Mistaken for Racist: Difference between revisions

Line 11:

== Meta ==

* Certain tropes on this wiki are sometimes interpreted as racist.

** [[Ash Face]], for example, looks pretty bad but usually only implies that the [[Butt Monkey|butt of the joke]] has been burned.

** Similarly, [[Funny Foreigner]] - although that trope pokes fun at the character's different cultural practices, rather than different skin color.

== Comicbooks ==

* An issue of ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]]'' has [[Iron Man]] getting extremely upset by the idea that the team needs to induct a minority member in order to diversify its line-up. His opposition becomes extreme enough that Duanne and Triathlon (who are both black) begin to insinuate that Tony is in fact, a racist. He tries to deny this, stating that he believes that the Avengers should only be the "best of the best" regardless of race, but he ultimately stops arguing after noting that he is indeed beginning to sound like a bigot.

** While never saying that Tony is a racist, the narrative itself does go out of its way to try and justify the idea of diversifying the team. The Wasp for instance is shocked and upset when she realizes that there have only been a handful of non-white Avengers in the team's history, and an earlier issue by the same author has an African American man noting that he wished the Avengers had some diversity so that his son could see that people like him could be heroes too.

** Strange enough this issue has been in Avengers many times before. During the 80's the government and the people in the streets wanted the Avengers to be more diverse. The Avengers asked Black Panther to join them, but he turned them down since he didn't want to be the Black Guy In The Team.

* [[Archie Comics]] had this in a comic where Veronica has a party. She tells Archie that she doesn't want certain friends of his there. Since he's hanging out with Chuck and Jughead at the time, he thinks she means Chuck (who's black) and becomes angry. Turns out she means Jughead, who tends to be a slob and rather greedy with the food.

== Films ==

Line 32:

* An incredibly awkward version pops up in ''[[True Crime]]'', when Clint Eastwood's character goes to see the mother of a black possible witness. She assumes he's racist, and while he's sputtering, trying to explain herself, she correctly figures out that the other two witnesses and the victim were all white. Eastwood's character tells her she's "making it into a race thing" and tells her the condemned man he's trying to save is ''also'' black. She tells him the man he came to see has been dead for three years, and asks him where he was when he got stabbed.

* In ''[[National Security]]'', which gets a good half-hour out of the joke, Earl (Black) played by Martin Lawrence tries to get into his car when he finds that he has locked his keys inside. The police officer Hank (White) played by Steve Zahn confronts Earl and mistakes him for a car thief trying to break into the car. However, immediately after Earl is cuffed a bumblebee arrives and, as Earl is allergic to bumblebees, Hank attempts to swat the bee away to protect Earl from a potentially lethal reaction. Unfortunately, all that the bystanders see is a white cop savagely swinging a nightstick near a hand-cuffed black man, and to top it off the bee ''does'' manage to sting Earl. Afterwards, with a jittery recording of the encounter on the news and Earl seemingly bruised from the beating (But really just swollen from the bee sting) Hank was convicted with aggravated assault by an all black jury and sentenced to six months in prison.

* Occurs as a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] in ''[[Cabin Fever (film)|Cabin Fever]]''. At one point the characters ask a store owner why he has a high-powered rifle behind the counter, and he explains it's "for the blacks" ([[N-Word Privileges|not in those exact words]]). At the end of the movie {{spoiler|we see a black group pull up to the store, and the owner goes into the back hurriedly... only to hand them the gun that they'd apparently ordered, at which point the audience sees that he simply doesn't know the difference between using "er" and "a"}}.

* In the 2005 ''[[Dukes of Hazzard]]'' film, Bo and Luke are shown stuck in traffic. As several other drivers pass them they make comments. The first is a stereotypical [[Deep South|redneck]] who shouts out "Southern By the Grace of God!" leaving them a little confused. Then a black couple drives by them and asks them if they're late for their Klan meeting, leaving them even more confused. Another redneck drives by complimenting them again. Then another black woman drives by and says "Nice roof." Bo and Luke then check their roof of the General Lee and discover the Confederate flag that it was so well known for on the TV series.

* The first ''[[Rush Hour]]'' movie combines this with [[N-Word Privileges]] when Carter (who's black) and Lee (who's Asian) go to a pool hall. Carter, who's known by the patrons, greets them by saying "What's up, ma nigga?" While Carter goes into a back room to interrogate a source, Lee tries to start a friendly chat with the bartender using the same line. Since this is a [[Jackie Chan]] movie, [[Bar Brawl|Fighting Ensues]].

Line 51:

*** Then come to find out he's white and was only dating her because he thought she was latino (thick curly hair, last name Benes). When they realize they're both white, they go to the Gap.

** Yet another example was an episode where Elaine's company was critically depenedent on a deal with a Japanese conglomerate. Her boss had a terrible cold, and forgot his handkerkchief on her desk, and thus sneezed all over his hands. The Japanese businessman mistakes his refusal to shake hands because of germs to be an insult rather than a courtesy.

*** ... Which doesn't make a ton of sense considering that the Japanese tend to prefer bowing over shaking hands anyway.

** An inversion occurs in an episode where George and Jerry can't get a cab at the airport and pretend to be the people a limo driver is waiting for. Turns out the person George is impersonating is a notorious neo-Nazi. Jerry and George don't actually say anything racist but are still [[Mistaken for Racist]] by other racists. It's even more awkward because Jerry is Jewish.

* Every other episode of ''[[Curb Your Enthusiasm]]'' (Hmm, [[Larry David]] must love this trope.)

* The ''[[Father Ted]]'' episode where Ted manages to offend Craggy Island's surprisingly large Chinese community. Somewhat subverted in that the presentation intended to prove that he's not racist is actually pretty racist in its own right.

* Liz in the ''[[30 Rock|Thirty Rock]]'' episode "The Source Awards" where she dates a black man who she ends up not liking. It seems only her date thought she was racist though, rather than everyone, but her attempts to prove herself not racist still backfired in the typical manner:

Line 70:

** A similar occurrence happened in the episode where he went to Mexico.

** Thankfully avoided in the first part of the series finale - after shaking hands with a black physician, Monk does his normal wiping thing...and is complimented by the doctor, who notes that if more people did that, he'd have a much easier job. Almost as if they were [[Continuity Nod|referencing the earlier jokes]]...

* In an episode of ''[[3rd Rock from the Sun]]'', Dick says to his black colleague, "You people all look the same to me." Of course he means all ''humans'', and is explaining why he hadn't noticed that she and another colleague were of different ethnic groups.

** In another episode, Dick, having failed to infiltrate a black study group, decided to seek out the white equivalent. He ended up taking his family to a "white power" rally.

*** He also started calling other white people "brothers" after hearing some blacks doing this, always getting insults in return because of this trope.

* There's an episode of ''[[Scrubs]]'' where the Janitor sets up JD to appear prejudiced against East Asians by pondering a crossword puzzle solution just before an Asian lab tech could get there, just out of eye-shot of JD.

** "A *blank* in one's armour?"

*** Another episode contains a flashback where JD is mistaken for racist against blacks when he shows up in black-face at a black fraternity while the white-faced Turk dropped the joke at the last second to talk to a cute girl.

** In one episode Dr. Cox tells Turk he doesn't approve of "you people". Turk has just enough time to get offended before Dr. Cox finishes his blanket insult, declaring, in his own special Dr. Coxy way, his endless disdain...for ''surgeons''.

* The first episode of ''[[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]]'', "The Gang Gets Racist", hilariously centers around this trope.

* On ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]'', Mimi tells Drew that the Hispanic corporate executive he's going to interview is just the guy applying to be a janitor. Among other unfortunate things Drew says about "his kind" (by which he means janitors) is that they have to come into the store through the back entrance so that the customers don't see them.

* On ''[[Just Shoot Me]]'', Elliot mistakes an Asian-American client for the Chinese food delivery guy. Jack's attempt to set things right backfire when the person he thinks is the returning client actually works for him. To cap it off, Elliot is drinking a Slushie and gets brain freeze. Holding his temples so tightly his eyes slant, he bows back and forth saying "Ah, so cold!" - just as the client returns to be insulted a second time.

Line 103:

* In the first season finale of ''[[Boardwalk Empire]]'', the various sleazy politicians are talking about how to win an election by encouraging voters and one comments about getting the spooks to vote. This gets an angry reaction from the black gangster Chalky, who is in attendance. The speaker hastily clarifies that he meant spooks in the sense of ghosts and was talking about having the dead "vote".

* On ''[[Party Down]]'', at Constance's wedding to a Jewish man, Kyle's band performs a song he wrote for Constance. He sings about how he and Constance, with their blond hair and blue eyes, are special and should rule the world, but a conspiracy of money-grubbers tries to hold them down. Then the song ostensibly describes the path to stardom as "a midnight train" to a place where they "brand you with a star" and "give with a number". . [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]? The song is also called [[Adolf Hitler|"My Struggle"]]. Constance has to interrupt him and force him off stage as the Jewish guests are horrified.

* To be fair, Pierce from ''[[Community]]'' actually is pretty racist, but in episode [[Community/Recap/S1 E18 Basic Genealogy|Basic Genealogy]], he makes an innocent mistake for once with his attempt to draw a windmill turns into a swastika while playing Pictionary.

* To be fair, Pierce from ''[[Community]]'' actually is pretty racist, but in episode [[Community/Recap/S1/E18 Basic Genealogy|Basic Genealogy]], he makes an innocent mistake for once with his attempt to draw a windmill turns into a swastika while playing Pictionary.

* Yet another "you people" example in ''[[True Blood]]'' when Arlene is referring to religious people.

Line 132:

(Short Pause)

'''President:''' I hate black people and CHIGGERS! }}

* This is essentially the sum of Kris the Koala's character in ''[[Acorn Grove]]'', to the point where other characters refer to him as "Kris the Racist Koala".

== Web Originals ==

* Richard Herring's ''[[As It Occurs To Me]]'' podcast. Richard describes how twenty years ago he was playing a skinhead in a play and was turned away from a Pizza Hut because they assumed he was racist. He then told of how he was recently given bad service in a branch of Pizza Express because he has a Hitler moustache (which he had because for his stand up show Hitler Moustache). He said there should be a campaign against people who aren't racist being discriminated because people think they're racist (although he admits that he is probably the only person with that problem).

** Funny, considering that a major percentage of skinheads are decidedly anti-racist, and hold special loathing towards those who mixed the neo-Nazi and skinhead subcultures together.

* [[Rhett and Link]] knew that their [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnOyMSEWNTs Red House Furniture Commercial] would create controversy, but it has no touches of racism in it. In fact, it is the exact opposite. It may only include blacks and whites, but they made it very clear that persons of all races are welcome at The Red House.

Line 145:

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[King of the Hill]]'': Hank is thought to be subconsciously Afrophobic after his dog attacks a black repairman. It's later revealed the dog attack stems from his innate dislike of repairmen, irrespective of ethnicity.

** The Church's less than subtle approach of convey the "racism is bad", culminating in a group of church goers and the female Priest singing on Hank's lawn with a big cross, points out the hypocrisy of condeming racism yet taking a similar attitude towards those who don't share the same view point.

** In an early episode, Hank doesn't want to go to his new Laotian neighbor Kahn's barbecue because Kahn had been nothing but rude and insulting to Hank (calling him a "stupid redneck" and so on). Peggy demands that Hank go, otherwise they'll look like racists. Hank is frustrated, "I don't care about his race, he's a jerk. What kind of country is this where you can only hate a man if he's white?"