Wampum

I know, I saw that. I was a bit disappointed in him. I just don't know what the hell inspires people to keep using this. Do they want to be The One Who Pulls Blackface Off in 2006? What's the attraction, given all the emotional freight?

WTF??? And he *even* has Edward Said's Orientalism in his side-bar. Talk about blind-spots.

And the attraction Nezua? In my opinion, it seems to be the lefty means by which to call someone a girly-man.

I think that it is physical- somewhere in the brain there is a switch and when all else fails it guides you to do the stupidest thing that you can think of to do. In most of us, we have an override to this switch but for some that override is missing. I am glad that ebog is considering a poster, Billmon appears to need a visual aid when he has access to Photoshop.

I think I'm gradually getting to the point of not being surprised or offended any longer by these inane photoshop exercises. *sigh* I guess we need to run those ebogjonson posters and distribute them broadly with instructions on how to stick them on the wall and reference them before posting. I guess Jon Swift really was speaking for all white liberal bloggers when he wrote (over at Dark Sun), "As a blogger it seems I am constantly confronted by the question, Would now be a good time to use blackface?"

Um, did you guys have your political satire gene surgically removed or something?

Sheesh.

Oh the horror! That evil Billmon! This will surely upset the "good [deleted]", like "Uncle" Clarence Thomas and Ken "OREO" Blackwell.
Ever So Sincerely,
Mike Adams
Atlanta

[deletion by ebw]

Yipee. Billmon allows no comments, so the apologists show up here. Welcome. Pull up a hood and take a seat. (NB: My gr-gr-gr-uncle, a veteran Indian guide of the famous Maine 20th, was lynched in 1880 by white separatists, at a time when there were still bounties on Abenakis, so the hood quip is ironic, not satirical.)

Reminder for visitors from Away

Originally published in Oliphant (the other one) for Bloggies, on January 6, 2004:

Recently a blog lord wrote to inform us that highly acerbic "gang" commentary, a norm prevailing elsewhere, should be the norm here. We differ. We are not surprised to meet friends of Chief Justice Rehnquist -- for his is the voice that says "no special rights for Indians", and in particular "no jurisdiction save that of the States" -- among well-educated, progressive non-Indians.

The use of the N word is absolutely banned.

1. Moon of Alabama is where people go to leave comments.

2. Calling somebody an apologist says nothing about your argument or theirs.

3. For a mega-bank hack, the dude can flat out write and has some hard core knowledge of WWII and American imperialism.

I'm just sayin'...

>In my opinion, it seems to be the lefty means by which to call someone a girly-man.

Oh my: misogyny and gay baiting in one sentence. Cue the righteous PC outrage.

[one time is enough. duplicate entry deleted. find another button to mash. ebw]

Pat:

1) So why are you here?
2) There is no argument over the use of blackface by a white. It's flat out offensive to people of color, and others who don't have that particular "blind spot".
3) Being a great writer excuses the offense?

"thou shalt not tell minstrel jokes, not even about white guys."

Does billmon know that minstrels were white guys? White guys who were pretending to be 'pathetically servile' black people.

"I also used a racial stereotype to make a point about our pathetically servile corporate media."

Pathetically servile, hmmm... Gosh, white people are never pathetically servile, so Wolf Blitzer must be a black man for realzzzzz...I wonder if billmon can figure out now why the blackface is insulting yet?

"Which is the greater failing -- ignoring the racism that goes on every second of every minute of every hour in this country, or telling a minstrel joke?"

This makes no sense at all. So we are supposed to pay attention to racism 24/7 unless it's billmon who is acting racist; then just ignore it this time?

Hey, Sun...did you hear that? Women can now be misogynists. Did you know people of color can be racist too?

Ya Suh, Boss,
I guess I'll be a good (Deleted) and stop using (Deleted)even in an appropriate way to make an appropriate point. Hmmm, word killing liberal Orwellans. Go figro.
Jebus are PC Honkys stupid and in the way.
MA

Michael:

According to Wikiepedia (and thus, there is obviously room for debate):

The word "honky" as a pejorative for caucasians comes from "bohunk" and "hunky". In the early 1900's, these were derogatory terms for Bohemian, Hungarian, and Polish immigrants. According to Robert Hendrickson, author of the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, Black workers in Chicago meat-packing plants picked up the term from white workers and began applying it indiscriminately to all Caucasians.

Last I checked, most us Injuns (those who don't challenge the Bering Straits hypothesis) suspect our ancestors to have walked from Siberia, not Hungary or Poland. But, hey, I don't expect you to know all about our history, as I'm not familiar with every aspect of the African immigration (forced or otherwise) to the Americas.

But then, you could have been confused that you were not at a site of another person of color. Thought the wampum, American Indian images and at least 50% of the content might have given you a clue.

chill, whities. Billmon's point was salient and moreover, true. It's called satire. Blitzer's role in the political discourse has indeed been the equivalent of the servile house negro stereotype.

I'm Black, and I get it, and I don't see anything racist in Billmon's use of this particular symbol, so here's a puzzler for you: "Self-hating" Black or "ignorant of the finer points of semiotics" Black? You make the call!

[try "indians", but thanks for paying attention to your surroundings. ebw]

Ah, the pro-blackface crowd is here. Charming. They think people of color are such party poopers when it comes to seeing the humor in blackface, slavery, lynching, violent white supremacy, and all that hilarious stuff that makes excellent material for some ribald lampooning among white folks.

As has been posted elsewhere, here are Billmon's own words:

I have an unpleasant confession to make. I am a Southerner. Born in the south of southern parents, with Confederate veterans and slaveowners on both sides of the family tree. For all I know, there may even be a few Klansman hanging in the lower branches as well -- by their necks, I hope.

I'm also, in some deep subterranean sense, a racist -- for one cannot grow up in the world of my childhood and not be marked by its imprint. Believe me, I know: I've spent my entire life trying to get away from it.

Those are courageous words. Does Billmon remember writing them? Does he still embrace that confession?

Wow, there is a whole lot of lesbian lust up in here. I'm outtie!!

people who put on black face did not ever become real black people. they always played a white mans image of the 'servant' black man. underdog is too gracious a term. in this way, blitzer becomes the surrogate 'yes man', not representing at all the 'real ' american, the 'real' challenge to ms cheney. any left person would have been much harder on her to begin with. instead blitz's light questions led him to feel the need to qualify himself, too essentially ask permission, to excuse himself, or justify his statements. in this sense he was not demonstrating independence. he was a 'fake', a surrogate, an imposture, he demonstrated his servitude to the system

the obvious comparison to blackface is that he is not a true liberal, not a true challenge to her bs, he doesn't outright ask permission, approval, but the implication of him justifying what any sound journalist would question reasonably, he degrades himself, and us. there is no difference between playing a blackman as a blackman isn't, and playing a leftist as a leftist isn't. no need to qualify, make excuse. blitz showed his colors. he showed who his master is. that speaks for itself. billmon saw it , i do too.

ps, it's not about being a true liberal, it is more about beiing a true journalist, seeking the truth, asking the questions. wht did he come back and qualify himself? he had every right to ask the obvious.

why, why did he not nail her to the wall? to justify himself later? why? where arehis loyalties? to truth? he wears makeup. i cannot believe you can't see the obvious.

I saw that post, and I thought: who will be the first to make a reflexive criticism?
Billmon carefully set that up; the cartoon doesn't make fun of blacks, it makes fun of blackface, and it makes fun of Wolf Blitzter. I don't see even a whiff of racism in it.

Et tu Billmon is not a sufficient criticism; you need to explain how that cartoon is racist. I'm with Billmon and Bill Maher on this: political correctness is a blight on modern liberalism.

Well, I would think that ethnic pride can easily, even naturally, go over to reactionary chauvinism. Even when awful wrongs have been committed. Essentially no-one owns their "race", their genes - there is no copyright. It's a tough world, awful injustices continue to be committed. Billmon sells himself short: I have not seen a better writer on the blogosphere, nor one more stridently fighting these iron structures of injustice and inequality.

mac: You don't see a whiff of racism in blackface because blackface is meant to entertain you by mocking and emasculating others. Does blackface make Blitzer ridiculous? Yes. How does it do that? By comparing him to a historically-loaded racist stereotype of a house n***** who is so stupid and emasculated and ridiculous that he can't figure out his harsh treatment at the hands of his master's wife. In other words: "Blitzer is such a pathetic suck-up, so lacking in brains and balls, that he's like one of them house n*****s! Haha, good one!"

Again, please see Billmon's own words in my previous comment. He confesses to being a "subterranean" racist who has yet to free himself from his Southern upbringing. He's a great writer, a clever analyst, a knowledgeable historian, an entertaining political blogger, but those things have nothing to do with this. This is about blackface.

To all the white folks who claim that blackface isn't racist: Please walk into a bar full of black folks, or a black church, in a black neighborhood, and bust out your blackface joke. See how inoffensive blackface is. Best of luck.

The blackface make-up is indeed one of the many
appalling images associated with racism.

Even worse are photos of lynchings, images of slaves in
chains, bills of sale of slaves, etc.

These images are hurtful, no doubt, but they can, and
should, be used to denounce the evils they stood for.

E.g.: Jesus' General recently photoshopped a slave in
irons in a photo showing Allen dressed in Confederate
garb.

To condemn the use of such images in an appropriate
context is nothing more than ill-conceived censorship
of the worst kind. It's the path that led Islamists
to object to the Danish cartoons.

I am disappointed to see a blog such as this endorse
narrow-minded censorship.

Lupin,

You miss the point.

Billmon has the right to publish whatever he wants. And if it's racist, I have the right to say so. Where's the censorship?

You also seem to be lumping all slavery-related imagery into one confused category. But there's a world of difference between "photos of lynchings, images of slaves in chains, bills of sale of slaves" and blackface. The former are powerful indictments of the injustice of slavery. The latter is cultural propaganda that helped to prop up slavery, lynching, and Jim Crow.

Putting a man who flies the Stars and Bars in a Confederate uniform is an indictment of his racism. Putting a man in blackface deploys racism as a weapon of mockery.

Think about it.

Lupin,

I'll pass on the attaque à outrance bit, feel free to make everything equal to everything. What caught my eye was your disapointment, it suggests you actually read wampum. We've had 257 inbounds from your ISP in the last eight weeks, and 17 from your town, but the first from your address was ... your little attaque à outrance.

So, in the interests of intellectual honesty, on what prior occasions have you read wampum?

FYI, the Abenaki law on hate speech is similar to the Loi Gayssot, which you're free to denounce, but not to ignore.

Regardless of what one thinks of the use of blackface, or what your view is of using racist imagery in the service of a 'good cause', mostly the use of it is just plain stupid. There really is no getting around that.

No matter how brilliant a photoshop job one does, or how incisive a political writer/observer is - once you get to the point where you say "Aha! Obviously I'm the one that will be able to put this controversial and offensive image into the proper context and make an effective political point! Even if no one else has managed it yet." then you've moved out of the brilliant and incisive category and plopped yourself right down in the middle of stupid.

Just because one is a generally recognized "brilliant" writer (and Billmon does often write brilliantly, as he did about Lebanon this summer) doesn't mean that one's writing is always brilliant. And even though so many people "get" this joke (everyone does--even those of us who are criticzing it--for those of you who seem to think it needs explaining, in fact it is so easy to get that it took about two seconds for the righties to get it, which should say something) it still doesn't mean that it was a "good" joke. In fact, as Nanette points out, in addition to being offensive, it was just plain old stupid.

And for all of those who don't get it: Using blackface is akin to using the N-word. In fact it IS the N-word. Now I am certain that Billmon would never dream of using the K-word for Blitzer, or of portraying him as a groveling Shylock.

That is why the use of blackface is offensive, wrong (it doesn't even make the right point) and plain old lazy.

****

As for those of you Billmon loyalists who don't understand why the blackface image is also misogynist, it might be a good time to throw him some love by clicking on Edward Said's Orientalism in his right hand side bar, and buying it. Or if you are too cheap (or intellectually lazy) you can always google "Edward Said Orientalism" and if you replace the word "oriental" with "black" or "slave" you will see the connection.

2 Words folks. Don. Imus. Big time radio bigot, a professional one at that, and yet on minor occasions, even he can prove somewhat useful. Almost irresistible. Cheers, 'VJ'

So...is it racism when Spike Leee makes essentially the same point?

http://tinyurl.com/ygtut7

I, for one, thought the blackface was spot on.

If we are ever going to be free - we need to stop feeling victimized by words - for crying out loud - well intentioned ones at that. Billmon was calling Wolf a tool... simple as that. (annie does a particularly good analysis of it...)

MB - who cares about your distant relative? I had distant relatives on both sides of the emancipation effort - so freakin' what?

Anyone else notice that the only self-identified black (mercury) commenting here had no problem about it (he was smart enough to see the actual point). Amazingly, but not surprisingly, his last comment gets flatly misunderstood by ebw - he was refering to your expected reaction to HIM - not the other way around. Oh, and by the way, in the interest of full disclosure I am a white person - I know that that detail is REALLY important to some of you. Drop me into your pigeon hole, fools.

Get lives, people! There are real battles to fight and you are sniping one of the good guys?

So...is it racism when Spike Leee makes essentially the same point?

Please tell me we've gotten farther along in our collective understanding of what racism is and isn't than this. If not, than inclusion within the modern Progressive movement is surely doomed.

Dear "a person",

Funny thing about the internet - it's colorblind. Thus, someone can say they're black, white, green, purple, but unless they reject the cover of anonymity, why should their views be any more relevant than any other anonymous commenter?

MBW- I concede your point... I went under the assumption that mercury was being honest. Admittedly it is only one person as well - so nothing is proved (not a significant sample size). Could you please explain your other comment about inclusion within the modern Progressive movement? Is the modern Progressive movement some kind of club? Thanks in advance for humoring me.

Please tell me we've gotten farther along in our collective understanding of what racism is and isn't than this.

MB, we have not gotten farther along. But progressivism isn't dead, either. ;-D

Most of Billmon's posse appear to deliberately miss the point and chalk up the plain statement "blackface is racist" to some imagined victimhood or moral intellectual confusion or sniping at one of the good guys or something personal like that. In fact, I don't think anyone feels victimized by Billmon, but blackface is still as categorically racist as the slavery and lynching for which it served as cultural propaganda.

Allow me to put aside Billmon, Blitzer, and Cheney for a moment, in order to make as unadorned a statement as possible: Blackface is the n-word in pictorial form. If you wouldn't casually throw around the n-word in public, you shouldn't throw around blackface on the internets either.

It's that simple.

person:

Anyone else notice that the only self-identified black (mercury) commenting here had no problem about it (he was smart enough to see the actual point).

I am black. Didn't actually feel a need to proclaim that to speak to this issue - it transcends race, or rather is encapsulated in it, black, white, native american, asian, whatever. Either people can see the problem with using this sort of imagery, no matter what the intent, or they cannot. Not much one can do about it. And, while use of blackface (and its equivalents in other cultures) is better accepted when done by people from within the particular race/culture, even that is no guarantee. Gilliard used blackface on his blog to highlight the hypocrisy of a black politician and definitely did not come away unscathed.

However, unlike some images and cultural appropriations, I feel that creation, ownership and use of blackface imagery (among other things) belongs to white people. Just like the "N" word. These are not creations of black people to portray black people, or to demean them, or to use black people and this imagery as a means of demeaning other white people - they were the creations of whites, and I think that the power in them in still held in the hands of whites. Every action such as this taken has a whole world of history behind it.

I saw the point, by the way. The point, actually, was one of the more offensive parts of it.

Prometheus6 (black person) wrote a friendly, and I think generous, open letter to Billmon and others, which might be helpful for some in understanding one take on the issue.

"blackface is the n-word in pictorial form..." a succinct description of how some feel about this. I find it interesting in a broader sense how any word can be "categorically" anything. Like the word has some kind of magic to it. A word has power only through the meanings we attach to them. ...and people attach meanings to things differently. Case in point: this blog. Billmon clearly lost some people on this - but, on the other hand, many got his point more clearly than if he had not used the symbol. One of these days the "n-word" and blackface (at least I don't have to call it the "bl-word") will cease to have power over us... I suspect that that day will only come when it ceases to be a "bad word" and can be seen in context...

MB, on your update... absolutely. 'Tis one reason why I didn't just blunder in, proclaiming blackness, and talk about this - I think there is much more to this, not only with Billmon of course... he just happens to be the bonehead of the moment, but with yellow face and with indian brave image you have there and so on.

At one point it seems to me that we were sort of on our way with this, until people apparently started choking on their privilege as it was coming up and out, and decided that swallowing it back down and holding on to it and screeching "PC! You are PC if you say I can't say or do this racist thing!" was a lot easier for some.

Fine. Just call me the PC police, I don't care. I'm tired of all this stuff, lol.

"These are not creations of black people to portray black people, or to demean them, or to use black people and this imagery as a means of demeaning other white people - they were the creations of whites, and I think that the power in them in still held in the hands of whites."

So long as people feel that they don't have the power we will continue to have this problem.

At the same time, thanks for the link to the open-letter - it is well stated - and I for one will be more aware in the future.

person,

You say that words have no meaning other than the meanings that are assigned to them. Are you really sure about that? Have you ever thought about what the purpose of words, of language? Would we have a vocabulary, a language at all if we didn't agree among ourselves that words and sentences and polemics have meaning? Think about what we are doing here, we are 'talking' at or with each other, using words, words that do have 'meaning.'

And if you are honest about it, you will see that words do have power (just think about the last time you had 'words' with someone you care about): actually, that was part of the point that Billmon (and many others) with his on-going deconstruction of what those in power are saying (and not saying).

So with all this in mind, I have a question. Why would you even want to say the n-word? Why would you want to use a blackface image?

Some things are best remembered as a part of history....

Also, for those who do not know about the recent history of the controversy that the use of blackface has generated in the lefty-blogosphere in the past few months, here is an fairly comprehensive chronicle.

And MBW, yeah, the Redskins & the Indians etc. Where are all the "conscious" football fans on that one?

"You say that words have no meaning other than the meanings that are assigned to them. Are you really sure about that? Have you ever thought about what the purpose of words, of language?"

Of course I have. By referring to the meanings we attach to words - I mean the listeners/readers attaching meaning as well the speakers... AND no message will ever be understood by everyone the exact same way - not ever. (ever play the telephone game?) Billmon's use of the blackface symbol was sure to lose some - but for others, myself included, the message was understood with no racist overtone - believe it or not.

Words are funny things - I can say "I hate you" to someone who just teased me, for example, and be completely understood - with no offense. Richard Pryor can say the "n-word" (and yes, I would rather say the actual word than the silly pathetic "n-word" fig-leaf) he could say it 20 times in a performance and no one objected. Chicano used to be a racial slur - until activists embraced it as a badge of pride. There is a reason that language changes over time and that words have multiple meanings in the dictionary and the fact that there is slang that isn't in any dictionary. Yes, words have power... but I would suggest that it is only because the human heart has power... and for that reason I am FAR more offended when Rush Limbaugh says black or African American or ANYTHING ANYTIME, than when Billmon uses blackface or when Richard Pryor said the naughty word.

On Richard Pryor and the "n" word. Scroll down, second story.

Actually no one is stopping you from saying it - (on here it will get removed though). It belongs to you, use it. You cannot divorce the word from its history - or its present, for that matter... more often than not, non-black people who use that word mean me and my family harm.

Although, I do have to say... I'm almost 50 years old (unbelievable tho that is... at least to me, sigh), and until I have never in my life seen that word used as much as I have on white liberal blogs, with white people giving each other permission to use it ("spell it out! it has more POWER that way!"). I have no idea what the fascination is with the word - I really do hesitate to wonder, but there is definitely very little qualm in using it. On a blog.

Might be a little reticence in using it in Kai's scenario, though.

Please walk into a bar full of black folks, or a black church, in a black neighborhood, and bust out your blackface joke. See how inoffensive blackface is. Best of luck.

Nanette- nice link regarding Richard Pryor and the "n" word. Thanks.

At one point it seems to me that we were sort of on our way with this, until people apparently started choking on their privilege as it was coming up and out, and decided that swallowing it back down and holding on to it and screeching "PC! You are PC if you say I can't say or do this racist thing!" was a lot easier for some.

Nanette, I loved this line. I think it describes a whole lot of what has occurred here, and in the comments of other bloggers of color over the past few months.

Do we need to order you up a badge to go with your new self-appointed position? ;-)

Perhaps I'm being honest, but I think it takes a certain degree of critical thinking skills to understand that:

a) Billmon's use of the image was not intended to be racist or discriminatory against black folk
b) It's only racist if you put it within a racist context and divorce it from the context with which Billmon was using it (this is a choice you make as the observer)

Also, even as a caucasoid, if I want to use the word "[deleted, ebw]" or use an image of a person in blackface, it is entirely within my rights to do so. It is entirely within your rights to condemn me, but it is entirely within my rights to consider you an ass if you condemn me for the use of such in a context that is in your head and which is divorced from the context with which I used it.

In summary: this world is too complex for people without critical thinking skills. If you found Billmon's posting offensive, I highly recommend you take come classes in critical thinking. If you don't, the world will continue to be presented unto you as myths and fables.

Dear me.

For a minute I thought I was reading the comments over at Red State or Little Green Footballs. But then I remembered that it was at least a year since I went near such a racist & misogynistic swamp.

It is amazing is that Billmon counts among his fans so many like-minded readers. THAT I would not have guessed.

Shorter Sellam:

If you can't think like a privileged white person, you should learn. If you don't learn, it's your own fault if you're offended by white privilege.

Also, even as a caucasoid, if I want to use the word "[deleted, ebw]" or use an image of a person in blackface, it is entirely within my rights to do so. It is entirely within your rights to condemn me, but it is entirely within my rights to consider you an ass if you condemn me for the use of such in a context that is in your head and which is divorced from the context with which I used it.

Sellam, now isn't that what I've been saying? It's your word, your blackface history - take ownership of it. Heck, one guy at that billmon mirror blog is owning it all over the place. See? that's how it's done.

I know it's terrible that my poor brain can only grasp the myths and fables of racism as perpetrated by racist freaks (for my own good, of course!) instead of the realities of the eternal inner goodness of those (mostly white) who would use racist speech and images (for my own good, of course!) to make complex points which are too far above my woolly little head for me to comprehend.

No idea if Billmon himself is racist or not, but many of his followers are very quickly removing all doubt... which actually is usually one very unpleasant (but informative) fallout of stuff like this.

Do we need to order you up a badge to go with your new self-appointed position? ;-)

lol MB, looks like it! And chocolate too, which I think all PC police should carry - I'm fixing to get irritated with some people, so that's a good soother ;)

"Also, even as a caucasoid, if I want to use the word "[deleted, ebw]" or use an image of a person in blackface, it is entirely within my rights to do so."

Sadly, I think the deletion in this sentence perfectly illustrates the whiff of totalitarianism so prevalent amongst those who consider themselves "progressive."

Sexton,

As you're in the US, I don't expect you to have understood the reference to the Loi Gayssot, or its equivalants in other European jurisdictions. Since our position is jurisdictional in nature, your position is that of Rehnquist, and before him, the authors of ex parte Crow Dog, that Indigenous jurisdictions ought not exist, or if they must, that no white person be subject to them.

I've explained this in writing about Oliphant, and all you have to do to know your position in its fullest expression is to do a little reading. As you must have missed it, see Reminder for visitors from Away, above. Have fun!

People do seem to have a hard time noticing that billmon's use of blackface is *negative.* But this is presumably the same crew that is mystified by Borat. http://www.wonkette.com/politics/borat/q-how-many-lesbians-does-it-take-to-change-a-lightbulb-a-thats-not-funny-211378.php

atomic dog: Um, this is a bit embarrassing to say in public, but please note that blackface is always negative. Indeed I invite you to provide us with instances of blackface in which the "blackfaced" target is positively portrayed. Here's the point: racism is the cultural fulcrum upon which blackface turns. Calling us "mystified" by inter-cultural humor probably isn't as clever as you think; I haven't seen the Borat movie so I can't comment on that, but your assumption that people of color aren't smart enough to understand its cultural satire is especially rich because most people of color learn early on how to navigate the multi-cultural landscape into which they are thrown. We're not the ones who are "mystified" by multi-culture.

OK I'll bite. Some of this is only tangentially related to the central argument, (which I suspect will remain ever unresolved), but a 'positive' portrayal in blackface? How about the first commercially successful 'talkie', 'The Jazz Singer', featuring, yes, Asa "Al Jolson" Yoelson in 1927. Jolson was a popular entertainer of the time, indeed was credited with being the first musical artist to sell over 10 million records.

The point being that there's plenty of complex history and anthropology that's being missed or overlooked here, in this possibly the most commented upon post in years here. From the perspective of the 21st century, we can see all this musical & theatrical development within a constructed miasma of racism just one way, while closer examination will tell you that our popular culture to this day owes a tremendous debt to many of these early performers & traditions, (including the great but under appreciated actor & comedian, Bert Williams). That's some of what I see & think about when I see a 'blackface' reference in a performing context. To me it's usually far too complex a story to play with successfully now, especially since most of the context has been lost or gradually stripped of it's meanings. We might see the 'self loathing' or 'toadying' of the modern actor, but that's not the totality of the referral here, and the picture carries plenty of it's own weight.

I suspect Billmon was trying to be provocative in the strongest, quickest way he could think of. Not an uncommon issue for most bloggers. The image thus conveys his disgust with the media writ large, and the crude but effective attacks on same by the usual panoply of well known right wing forces. The fact that Most of the CNN crowd & the Big networks & staff are actually well honed tools for the Bush crime family, wittingly or unwittingly, is a very old story by now, but still disturbing & disgusting to many. BTW: 'House slaves' of course were never immune to severe physical punishment during antebellum times (See: 'Within the Plantation Household', by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese).

Not that that matters much. Real history almost never does. If it did we might of asked the Brits about how they'd do Iraq better from their decades long failure there earlier in the 20th century. Or retained some of the specialists who could speak the language or know something about the culture. Hard stuff this cartooning business too. One bad reference and they're burning you in effigy in the streets of Karachi. It is ever thus. Cheers, 'VJ'

MBW spake:

If you can't think like a privileged white person, you should learn. If you don't learn, it's your own fault if you're offended by white privilege.

Are you saying that critical thinking skills are lost on all but "priveleged white folk"? Because if so, it's no wonder we have yet to achieve the racial equality in this country for which so many have been fighting for so long.

Nanette:

No idea if Billmon himself is racist or not, but many of his followers are very quickly removing all doubt... which actually is usually one very unpleasant (but informative) fallout of stuff like this.

I don't presume to speak for the other Billmon fans, but I take this as a disgusting insult and as far as I'm concerned, Nanette, you're an asshole for even suggesting this.

The assumptions inferred in your postings should be as offensive to me as this whole blackface incident is to you. But then, I realize they are borne of the same ignorance you smugly assign to everyone else who refuses to see things from your unipolar perspective. So I'm not offended. I just pity you. How scary it must be for you to be swimming in a sea of white folk and assuming all of them are closeted racists struggling to keep their true selves from being revealed.

Fie.

[please try to lose your mind and/or manners elsewhere. ebw]

ebogjonson has added an addendum to his spreadsheet!

VJ: You're right that there's a complex history behind blackface. Overwhelmingly, it's a history of genocidal subjugation; and that history is wielded as a weapon of mockery when blackface is deployed. That's what we're saying. Racism is blackface's ammo. As you correctly observe, Billmon was trying to be provocative in the strongest, quickest way he could. Without racism, blackface would have no discursive power; but rooted in the cultural bedrock of white supremacy, it is indeed a strong quick provocation, though not particularly original.

Check out ebogjonson's post on the matter (yay! he responded to my page).

Sellam: Well, you're no longer among the closeted racists. You deliberately mistook what MB said and wrote that "it's no wonder we have yet to achieve the racial equality in this country for which so many have been fighting for so long." Attributing racial inequality to the inferior intelligence of people of color...nice! Nothing closeted about that. It's cute that in the very next comment, you object to Nanette's observation that Billmon's defenders are showing their true colors. (EB: hehe, just saw your polite note to Sellam...)

Ya know, I'm starting to feel like one of the blogosphere's go-to guys on blackface...how weird is that?

Peace.

Sellam:

How scary it must be for you to be swimming in a sea of white folk and assuming all of them are closeted racists struggling to keep their true selves from being revealed.

Heh. Can't help yourself, I see.

Like all US-ians, I've lived all my life in a white world. Perhaps, due to circumstances in my life, even more than some other non white people. Consequently, when it comes to people who are white, some have been best friends, some have been family, some have raised me, I've loved some, greatly disliked others, ran businesses with some, spent days and weeks and months and years fighting for this or that issue with some, slept tangled up in blankets and legs and arms at the end of a hard day with them, shared knowledge and information with them - both learning and teaching and I could, of course, go on, but no need to. Suffice it to say that when I meet white people (or people of any other culture or race) my first reaction is usually, "Friend!" It's only after sometimes longterm, sometimes minimal interaction with an individual that I start to think "Whoops! racist. Or, at least, has 'issues'."

As an aside - sort of - while I still say that ownership of the "N" word and blackface and other racist imagery and speech belongs to the creators of it, I put white people who absolutely insist on their use in the same category as the "heritage, not hate" flyers of the Confederate flag. Chalk it up to experience (oh wait - or to belief in myths and fables and lack of critical thinking), but just as I would no more enter the house or vehicle of someone displaying that flag, I give wide berth to those who insist on clinging to racist junk... even tho I have friends who do so. But they are friends "this far, and no further".

Mind you, there are also sometimes people seemingly without malice, like "a person" above, who believe (erroneously, in my view, but still) that the use of various terms will depower them, and eventually.. well, I'm not sure. Take the stigma and harm out of them? Regardless, one learns, as a survival measure, pretty quickly how to determine which is which.

Anyway, I urge people still confused on when to use blackface on their blog (or anywhere else) to read ebogjonson's new piece, and prometheus6's as well, and kai's 5 grievances post (the start of his being the go-to guy!) and maybe just absorb a little. If only this line, from ebogjonson:

Billmon's self-professed intent and racial virtue are largely irrelevant here, the simple fact is that blackface and minstrels and house negroes are dangerously wild and crafty memes that have been laughing at intent and virtue for over 140 years.

(The name "Billmon" can be replaced with any other).

Should, Ought to, Never, etc. A lot of people seem to know exactly how things should be or should be done even to the point of alienating your natural allies. Unless you are a fundamentalist PC "liberal", Billmon made a perfectly good point in highly defensible manner. The problem is that so much time has been wasted by people who should be allies attacking and defending. All over a minor point of taste. Billmon ain't no friggin' racist! He's on you side.

While my heart is almost always with humane "liberal" causes, trying to work with humane but PC people in a real on the ground operational situation has often been a pain is the ass and occasionally dangerous for me. Trying to work with the Zapatistas on their own independent communications system before the days of universal cell phones comes to mind. $150,000.00 and 18 months down the drain while dodging the Mexican Army all the way to the Guatemalan border all because of excessive Political Correctness. The remainder of the Comm system ended up in Nicaragua and is working on Solar power to this day BTW.

What I see going on here is no different except in the amount of immediate danger and loss of resources.

Time to read a little Sun Tzu and get you panties out of their respective wads or be irrelevant in the real world..., or what's left of the real world.

Ever So Sincerely,
Mike Adams
AKA Dances with Ducks
Potential Ally
11/64 Amerindian, 1/64 African, 13/16 Causasian Deadhead with a Siberian Shaman in the woodpile;-)

A lot of people seem to know exactly how things should be or should be done even to the point of alienating your natural allies

Billmon made a perfectly good point in highly defensible manner.

Do you realize racism is a physical assault? Our bodies respond to intellectual attack as a 'diluted' but extended physical assault. When people take a racist image and use it for a non-racial purpose, only those not looking down that particular barrel CAN see the non-racial purpose first. You'll find Black folk who say, oh I understand but they have to understand.

Everyone who is somewhere down the privelege pecking order has experienced what Prometheus 6 describes: someone stomps on repeatedly your foot because they never bother to look where they are going, and you ask them to be more careful and you get barked at for and being over-sensitive. Etc.

But what I really wanted to say this morning is that there has been a serious ommission folks! I have thought of it a couple times but keep forgetting, but there really is a real Howlin Wolf and the real Howlin Wolf is no Wolf Blitzer. And I think Billmon is old enough to have heard a Howlin Wold and Muddy Waters album at least once 'cause all the "cool" baby boomers got turned on to Howlin Wolf and Robert Johnson by Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger. Ok, I am being a little ironic here, but Billmon should know a little of this history of appropriation, and well if he hasn't...well, maybe guys born of the confederacy can't really get their heads around the blues), but well my main point is that Billmon had no right to defame Howlin Wolf that way. It just wasn't right!

Oh yeah, ebogjonson has been deconstrutin' again.

Well, in the next post Billmon claims to be an irrelevant political nihilist. Which is, sadly, the truth - but only because he made himself that (cue How the mighty are fallen, lucifer son of the morning, yadda yadda). But that he is clueless about such matters, surprises me not at all after his admissions that he initially thought that killing brown people to bring them freedom'n'justiceferall was a good idea in principio and might work anyway even if done by incompetents like Bushco, and then the followup to this that was his Adventures In Cairo Bullying The Natives and then patting himself on the back for how white he was towards them. That he doesn't care a damn that he behaved badly and is in fact arrogantly incensed that any of us great unwashed should criticize him surprises me not at all after his Goodbye Cruel Blogging World manifesto in the LA Times, nor that he is as blind to his privilege as the Firedoglakers. I was a longtime Whisky Bar patron and defended him when he first went GAFIA (chipped in when he needed a new computer, in fact even tho' it turns out he was making a hell of a lot more money than I ever have made) but he forfeited any reader loyalty or respect a long time ago. Some of us would rather "organize than mourn" - even if we don't think that The Battle is ultimately winnable, either.

PS: I agree that Billmon's link to y'all was insulting no matter how it came about. But look at it this way - a hell of a lot more people know about the Koufaxes than know who Billomon is, these days!

Search terms. NIGYYSOB + Berne, Bozo;-)

Owh, the Owoni!

Ya know, I prefer a good old honest psychotic to a pack of neurotics and day of the millenium.

Pwomethius Phsix (who doesn't know when to quit) and the instigators of this pompous pillory need to take the time to look up NIGYYSOB. It'll Berne your ass. Your fame preceded you all the way from the 60s.

MDA
Gwandson of a Hunky named Lipski and tender of the Flame of the Amewican Bohemian Intellectual Twadition ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)

Michael, since I suspect it has nothing to do with anything I said, I'll pass.

They're right, of course; clearly, the problem, as in so many of these instances, is that the satire was just too subtle and scathing for the rest of us plebes. Because, clearly the -only- reason for not laughing at the brilliance and bowing down in gratitude for the author's continuing commitment to anti-racism, slaying the current administration, and saving puppies is that we -didn't get it.-

"You missed the funny part."

--A Thousand Clowns

> who believe (erroneously, in my view, but still) that the use of various terms will depower them, and eventually.. well, I'm not sure. Take the stigma and harm out of them? >

yeh, Lenny Bruce did that routine back in 1960 or so. It was funny and on-point then. Considering all the crap that's gone down in the interim, from the reactionary actual environment to the existence of "shock jocks/comics," i gotta say, i think that theory needs some tweaking.

or rather, perhaps: what it really needed what Bruce's wit and soul to make it palatable, -maybe- even radical. both qualities sorely lacking in the current crop of boneheads, i might add.

>I suspect Billmon was trying to be provocative in the strongest, quickest way he could think of. Not an uncommon issue for most bloggers>

Yep, that's so. Exactly so. Or, well, the "quickest," anyway; "strong" is certainly debatable. But yeah: was in a hurry, didn't think too hard, same as eight squillion other bloggers of similar ilk. And you know what? It's not acceptable. That's right. It's lazy and it's unimaginative and it's thoughtless. and if our supposed best and brightest, the -progressives,- are gonna be that, i guarantee you that all lip service to the contrary, nothing substantial is going to change. -Because that's the damn bottom-line problem with the people you're supposedly fighting, you twits.- Sloth is one of the seven deadlies for a -erason-, you know it?

No idea if Billmon himself is racist or not, but many of his followers are very quickly removing all doubt... which actually is usually one very unpleasant (but informative) fallout of stuff like this.

I don't presume to speak for the other Billmon fans, but I take this as a disgusting insult and as far as I'm concerned, Nanette, you're an asshole for even suggesting this.>>

1) Racist="bad person." It is an essential quality and unchangeable, like Original Sin.
2) I am a good person.
3) Therefore, I cannot be racist, in any way shape or form
4) and neither can anyone else I admire, ever, else I risk being tainted by association.
5) I am a good person! I am I am I AM!...
6) Now, what were we talking about again?...
7) Lather, rinse, repeat.