Elahe Izadi at The New Republic:
(h/t The Dish)People like Ramsey don’t often get humanizing treatment in mass media, which explains the trepidation over his meme-ification. That one person bears the responsibility to represent an entire group of people is an unfortunate reality for those belonging to a minority or marginalized group. America’s history of peddling generalized stereotypes rather than nuanced depictions explains why the line between using memes to highlight Ramsey as an interesting, individual person rather than as an ugly caricature feels so close.
While it may feel uncomfortable to focus on Ramsey's funnier lines, to pretend otherwise—that there was no humor whatsoever in his interviews—is to ignore a big chunk of who Ramsey is. He repeatedly told his tale with a plain-spokenness that feels fully him and unrehearsed; he wasn’t performing. He also expressed exasperation at the mini-media firestorm: When a local TV reporter asked him to tell the story once more, he replied, “Again?!” And his most-quoted line was a refreshingly unsubtle commentary about racism in America: “I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms. Something is wrong here—dead giveaway, dead giveaway," he said. As the reporter began to move away, Ramsey finished his thought. "Either she's homeless or she's got problems. That's the only reason she'd run toward a black man."
