Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Did SVU do a racist episode about tolerance?

Tonight's Law & Order:SVU, "Transgender Bridge" (my DVR called it "Transgender Bride"), was about a hate crime against a transgender teen. While it's great the show is addressing this hot button issue, they used old and racist tropes. Count them.


The transgender victim was a white, lived in a large, bright home with two very supportive parents. The perp is an African American teen who lives in a small apartment and has to make a hot pocket for his little sister because his single mother was "working a double."

The teen perp was in the park with his two friends and his sister. They were counting the money they made dancing, when they see the transgender girl. She was taking pictures. The teens harassed her while tons of African American teens egged them on and filmed it. One African American teen accidentally pushed the transgender teen off the bridge.

All the African American teens scatter. The only two people who stayed around, according to the cop on the scene, were two tourists, who were white. The cop on the scene corrects his pronoun ("he...her") but calls the other teens "Three black teens." Why not be totally PC and say African American?

In the first 5 minutes they show black people as close minded, violent, poor and uncaring. Meanwhile white people are caring, understanding, rich and good samaritans. Preventing and understanding hate crimes is important, but can we shed the racist stereotypes while we're at it?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I know I'm WAY late to the game in commenting on this, but I just finished the episode and thought "WOW, that may be the most racist episode ever, and how ironic, considering it's so preachy about acceptance, tolerance, and taking a stance against hate crimes". I just couldn't believe the direction they took it. I was yelling at my screen almost the entire time. Sad as this is to say, it actually made me hate the Avery kid for being different, or 'other', in a society where clearly many people would in the very least be confused by his appearance, yet he continues to ask "Why? Why did he do it?" the whole time--as if he didn't know! Most of us do not care so much about being PC that we will use the correct pronoun, or keep up with the current terms for people with various gender issues. It's not our problem. It is not society's problem, and I found it annoying that the judge chose to refer to this as a "protected class" issue. I get that I'm white and privileged, and shouldn't be offended for a group I am not a part of, regardless of the group, but it seemed crazy to me that they chose to pit a black kid (again, I and most people do not care about being PC) against a white 'trans' kid to make a point about hate crimes, considering far more black people are affected by hate crimes than 'trans' people. What a ridiculous episode, and one that probably caused more negative feelings than compassionate ones.