Stuff parents say

So these days YouTube, and thus Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and even mainstream media, is ripe with the S*** X people say meme.

What started out as S*** Girls Say where a man in drag parodied girls somewhat benignly, soon became S*** X people say to Y people such as the S*** White Girls Say…to Black Girls spoof, the equally amusing S*** White Girls Say…to Brown Girls and S*** Girls Say…to Gay Guys. Of course they’ve gone viral because they are true…if you are that Black/Brown girl or gay guy, and possibly uncomfortable or offensive if you are that White girl especially since each of these non-White persons have donned on wigs and mannerisms in addition to the phrases of said White girl to show that prejudice is prejudice even if it comes from a friend and laced with honey and sugar and cluelessness, so to speak.

So while there is a brouhaha brewing about whether these videos are in themselves prejudicial and while there is discourse underway regarding gender, racial and sexual orientation sensitivity awareness, other imitators have run with the theme and brought us the likes of S*** New Yorkers Say.

But what has had me in stitches is the S*** [blank] parents say videos where [blank] is substituted for by Ghanaian, Trini, Black, Haitian, Bajan, Nigerian, Nigerian#2,  and countless more. They remind me of my blog post from a couple years ago about things that adults (parents) did that irritated me as a kid. I see now that the craziness is not limited to my family and not even to Ghanaian parents. But it’s shocking if you watch these Black diaspora spoofs and compare them to the other parent parodies (Desi, Hispanic, Korean, etc.).  The Black diaspora mothers come off as some batshit crazy and violent women full of threats, so sad! Lol!