Is Dancing in the Rain Racist?

Or are the craziest among us also the loudest?

Algorithms are a funny thing. The story below is from two years ago, but for some reason, Facebook decided to send me a video on the subject this morning.

While I have more important things to talk about, I do feel compelled to ask you all a quick question about this. And perhaps, like me, you missed this absurd story the first time around. It’s not need-to-know, of course, but I am curious about your opinion.

In simplest terms, the story is this:

• Actress Drew Barrymore posted a video of herself enjoying a rainstorm.

• A content creator on TikTok accused her of racism and insensitivity.

• Commenters were overwhelmingly supportive of Barrymore.

Full disclosure: I love rain. I try to be near the rain whenever I can. If the rain were a woman and I met her at a bar, I would ask her to marry me on the spot.

Is that full disclosure, or is it a trigger warning? Because apparently people get triggered by rain lovers. Or at least people who have been bewitched by witchcraft wokecraft do.

Drew Barrymore did nothing wrong.

Would I post a video of myself dancing in the rain? No. But would I dance in the rain? In the right circumstances, yes.

There is nothing wrong with what Barrymore did. She’s in the business of sharing herself with others (as are plenty of other people in this social-media era), and she wanted to share a feeling of joy with anyone who would look. Good for her.

And shame on this other person for her bizarre, leftism-addled anger at Barrymore. It’s so inscrutably weird that people weren’t even sure what she was getting at.

Some wondered if it had something to do with hair. Is the rain less damaging to white women’s hair, thus rendering Barrymore’s video an example of white(-woman-hair) privilege? (This, of course, is categorically absurd. So-called “white” women are ethnically and phenotypically diverse, with diverse hair types that they choose to style in diverse ways. Plenty of them become quite bedraggled by a good downpour.)

Basically, no one knew for sure what this tragically deranged critic was on about. Finally, one person offered a plausible explanation: there had been a trend among black content creators of going out and frolicking in nature, and Barrymore was appropriating that. And overshadowing it with her white privilege. (Is it white privilege, or I’m-a-zillionaire-with-a-huge-following privilege?)

That seems likely to have been the justification, and like all such leftist claptrap, it is nonsense. Socially damaging nonsense.

If whites cannot frolic in the rain because it’s cultural appropriation, then no one can use penicillin unless they’re Scottish. Or maybe unless they’re from Alexander Fleming’s clan. Or maybe they should be required to be a direct descendant of Fleming himself. After all, why draw the appropriation line in one place rather than another?

You can watch the video for yourself below. My purpose now, though, is to ask you an exit question:

Do we get a skewed view of humanity by looking at its outliers? Is this critic an outlier? How many share her crazy viewpoint?

The fact that comments were running heavily against her nonsense would seem to indicate that most people are comparatively sane.

If that is so, then why does the world seem so nuts?