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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25295 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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Likewise, Bill Cosby's blackness has not saved him from having his reputation in shatters. In his case perhaps the most damaging factor is the seemingly callous, premeditated, and repeated nature of the acts.

Insofar as blackness shields you, it's because the mainstream defers judgment to "your" community: Kanye got a pass on things like "slavery was a choice" and the Confederate flag because he was already getting criticism from black people and it was seen as an internal thing (then he crossed state lines). Same with rap's misogyny, despite this making no sense. Allen's community meanwhile is not just white, but likely to be disproportionately turbolib.

Cosby is an interesting example in that there was a simmering resentment towards him for his conservative lecturing and his attempt to act like a grandee to enforce this in the AA entertainment industry. His "pound cake speech" has a whole Wikipedia page. And the things he was saying...well:

But these people, the ones up here in the balcony fought so hard. Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! And then we all run out and are outraged, 'The cops shouldn't have shot him.' What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else, and I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said, 'If you get caught with it you're going to embarrass your mother.' Not 'You're going to get your butt kicked.' No. 'You're going to embarrass your family.'

And:

We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a damned thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap and all of them are in jail.

Can't have made him popular.

It's pretty interesting that the first domino was Hannibal Burress getting frustrated and basically pointing out his allegations due to his behavior towards other black people.

And then we were off to the races.

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