Latest / Language Matters by Elias Winter
The Terms of Peace
A sitting president reposts a video in which the first Black president of the United States and his wife are turned into monkeys.
There is music, of course. There is always music now. A childhood song, something harmless and familiar, plays over an image whose entire point is to be unharmless. The harmony and the hatred share the same frame. That is the joke.
By now, we all know how this goes. The defenders insist it’s “just a meme.” The critics call it racist, which it obviously is. The staff blame a junior aide. The networks book their experts. The platform counts its clicks. Tomorrow…
The skinny
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