White people doing Hip-Hop: "Blackface without the makeup"?

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Is this clip, well-known stand up comedian Paul Mooney compares white artists who perform Hip-Hop to people in 'Blackface' - a throwback to the days of Al Jolson when white performers would paint their faces and behave with exaggerated mannerisms associated with black people. He also says he is 'offended' by Eminem.

He ends the interview by saying, "Stop making excuses for white people to act like they're black 'cause there's no excuse for it. Unless they've paid their dues. When black (sic) people start getting shot in the back by police and hung just for being white, they can do all the hip-hip they want."

Personally, I think his point of view is ridiculous. There is no correlation between being 'shot in the back and hung' by police and performing hip-hop.

Chuck Stone

Why should anyone give a shit about what he says?

Why do you give a shit?

se02orqua5xz9v

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Why should anyone give a shit about what he says?

Why do you give a shit?

It isn't about just giving a shit what he says. I want to see if other people agree with him. You may ask, "why give a shit what anyone thinks?". Well, I value the opinions of others, even (perhaps especially) when I don't agree with them.

Chuck Stone

Royalty Gorgeous Pawn wrote: »

I want to see if other people agree with him.

I don't.

For a start Al Jolsons' blackface portrayal of black people was more a caricature and stereotype - the happy slave singing after a hard day on the master's plantation.

'Wiggers' as white hip-hop/rap (HH/R) artists/fans are pejoratively referred to are attracted to 'black' HH/R lifestyle because it's portrayed as being cool and exciting with loads of scantily clad chicks and super cars everywhere - they emulate these guys because they want to be like them and have their perceived success.

Also, who decided that the sum total of black culture was the HH/R lifestle? What a load of bollocks. If anything Paul Mooney is showing his own prejudices about how people should act.

partyatmygaff

Blues, R&B, Funk, Jazz and Rock and Roll all started off as "black music" by black musicians but are now more or less universal. What makes hip-hop different?

WindSock

Reminds me of the Maori's wanting to copyright their culture, while at the same time enjoying everyone elses. I can't see how it is possible to insulate your culture from the world to keep it unique and exclusive, while at the same time playing it to the world stage. Once it is performed, enjoyed and celebrated by or to others, then there is the potential to have it emulated also.

Sleepy

By that virtue should black people be told to stop performing Mozart? :rolleyes:

Racist idiot says something racist. The first two words of that sentence may have something to do with the fact that I've never heard of Paul Mooney before.

Snake Pliisken

Sleepy wrote: »

By that virtue should black people be told to stop performing Mozart? :rolleyes:

Racist idiot says something racist. The first two words of that sentence may have something to do with the fact that I've never heard of Paul Mooney before.

He's of the old guard of black comedians and was a friend of Richard Pryors; he's on the brown side of ripe now, just like his opinions.



It is the responsibility of comedians to think up different perspectives on matters in the public consciousness but he's off the mark here by a good bit and showing his ignorance for it. Yes white culture subsumes all minority cultures into it, but that has nothing to do with its whiteness, it's just the mechanism of the more dominant culture; it's a function of any society.

Maybe he should take a look at what he's defending, popularized black culture is as much an insult to black people and their history as any wigger who parrots it.

Denerick

Firstly, who the hell is this guy? Secondly, racism is racism, regardless of whether the propagator is black or white.