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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   33020 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024

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Hell, it was only a few weeks ago that her supporters were proudly calling themselves "coconut-pilled." I thought it was odd they were so boldly using a racial slur for her, but I guess they wanted to reclaim it?

This is a version of the coconut tree meme, which references an off-the-cuff remark Kamala Harris made back in 2023:

My mother used to — she would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, "I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?"

You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.

If they were reclaiming anything, it was owning this unusual and memorable quotation as something positive, not a reference to any sort of coconut-based racial slur (which I'm not familiar with). But in my Harris-negative bubble I've only heard it as an example of her trying to be fake-folksy and coming off as off-putting.

Yeah I know that was the original reference. But when you start to repeat "coconut" or an emoji of a coconut, over and over, with no further context... well, it's hard not to see the racial angle. It doesn't seem like it was a particularly inspiring speech, and no one is quoting the actual contents of it. I don't see why it would have gone viral without also being a little bit edgy as reclaiming the racial slur (which not everyone knows, but should be well-known enough among brown-skinned people who are super into politics).

A coconut is white on the inside... Really not a great thing to meme into existence.

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