!! So what you’re saying is that when we see racism running rampant over something as trivial as movie casting, we should all just sweep it under the rug and look in the other direction because there’s nothing to see here and everything is peachy-keen!!

Right, but… no. I’m going to address it and do what I can to combat it. And yes, that involves collecting these tweets and leaving the big ugly mess right here for everyone to see so that we all know there’s a big problem out there and it’s not to be ignored."

Here's the complete quote from the news article, which is actually what I went looking for-
"These people are MAD that the girl that they cried over while reading the book was “some black girl” all along. So now they’re angry. Wasted tears, wasted emotions. It’s sad to think that had they known that she was black all along, there would have been so sorrow or sadness over her death.

There are MAJOR TIE-INS to these reactions and the injustices that we see around the world today. I don’t even need to spell it out because I know that you’re all a smart bunch.

This is a BIG problem. Think of all the murdered children. Think of all the missing children that get NO SCREEN TIME on the news.

It is NOT a coincidence."

The above quotes are from Hunger Games Tweets and the article can be found by clicking here.

I don't have much more to say beyond what the author of Hunger Games Tweets has said. I honestly am struggling with the fact that there are so many people STILL who feel that the color of someone's skin makes them less of a person, or less sympathetic. The idea that someone would not care about the death of a little twelve year old (fictional) girl because she's black literally blew my mind. I'm going to end this post with a few screen captures from Hunger Games Tweets (follow the link above to see the context). It's ridiculous and sad and it's kind of breaking my heart that people can still think like this. (Also, for clarification in case you haven't read the books, while I would be upset that people can think like that no matter what, the character of Rue is CLEARLY described as having "dark brown skin" more than once in The Hunger Games).