Saturday, July 24, 2010
Saturday Not So Funny: The Pregnant Woman Ign't Battle Royal at a Burger King Parking Lot
We truly are a society too sick to survive. Really. We are a culture where fame is fortune, and where at the nadir of American empire people are distracted by spectacle and foolishness. As black folks, we live in the age of Obama, but we still have so many that are crippled--psychically, emotionally, and intellectually--by a self-hating, internalized ugliness. As a mirror, the rise of the collective mediocrity that is Sarah Palin infused faux populism, tea bagger stupidity, and Breibart madness speak to the very same cultural crisis: the mediocre among us have won, and now they are on Youtube, the evening news, and the Internet.
Question one: Is this video more an indictment of black men (who are cheering this fight on and later participating in the melee) or black womanhood?
Question two: When did "bitch" and the generic "female" come to replace miss, ma'am, or sister?
Question three: Is this what happens when grandma is 30 years old?
Question four: What would Brother Malcolm say about this madness?
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14 comments:
Why does it seem that your questions are always the same for these things?
You ask "are black women or men to blame for this foolishness?" and "Is this what happens when grandma is 30 years old?"
The answer to all of these is "yes."
I clown ign'ants every chance I get, but this is beyond tacky. It's not funny at all--not even in a perverse freakshow way.
It makes me sick to think that a child is about to be in the care of one of these pieces of human debris (and, odds are that several children already are in their (grandmothers') care).
Malthus got it just about right....,
Disgusting. I understand the frustration. But I don't think it helps to use the language of the Enemy (She-boons?).
Anyway this is only an indictment of the people involved, not of black women or black men in general.
I do think (although the causality would be very difficult to show) that perhaps this is what happens when the most popular music consumed by young black people constantly refers to black people as "b*****s" and "n*****s". I have never understood that. It does indicate a vast self-hatred. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that some of the contempt for women does come from being in fatherless homes. Too many young men are only able to define themselves by what they are not-which is women.
Although I think everyone has the right to defend himself the man who hit that woman was not defending himself. He's a poor excuse for a man-a poor excuse for a human being.
I am sure that this ultimately is nothing new under the sun. Malcolm would have seen worse things in his days as a pimp.
I was thinking about this question in a slightly different way when I tuned into Jerry Springer during a lunch break a few weeks back. It was one of those episodes where one person tells another the "truth" on stage, and it was a black man and a black woman at the center of things with white jerry and two beefy white boys in black tees labeled "security" who floated in as the truth moment approached.
The "truth" was (did you anticipate this?) that the woman had been born as a man, which she revealed in a calm, matter of fact way; this then led to the man doing a transition from disbelief to apoplectic rage. The two screamed insults at each other, until finally the woman leaped forward to assault her (now former) boyfriend, as the white guys ineffectively kept them apart.
Then the subsequent dialogue was about the woman's failure of honesty -- as opposed to homophobic violence, which was at this point merely part of the woodwork. Curious, the next day, I tuned in again, and watched an African American woman verbally abuse her daughter for some infraction of sexual decorum or another.
This is all to say that I think white people, and big entertainment money, is horribly implicated in the production and dissemination of a consumer culture organized around a "normal" audience indulging its lowest impulses, and reinforcing its normality, around encouraging and exploiting economically desperate people. The question of why, and under what conditions, people volunteer to be stared at and mocked strikes me as a really good one, but it has to include a range of events that are now moving to the cultural center -- "Jersey Shore," "The Biggest Loser," and whatnot, in which white people are "redeemed" by being rigorously retrained in the ways of respectability.
"Jersey Shore," "The Biggest Loser," and whatnot, in which white people are "redeemed" by being rigorously retrained in the ways of respectability.
Respectable negroes watch and thoroughly enjoy the fab.o.louse antics of black, white, latino, gender, weight, and fashion outliers too.
So, if there is any kind of "recalibration", I would suggest that it's one directed toward good, solid, Calvinist respectability in which ones material well-being serves as a signifier of propriety and value.
Malthus got is just about right.
Christ. I used to date someone who lived about 5 blocks from that location.
All I can say is, stupid straight women. Better them than me...
Oh and lord knows I love me some Malcolm, but I don't need his protection. I do not need the protection of any male. Because we must then ask, as BDP did so long ago, who protects me from him?
I know some 30 year old white grandmas that act just the same.
I think altercations like this have played out in just about every culture throughout history- I've seen similar crap in poor white neighborhoods, in Latin America, the Caribbean, etc. It's more an indictment of humanity than Americans or black Americans in particular.
That being said, I'd like to shove the camera down that jackass' mouth, dancing with glee at taping this.
I wonder if it's ever even been reviewed by the local prosecutor.
@Gordon. Because I am easily confused and always astounded by the level of fuckedupness we see among the underclasses.
@Cnu--You will appreciate the article I am going to send you then.
@Shady--You got me on the language point. I will play nice. You could be right on the culture issue and especially without any balance from home.
@Tenured--Give your research area you have probably noticed this long ago, aren't these shows and videos such as the above the next iteration in the carnival sideshow culture?
@OhCrap. Malcolm wanted us to protect ourselves first and foremost...
@Anon-Good question as charges should be filed. We wonder at times how whites could have participated in a lynching party. Well here you go, with these street pirates we see the same type of voyeuristic and violent impulse.
couldn't watch it all, breaks my heart but doesn't surprise me...blame serves no purpose - where do we go from here?
To Marc
Are you high?!! Blame serves no purpose my A$$!! Black people have NO problem placing blame when it comes to rappers but when it comes to holding GROWN ASS PEOPLE to their behavior that's wrong WTF?!! Don't think so bottom line ALL of them are complete fools even if their race has nothing to do with it. They are all worthless and patheticand yeah they do get 'blame' for that.
People who respond anonymously - why I wonder?
"Pity the criminal all you like, but don't call evil good" maybe we can find common ground with Dostoyevsky.
To say a human is worthless sounds a little to much like eugenics for my taste.
I understand the emotional reaction ( I used to work in the District Attorney's Office in New Orleans where criminals)but I don't see how righteous indignation and blame gets us anywhere. I lived in the 'hood for awhile - when children grow up beaten literally and figuratively, by the people closest to them I do find it difficult to blame them entirely for their actions.
I wish I was high.
I only post as that because for some reason I can't a URL and a name. But my name is Lauren and yes people come from bad backgorunds and bad neighborhoods but at what point do we start holding them accountable for their OWN actions?!! Particularly my fellow Averagebro commenter ShadyGrady who is under the delusional belief that ALL wrong behavior of black folks roads lead to hip-hop which is a load of crap!! I'm saying stop playing the blame game and start holding people accountable. Let's cut the crap a lot and I mean a lot of black people don't mind being stupid and/or fools in fact ignorance is a source of PRIDE for a lot of black people. And it's not anybody else job to rectify that but they,themselves,and them. Not rap's not Obam's not CNU's them.
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