COLLEGE PARTIES
-Snoop Dogg, R&G: Rhythm and Gangsta: The Masterpiece
Not long ago a friend of mine mentioned he was going to a "redneck" party. The theme was white trash, dressing up like a trailer-dwelling poor white person, a fan of monster truck rallies, country music, and the confederacy. Naturally few actual people like this exist, but the exaggerated stereotype is fun to mock, and the Blue Collar Comedy Tour was full of jokes about the lifestyle, from a sympathetic, personal perspective. Jeff Foxworthy for example has made a lifestyle out of mocking himself and his family, all self-admitted rednecks.
This kind of thing is accepted and laughed at by society: stupid, poor white people, without education and class. However, if you try this with any other ethnic group, then the outcry begins. Take UCSD (University of California at San Diego) whose students recently hosted an off-campus Compton Cookout. Donald Douglas at Right Wing News has some details:
Most of the LA Times article is a lament that more blacks aren't at UCSD, which was met by school administrators talking all about how they're trying to get more in. Any time an organization doesn't have at least the same percentage of blacks in it as the US population, the protests and complaints begin, as if every single aspect of human life must have that quota. If you have 10 friends, at least 2 must be black and 3 latino, and half female or you're a bigot!
The divergence of outrage here is difficult to avoid: redneck parties mock white people who tend to be very patriotic, dislike leftists, and love things such as NASCAR, guns, and church. That's okay to make fun of, how stupid can you be? But blacks must not be mocked, no matter how ridiculous and absurd they might be. If you dare note that gangsters tend to have names a 9 year old would come up with, why you're a racist and stupid and must shut up. If you point out how dumb a name "bubba" is, well everyone laughs along.
This kind of thing is accepted and laughed at by society: stupid, poor white people, without education and class. However, if you try this with any other ethnic group, then the outcry begins. Take UCSD (University of California at San Diego) whose students recently hosted an off-campus Compton Cookout. Donald Douglas at Right Wing News has some details:
Women were invited to attend as "'ghetto chicks' with gold teeth, cheap clothes and 'short, nappy hair'."As Larry Gordon at The LA Times writes:
The university is also investigating whether it can discipline the organizers of the party, which promised guests a taste of "life in the ghetto."In essence this was a redneck party, but with blacks targeted instead. Dress like ghetto blacks and party! The idea is as valid and fun as a redneck party, with the same sort of stupid exaggerated stereotypical image being mocked... but when its blacks, suddenly people throw a fit. The protests began, with a picture of a black girl with tears running down her face leading off the article at the LA Times. The pain, apparently, was too much to bear.
Most of the LA Times article is a lament that more blacks aren't at UCSD, which was met by school administrators talking all about how they're trying to get more in. Any time an organization doesn't have at least the same percentage of blacks in it as the US population, the protests and complaints begin, as if every single aspect of human life must have that quota. If you have 10 friends, at least 2 must be black and 3 latino, and half female or you're a bigot!
The divergence of outrage here is difficult to avoid: redneck parties mock white people who tend to be very patriotic, dislike leftists, and love things such as NASCAR, guns, and church. That's okay to make fun of, how stupid can you be? But blacks must not be mocked, no matter how ridiculous and absurd they might be. If you dare note that gangsters tend to have names a 9 year old would come up with, why you're a racist and stupid and must shut up. If you point out how dumb a name "bubba" is, well everyone laughs along.
Part of this is because black racial aggrievance has become a lucrative business. You can make good money by running around shouting about racism and bigotry against blacks, and there will always be plenty of legacy media types who will stampede each other just to shove a microphone in your face.
See, its not that there's any basic economic or power difference here. Poor white trash and ghetto blacks are equally destitute and powerless. Its that the media cares about blacks, and doesn't care about poor whites. If someone mocks white people, the lilly-white legacy media says "Thank you sir, may I have another!?" If someone mocks blacks, they scream bigotry and hate.
Yet if we're going to be consistent can't we at least admit that both are equally offensive and insulting? That both misrepresent the people involved and both are at best cruel exaggerations of the worst people in each group? I am not saying they shouldn't happen, but I think there ought to be some consistency and thought. Sure, these are 20 year old airheads that throw these parties, their deepest thought is wondering why we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway. They think The Daily Show is deep political analysis.
Still, when I heard my friends talking about that redneck party and laughing about how they'd get shirts with flags on them (because, apparently, that's something to mock), I wanted to ask "are you going to throw a nigger party next?" Because really, isn't calling someone "redneck" or "white trash" in a pejorative sense just as insulting, racist, and offensive? Somehow I doubt they'd have thought it was as cool and funny.
See, its not that there's any basic economic or power difference here. Poor white trash and ghetto blacks are equally destitute and powerless. Its that the media cares about blacks, and doesn't care about poor whites. If someone mocks white people, the lilly-white legacy media says "Thank you sir, may I have another!?" If someone mocks blacks, they scream bigotry and hate.
Yet if we're going to be consistent can't we at least admit that both are equally offensive and insulting? That both misrepresent the people involved and both are at best cruel exaggerations of the worst people in each group? I am not saying they shouldn't happen, but I think there ought to be some consistency and thought. Sure, these are 20 year old airheads that throw these parties, their deepest thought is wondering why we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway. They think The Daily Show is deep political analysis.
Still, when I heard my friends talking about that redneck party and laughing about how they'd get shirts with flags on them (because, apparently, that's something to mock), I wanted to ask "are you going to throw a nigger party next?" Because really, isn't calling someone "redneck" or "white trash" in a pejorative sense just as insulting, racist, and offensive? Somehow I doubt they'd have thought it was as cool and funny.
posted by Christopher Taylor at 9:05 AM
4 Comments:
Instead of an apology there has been steady escalation and now the noose. So, what exactly will the excuses be for this cowardly act that brings up memories of the confederate KKK of the South in their attempts to keep slavery and the non-whites in fear? Is it that are uneducated, is it that their parents planted these seeds of hate, is it that they are live in fear because our President in the white house is not 100% white. This is what the republican party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” have brought you. These kids follow what their dullard leaders say, they are young and dumb. Are you surprise at what they do when you know what they think? Of course it could be an off-campus dullard who listens to Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush and Savage and the rest of the Blowhards.
Yeah, these college age kids going to an ultra leftist school probably are all hardcore tea party guys.
Talk about missing the point.
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