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eh, just 'cause it bugged me doesn't mean I'm right and assume no negative intentions of Firas for posting it. Just bugged me, the usual stereotype of black man, especially in the wake of Obama being elected.
I know what you mean, and I agree, nothing good comes of talking that way. I just thought it was funny to say YMMV, like, your mileage may vary as to whether you think the n word is funny; yikes, who's gonna rise to that one, eh? Not quite like tickling catfish.
Dude. Maybe a bristling discomfort with hearing "the n word" is evidence of being completely disconnected from a major part of black expression (conversation, art, comedy, etc.), near regarding it as an alien presence, than necessarily a favour to the demographic employing it.
That's a big maybe, and a nonsense sentence, grammar-wise, to be putting in someone else's mouth. Maybe Brandon just doesn't like hearing racist language, reclaimed or not. I kind of agree, it's unnecessary, like fuck and shit, but it gets thrown around, like fuck and shit, by plenty of good, smart, and even funny people. I didn't think this was a particularly funny deployment, and I'm starting to get where Brandon's YMMV comes from. You may think this is funny, and you might even consider it parody, or you might not. Mileage varies.
See, for me it doesn't even register--the funny part is where he attaches different juice types to different types of women, and recommends hitting their kids with a "freeze pop" to distract them, etc. etc. The main joke is that instead of stocking his fridge with alcohol to get the ladies, he's stocking it with Vitamin Water and ice tea, and he takes it from there.
Not to say that meta analysis is completely worthless but honestly if you're going to prickle at the language it seems evidence to me--again!--of being completely disconnected from certain types of black expression, in a patronizing way.
Look, I grew up in a welfare culture, and as far as I'm concerned, this is just silly. There's no deeper subtext than some lol-sy bullshit. We look at this as cultural critique, and we're all WTF, NO ONE SHOULD SAY THAT!!OMG, but if you look at this as just some dude fucking around with a video camera, he's actually spot on. As far as marketing of the individual products go, he's in line with the market that each product is trying to hit! Yeah, as a woman, I WOULD feel more comfortable if a dude had a drink in his fridge that gave me some connection to him. That's just thinking ahead. And if he's got decent sake, more love-power to him.
As far as I'm concerned, racism will leave once we stop seeing it in everything a black man says.
Sorry, Hugh. I didn't mean to offend. I'm not really sure from this thread how you feel about racism. For the record, I don't like the "n" word either. I just feel that too much is being read into this dude's silliness. I don't think he meant to offend either. My comment was not directly related to yours.
In the early 90's a friend and I sunk all of our money and time into an Internet start-up. We believed that the Internet was going to bring forth a new paradigm that would flatten the communications hierarchy and blur the line between hot and cold media (we are both poli-sci grads). Disintermediation was the mantra.
Without having to go past the gatekeepers, news editors, TV programmers, Hollywood studios, newspaper editors, book publishers, peer review, etc., a whole new flow of wildly fun, inventive, informative, information would spill forth.
A lot of the Internet these days makes me long for the days of more "intermediation".
Oh, sorry, sakura. I just think that this word is dumb to use -- it's like when you hear some kid on the train (or stand-up comic on stage) who can"t say a sentence without the word "fuck" or "fucking" thrown in half a dozen times. He could be the smartest guy in the world but he's throwing up this obstacle to understanding, making it hard to listen. People are plagued by an inherent lack of ability to understand one another, and language is our game attempt at a solution. Swearing, and dropping the "n" bomb like this guy does, is an obstacle to this understanding.
But really, my take on this is about manners and about putting words in people's mouths. Assuming that we know what lies behind anyone else's statements and using those assumptions to construct a profile of that person ("Oh, well they said this, so they obviously must mean this and this") is a fool's game, though like all fool's games its ubiquity shows what fools we all are.
I don't think I need to take a stand about racism here; whether I care deeply or pay lip service or avoid the subject entirely isn't at issue here. It's the way we approach one another that is, and I think I've been pretty consistent in pointing out some of the traps we've fallen into here.
@hugh Hmm. Well put. The "n" word does have an effect that draws a circle around the speaker. We can't say what he says, because we are not in the same camp. It is a very cheap use of language, like a fart joke.
To my defense, I didn't hear the n's as much as the dissection of the different products he was offering. I do understand how a harsh, inappropriate and repetitive word can totally take away from the subject of a person's monologue. So you are right. He should have focused on the comedy, not the shock value of the offense. Thank you for pointing that out. And thank you for taking the time to voice your opinion with thought behind it, rather than just emotion. I really like that. :)I was wrong in my interpretation.
I must admit I missed the word completely when I viewed it. I guess that says something about me but I just can't be bothered to think about what that might be.
I just thought it was funny to say YMMV, like, your mileage may vary as to whether you think the n word is funny
Oh, the YMMV was for whether you bothered by the use of it. Clearly it wasn't the main point or even being used offensively and the humor was elsewhere.
*I* just didn't dig it. Doesn't mean I'm the final word on whether the piece was funny or the use of the n word.
I kinda figured it was, which is why I characterized it as a baited hook, daring someone to say, "My mileage does vary, I don't find it offensive." Instead, you got someone to say how your offense at the "n" word speaks of your own being out of touch, and we know what kind of people are out of touch with young urban black culture; hence my subsequent comments, less about whether the word is offensive or whether the clip was funny and more about forum manners with regards to picking at the open sore of race relations. The tendency to trap one another and to put words in one another's mouths is big part of why conversations about race often fail.
Of course, it's a tempest in a teakettle, nobody's really even het up over it, and I'm just silly with the metacommentary. Business as usual.
The best part of this video for me was the very end, when he's talking to the makers of the Kool-Aid and why they gotta fill them all the way to the top. "When I flip the mutherfuckin' cap, the I, I put it, the, the shit explodes like a goddamn grenade...then I got blue juice all over my white carpet."
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
