Oppression by proxy

The authors of the (in)famous TV series South Park are absolutely irreverent and unhinged when it comes to all kinds of modern sociopolitics, not shying away from parodying, making fun of, and even outright insulting left-wing politics, right-wing politics, religions (including Christianity and, quite unusually, even Islam), cults (most prominently Scientology), transgenderism, celebrities and politicians, and so on and so forth. Some of these parodies and mockeries have been so blatant that the targets of them have even tried to sue the authors. It is my understanding that the authors consider such lawsuits (and threats of lawsuits) badges of honor.

Needless to say, the authors aren't afraid of being called names. They clearly don't care if they are called transphobes, islamophobes, "fascists", and so on and so forth.

With one quite prominent exception: They quite clearly are morbidly afraid of being deemed racists.

The authors clearly do not subscribe to any of the modern far-leftist sociopolitical ideologies... with the exception of the doctrine about black people (especially in the US), very much including the "black lives matter" movement, which they quite clearly do not want to touch even with a mile-long pole (regardless of how much corruption and violence that movement has engaged in.)

In some episodes they outright spout the far-leftist narrative about black people and how "oppressed" they are.

In the series there's a black side character named Token (perhaps the only thing that even slightly approaches a form of parody, that being a clear reference to the concept of "the token black person" in movies and other pieces of media).

In one particularly egregious episode one of the main characters (I think it was Stan Marsh) tries to understand the "historical oppression" that Token, as a black person, has to live with, how the history of his people have suffered from this "oppression", and how much the use of the n-word (uttered by Stan's father, if I remember correctly) hurt him at a deep level. Yet, no matter how much Stan tries to understand it and make amends, he just "doesn't get it", he doesn't understand, he can't truly empathize. He just cannot understand the deep wound that Token has because of his race, and how much that dreaded word hurt him.

The episode ends with one of the most cringe and aggravating extreme-leftist SJW messages that I have ever seen in the series (or in any other piece of media for that matter): Stan finally "understands" that he doesn't understand. He declares his epiphany to Token that, indeed, now he "gets it", now he knows that he "doesn't understand" what Token has to suffer and how much it hurts. Token finally smiles.

The implication being, of course, that Stan, as a white person, can never understand what a black person feels and goes through, what his lived experiences are under the "oppressive" systemic racism and racist past. Now that he finally gets it, he can finally declare the truth of the matter: That he indeed doesn't understand, and he will never understand. And this gives Token some validation of his feelings and experiences.

My jaw dropped when I saw that scene. It's one of the most racist things I have ever seen in any piece of media. The authors of South Park, while trying so hard to not be racists, produced the most racist thing I have even seen.

Mind you, to my recollection it has never been shown nor established in the show that the character of Token has himself suffered any form of oppression or discrimination, or even his parents, or anything like that. And neither has any of the main characters, including Stan himself, or his father, ever been shown to exhibit any form of racism (unless you consider the utterance of the n-word by Stan's father to be "racism").

The message delivered by this South Park episode is quite clear, and straight from the far-leftist book: If you are black, you are oppressed, and deeply wounded by how some black people were treated in the past. And if you are white, you have no business even trying to understand this, and you should just accept it and proclaim it out loud. This completely regardless of whether you or anybody you know has ever experienced any oppression or discrimination, or engaged in it. That doesn't matter. Simply because of the color of your skin, you are either oppressed and deeply hurt, or you just "cannot understand" what the other people with the different skin color are going through: You have the wrong skin color, and thus you can't understand, period.

This message, rather obviously, only perpetuates and accentuates the rift between white and black people in the US. Rather than preaching equality and camaraderie, rather than preaching leaving history in the past and looking at a brighter future where everybody is treated equally, like one big family, we must always keep the races separate: One will always be "oppressed", regardless of anything, and the other will always be the "oppressor" and is completely incapable of understanding it, no matter what. Just keep the chasm wide open and alive, forever.

This notion that you are "oppressed" because of your skin color, even if you have never personally experienced any oppression or discrimination of any kind, is what I like to call "oppression by proxy": Just because some people who looked vaguely like you were oppressed in the distant past, you get to claim their oppressed status for yourself, and guilt-trip the people with the other skin color because of it, because some other people with that skin color did the oppressing.

I think this is an absolutely heinous and racist idea and ideology. I'm truly appalled that the authors of South Park have not only swallowed it whole, but are inserting it into their show.