Every so often, something so ridiculously racist occurs that even in this, the year of our Lord, two thousand and sixteen, it manages to surprise me. This in a time when Donald “Keep the Mexicans off the jurist bench, out of America, but let them build my hotels” Trump is an ACTUAL possibility to represent the United States of America as President. You reasonable motherfuckers better vote. Seriously.
Well, the Red Cross decided to throw their hats into the “You The Real Racist” pool (no pun intended) by brainstorming, creating, mass producing, and publicly displaying one of the most proof-of-institutional racism posters you’ve ever seen. And you’ve seen it because we’ve all seen it. It is a poster that depicts a bunch of kids at a swimming pool under the guideline of “Be Cool, Follow The Rules”, except the only kids following the rules are white kids and all of the children of color are, well, not following the rules and practicing for lifetimes of insubordination, disrespect to institutions, and jail. Us coloreds, we so colored.
The Red Cross, after being informed on social media of the complete fuck up, has since issued one of those non-apology apologies that refers to it as a misunderstanding, but those bitches know good and gotdamn well that it’s an offensive poster. One quick look at it indicates that it is, but just as most unintentional racists do after being called on their unintentional racism, they play the “it was unintentional” card.
If I intend to shoot one person and end up killing another, I’m still a murderer. Those are just facts.
Non-sense aside, the Red Cross was actually pretty thorough with their racism, almost impressively so. I mean, they didn’t leave many ways to improve on their racism. But I figured I’d try since, well, why not. Here are 10 ways the Red Cross poster could have been more racist.
- The first and most obvious is also the most simple: make the Black or Hispanic woman life guard a white woman since, obviously, Black people can’t swim and we KNOW a Black woman is NOT getting her hair wet after it’s been fried, died, and laid to the side. Also, having nice white people guarding the nice white kids who are cool against the anarchy of the colored kids (who are not cool) just makes sense in a “KKK-ad, this is why we don’t let coloreds near the pool” type of way. Plan B would be to make the second life guard EXTREMELY Hispanic by putting a Corona in her hand WHILE she’s lifeguarding since we know that all Latinos CAN swim, since, you know, Rio Grande and/or Cuba. It helps if this pool is in California or Miami.
- The little evil Black girl that’s pushing the poor, unsuspecting white girl into the pool? Yeah, she needs some braids with beads on them, like Venus and Serena in 1997, and a two-piece bathing suit not appropriate for a girl who is, say, three years old.
- So there’s a boy diving into the pool – not cool, boy diving into the pool – and I’m gon’ let him finish, but this needs a whole lot more…color. He needs to have pushed the white girl out of the way WHILE diving in with his jean shorts on, sagging so you can see his drawz with a wad of money dangling out of his pockets, because he gets money, bitch.
- There’s a random boy in the pool who is not cool and I’m not sure why. All I know is that he has a box haircut. Give DeJuanTé (that’s the name I’m giving him) a gumby, some shades, Beats By Dre headphones and NOW he’s “not cool” even though he’s cool as a motherfuckin’ fan, cat, because who the fuck wears headphones in a pool. He definitely needs an urban push.
Speaking of urban push… - Let’s take this pool from Cali or Florida and make it Washington, DC, in Columbia Heights and keep the two lifeguards white. NOW, we’re cookin’ with grease. Then it’s a case of the new white families bringing their kids to the pool being accosted by the locals who haven’t been put out yet by rising property values and Starbucks and who don’t have the good sense to follow rules at a pool. Then it achieves two solid goals: 1) racism and 2) being a defacto ad to help promote gentrification to send to the white listserv that we all know exists to inform white people moving into major cities which neighborhoods to take over next.
- There’s a racially ambiguous boy walking along the pool’s edge wearing a t-shirt, shades, and drinking some sort of drink. He needs some work. For one, his tshirt should say Compton and he should be drinking either grape soda, orange soda, or a Corona. And since we’re in DC now, he should have a lanyard that says El Salvador.
- There are two little boys running along the pool’s edge who are about to hit a puddle and catch the fade in the most sincere way possible. One looks possibly Asian (what, we’re working with full racism here) and the other is a chubby little Black kid who needs to lay off McDonald’s McPick 2 for $2.50. Anyway, they need to be running AWAY from the white girl who just got pushed by the dude who dove into the pool with jean shorts on, as they point and laugh. Because that is not cool and assuredly breaks a rule or two. And they need tattoos. I don’t care if they’re like 6. They need tats. Because growin’ up in the hood, we all get tats on our sixth birthday.
- There’s a father playing with his kid in the pool. He’s white. Because of course he is. That white father needs to be reciting Bible verses while playing with his child from some sort of floaty, blow up plastic Bible. Also, he should have his adopted Black child with him who is saying thank you for making my life better.
- Speakers. There are no speakers at this pool. That is a major racism fail because people of color love a good party. There needs to be some speakers that are “not cool” with Desiigner’s “Panda” lyrics playing in the background while the white dad who is reading Bible verses incredulously says, “this music is inappropriate, we’re leaving.”
- The white girl who got pushed by the Black boy who dove in with jeans and money in his pocket…should be Abigail Fisher. That way, the white lifeguard dude could then yell at the boys who are laughing AND the boy diving in the pool, put them out, and let her continue to try to swim in her comfortable world though she can only truly doggy paddle and float.