Oh, yeah. Once, mid-90s, in a club or a car ride to the club, I heard Barney’s “I Love You” set to a slammin’ techno beat. I would kill to have that remix to play for my students.
I enjoyed your post, Askia, from a feelin’ the retail pain part, and the “man, my angry music just don’t get it anymore”, in terms of age.
See, the problem is, to my mind, that Black music, since the turn of the last century, is just very superior in it’s ability to make people want to dance, to move. No matter the content; early blues musicians had just as much to say as rappers with the horrid shit going on then, sounds tame now, but striking and important then. Musicians keep being way beyond the pale with social statement, but keep doing it with a rhythm that transcends mental bonds, in a hip shake way.
So with blues, so with rock, so now with rap. I was a little white girl who got sucked into the surge of George Clinton and Parliament back on yond because it was great music, then came to understand exactly what that was about, kept going back and deeper, back to the roots of it. That made me a better person, understanding what everyone was saying, through time, beyond what my own culture was telling me at the time. I ended up devoting a decade to documenting blues music, on it’s own terms, with it’s strength intact, and had many battles there.
So, maybe, don’t look on that little boy as co-opting your music : if he’s part of a bunch of people who might not hear that music as it’s rightly presented, he does at some level, a chink in the wall. With enough chinks, that wall will fall, and isn’t that the point???
The absorbing of African mastery of rhythm, in all it’s permutations, it really has made the world better. Words can then enter the earbones so sly and wonderful like… keep on pushing the boundaries…
I grew up listening to everything. Big band swing music, jazz, MoTown, acid rock, classical, blues, country, heavy metal, baroque. Later I added some rap and hip hop. It didn’t mean a thing to me who did it, or what sort of music it was, just whether it was good or not. So, I can enjoy Bach, and also enjoy Nine Inch Nails. Why be limited? There’s enough room in the world for both the “sacred” and the “profane”. Enjoy it all.
Now see, that’s why you weren’t scary to CLWB. He must have sensed it. Kids can sense these things.
You gotta watch out for those blond kids - they have some sort of evil mind link - Village of the Damned :eek:
I haven’t posted for ages, but I have to weigh in on this one.
And NO – I couldn’t be arsed to wade through the 5 pages of other posts, so if I am echoing something that was already said – tuff beans! I walked in late.
I want to address the OP directly, and the SDMB in general.
Yeah Askia,
It was a pretty damn funny story, and I can see how race plays into the humor, but it really pissed me off just the same. You are playing with well known stereo types, (sponge bob, white kids, malls), and all that, but me, as a middle class white guy, with a son who could have been that kid who didn’t have the decency to respect your personal space * in a food court, of a mall, at Christmas time – for god sakes! How ignorant of him! *! What the hell do you expect? Fuck! You need to be alone, go be alone. Don’t sit in the middle of a CROWD, with your headphones blasting, and expect people to not come into your field of vision. Ass hole. YOU WERE IN THEIR SPACE TOO! YOU SUBJECTED THEM TO YOUR SHIT! You were in public! Take it out side if you need space!
Another point is that –I- could NEVER have gotten away with posting such utter garbage!
You said:
What if I said:
You said:
What if I said:
You said:
What if I said:
For me, there would be hell to pay, but for you?
This is just fucked up. Wrong. And mean. Yeah I know you stated that you were being juvenile, and it had been a long day. But it doesn’t change the fact. It gives me a real window into the way you think. It also gives me pause about a lot of the double standards I see around here.
Black guy making fun of whites = OK!
White guy making fun of blacks = You better run!
I loved your joke, but I HATED your story, and the humor it was based on was really, very low class.
He wasn’t making fun of whites. He was making fun of how easily his gangsta persona could be punctured by a cute little five year old. It was a fucking hoot.
BTW, I’m also a middle-class white guy with a son who could have been that kid.
I didn’t see it that way. Perhaps my focus was on the other stuff. I still stand by my convictions, the spirit of my post. The man was being an ass hole, expected others to get out of his way, and had I posted the same thing from a white guy’s perspective – I would have been ripped a new ass hole.
And that is wrong.
I am another Middle-age white guy with a 5 year old son.
Askia wasn’t making fun of white people. In fact he was showing where his preconceived notions were dead wrong in this case.
I think you should re-read the OP. I think you took it the wrong way.
If anything it should give hope that race relationships in this country are improving.
Much in your comparisons were not really equal either.
White people were never required by law to move to other side of the elevator, Blacks were required to sit in the back of the bus. Do you see these two concepts as being equal or maybe the example you gave is more racist?
The Dennis vs. Buckwheat comparison was fairly fair, some could take offense but hopefully most wouldn’t.
Narrow-ass vs. Fat-ass and Cheeseburger vs. Fried Chicken definitely brings up a much more negative image and a standard racial stereotype on the food.
Maybe that analysis makes sense to you, maybe not. I think it is valid however.
Jim
:rolleyes: Oh honestly, Janx. The humour in the OP WAS AT THE OP’S EXPENSE. Not the white kid. Not white people. At his own expense. Because he was being an asshole, because he was indulging in racial assumptions, and then had them pop like a balloon.
And then had the good grace to laugh at himself and the situation and share it with us. I don’t know how you can read the story and not see that.
I have trouble imagining the story’s being written from a white guy’s point of view. What stereotypes do white guys sometimes play up to their advantage? Maybe the one about being good at business? I guess there’s a redneck image. A story, perhaps, in which some white guy is sick of dealing with people, and so he puts on some Toby Keith and is blasting it while eating his beefy mcbeefster beef sandwich? Yeah, that could work–and then a cute lil black kid comes up and starts dancing ot Toby Keith?
I dunno. The fact that it’s so hard to find strong negative scary stereotypes of white people to puncture like this is pretty telling.
There’s always the book Ten Little Whitepeople, but I don’t have a copy of it, sadly.
Daniel
Hell’s Angels, blasting metal, and this cute little black kid starts dancing to it?
Exactly. But I guess some people just can’t help being bitchy snarkers.
If, by ‘Richard Prior’ you meant ‘Cleavon Little’ and by Blazing Sattles you meant Blazing Saddles, then yeah, I guess so. :dubious:
Shit? Some of us white folks listen to it too, on occasion.
I’m white, and I do have a narrow ass.
Take it easy. It was a funny story, nithing more.
Please see this post http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6890970&postcount=55 from earlier in the thread.
Jim
Yeah, thanks, I saw your post after I posted. I’m just an idiot today. I didn’t notice that is thread is a few days old and I didn’t notice that there were more than one page. I know there is a reason why this board doesn’t allow one to edit or delete posts, but I really wish there was a button that allowed one to add:
[Roseanne Roseannadana] nevermind [/RR]
to the bottom one’s post.
Admit it, Askia. You were pissed because the cute little white boy had more rhythm than you.