Voices
has to date held as gospel.
But for others, all this noise is
just tiring. People are “tired of
outrage.”
Let’s unpack this. We’ll use
some commonly heard refrains
as a guide.
“Pretty soon everyone will be
upset about everything.”
The thing is, people have actually always been upset about the
issues that are enraging them
now. The only difference is that
the person making the above
statement is now interacting
with perspectives outside their
immediate community and is being exposed to what are almost
always longstanding grievances
of minority communities.
Quite a bit of internet ink was
spilled as to whether or not 2013
was “the year of black movies.”
Some more ink will likely be
spilled about how the Academy
did a pretty horrible job of including movies with black leads
in the nominee pool (The Butler,
Mandela and Fruitvale Station
are not invited to the party). But
people aren’t “suddenly” mad
that people of color are underrepresented both on screen and
at ensuing award shows.
KIA MAKARECHI
HUFFINGTON
01.26.14
Another surprise: If your internal “outrage meter” told you
that 2013 was the year people
started “complaining” about
how tacky and offensive it is
when celebrities like Katy Perry
perform in yellowface, you’re
also late to the party! Ask anyone who speaks a foreign language to tell you about a time a
sitcom or movie character that
was allegedly [insert national-
It’s safe to say
that we have and will
continue to have heard
every idiosyncratic white
male beef with everything
that has happened and/or
will happen.”
ity here] spoke gibberish instead
of words in [insert corresponding language here], and they’ll be
able to rattle off plenty.
“It’s just that every day,
there’s some new thing that
everyone is mad about.”
This one’s especially fun, because it turns a blind eye to the
fact that for decade upon decade,
every single major newspaper