Originally Posted by Clairity
Oneironaut, I too found this "not funny". Why when there are articulate and well educated public Black people (Barak, Colin Powell, etc.) do people find this soooo astonishing.. soooo rare!! Frankly in my opinion, some Whites seem to find comfort in thinking such Blacks are an "aberration" while some Blacks seem to feel "threatened" or "less than" or "defensive" (instead of being proud).[/b]
I was looking for a thread about "favorite tv shows," last night. Because there is a show on TV, that I wanted to comment on, called "Boston Legal" which I don't really 'watch' on the regular, but find myself drawn to, when it's on. Why? Because it is a fictional show which really takes the time to bring real-life issues to the fore-front (which a lot of fiction actually does, but people seem to try to ignore that...anyway..) Tuesday night, they had an episode where William Shatner's character is really impressed with Jaleel White's (a black man) character's business sense, and makes it a point to say something like "Well....you're....very articulate." Jaleel's character asks something like, "Uhm....what exactly do you mean by that?" And Shatner's char says "Well...you don't sound Black." Shatner's character, honestly meant no offense, because he didn't see it as an offensive comment. He truely thought it was an acurate generalization that he was using.
Another character (whoever it was that played "Murphy Brown" on the sitcom of the same name) then (after explaining to Shatner's character why what he says is not "PC" and has put his job on the line) explains to the media how white, corporate America (in no uncertain terms) is to blame for that kind of comment because it "whether consciously or subconsciously" (to use her words, exactly) prefers their blacks like their prefer their coffee; "with just a bit of 'cream and sugar'. The moment really had an impact because she was doing a press conference and, in blurting that out, so matter-of-factly, she got pretty much everyone-watching's jaws to drop to the floor. She said that it's something that even she was aware of, and wasn't proud of, but it was one of those 'swept-under-the-rug' truths about society.
She goes on to chew Shatner's character out about how there is no such thing as "Sounding Black." Shatner's character had a really hard time understanding this concept.
It is somewhere in this zone that "humor" such as this video is spawned.
Metcalfracing:
To answer your question about 'who would I trust more?' let me put it to you this way.
Who would I trust more? I would trust a person that (HONESTLY and WITHOUT THE NEED FOR INFLUENCE) tries to be PC. WHY? Because trying to be PC (upon one's own initiative) shows that one is not going to flaunt their own ignorance for the pleasure of 'getting a point across.'
If you call mexicans "wetbacks" at the risk of not being PC, you are subscribing to and advocating the idea that all mexicans "swam across the Rio Grande," which is, in NO sense, true.
If you call a group of black basketball players "Hoes," without a care in the world about being PC, then you are saying that you don't care whether or not those basketball players are really hoes, and are simply deciding to call them that, for whatever reason - which, In Imus's case, if you ask me, was because they were a group of rough-looking (in his perspective) predominately black women.
Sometimes I feel like I'm alone in this, but there is actually something very respectful about being (honestly) PC. It shows that you are willing to overlook the shallow, discriminatory and, often, just flat out wrong perception of those that like to generalize for the sake of making a funny/witty/attention-grabbing comment, because you realize that such generalizations aren't universally true.
If you choose to ignore fundamental truths such as that (even if you are 'speaking your mind' why should I trust you? That pretty much tells me that your sense of "what is and isn't true" is screwed up, in the first place. (And by "you" I mean anyone, in general. I'm not singling you out.)
[EDIT: Also, the way this is going, it may just be suitable for Extended Discussion. It's your thread, metcalf, so if you'd like to continue this, there, let me know, and I'll move it.]
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