Jill Duggar is not going to make mom of the year, but is she also racist?
A number of fans have accused her of as much — or at least wondered if she might be — after she shared a video and made some odd and perhaps culturally insensitive remarks.
Check out the video below and decide for yourself.
In the captions of the video that you can see below, Jill Duggar writes:
"Do we have a future Bollywood star in the family?!"
The video shows baby Samuel Dillard dancing to Bollywood music that is softly playing in the background.
And by dancing, we mean that he"s wiggling back and forth. He"s a baby, folks.
She is feeding him curry during the process, and writes:
"In this video, you can tell Samuel is enjoying his Indian food and music!"
The comments have since been flooded with debates about Derick"s homophobia and transphobia and about accusations that the two neglect and/or abuse their children.
But before that upsetting discussion, fans discussed whether or not this specific video and the comments that Jill made were racist.
"Sounds pretty racist to me."
That line doesn"t necessarily lay out an argument so much as state an opinion, but that"s what comments are for, we guess.
Another commenter mentions that India is a "multi-ethnic, multi-religious, culturally rich country that is more than just Bollywood."
Imagine if someone in Uzbekistan wore a cowboy hat and ate, say, a Chicago style hotdog with all of those weird toppings as an "American food night." At the very least, that"s not … super accurate.
"It’s not racist. The more you eat while your baby is in utero, the stronger possibility that your kid will enjoy spicy foods when older."
That is not a claim that we can confirm. It also seems to be a comment drifting away from the topic at hand — not all curry is spicy, folks.
There are a number of misconceptions about racism floating around out there, and a big one is that being racist automatically means insulting another race or ethnicity.
Racism is complicated in a number of ways, and it"s not fun to talk about.
But there are absolutely cases of racist statements where the speaker felt like they were giving a "compliment."
A white man who praises the qualities that he believes that East Asian women have as potential girlfriends and wives is not really complimenting them, he is objectifying and fetishizing Asian women based upon their race.
That is absolutely racism.
And if you"ve ever seen some dude dress in a sombrero and fake mustache to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, he might be totally well-meaning, but yeah, that"s racist.
So … is Jill Duggar being racist, here? We"re sure that she doesn"t intend to, but, as we mentioned, racism is not always about intentions.
As the commenters note, boiling down "India" to just Bollywood and curry is … inaccurate, at the very least.
But you don"t exactly give a comprehensive lesson on geography and culture to a baby. Because, you know, it"s a baby.
Also, as fans are very well aware, Jill may not know that much about India and its culture.
She wasn"t allowed to watch worldly television or movies as a child. If she had, she might have gotten ideas about freedom and making her own choices, and Jim Bob can"t have that in his household.
Has she ever actually watched a Bollywood movie?
More to the point, does she know enough about India to realize that there"s more to the country than a series of stereotypes?
Is Jill"s comment culturally insensitive? Probably. But it"s mostly just a cute video, as you are about to see.
And at least she isn"t endangering her children this time.
Some even wonder if Jill may have deliberately stirred up this controversy in order to gain more attention for her video.
(Because yes, you had to jump through a series of links in order to access the video — she and Derick have to make money some way without begging fans for donations, we suppose)
Others don"t think that Jill is that devious.
Watch the video for yourself and decide what you make of it.
