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Racism is an element present in many American urban legends; there are urban legends that include racism as an integral component of the story, while others explore the topic of racism itself. Some of these racist legends are cautionary, warning against associating outside of one’s own culture or race. Others offer a more implicit and subtle racism, which is indicative of upper-class white fear of other ethnic groups. Racism can be found in urban legends such as the “Lights Out” and “Killer in the Backseat” myths, among others. There are also urban legends that poke fun at racism, such as the “Elevator Incident/Hit the Floor” tale. Racism found in American urban legends is typically directed at black and Hispanic men. These men are often portrayed as dangerous criminals, while the victims in these stories are almost exclusively white (and frequently female).
Many urban legends are cautionary tales used to instill fear in the listener, prompting a certain behavior. This can, of course, promote racism by perpetuating purportedly true tales that portray other groups as dangerous. This is the case in the “Lights Out” urban legend. This urban legend began as an email forward, made to look like a police memo. It claimed that a certain weekend was the initiation weekend for the Bloods, a predominantly African American gang. The initiation task for new gang members was to drive around with their headlights off and kill any good Samaritans who happened to flash their headlights as a reminder that the initiates’ headlights were off. Readers were warned not to flash their headlights at any cars. This hoax email is one of many urban legends connected to the tendency of white upper/middle-class people to fear people in other groups—in this case, African Americans. The story’s ultimate message, not to warn others when their lights are off, has been analyzed by scholars as promoting a racist keep-to-your-own-kind mentality.
The “Killer in the Backseat” urban legend has more subtle racist undertones. The legend tells of a young woman traveling alone who gets out of her car late at night at a filling station. The gas station attendant tells the woman that there is a problem processing her credit card at the pump and brings her into the station. This, of course, is all a pretext for telling the woman that there is a man hiding in her backseat with a giant ax. In the numerous variations of the story, the man is described as either African American or Hispanic; often, the story is also described as a foiled gang initiation task. While there is nothing inherently racist in the narrative of the story—an ax-wielding man hiding in the backseat of one’s car would be terrifying—it is telling that the man is always described as either African American or Hispanic in spite of this detail contributing nothing to the suspense of the plot. The continuous description of the killer as black or Hispanic in the story’s many variations is indicative of long-standing institutional racism in America that ascribes nonwhiteness to criminals.
Another example of a racist urban legend is the story of the “Mexican Pet” (or “Haitian Rat” or “Chinese Rat,” among other iterations). In this urban legend, a couple on vacation finds an injured animal. They take it home but can’t figure out what kind of creature it is. They take it to the vet, who immediately euthanizes the creature before declaring “it was a Mexican rat.” Variations of the ethnic label attributed to the pet are altered based on the geographical locale of the couple’s vacation. In other versions, the couple finds the animal drowning while on the beach in California, where it is later declared a Chinese rat; another version uses Florida and a Haitian rat. Each version of this story promotes xenophobia and is an allegory of fears of immigrants. California is paired with the Chinese rat because of its large population of Asian immigrants; ditto for Florida and its corresponding Haitian immigrants. The ethnic pet is killed by the veterinarian when he discovers that the pet is a rat from a foreign country. It should also be noted that the ambiguous pet turns out to be a rat, which has overwhelmingly pejorative connotations. This urban legend promotes racism against immigrant groups, as the story can be updated to reflect any group by changing the “breed” of rat.
Another urban legend that has been used against a variety of interchangeable ethnic groups is that of “The Mutilated Boy.” In this story, a young (usually white) boy goes into a public restroom and does not come out. His mother worries about why he is taking so long, and enters the restroom to find her son castrated and bleeding on the floor. The child survives his near-fatal injury and reports that he was maimed by young gang members. The gang members are typically described as African American or Hispanic. Like the “Killer in the Backseat” and “Lights Out” urban legends, this is frequently attributed to a gang initiation assignment. This story is also false, but has been interpreted by scholars (such as renowned folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand) as representative of racist fears and a clear use of the “us-versus-them” mentality. Because the victim is a vulnerable, innocent child, the minority gang members are portrayed as especially heinous monsters. Interestingly, this is one of the few American urban legends that has an alternate version in which the wrongdoers are white. In the other version, which takes place in Oakland, California (where the majority of the population is African American), a white man or group of white teenagers castrate a young black child, always described as about five years old. This version is used to put further distance between black and white groups as well.
The legend of “The Death of Dr. Charles Drew” features another black victim. The titular doctor, who was a pioneer in the development of blood transfusions and blood banks, was an African American. He was horribly injured during a car accident. An urban legend developed around the events of this accident. In the ultimate twist of irony, Dr. Drew is said to have died because a doctor refused to give him a blood transfusion—the very life-saving procedure that he developed—due to his skin color. Most details of the story are true, as Dr. Drew did die in a car accident, but in actuality he was not denied a transfusion. This urban legend was featured in an episode of M*A*S*H, popularizing the legend. While this particular story is not true, it is unfortunately true of a great number of people of color who were denied medical treatment during the 1950s and 1960s. This racist urban legend is founded in some truth, although this story with its ironic twist (a common trope in urban legends) is false.
There are also urban legends that make fun of and warn against the previously mentioned institutional racism in America. Perhaps the most famous example of an urban legend parodying racism is the “Elevator Incident” tale (also known as “Hit the Floor,” which was adapted into a Bob Newhart Show sketch as “Sit, Whitey!”). The story features a black man getting onto an elevator with another person, often a wealthy white woman. The black man (who is occasionally described as a celebrity like Eddie Murphy, Stevie Wonder, or Magic Johnson) has a dog with him. He exclaims, “Sit, Whitey!” and the other passenger in the elevator sits down, obediently and fearfully. The man then says, “I meant the dog.” In other variations of the story, the man says “Hit the floor!” meaning press the elevator button, but the easily frightened passenger assumes that the black man is ordering her to lie down, as one commands during a robbery. The passenger demonstrates a racist mentality by immediately interpreting the black man as threatening without any justification.
Similarly, there are multiple urban legends involving black or Hispanic men being mistaken for service industry workers. Unlike the tales mentioned above, one particular story with this theme is reportedly true: professional basketball player Karl Malone was once mistaken by a woman at the airport for a “porter-boy.” She handed all her luggage to Malone, who chivalrously helped her to her car. After he loaded her many bags into her vehicle, the woman tried to tip Malone. Malone then informed her that he was indeed a pro basketball player and was met with sheer incredulity, soon overtaken by embarrassment. There is a multiplicity of comparable tales, including one in which Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall is mistaken by tourists visiting the Supreme Court as an elevator operator, simply due to the color of his skin. These tales are much less sinister and fear-mongering than the former. In these stories, no one is purposefully malicious toward anyone. Rather, people fall prey to their stereotyped views of each other. Unlike other stories, these urban legends make fun of white people for their mistakes. The white people in these stories are fools, so they become objects of derision. They highlight the underlying and omnipresent institutional racism present in everyday American life.
Erika Rothberg
See also AIDS-Origins Traditions; Banana, Coconut, and Twinkie; Internet Hoaxes; Killer in the Backseat; Slasher under the Car
Further Reading
Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1981. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings. New York: W. W. Norton.
Fine, Gary Alan, and Patricia A. Turner. 2001. Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Genge, N. E. 2000. Urban Legends: The As-Complete-As-One-Could-Be Guide to Modern Myths. New York: Three Rivers Press.
Love, Spencie. 1996. One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Noble, Allen. 2013. “The Knockout Game Myth and Its Racist Roots.” Patheos, November 25. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christandpopculture/2013/11/the-knockout-game-myth-and-its-racist-roots/. Accessed September 27, 2015.