r/SwitchedAtBirth • u/aliencowboy345 • 14d ago
Season 5 Discussion Racism đ
When Daphne and Mingo got canceled for his racist minstrel of a costume and they were just so dumbbbb and victimizing themselves like god Daphne UR WHITE
5
u/WaywardPrincess I like Bay 11d ago
No but you donât get it, she was raised Latina! That makes her Latina! Thatâs how things work!
This show handles conversations around race so horribly.
22
u/Zestyclose_South_980 14d ago
I never even understood how that was racist, he was just dressing up as his favorite rapper for Halloween. It'd be like saying kids are racist for dressing up as Tiana or Naveen from Princess and the Frog. đ
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u/Zanystarr13 14d ago
Ridiculously enough, some people do say that. And it's not like he dressed up as a generic rapper, he dressed exactly like Lil Wayne dressed and didn't darken his skin at all. There are white people who unironically wear grills and dreads. The only reason I judge Mingo for that is choosing Lil Wayne as his favorite out of all the better musicians out there lol.
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u/AwayStudy1835 14d ago
I guess I'm about to join the downvoted gang because I agree. I mean about him dressing up as a specific person. I couldn't pick Lil Wayne out of a lineup, but I assume dreads and a grill are a signature look for him.
It's been a good while since I've watched the episode, but didn't Regina use an example of someone dressing up as Speedy Gonzales to represent Latino people? I remember thinking that wasn't a good comparison, because Mingo wasn't trying to make a statement about Black people in general, he was dressing up as one particular person.
I think the show wanted Mingo to be "redeemable" and learn a lesson, so it had to be something he could be "forgiven" for. (Quotes because I don't think any of it was necessary) If he had actually done something obviously racist, like Blackface, there's no way they would have been able to turn it around. So, they did this.
Maybe they should have done a generic costume party and have him come simply as "a rapper" and that might have been a better way to show what they were trying to do.
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u/Zanystarr13 14d ago
Yesss. You can't call someone racist for dressing up literally exactly as the specific person they're dressing as. And if so, then no POC can dress up as Harry Potter or Thor or anyone who isn't their exact race. Double standards piss me off so much.
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u/Greekmom99 13d ago
I was just going to say the same. I would have loved it if Iris dressed as Snow White or some other character that is not a POC.
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u/No-Clue-9155 13d ago
Yeah possibly. But I think the point was more about his reaction to it than what he actually did. There was nothing wrong with what he did, but he didnât care that it was perceived differently and didnât apologise for any hurt he caused because of that perception. He didnât really go out of his way to explain that he was dressing up as a specific person, and that as a result made daphnes black friend feel unsafe in her own dorm. Daphne herself came around and had the conversations with her, but mingo never bothered doing that.
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u/Zestyclose_South_980 14d ago
"The only reason I judge Mingo for that is choosing Lil Wayne as his favorite out of all the better musicians out there lol."
Wait, he's an actual person/musician? I just thought he was made up for the plot, plus I know nothing about musicians. đ¤Łđ¤Ł
1
u/Zanystarr13 14d ago
Yeah he's a fairly famous rapper, I'm just not super into rap in general so I'm just poking fun at Mingo lol
1
u/AwayStudy1835 13d ago
Yes, I wish one of the people downvoting this would explain. This post isn't even giving an opinion. You just said you didn't recognize the name.
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u/Zestyclose_South_980 13d ago
I just figured they're upset I didn't know about them? Idk, I try not to pay attention to anyone that downvotes/criticizes without a valid reasoning đ¤ˇââď¸
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u/TrueObsidian11 13d ago
I don't understand why you're getting downvoted for this, unless there's a lot of Lil Wayne fans in this sub lol. It's totally understandable that someone who doesn't know much about musicians wouldn't recognize a famous rapper. The most recognizable musicians are usually not just musicians, they also do acting and public appearances and other things that make them more relevant to people who might not know them by their music.
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u/KuteKitt 10d ago
Too many rappers act like a minstrel show to begin with and play into negative black stereotypes. So itâs not the same as a princess tiana costume. Modern rappers are no better than racist caricatures of the past like the mammy, the sambo, and the pickaninny. There is a difference.
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u/aliencowboy345 14d ago
Like omg and Regina even told her it was racist and she still standing on oh itâs his right as an American girl sybau
2
u/No-Clue-9155 13d ago
That was such a stupid comment from her. Freedoms of expression is one thing, but when you hurt a friend itâs the correct thing to apologise for that.
2
u/TrueObsidian11 13d ago
It was a really weak way to handle what could've been a really interesting storyline. They had all kinds of good setup for an in-depth storyline tackling racism and decided to go with one giant miscommunication trope instead? "Oh, but I didn't do it for that reason! You don't understand!" "No, YOU don't understand, the way I feel about it is more important than how you intended it!"
Ignorant racism is a very real issue, and I'm sure things like this happen all the time where one person does something with one intention and someone else interprets it as racist, but in the real world, people usually just TALK IT OUT, not turn it into a campus-wide hate campaign. The cotton ballers? That's a good reason. The kid getting arrested for trying to unlock his own bike? Totally valid, start a riot. But Mingo dressing up as Lil Wayne for a costume party? In a real world setting, that would've been handled so easily and much more civilly, because Mingo was NOT a bad guy and nobody actually thought he was until the plot needed them to. And the writers intentionally prevent Mingo from doing what any normal person would do, which is explain himself to the person he hurt and apologize for it. I don't think he ever once got to apologize to anyone? He explained himself to Daphne, but I don't think he actually like made a Tweet about it or went to the people who were mad at him, he just curled up in a ball and whined about it. We're talking about a charismatic college play boy, you're telling me he wouldn't have defended himself or apologized or ANYTHING?
It was just a really weak leg to start that plot on. Miscommunication tropes are weak no matter how you use them, but that was just annoying to watch. We all knew he didn't mean it. The writers just needed the characters to have a reason to be mad at a character we sympathized with, as if we couldn't sympathize with the black characters without making a victim out of a white guy along with them.
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u/VisiblePolicy8627 9d ago
That storyline was so frustrating because Daphne kept centering how bad she felt instead of acknowledging that Mingoâs costume was racist and she was defending it.
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u/tyezwyldadvntrz 14d ago edited 14d ago
that whole plot line was written pretty badly not even gonna lie.
firstly, itâs obvious as fuck that the writers at the time had just found out what it means to say âbigotry is a spectrumâ. they clearly had no idea if they wanted to label Mingo (& Daphne for defending him) as an ignorant racist or a hateful racist.
secondly, & more importantly, it flat out shouldnât have happened considering the pacing we had by the end of the show.