Conservative Satirist Makes A Joke About Portland Reintroducing Segregation, Makes 'Segregation' Trend On Twitter
In what is almost never the first sentence of a good story, "segregation" trended on Twitter today. Twitter user and conservative satirist Jeff Charles brought antiquated 1900s policy that enforced "separate but equal" facilities for white and Black people to the front page of Twitter after posting a joke that a Portland, Oregon restaurant, in an apparent uber-woke move, had created separate sections for Black and white diners to "ease the trauma of living in this racist society."
Because Charles' joke was a lie told on the internet, several people fell for it and voiced their incredulity that the political left had revived a shameful policy in the name of "wokeness."
To be clear, there is no restaurant in Portland implementing this policy and Charles made clear he had made the story up in a subsequent tweet.
Still, the story was taken as fact by dozens of commenters ready to believe a left-wing business owner had inadvertently revived segregation as a means to solve racism. Many called the fictitious business owners extremely stupid while saying cliches like "you can't make this up."
While those on the political right were voicing their shock that the left was reintroducing segregation based on a made-up tweet, many on the left were discussing the reintroduction of "segregation" based on recent political movements by the right.
For example, some Republicans in congress recently voted against enshrining same-sex marriage in the constitution, and some have compared that to the segregation policies of the early 1900s. Others have called Republican pushes to shut down public schools in favor of private schools reminiscent of segregation.
Furthermore, a recent poll conducted by Morning Consult and Politico found that 25 percent of Republicans do not support an interracial couple's right to marry. The question is now a hot topic after SCOTUS overturned Roe vs. Wade, leading Democrats to hustle towards legislation defending all marriages, including homosexual and interracial ones.
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rerere284
I wonder if Poe's law would even enter the picture if people had more context for stuff like this. I don't remember an instance of it happening to me off of the Internet.
I think it mostly only happens on platforms with a "share this post out of context" button.
DirkDiggums
While I could easily tell this is satire, I can see why some would believe it given some efforts to introduce safe spaces that are literally separation spaces by race/ethnicity. The extremism on the culture war far-left has gotten so bad I genuinely think that the most extreme of them want discrimination rather than equality.
That being said the far right-wing extremist are no better, with some believing in "blood and soil" in a country (America) that they have no rights to both blood or soil. Society appears fucked to me, in a constant state of eating itself alive in order to "improve" instead of focusing on things that truly help everyone. I just hope there is no repeat of the early 20th century in the early 21st century.
redmanticore
yet another topic on which the total opposites can agree with each other.
and people say compromises are impossible.
El Lugubre
As much as i want to jump into the "Reality is so WA-CKO now that satirical jokes and articles no longer work", i also have to remind people that "A modest proposal" was taken at face value while people kept on ignoring the plight it tried to bring to the forefront.
Also, there is the War of the Worlds radio show thing. Which i would argue is part of the same phenomena despite not being satirical.
People either going along with what people that sound trustworthy, to them, or simply playing into confirmation bias.
Of course those woke lefties arrested someone for saying she's a woman and not a "cis-gendered woman".
Of course them rednecks paraded a gay couple through the streets on the basis that one of them had a rainbow flag on their home alone.
Not going to pretend that the issue is equal on both ends when it comes to how dangerous it is. But the fact that both sides fall equally for the bullshit, yeah. Yeah, that's equal.
Sumarios
Satire is next to impossible because reality has gotten so absurd. It's why comedy in general has been in kind of a slump these last 6-7 years. So many comedians have shifted from jokes to just straight-faced political commentary and slapping the "comedy" label on it. Laughter has been replaced by clapter and smiles replaced by nods in agreement. Because reality is getting hard to satirize.
It's why a lot of jokes about trans people or Donald Trump only seem "funny" to people who agree with the message. Jokes require you to stay one step ahead of your audience, but how can you do that when the subject itself is it's own punchline and it's in people's faces 24/7?
What I'm saying is this satire sucks because we've heard it a million times from people who aren't joking.
sborbl
To be fair, this type of thing already happens on a lot of college campuses, so it's not that hard to believe. California even tried to repeal their civil rights legislation because it was getting in the way of affirmative action. You look at the rhetoric surrounding racial equity and grievances and its pretty much implicit that putting these policies into practice means reintroducing segregation. As Ta-Nehisi Cotes put it, "the only cure for past discrimination is present discrimination."
Görktürks are furries
this simultaneously sounds like something that actually happened (which it kind of did during the whole CHAZ thing) and like a Babylon Bee headline.
A Concerned Rifleman
Forgive me, but I definitively remember there being some college businesses that were practicing this back in 2019/20 that got overshadowed during the whole Blackshirt Outbreak that used this exact wording.
jacob BLackburn
You are correct
https://hechingerreport.org/business-decision-segregating-college-students-income-race/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardvedder/2018/11/15/racial-segregation-on-american-campuses-a-widespread-phenomenon/?sh=409c57044455
Sunsoft Bass
While this is satire, you can argue that much of those progressive politics to stop racism, are just segregation being brought back, I remember an article about when a college decided that today, only black people can enter, and one white guy was beaten for trying to go through anyway.
Sumarios
That was the Evergreen State College fiasco which was the event that really brought "wokeness" into mainstream consciousness. A professor, Bret Weinstein, pushed back against it (very mildly) and became a literal target of the woke mob. As in, groups of students were patrolling campus looking for him. There's a series on youtube documenting the whole ordeal which is every bit as insane as you probably heard. Also I'm pretty sure there's an entry about it on KYM.
MCC1701
I'm all for equal opportunity, but in a free society that will mean the outcome of representation will be a roll of the dice rather than being truly equal. Trying to force an equal outcome will only be possible by discriminating, which is disgusting.
I had an epiphany the other day as to why some "inclusion" initiatives rub me the wrong way. Let's say you have a club with 20 members, mostly males, and want to attract more females. Ignoring how the mission is technically sexist, you recruit and end up with 30 members and the number of men and women are far closer. I have no problem with this as the club's has nearly infinite potential members.
Change this now to a situation where there are a fixed number of seats, such as on a competitive team, board of a company, hiring candidates, political offices, etc. If you have 20 members, mostly male, and want to diversify then by necessity you have to now exclude people.
Maddox121
I remember a few others like that. Stuff like having a "Kids of Color Playground day" at a school, unlike the college thing, though, I really couldn't find any concrete proof.
VPhantom
Poe's Law.
We live in a world were satire doesn't work any more, because it's indistinguishable from the garbage we have put up every single day.
Jon the Wizard
I mean, I genuinely thought he was advocating for segregation. In this day and age, you kind of have to preface that what you're saying is a joke because there's always someone who's going to take it at face value.