In a statement released Friday, Seattle's police union said a video of its vice president joking after the death of 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula lacks context.
I think I am wasting mental resources trying to figure out how he thinks this makes his joke seem less callous? Like “Oh you just killed a young person - well lemme tale this moment to impersonate what a inhumane ass of a lawyer would say to lighten the mood…”
Simple. He saw people make dark jokes, probably to deal with the grim reality they are stuck in, entirely misunderstood the complete process (reasoning, humorous device, etc), and decided to appropriate them anyway as he saw them as “one of the ways to get immunity”.
As I always say: the real issue in appropriation isn’t the appropriation in itself; it’s that too many of the people who appropriate foreign (to them) cultures, ways, etc., do so with such unimaginable stupidity that it absolutely ridicules and insults the original cultural expression. And when they are done, they can revert to their former identity anytime, without damaging it in any way.
I think I am wasting mental resources trying to figure out how he thinks this makes his joke seem less callous? Like “Oh you just killed a young person - well lemme tale this moment to impersonate what a inhumane ass of a lawyer would say to lighten the mood…”
Simple. He saw people make dark jokes, probably to deal with the grim reality they are stuck in, entirely misunderstood the complete process (reasoning, humorous device, etc), and decided to appropriate them anyway as he saw them as “one of the ways to get immunity”.
As I always say: the real issue in appropriation isn’t the appropriation in itself; it’s that too many of the people who appropriate foreign (to them) cultures, ways, etc., do so with such unimaginable stupidity that it absolutely ridicules and insults the original cultural expression. And when they are done, they can revert to their former identity anytime, without damaging it in any way.