The above post is, seemingly, intended to be funny. However, I don’t find it the least bit funny. I find it offensive and hurtful.
The author of this post, Kevin Farzad, seems to believe that for a person to remain in their hometown and eat at Olive Garden is somehow funny.
He seems to believe that these attributes somehow make a person racist, or at least inclined to make Facebook posts containing links to racist articles.
He seems to believe that these attributes somehow make a person ridiculous, laughable, a joke.
I don’t get what is funny about any of this.
There is nothing wrong with living in the town that one is from.
There is nothing wrong with thinking that Olive Garden is fancy.
These things do not make a person racist, nor do they have anything to do with a person’s likelihood of posting a link to a racist article. These things are not funny. These things do not make a person ridiculous. These are just normal, and perfectly okay, things that a person might do.
I don’t understand why someone would think that a Facebook friend from high school, who hasn’t left their hometown and who considers Oliver Garden fancy, is funny.
I don’t understand why someone would consider such a person to be ridiculous, to be laughable, to be a joke.
Kevin Farzad is choosing to insult and ridicule people who are doing absolutely nothing wrong but are merely living in a different way than he does.
And I just don’t get what is funny about any of this.
As an autistic person, I live in a town directly bordering the town that I am from. As an autistic person, moving from place to place in service of a series of high-powered jobs that involve slaving for 80 hours a week, is simply not doable for me. As an autistic person, I don’t enjoy constantly going to trendy restaurants and bars. And because I don’t go out to eat very often, I do kind of consider Oliver Garden to be fancy.
As an autistic person whose special interest is history, I don’t support the BLM movement, because this movement advocates for discrimination against, and intentional infliction of harm and pain on, people like me. Some of the articles that I’ve shared on social media, as part of my advocacy for my right to exist, would probably be considered racist by Farzad.
Apparently, to Kevin Farzad, the idea that a person could behave, think, and live differently than he does is laughable.
Ridiculous.
A joke.
Well, I don’t find it funny.
Sorry, Kevin, that I’m autistic and therefore can’t live with roommates and move all over the country and work at a high-powered, 80-hour-a-week job and constantly go to trendy restaurants and bars and be a black supremacist.
Sorry, Kevin, that I am different than you.
Pardon me for being offended that you consider a person like me to be funny, to be laughable, to be ridiculous.
Pardon me for being offended by the implication that because I didn’t move across the country for a fancy job, that because I don’t go to hip new restaurants, I must be racist.
Pardon me for being offended that my existence is being treated as the punchline of a joke.
Sorry to be a stick in the mud, sorry to be a Debbie downer, but I find Kevin Farzad’s post to be stuck-up, mean, judgmental, intolerant, and hurtful.
I don’t get the point of it.
I don’t find it the least bit funny.