Well, there was that time when Gianni Versace and Tommy Hilfiger and Liz Claiborne all three went on Oprah and said that they didn’t want black people wearing their clothes because they were too good, and Oprah responded by putting Liz in a headlock while kicking Tommy right in the nuts and biting Ver… oh… never mind.
(I used to get that damned e-mail {sometimes Claiborne, sometimes Hilfiger, sometimes Versace} or the one about the Snapple ship being a slave vessel or slavery still being legal due to some glitch in the state, etc., all the damned time from one co-worker or another.)
Sorry for the hijack. The point is that yes, Kanye is a steaming pile of opportunistic self impressed ordure who has SURREAL LIFE 10 written all over him. (I see him sharing a house with Jenny McCarthy and Kevin Federline.)
Who gicves a fuck what some rapper says? He has no power. I just can’t get worked up about. There’s nothing more pathetic to me than white people bitching about black “racism.” Wahh…how come they get to say “nigger” but I can’t? Wahhh.
Why do you WANT to say it? Who cares? I’m white. I don’t care if there’s a double standard. There SHOULD be a double standard. If you don’t like it, tough shit. Move to some other country where you don’t have to listen to black people offending your white sensibilities. I totally understand why black people hate white people. It doesn’t bother me a bit.
:dubious: If he’s singing about women who have sex in exchange for money, there’s nothing wrong with it (athough he could still be more polite ). If he’s using it refering to women in general, ah, yeah, gee, there might be something wrong with it.
But he DOES have power. There are plenty of kids that probably couldn’t even name the Vice President, but know who Kanye West is! Where do you think they form their opinions of society and politics? It ain’t the New York Post.
And… uh… I have never said that. Ever. I don’t want to say that. I don’t bitch about not being able to say that. And I have to love the use of “If you don’t like it here, go somewhere else!” Na, I’ll pass. Most people around these parts are perfectly fine. It’s the loonies (West, Moore, O’Reily) who make me worry about the country.
It was someone else upthread who was complaining about the N word thing.
What are you afraid is going to happen if white kids listen to Kanye West? Do you think they’re going to join the nation of Islam? Are you afraid they won’t say “homey?” What exactly is the worst case scenario?
First: according to Kanye, the white kids aren’t allowed to say homie. Well, unless Kanye and his buddies have grown bored of it and come up with something new and exciting.
And it has nothing to do with black kids or white kids- it’s just kids (hell PEOPLE) in general. People that aren’t getting their news and opinions for themselves. People who don’t watch CNN because they can’t understand it (bah, don’t read too much into this. I just mean people who lack education, etc). People who say, “Well, Kanye West’s new song is the shit! So he must know what he’s talking about when he says that white people created AIDs or that George W. Bush hates black people!”
It’s late, so I know I’m babbly and I apologize for that. My point is simply that people are going to look up to Kanye because he is the one that they can look up to and relate to. They are then going to take his idiocy as the gospel.
Because that rapper happens to be the elected voice of many angsty teenagers at the moment. He’s spewing his bile to his fans, not all of whom are experienced enough to separate the bullshit from the reality, and thus helping to perpetuate racism.
And speaking on a personal note, I have no desire to say it. Or any slanderous term associated with one race or another. While I tend to believe that words themselves have no power, that it is the person’s usage of the word that gives them meaning, I still don’t like to use any of them because of the negative connotations they carry.
It isn’t even about the word, it’s about the usage. It’s become an exclusionary term… you’re not cool because you’re not one. Only me and my friends can use it, and we don’t call you one because you’re not one of us.
What the hell are you smoking? Double standards are okay? I beg you, please explain why there should be a double standard. Why one (or each) group of people should be set different rules for social behavior.
How about this: if you don’t like the fact that some people strive for social equality, you move to some other country where equality (or at least an attempt at it) does not exist so you don’t have to forcibly open up, read, and respond to threads about it.
And, for the record, just because Kanye is a bigoted asshat and I hate him for it, does not mean I also hate every other black person in the world… so your generalized statement about understanding why all whites are hated seems to me to show you to be a discriminating coprolagniac.
Meh…it’s no stupider than a lot of what they hear from their political and religious leaders, and those are people with a lot more power and authority. Kids have to learn to sort out fact from bullshit sometime. I give them credit for being able to figure out things on their own.
Not that I care all that much about West (although I thought his rant at the Katrina relief concert was frickin’ hilarious and a new reason to love live television), but regarding his stand against blood diamonds vs his wearing o’ the bling, do you know for a fact that his jewelry originated as blood diamonds?
Now personally, I’d love it if some rapper stood up and did a single urging people of color to stop wasting their money on bling because for the most part it looks horrible and stupid and is a huge waste of money that could be better spent, but I guess that’s not gonna happen any time soon.
And how does that make him any different from the president or Sean Hannity or James Dodson or any number of other people with far more power and presumptive moral authority? How do you think kids are going to be harmed? They’re going to think it’s bad to say “homie”…and then what?
Why do you care? That’s what I don’t get. You sound like some kid whose feelings are hurt because he doesn’t get to sit at the “cool table” in lunch room.
Because, in this case, one group of people has been the victim of a word and one group hasn’t. The double standard is part and parcel of the very different experiences of those groups with the word.
I have no problem with fighting for social equality. Keep fighting the good fight, my pale brother. One day a white man will be president!
If I understand why black people hate white people (and I never said “all” for either…I was obviously making a generalized statement) then that makes me a scat freak? How did you connect those dots, exactly? Even in a figurative sense, I don’t know what you mean.
I don’t have a cite, so feel free to disregard this (I’m too lazy to look it up), but I saw an interview with Jacob the Jeweler on some show about stars and all their crap. Jacob was talking about Kanye’s new line of diamond encrusted Jesus Heads (tre chic!). He said that the special yellow diamonds on Kanye’s personal Jesus head were bought directly from some special mine that has flawless yellow diamonds and is owned by DeBeers. So I would say there’s a pretty good chance that some of his jewels are blood diamonds. Can’t say for sure, of course.
Well, the proper answer is, it doesn’t. Any one in the limelight of public scrutiny is obligated by that fact to not spout ignorance at every turn. This happens to be a thread about one particular person’s stupidity. If it were about someone else who was regularly making a fool of themself, my comment would be directed at them instead.
But the realistic answer is, because impressionable youths are buying this man’s cd’s and going to his concerts and watching him live on MTV, and I’d venture a safe guess that very few are watching Hannity or reading Dodson.
It’s a little worse than saying homie, now, isn’t it? He is suggesting that certain people of a certain color cannot use certain words. He is also suggesting far worse things… but the crux of it all is that blacks are being persecuted by whites and that it is okay, even a duty, to hate an entire color of people based on ignorant opinions and factless hyperbole.
While I also believe that it is each individuals personal responsibility to make up their own minds, the sad truth is that that is not how it works. People buy into his crap because he’s a celebrity and they look up to him as a musician or a producer or whatever.
Try this once again. BECAUSE IT IS RACISM. Because it perpetuates racism and bigotry. Because he spreads ignorance and because there are people that will actually buy into it, or at the least use his public railings to further their already discriminatory preconceived notions.
A double standard is intrinsically wrong. It is telling one person or group one thing, and another an entirely different thing. That isn’t equality and it only leads to confusion. It’s like having a son and a daughter and praising your son for having sex but condemning your daughter for doing the same. One standard is just fine thanks.
God you’re a condescending fuck. Don’t even try to turn this around on me, like I’m some sort of racist. Equality is, by it’s definition, equivalent treatment. I’m advocating the equal treatment of all people, and you pull that cockamamie statement out of your ass.
Well, you’re right. You aren’t a coprolagniac. I should have said coprophagiac, based purely on the diarrhea spewing from your mouth.
I just think Kanye didn’t take his statement far enough with the addition of the qualifyer. He should have said, “George Bush doesn’t care about you (.period)”
And as to Kanye in general, I saw his new “Golddiggers” video on MTV yesterday. Being too white to follow the latest slang, I may have missed some of the subtler nuances, but as I understand it, the message was “it’s so unfair that women get pregnant and want child support because it’s more fun to spend all my money buying stuff for myself.”
Oh for crissakes, Diogenes, he’s not talking about white people not being allowed to say the N word, he means that no one but blacks can say words that HE deems to be slang.
It’s racism, yeah, and yeah, it’s pretty mild. But it still makes him sound like a fucking dumbass. How the fuck am I supposed to know if a word is “approved” for white people? What the fuck does it mean, “white people trying to be black.” What next, that black students are “trying to be white” when they succeed academically?
Slang is, well, slang. It doesn’t belong to any ethnic group, it’s pop fucking culture. Kanye comes off as a pretentious git. He sounds like a fucking whiny little poser who whines that his favorite musicians are “sell-outs” simply because they’ve become popular with a wider group of people.
In addition to this, West is right. It does sound like he’s a poseur when Biff wears bling and drives around in his BMW, top down, listening to NWA spouting off the latest street slang.
). If he’s using it refering to women in general, ah, yeah, gee, there might be something wrong with it.