Paging Troy McClure

I remember actor Troy McClure, voiced by the late great Phil Hartman, hosting a special episode of "The Simpsons" which featured some possible spinoffs of the show. They were quite silly, and consequently funny to look at. "Could they really be that dumb?", I thought.

Apparently, "they" could, if "The Cleveland Show" is any indication. I've touched on the before, but found a much better discussion of the issue from The New Republic's John McWhorter.

McWhorter's point is that the show is simply a retread of Family Guy with black characters in the main roles:

The Cleveland Show is reminiscent of all-black productions of musicals in the old days such as the Hello, Dolly! with Pearl Bailey. The underlying notion was that because you couldn’t cast a black performer in a non-black role in a mainstream production, it made theatrical sense to concoct an occasion for there to be a black Dolly, a black Horace Vandergelder, a black Barnaby singing “It Only Takes a Moment.” What mattered was not the particulars of the performances – the names of the performers in these all-black mock-ups, other than the superstar leads, were quickly forgotten – but the fact that black people were doing them at all.

So, instead of a new comedy with a strong cast, McWhorter argues we're getting Family Guy in blackface, and I find it hard to disagree.

This is "Post-Racial" America?!

Another racist redneck thinks my family isn't legitimate: Interracial Couple denied marriage license.

Did it ever occur to this brain-dead fucking moron that marriage has never been a precondition for interracial couples in this country. I seem to recall a certain First Lady has interracial ancestors. Which makes her interracial, I guess.

Or does it not count to this fuck-tard because her great-great-grandfather owned her great-great-grandmother?

Are these people even capable of thinking rationally?

Kennett KKK Kard

I feel very lucky to have spent a lot of my childhood in and around the South and managed to avoid getting indoctrinated with the racist mentality which permeates the place.

From the Field Negro, I found this video about a woman in Kennett Missouri, home of Sheryl Crow and just 10 miles from where my father spent most of his life.

A young woman has been accused of cutting in line at Wal-mart. Apparently that's a serious crime there, although I never saw any problems with it the last time I was in there. But this woman is now looking at 15 years in prison for assaulting a police officer.

When the woman and her family organized a protest, a policeman showed up at their house with a "KKK" Card that said "this time the visit is social, but next time it won't be".

I have to respect the woman's mom for not trying to beat that racist redneck down right there. But since he was a cop, maybe even in uniform, I guess she had to restrain herself.

Update: A more detailed account of the story can be found here.

"Blacks"

Why do some white people refer to all black people as "blacks"? Not "black people", "black folks", African-Americans, etc, but "blacks".

It seems as if they're not talking about individual people, but some homogeneous horde of formless, faceless others. I can't account for it myself because the notion makes no sense. My son is considered black thanks to the one-drop rule. Would they call him "a black" if they saw him with me?

All this reminds me of an offensive episode of "Californication". In it, Hank is anxiously waiting for one of the many women he's slept with to have her baby, so he can make sure it's not his. Eventually he ends up being present when the baby is born, and it comes out black. Not a little dark, but very dark-complected. So dark, in fact, that its utterly unrealistic. Most children are born with light skin which gets darker as they get a little older. While its common to use older babies in TV and movies because truly newborns aren't convenient--or available--this was way too over-the-top.

But the step-father's reaction was even worse. Yes, the woman Hank banged was with someone else. He solemnly held the child and showed it to its mother, proudly saying "I will raise this black child as my own". Why did he have to use the word "black"? Does it require clarification? Had the baby been born white as a polar bear, would he have needed to qualify his feelings by saying something like "I will raise this bastard child as my own"? Technically, that's what the baby is.

I was solidly offended. The unrealistically portrayed baby was used as a comic prop and treated as less than legitimate because it was black.

"Californication" doesn't have a monopoly on tone-deaf portrayal of black people though. "Family Guy" has developed a schizophrenic relationship with black folks. Cleveland, one of the main characters is getting his own show, premiering this Sunday. Once he's gone, Peter, Lois and the rest of the gang will no longer have their "black friend". They'll instead have to maintain an unsteady relationship with the few black or other POC who somehow end up in Quohog.

And let's not even get started on the slavery bit they did in the "Panic Room" episode....

Why do some white people view anyone who doesn't look like them as some threatening "Other"?