These days, holding on to basic human rights in the U.S. is now the equivalent of an elderly woman clutching her pearls while taking a stroll through Central Park at dusk. And as quickly as justices in the Supreme Court are wiping away certain rights, others are simply scratching them off.
Hey, I mean, with the current state of the U.S. at this point in time, using a handy tool to scrape away rights seems like it’s a piece of cake and just as simple as that. The latter half of this scenario was showcased in a now-viral TikTok, which shows a coworker scratching off the word “rights” under the larger phrase “Celebrating 100 years of voting rights” as it was written on the wall.
The phrase is obviously in reference to the 19th Amendment of the United States Constitution, which was put into effect back in 1920 and officially gave women the right to vote. And while the aforementioned TikTok is likely satire and nothing more than a joke drenched in dark humor, it also shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that a fair amount of commenters found the irony in the 14-second clip — especially for the fact that a Black man was scratching off the word, leading a decent portion of TikTokers to find the joke distasteful.
“Close enough, welcome back Clarence Thomas” and “regular Clarence Thomas” were amongst the top comments on the post, referencing the notable Supreme Court justice, who many consider to be against women’s rights due to his assistance in overturning Roe v. Wade and controversial opinions on contraception.
Much like the point of the video, the majority of commenters on the video were likely playing along with “the bit” and making jokes out of the situation as well — because if we don’t laugh, we cry, right?