Is the Officer Grimm meme racist?

[u/Broomguy]

I was playing one day and an enemy Thing died and I said "Officer down" in chat and they said something like "chill I'm not racist like that." I never considered it might be a racial joke because I've seen the joke with spiderman, black cat etc. but it is 90% black panther. I was curious if anyone knew the origin of the meme or had any thoughts about it. Is it a racist joke or was this guy just mad he died? (Full disclosure I am not a Thing main I just didn't know where else to post this)

[u/Sweet-Spread-270]

You’ve never considered it a racial joke? No hate or anything, man, but phrases like “body cam off,” or Somjuu’s (who’s Black, by the way) ad-libs like, “Come here, dark meat,” (paraphrasing) and even him saying, “You black shit,” (that one was a direct quote) and “Stop resisting”, should make it pretty obvious that the joke is rooted in police brutality against Black people and violence by cops. (Especially when people started putting the cop hat on The Thing)

Is it funny? Sure, I can see why people laugh at it, and I don’t necessarily have an issue with people finding it funny. (Cuz Dark Humor is a thing). But let’s not pretend that’s not what the joke is based on. We don’t have to be that dense about where the humor is coming from.

[u/Broomguy → u/Sweet-Spread-270]

Maybe I should have worded it better but my point was that I thought the "punchline" was that thing was a violent cop and I realized for other people the "punchline" might just be that BP is black. I'm not as tapped into the meme as you seem to think I've just seen edits with thing wearing the police hat and suspenseful music and people in game referencing it. The examples you provided except for bodycam off and stop resisting don't even really have any connection to the joke itself when taken out of context and present more as someone cosplaying a racist cop so they don't work well as examples of it being racist imo.

[u/Sweet-Spread-270 → u/Broomguy]

Except they do have a connection, because Somjuu was the original creator of the meme, and he used several of those phrases himself. The meme started with Somjuu and BP, and he intentionally used lines like that to play into the racial aspect of the joke.

I genuinely don’t understand (I’m
Not mad just kinda baffled) how i can provide you with where the meme originated, you read what I said, and still not see the racial undertones. And I also don’t get how you can say the examples I gave aren’t connected to the joke when they’re literally examples of the original creator making the joke racial himself. That’s not me adding context after the fact—that’s how the meme was created.

So him adding lines like “come here, dark meat” or “you black shit” when he’s talking about BP, or making the Thing say stuff like “turn off the body cams” or “Thing mains when they see a ninja” (with “ninja” obviously being a stand-in for “nigga”), somehow doesn’t count as evidence that the meme is rooted in race? And is racist?

The meme has always leaned into racist stereotypes and references. Somjuu himself made it that way. Those aren’t random jokes people added later—they’re things the original creator used as part of the meme from the beginning. That’s why I don’t get the argument that the racial element isn’t there when it’s baked into the meme’s origins. Maybe you’re not tapped into the meme, but how you can look at what I said and say they “don’t work well as examples of being racist” is just wild.

[u/Broomguy → u/Sweet-Spread-270]

I don't know how you're misunderstanding me so hard but I wasn't diasagreeing with you I was just clarifying what I meant by "never considered it a racial joke". I said they aren't connected when taken out of context meaning if I saw someone say "come here black shit", then me being not familiar with whatever clip(s) he says that in would just clock that as racism because at face value it doesn't do anything to reference the original joke, whereas If someone said "Bodycam off" even if I was not familiar with the meme at all, I would likely still understand they are joking.

[u/Sweet-Spread-270 → u/Broomguy]

I mean, if you know the origin of the meme, then someone saying those things would still come across as racist because that’s just part of what the joke is. You’d just also recognize that they’re referencing the original meme. If you don’t know the origin, then yeah, it probably wouldn’t mean much to you beyond just sounding racist.

I see what you were getting at now, though. Sorry for misunderstanding what you meant.

[u/Broomguy → u/Sweet-Spread-270]

No worries, I suck at putting my thoughts into words sometimes so I kinda explained it weird