Today's Touchy Topic: Racism
right now, i happen to be watching a special on the recent passing of african american pioneer comedian Richard Pryor. and that kind of fuses into everything that happend today in a nutshell because what i have to get off my chest right now are some ideas, if they are waaaaay to crazy for you, then i guess you have the choice not to read this.
so today i was in my film history class noticing there are some people in the class who are sharing their own work. since i love pimping my own shit, what better then to show my "pride and joy" Egghead to the class. Before today i havent even watched it in maybe 3 or 4 months so i needed that nostalgia anyway. So I decide at first I'm gonna show the Christmas episode because it's christmas time and whatever. So I show it and the class gets a good laugh out of it, but the real opinions I wanna hear is how the animation though how crappy it may be, makes a point to what the show is about, I was out to prove that you dont need talent to make art.
so after the episode ends, I ask the class to tell me what they thought of it. the first thing I hear out of the "lovely" professor Garrison's mouth is, why is that santa clause character black? I was stunned at first because I wanted the topic of discussion to be more on the actual art then something that isn't even implyed. so my first thought is, well, because that's who the character is, the character is an overweight black man. and then she started getting testy with me because the theif was black, which is blown totally out of proportion because the theif is "technically" asian. and then i explained that every character is a different ethnicity or personality (such as a wheelchair guy, an arab, a jew) and still, i'm getting this shit that the cartoon could be defined as racist. well okay that may have struck something, let me show them the turtle episode. I show them the episode (olly eats egghead turtle at the end) and then I'm getting shit for the black person being the enemy.... umm what the fuck? it's a fucking character! there is no racism ever implyed in it. EVERY single person who has seen egghead previously, black people ARE included, has said that it was hillarious and the characters were awesome.
this kind of pissed me off because it was totally not the idea I was going for and it totally ruined a perfectly good opinionated conversation. before Garrison brought it up people were laughing and enjoying this cartoon of sorts, and then afterwards, it was like she brainwashed everyone into thinking i was wrong and I was the bad guy. my friends Eliza and Kerri seemed extremely irritated at the fact that Garrison would even mention anything about race. me and Eliza kind of both bitched her out after the class letting her know it was kind of wrong to bring up race in a situation that totally didnt need it. I explained to her that this kind of thing happens all the time. does anyone complain that Apu is a Quickee Mart guy on the simpsons? No, you know why? because we enjoy it for what it is. do people complain when dave chappelle makes white people look like douche bags on his show? No, because we enjoy it for what it is. but the overweight black guy on a crappy teenage made "cartoon" is not acceptable because it deals with race.
Now to set the record straight, I can understand why black people would be upset. I did get 2 different opinions from 2 different black people in the class. one said it was great he loved it, the other said he knew we werent aiming for being racist, but it was felt. now I understand that a lot of black people seem to get a little touchy about this subject because of the past and the segregation part of American History. but you know what, that part of time is over. we are at a time in our life where any type of race, religion, or sexuality is accepted on TV, public, and mostly everywhere.
Now here's what I don't understand. WHY CAN'T WE LIVE AS PEOPLE? I have been saying this for god knows how long and right now I want to make everything perfectly clear. well I would like to let everyone know what's offencive to me. what's offencive to me is not that white people are being made fun of on black TV, or that black people call white people goofy or lame. I can perfectly accept that because they are entitled to those opinions if they totally want to. what truely offends me is that if I see a table in the cafeteria that has 2 black males and 2 black females, i dont feel comfortable sitting down next to them introducing myself and becoming friends because I feel as if I wouldnt be accepted. This goes on absolutely everywhere that blacks and whites just tend to remain on their own side. but why? I would love to have more black friends than i do, i like to culturally diverse myself and make everyone available to my presence. but it just wont happen....
ever since the beginning of time its been white vs. black, whites owning the blacks, blacks not having their rights, and none of it is right at all and we have finally come into a time in our society where there is freedom for everyone. this doesnt just go with blacks. this goes for everyone. asians, jews, gays, scientologists, dominicans, polacks, eskimos and so on. WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT!!!!! what we need to do is say hey, this is who I am, and I can accept it! When people call me a jew, I dont get offended, I say yeah I know it and I keep on with my everyday life. but apparently if you call someone black, they will get offended. This hurts me deep down inside. This hurts me because if you cant fully accept yourself for who you are, then what the hell exactly are you?
I am IN NO WAY in an agruement against black people. if anything, I'm trying to fight this battle with them because I feel that one day, we COULD have peace among races. there WILL be cafeteria tables with whites, blacks, asians, homosexuals, and possibly eskimos.
the fact is that, we are all different. in some way shape or form, everyone is made differently whether it be hair color, gender, race, sexuality, religion, inny belly buttons, outtie belly buttons, siamese twins, handicapped, we are all different no matter what. but there is something about us that we all have in common. we are all human beings. we need to learn how to be human beings together and stop the hate between differentials. and im not saying we have to like everybody because we dont, but we need to sit back and forget that people are different and accept them for who they are and what they do.
okay so that was really hard to get off my chest because I really want people to think about this instead of argue it. if i come off as hippacritical which was totally not intended, it's unintentional and i can reword myself to make my point across. if you read this, seriously i thank you, i hope you can take this into deep consideration as i did. from now on, i'm gonna continue speaking out against racism and continue to try and get my (what i think is) valid point accross.
in other news, the day wasnt too bad, my science teacher is cutting me a huge break if i can get a 75 or better on the final, our studio project is finally complete, and i completed a boring ass holiday concert that i was running the switcher board for. so all in all, a long day. how was yours?
so today i was in my film history class noticing there are some people in the class who are sharing their own work. since i love pimping my own shit, what better then to show my "pride and joy" Egghead to the class. Before today i havent even watched it in maybe 3 or 4 months so i needed that nostalgia anyway. So I decide at first I'm gonna show the Christmas episode because it's christmas time and whatever. So I show it and the class gets a good laugh out of it, but the real opinions I wanna hear is how the animation though how crappy it may be, makes a point to what the show is about, I was out to prove that you dont need talent to make art.
so after the episode ends, I ask the class to tell me what they thought of it. the first thing I hear out of the "lovely" professor Garrison's mouth is, why is that santa clause character black? I was stunned at first because I wanted the topic of discussion to be more on the actual art then something that isn't even implyed. so my first thought is, well, because that's who the character is, the character is an overweight black man. and then she started getting testy with me because the theif was black, which is blown totally out of proportion because the theif is "technically" asian. and then i explained that every character is a different ethnicity or personality (such as a wheelchair guy, an arab, a jew) and still, i'm getting this shit that the cartoon could be defined as racist. well okay that may have struck something, let me show them the turtle episode. I show them the episode (olly eats egghead turtle at the end) and then I'm getting shit for the black person being the enemy.... umm what the fuck? it's a fucking character! there is no racism ever implyed in it. EVERY single person who has seen egghead previously, black people ARE included, has said that it was hillarious and the characters were awesome.
this kind of pissed me off because it was totally not the idea I was going for and it totally ruined a perfectly good opinionated conversation. before Garrison brought it up people were laughing and enjoying this cartoon of sorts, and then afterwards, it was like she brainwashed everyone into thinking i was wrong and I was the bad guy. my friends Eliza and Kerri seemed extremely irritated at the fact that Garrison would even mention anything about race. me and Eliza kind of both bitched her out after the class letting her know it was kind of wrong to bring up race in a situation that totally didnt need it. I explained to her that this kind of thing happens all the time. does anyone complain that Apu is a Quickee Mart guy on the simpsons? No, you know why? because we enjoy it for what it is. do people complain when dave chappelle makes white people look like douche bags on his show? No, because we enjoy it for what it is. but the overweight black guy on a crappy teenage made "cartoon" is not acceptable because it deals with race.
Now to set the record straight, I can understand why black people would be upset. I did get 2 different opinions from 2 different black people in the class. one said it was great he loved it, the other said he knew we werent aiming for being racist, but it was felt. now I understand that a lot of black people seem to get a little touchy about this subject because of the past and the segregation part of American History. but you know what, that part of time is over. we are at a time in our life where any type of race, religion, or sexuality is accepted on TV, public, and mostly everywhere.
Now here's what I don't understand. WHY CAN'T WE LIVE AS PEOPLE? I have been saying this for god knows how long and right now I want to make everything perfectly clear. well I would like to let everyone know what's offencive to me. what's offencive to me is not that white people are being made fun of on black TV, or that black people call white people goofy or lame. I can perfectly accept that because they are entitled to those opinions if they totally want to. what truely offends me is that if I see a table in the cafeteria that has 2 black males and 2 black females, i dont feel comfortable sitting down next to them introducing myself and becoming friends because I feel as if I wouldnt be accepted. This goes on absolutely everywhere that blacks and whites just tend to remain on their own side. but why? I would love to have more black friends than i do, i like to culturally diverse myself and make everyone available to my presence. but it just wont happen....
ever since the beginning of time its been white vs. black, whites owning the blacks, blacks not having their rights, and none of it is right at all and we have finally come into a time in our society where there is freedom for everyone. this doesnt just go with blacks. this goes for everyone. asians, jews, gays, scientologists, dominicans, polacks, eskimos and so on. WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT!!!!! what we need to do is say hey, this is who I am, and I can accept it! When people call me a jew, I dont get offended, I say yeah I know it and I keep on with my everyday life. but apparently if you call someone black, they will get offended. This hurts me deep down inside. This hurts me because if you cant fully accept yourself for who you are, then what the hell exactly are you?
I am IN NO WAY in an agruement against black people. if anything, I'm trying to fight this battle with them because I feel that one day, we COULD have peace among races. there WILL be cafeteria tables with whites, blacks, asians, homosexuals, and possibly eskimos.
the fact is that, we are all different. in some way shape or form, everyone is made differently whether it be hair color, gender, race, sexuality, religion, inny belly buttons, outtie belly buttons, siamese twins, handicapped, we are all different no matter what. but there is something about us that we all have in common. we are all human beings. we need to learn how to be human beings together and stop the hate between differentials. and im not saying we have to like everybody because we dont, but we need to sit back and forget that people are different and accept them for who they are and what they do.
okay so that was really hard to get off my chest because I really want people to think about this instead of argue it. if i come off as hippacritical which was totally not intended, it's unintentional and i can reword myself to make my point across. if you read this, seriously i thank you, i hope you can take this into deep consideration as i did. from now on, i'm gonna continue speaking out against racism and continue to try and get my (what i think is) valid point accross.
in other news, the day wasnt too bad, my science teacher is cutting me a huge break if i can get a 75 or better on the final, our studio project is finally complete, and i completed a boring ass holiday concert that i was running the switcher board for. so all in all, a long day. how was yours?