I rented season two of Chapelle’s Show. On the third disc are two Charlie Murphy True Hollywood Stories that never aired. (Just him telling the stories, not all acted out.) Charlie talked about some guy who was really obnoxious. He said something like, “Although he was black, he could insult like a white guy,” and went on to tell just how hurtful and hard-hitting this guy’s insults were.
I’m nonplussed.
I guess I can accept that insult styles vary between the different American sub-cultures. I’m a bit astonished that insulting like a white guy is not only so powerful, it is apparently a skill to boot.
Maybe instead of the “dozens” style insults (Yo’ momma so fat she jumped into the air and got stuck.) he went straight for the throat (Your wife left you because you’re a closet homo, you c*cksucker.). I’ve never heard anybody described like that.
A long time ago in the GD forum, I posted an opinion that American white conservatives as a group are far more endlessly inventive when it comes to namecalling than pretty much anyone else out there of any political persuasion. No surprise, a bunch of people accused me of being biased and blinded. Screw them.
The main difference in getting insulted by white guys (in my experience) is that black people (generally) call you names or insult you when they’re generally pissed-off at you, but a white guy you think you get along with can say shit so casually and offhand with racial connatations it can really fuck up your self-image. I have no idea if this is what Charlie Murphy meant, but that’s my take.
By way of illustration, some actual shit that’s been said to me, that’s thrown me for a loop:
(supervisor on my last job, “getting to know me” over lunch) So… are your parents educated?
(When I announced to my high school art teacher that I was moving in with my father when I turned 15)
Are you sure your father wants you?
(Co-worker who dropped off a package for me at my grandparents home after the 50-cent tour)
Wow. I didn’t know black people really owned houses like that… no offense.
(Talking about the TV “Moesha”)
What’s the name of that stupid ghetto-sounding show? Mooshu? Moshanna?
(P.S. My middle name is Moshe)
(At Disney World)
Park Worker (seeing my Syracuse lanlet): Cool, Syracuse!
Me: Yeah, I’m going there next year.
PW: What do you play?
Me: (after a pause) Clarinet.
I got into Syracuse with my head, not my body.
I don’t think they know that they’re being insulting, Askia, at least I hope not.
js_africanus My own moderate-to-liberal viewpoints, I guess. It was pointed out to me that liberals don’t tend to namecall, they tend to be a lot more condescending.
Wolfian. I kinda agree. I should have typed, “possibly unintended racial connotations,” but there are moments when I’m not feeling that generous about lending folks the benefit of the doubt.
While there’s little doubt that there are some world-class childish namecallers on the conservative side of the fence (Michael Savage comes to mind), they certainly have no monopoly on the practice.
Read any political thread on this board and you’ll find liberals using childish nicknames for conservative politicians–especially George W. Bush. Al Franken wrote a book entitled Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.
That may be true enough to justify a mild stereotype. For example, there is a guy I know who talks about how we have to protect the local environment, and to do so we need to be “visionary” and make “intelligent” decisions. Another said that to sell farmland preservation, we need to “have heart.” (I pointed out that just because I don’t support a farmland policy that murders third-world farmers, that didn’t mean that I lacked “heart.” She probably didn’t agree w/ my feelings, but she did catch my drift.) Another form of condenscention is well illustrated by the name PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Virtually everyone is for the ethical treatment of animals; we just have different standards.
It does seem to me that this comes more from the left than the right, although the right certainly commits the same crime in spades.
As for asking whether your parents were educated, I once knew a German exchange student whose host family asked her if all Germans lived in huts. So you’re in good company. I don’t know if that’s what Charlie Murphy meant, though, because the guy doing the insulting was a black guy and there wasn’t anything racial (?) about it. (Unlike Rick James calling Murphy “Darkness” because of his skin color.)
Sorry, but you completely misunderstood Charlie’s point. His point was that he had never heard insults like that because he had only ever hung with black people, so it was really weird to him. There was nothing especially hurtful about “insulting like a white guy.”
You sure about that? He spent a lot of time explaining how the guy’s insults enraged him so effectively, and he had spent a lot of time w/ the guy—he said punching him was like punching his cousin. I got the impression that he was pretty familiar w/ the guy and the way he operated before the incident in the story.
From my experience, black people will pull out an insult meant to sting but also make an audience laugh (or stand back in awe). Like “get out my face, you bow-legged, fruity-ass, baboon-looking motherfucka”. Hard-hitting but with a touch of humor that even the target can laugh at. Presentation is important. The more creative the insult is, the cooler the insulter will come across.
White people will tend to go straight to the heart with something like “cocksucking piece of ass shit”. White people are the ones who coined the terms “asshole”, “douchebag”, “pantywaste”, “dickhead”, and “cunt”. They are also more likely to call someone a “syphylitic whore” or use the words “moron”, “idiot”, “imbecile” in their invective speech. No less creative than “black” insults, mind you, but maybe a bit more caustic and less funny.
'Tis? JChrist, I’ve been taken off the mailing list again!
I wish someone enterprising soul would publish a convenient, pocket-sized list of what’s white and what’s black. It wouldn’t change the way I speak, but at least I’d know.
Ummm… The joke there is that he’s doing what Rush does. If the book were called “Evidence Rush Limbaugh is a Liar”… no one would pay attention. Same way that if Rush presented his opinions rationally and without name calling… no one would pay attention to him either. Franken is making fun of not only Rush’s physical and ethical state but also Rush’s (and it could be argued, the Right’s) sensationalism.
I was called a “honky” by some idiots walking by while my friend & I were playing roller hockey. Nothing too creative or cool about that…The saddest part is that it came out of the mouth of a kid probably no older than 11 or 12.
I was called a nigger by a turban-wearing Sikh. And I was called a nappy-headed retard by a Jewish boy. Back in the eighth grade.
I don’t see the point in sharing all the times we’ve been insulted, really. All insults are hurtful and mean. My post was not a defense of “black” or “white” insults. It was an attempt to explain Charlie (aka Darkness) Murphy’s comment.
So, do the “white” insults you mention tend to hurt more? If someone calls me a douchebag, it doesn’t bother me. I might return fire with a “ass nugget” or “fuckstain” Then I generally forget about it. Granted “syphylitic whore” is pretty hardcore, and “cunt” is pretty taboo.
I never know how to respond to a typical “black” insult like you mentioned.
Hugh Jass. You either laugh or fire one back, or else shit lingers and escalates from the verbal to the physical. I suspect the origins of the ongoing decades long gangbanging between the Crips and Bloods can be traced backwards to a very wicked and inopportune “Yo Mama” joke.