I Can Excuse Racism But I Draw The Line At Animal Cruelty

About

I Can Excuse Racism, But I Draw The Line At Animal Cruelty is an exploitable still from the television show Community. It is used either unmodified to comment on the disparity of groups of individuals being okay with one social ill but not okay with another. It can also be modified to comment on disparities of other topics to comic effect.

Origin

The line comes for the sixth episode of the third season of Community, first broadcast on November 3rd, 2011. The line is uttered by Britta Perry, played by Gillian Jacobs, when discussing why she dislikes Cornelius Hawthorne, Pierce's father.

The line has been used in memes since 2017. The first known usage of the image and line as a meme was in a now-deleted tweet commenting on white people's reaction to the Tomi Lahren dog-kicking controversy (shown below).

Spread

The image rose to prominence in mid-2020 in the wake of the George Floyd killing and subsequent protests and riots. It was modified to critique conservatives and white people who were okay with the killing of George Floyd but not okay with property damage in the riots caused by the miscarriage of justice of the situation. For example, on May 29th, 2020, Redditor qmechan^[1] posted a parody in /r/PoliticalHumor, gaining over 600 points (shown below, left). User @Oscar454star posted a similar example in /r/ToiletPaperUSA^[2] on July 19th, gaining over 1,700 points (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References