Washington Post op-ed blames Amy Schumer for 'inspiring' alleged Charleston shooter Dylann Roof
While comedian Amy Schumer will tell you she isn't racist, a pair of university professors disagree — and have gone as far as to say she "inspired" the worldview of alleged Charleston shooter Dylann Roof in a Washington Post op-ed titled, "Don't believe her defenders. Amy Schumer's jokes are racist."
Stacey Patton, a history professor at American University, and David Leonard, a professor in the Critical, Cultural, Gender and Race Studies department at Washington State University, wrote that Schumer's racially insensitive jokes make her no different than Donald Trump, who has come under fire of late for comments calling Mexican migrants rapists and murderers. Patton and Leonard argue that Schumer could run on the same presidential ticket as Trump, citing several stand-up routines, including one in which Schumer said, "I used to date Hispanic guys, but now I prefer consensual."
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"Invoking the 'it's just a joke" defense denies the social, historic, and cultural implications of racial humor," Patton and Leonard write, adding that Schumer's jokes spread racism of the caliber seen in the murder of nine black Americans last month:
This rhetoric isn't just ugly. It contributes to a worldview that justifies a broken immigration system, mass incarceration, divestment from inner city communities, that rationalizes inequality and buttresses persistent segregation and violence. Yet nobody wants to take responsibility for spewing rhetoric that breeds the fear that results in soaring gun purchases, that "inspires" monsters like Dylann Roof to craft a manifesto with deadly consequences. [Washington Post]
Mediaite noted that when criticized for the op-ed, Patton responded in a tweet that "black people can't be racist."
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