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Hilarious Parody Videos About Lebanon Go Viral
Twitter user and TikToker @itsniane shared a hilarious parody about his experience in a Lebanese school. The video, captioned “POV: it’s your first day of school in Lebanon as a Black person and this girl discovers you,” is a hilariously accurate depiction of Lebanese people interacting with people of different races and nationalities.
Switching between French, Arabic, and English, the video perfectly captures the pretentious insincerity of his Lebanese classmate “getting to know” him. Shocked at his ability to speak Arabic, the parody protagonist calls over all her classmates and narrates the interaction. The entire video highlights the way his presence as a normal child at school was treated as an absurd spectacle by his classmates who were more interested in ogling and affirming their non-racism in the most racist of ways.
Niane then shared another version of the video, this time from the perspective of a school boy meeting him. The boy has a different approach to the initial girl protagonist, focusing on sports and asking him if he plays football or basketball. When he replies that he does not, the boy tells him he’s “not a real black.”
The videos’ hilarity comes from their poignant presentation of the microaggression-filled “non-racist” racism of Lebanese society. Aware that they cannot be openly racist, the students still cannot escape their upbringing within a racist society.
Lebanon is notorious for its racist Kafala system, a system of modern day slavery that underpins the Lebanese socioeconomic order. This is the system that governs and oppresses the majority of non-Lebanese lives in the country. Most of the parody students’ shock comes from seeing a black person living in Lebanon free of that system.
Niane’s two parody videos manage to transmit serious problems within Lebanese society in a hilarious manner. Hopefully, people will take the right lessons from them.
this is my best work pic.twitter.com/WRAKWxZvg4
— niane (@itsniane) August 9, 2022
Switching between French, Arabic, and English, the video perfectly captures the pretentious insincerity of his Lebanese classmate “getting to know” him. Shocked at his ability to speak Arabic, the parody protagonist calls over all her classmates and narrates the interaction. The entire video highlights the way his presence as a normal child at school was treated as an absurd spectacle by his classmates who were more interested in ogling and affirming their non-racism in the most racist of ways.
Niane then shared another version of the video, this time from the perspective of a school boy meeting him. The boy has a different approach to the initial girl protagonist, focusing on sports and asking him if he plays football or basketball. When he replies that he does not, the boy tells him he’s “not a real black.”
this was kinda hard to make ngl pic.twitter.com/Pvb6pi4W9h
— niane (@itsniane) August 9, 2022
The videos’ hilarity comes from their poignant presentation of the microaggression-filled “non-racist” racism of Lebanese society. Aware that they cannot be openly racist, the students still cannot escape their upbringing within a racist society.
Lebanon is notorious for its racist Kafala system, a system of modern day slavery that underpins the Lebanese socioeconomic order. This is the system that governs and oppresses the majority of non-Lebanese lives in the country. Most of the parody students’ shock comes from seeing a black person living in Lebanon free of that system.
Niane’s two parody videos manage to transmit serious problems within Lebanese society in a hilarious manner. Hopefully, people will take the right lessons from them.
