Why Do African-American Superstars Like Chris Rock and Bill Cosby Go Out of Their Way to Stigmatize

[jtuck004]

the Less Fortunate?"
"The toxicity of respectability politics."

...
Of course, the substance of what Rock said wasn’t new. It hewed to the same line of respectability politics that had been a part of black political life since the days of Reconstruction. Even W.E.B. Du Bois, perhaps the most important sociologist in all of American history, posited a theory for black liberation that rested on the idea that 90 percent of black people ain’t shit and could only be saved by the “talented tenth.” He later abandoned that idea, but it got stuck in our collective imagination nonetheless. Rock’s language was different, and jarring, offering a legitimacy to the use of a racist slur to describe a class of people, but even that wasn’t new. After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X reportedly said, “We had the best organization the black man has ever had. N–gers ruined it.” Malcolm’s context was different, but the rhetoric is still in line with the idea that it’s the bad black people who ruin things for the good black people....
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What bothers me just as much, if not more, than the profitability of this line of thinking, is that anyone who engages in it (Barkley, Lemon, Riley or whoever) positions him- or herself as some sort of exalted truth teller, revealing the secrets black America is too afraid to face. They won’t touch the truth of how white supremacy has dictated the contours of black American life, but telling kids to pull up their pants and stop acting like “thugs” is right up their alley.

Moreover, these aren’t secrets. They’re flat-out lies.
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The real “dirty, dark secret” is this: the n–gers helped us survive. It’s all of those welfare queens, dope-dealing cousins, liquor store-robbing uncles, cable-stealing aunties, drunk granddads, and fast-tailed grannies who have made any of our relative success possible. It was those dope-dealing cousins who were able to buy someone’s kids’ school supplies. It was a good-for-nothing-drunk-of-an-uncle who fixed cars that helped folks get to work. It was an aunt who had five kids out of wedlock who did someone’s hair and made alterations on their suit for a job interview. It was those fight-at-the-drop-of-a-dime thugs who made it safe for their younger brothers and sisters to walk through their neighborhoods unmolested. It was the money from a grocery store robbery pulled off by an illiterate grandfather that kept the lights, gas and water on.
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In praise, it sounds as though I’m flattening the identities of those people who are usually deemed unworthy, and to a degree, I am. We are all complex, we contradict ourselves, are neither all “good” or all “bad.” But counter-narratives are important, particularly when the dominant narrative only serves to dehumanize. So here’s to the bad blacks, making black America’s survival possible, even if they never find that money in Chris Rock’s books.
...

Here.

If you are interested here is a link to the essay referenced in the story, entitled:

"DEAR BLACK PEOPLE: PLEASE STOP SPREADING THE LIE THAT “BAD” BLACKS ARE HOLDING “GOOD” BLACKS BACK"

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1. Because it’s not true...
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10. Because making blanket negative statements about (relatively) powerless and voiceless people is just as bad as what you’re accusing them of.
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I copied that last line because although there is a special case to be made for this in the black community, it seemed like very good advice in a lot larger sphere, whether one is talking about any of the most vulnerable of our neighbors or some nameless voter. It's how people are kept apart, how division is maintained. It is a tool of oppression. Those words (such as the term "poor people&quot are the words of the oppressor, and if one is saying them, they might want to see if they have joined, whether they meant to or not, with those who are hurting the people.

[JonLP24]

1. Terrific article

This and the article links to you and others source is the best I ever seen on this topic

3. Because saying “Black haters is what’s holding Black people back” is like blaming a monsoon on a sneeze. Out of all the structural, social, cultural, and historical obstacles that could reasonably be argued to be what’s actually keeping Black people back, a Black kid teasing another Black kid for getting an “A” in English is it?

4. Because having a conversation about “what’s holding Black people back” implies that Black people collectively are hopeless and pathetic and will be less hopeless and pathetic when they start acting like other, non-Black, people. (And yes, there’s a difference between saying this in a stand-up comedy skit or a conversation with other Black people and saying this to your “White friends.”)

5. Because if you actually go to a hood, you’ll find that if there is a young person with actual academic or athletic potential — basically, someone who seems to have a ticket out of the hood — there will usually be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more people rooting for and even protecting them than actively wanting them to fail. Maybe their methods of protection and support might be unorthodox and even occasionally counterproductive, but the supporters, the ones genuinely happy to see someone from their block who’s “made it,” tend to outnumber the haters.

<snip>

9. Because anyone from Leeds, Alabama or Gary, Indiana or Youngstown, Ohio or Compton, California who made it out obviously had some help from some of these “bad” Black people. Some poor Black family in your neighborhood who allowed you to stay at their place for a month because the lights were out at yours. Some kid in your class who took the rap when you both were caught stealing chips from the cafeteria, because even he sensed your future was brighter than his and you couldn’t afford to get in this type of trouble. Some assistant principal who wouldn’t allow you to play football your sophomore year because you were failing social studies. Some church that organized a bookbag drive so you and the other kids in the neighborhood would be prepared for the first day of school. Some drug dealer who’d tease you about being a nerd, but told the other drug dealers not to mess with you because you were going to college.

http://verysmartbrothas.com/dear-black-people-please-stop-spreading-the-lie-that-bad-blacks-are-holding-good-blacks-back/

[jtuck004]

4. I was astounded at how eloquently they both phrased those. Taken to heart they allow someone to

view their neighbors in an entirely different way than they are portrayed nearly 24 x 7 now.

[cali]

2. Cosby is a rapist.

and I think slamming Rock on the basis of one joke told nearly 20 years ago, is dishonest.

[JonLP24]

3. I didn't see it that way

Dishonest. He accurately gives the details & is a perfect example of what the author is trying to say

The joke here being that there is a subset of black people that are gleefully uneducated, take pride in their criminal activities, and serve as the clumsy sidekick in black America’s plan for liberation. If it weren’t for them, the n–gers, we’d all be free.

Other than a couple movie & a few appearances I haven't seen much from him since HBO in the 90's but there were other jokes & skits that used the joke. Not in the same language or details but the same joke. My Name is Chris probably also has examples of this.

[JustAnotherGen]

5. What a difference from this discussion a few weeks ago

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025716940




And now the article you linked - re Charles Barkley

1. Because it’s not true. Charles Barkley – like Mike Freeman before him — was not completely wrong when saying that there are some Black people who deride other Blacks for speaking properly or achieving academically. But just because something may technically be right doesn’t mean it’s true. Because the truth is that the majority of Black people are just like any other people: indifferent. Yes, we care about our friends and our families and maybe Beyonce a bit too much, but most of us — even the “bad” Blacks — are too wrapped up in our own lives to really give more than half of a shit about what other people are doing with their’s.

But, according to Barkley and the rest of the people who continue to repeat this falsehood, in every poor Black community exists an amorphous horde of round-the-clock haters whose only purpose is to kill every dream and use every college acceptance letter as rolling paper.

I really like the italicized part. I sometimes get the feeling that there are many DU'ers who have never been in a black person's home/daily lives so they don't understand . . . we don't sit around talking about this shit 24 *7. We also are just as wrapped up as everyone else in our own stuff to go out of our way to 'pick on someone for acting white' - OR - propping up someone for doing what we are ALL supposed to do . . . and that's at least try.

Thanks for this post - very good read!