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| X-Men First Class and its unbearable whiteness |
We have pointed out the trend of the white action star being completely phased out from movies, but because comic book characters were largely created in a time when the concept of Black-Run America (BRA) was only in its infancy, your Batman, Green Lantern, Superman, Iron Man, Wolverine, X-Men, Captain America (and all The Avengers), Daredevil, Wonder Woman, etc. are all white. This whiteness upsets a lot of people, including The American Prospect's Gene Demby:
A purple-skinned alien hurtles across the cosmos, bearing a ring that grants its wearer unimaginable power. The alien is mortally wounded, and the ring is seeking its next wearer—the Green Lantern, Earth’s champion—by finding the planet’s most courageous inhabitant.
In a world with billions of people, what are the chances that the ring’s next owner is a white American dude?
Pretty high, apparently. In DC Comics’ Showcase #22, released in 1959, the power ring chose Hal Jordan, a dashing military test pilot modeled on a young Paul Newman. Jordan would become a founding member of the Justice League of America, DC Comics’ flagship superhero team, and one of its most famous characters. And while comics, over time, began to challenge that whiteness, two major films to be released this summer avoid the critiques on race found in the original comics.
In the early days, whiteness was so pervasive in comics that it could actually span the universe: a Kryptonian Superman could crash-land in Kansas and pass as an ordinary white farm boy. In the 1960s, though, comic-book publishers began trying to create nonwhite heroes. As the civil-rights movement came to dominate the national conversation, a young white artist named Neal Adams tried to subtly incorporate black characters into the newspaper strip he was illustrating. “I come out of a time when bigotry was a lot more subtle than it [was] in the days of slavery,” Adams says. “Not for the people who had it working against them but for the people who walked around saying, ‘There’s no problem, right?’” His world in New York City, Adams says, was full of people who did not think of themselves as Southern-style racists.
But Adams drew and submitted an installment of a syndicated comic strip featuring a black doctor and a white ambulance driver in one panel. When he later saw proofs of the strip, he realized that higher-ups had switched the characters’ heads. The higher-ups told him audiences would be confused by a black doctor.
When Adams got to DC Comics, where he worked on the Green Lantern in the early 1970s, he started to push back. “I asked [my editor] what happens if Hal Jordan gets killed,” Adams says. “They tell me they have a backup.” That backup turned out to be a blond gym teacher from the Midwest.
Adams, however, thought that the secondary Green Lantern should be black. So, with his editor’s approval, he and writer Dennis O’Neil created John Stewart, a black architect who would later become the main Green Lantern. (In the early drafts, Adams says, an editor wanted to name the character Lincoln Washington; Adams talked him out of it.) “I’m very proud of that,” he says. “I’m glad that [my editor] was open to it and malleable. But it did have to be explained to him.”Disingenuous White Liberals (DWLs) have to constantly apologize for America's past whiteness, because regrettably, that past actually worked quite good compared to the strange country we have now where a space program is scrapped to care for a growing colored underclass.
Hard to believe, but as late as 1964 the United States was 90 percent white. Because of their ubiquity on television and in movies (not to mention college and professional football and basketball) people have been conditioned to believe Black people represent as much as 33 percent of the current population.
Blacks are but 13 percent of the United States population.
Historically America was a white country with a Black problem. Now, America is a country dedicated to advancing the principles of BRA, and it has a white problem.
Once Black people refused to assimilate to America; now white people refuse to fully submit to BRA.
For those who have been reading comic books and understand that most comic book heroes are white, this presents a huge problem. X-Men: First Class came out last Friday (Sailer reviews it here; James Pinkerton here; and thegrio.com here) and Black people are royally upset that none of the characters in the film were Black:
Ta-Nehesi Coates recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about the lack of an African-American presence in the latest X-Men movie. Despite the fact that the X-Men’s story is based on the Civil Rights movement, racism and discrimination, there is no African-American presence in the latest movie at all.The lack of successful Black comic book characters is because the free market has shown that comic book readers aren't interested in purchasing stories with melanin-enhanced heroes. Sure you can make Heimdall, Kingpin, and Nick Fury Black for the movies, but attempts to add Black characters to other comics have largely failed.
In fact, no X-Men movie has any African-American presence at all. Sure, Storm is African, but not African-American and her struggle does not represent the struggle of overcoming slavery and Jim Crow, though it is still a very real struggle.
DC Comics also has a very small Black presence. They co-opted Milestone’s comic, Static, who was later given a successful TV show for kids, but other than that has a very small presence in the DC Universe.
Even DC’s Classic graphic novel “Watchmen,” despite its historical and social commentary, doesn’t have any African-Americans or even alludes to the Civil Rights movement; despite the fact that it focuses on several social issues of the time, including the Vietnam war, Watergate, the anti-war movement, the atomic bomb and police brutality.
Similarly, DC’s classic Batman novel, “The Dark Night Returns,” deals with several social issues as well, such as the cold war, police brutality, and the prison system; but does not refer to racism or Blacks either.
The recent DC cartoon “Justice League: The New Frontier” which is also a historical piece, set in the 60′s, alludes to an African-American super hero that was killed by the KKK and recently, the white Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, was replaced by an African American, John Stewart, who appears in many recent Justice League cartoons and DC comic books.
The lack of successful Black comic book characters cannot be blamed on DC and Marvel and the companies they work with. Reginald Hudlin produced an excellent TV series on The Black Panther for BET, but they never aired it. It was only seen in Australia and on DVD and digital download.
X-Men First Class did have one Black character called Darwin, and the film resurrected the time-honored tradition of the "Black guy dying first" by killing him off quickly. Set in a highly-stylized 1962, X-Men First Class worked a lot like 2009's Watchmen (set in the mid-1980s) where there is a noticeable lack of Black people in any prominent role.
The fictionalized countries are dedicated to advancement in both films, instead of debasing the overall health of the country in a never-ending quest of Black empowerment. Today J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg's Super 8 comes out, which is basically a homage to The Goonies, E.T., and Indiana Jones. That movie is set in 1979 and looks to have an all-white cast, because any movie set in today's world would be forced to include a cast brimming with diversity (see the inevitable SEALS Team 6 film).
Super 8 is going to make gobs of money, something next weeks Green Lantern will fail to do. In July, Captain America debuts and, with it being set in the 1940s, we believe it will be the sleeper hit of the year. Setting movies in a past untouched with the glorious and enriching diversity of 2011 is an easy way for film producers to appeal to that group of people who still long for Norman Rockwell's America.
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| Will Smith was perfect for this role! |
Everything has to be about racism now and how Black people are constantly discriminated against, so when X-Men First Class failed to sufficiently wallow in white guilt and Black empowerment, The New York Time's Ta-Nehisi Coates went nuts:
But as “First Class” roars to its final climactic scene, it appeals to an insidious suspension of disbelief; the heroic mutants of America, bravely opposing bigotry and fear, are revealed as not so much a spectrum of humankind, but as Eagle Scouts from Mayfield. Thus, “First Class” proves itself not merely an incredible film, but an incredible work of American historical fiction. Here is a period piece for our postracial times — in the era of Ella Baker and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the most powerful adversaries of spectacular apartheid are a team of enlightened white dudes.
“First Class” is set in 1962. That was the year South Carolina marked the Civil War centennial by returning the Confederate Flag to the State Capitol; the year the University of Mississippi greeted its first black student, James Meredith, with a lethal race riot; the year George Wallace was elected governor of Alabama.
That was the year a small crowd of Americans gathered at the Lincoln Memorial and commemorated the 100th birthday of the Emancipation Proclamation. Only a single African-American was asked to speak (Thurgood Marshall, added under threat of boycott). In “First Class,” 1962 finds our twin protagonists, Magneto and Professor X, also rallying before the Lincoln Memorial, not for protest or commemoration, but for a game of chess. “First Class” is not blind to societal evils, so much as it works to hold evil at an ocean’s length. The film is rooted in its opposition to the comfortably foreign abomination of Nazism.
Remember when Superman denounced America? We wrote about it here. Within that article we learned how pioneering comic book and television/movie producer Bruce Timm changed the traditionally white Hal Jordan (who is the Green Lantern) to a Black character because the Justice League television show "couldn't be another white people running around saving the world event":
He becomes the only major black character in the Cartoon Network’s (CN) regular lineup and one of the very few in any animated series.
Executives at CN, which is part of AOL Time Warner’s Atlanta-based Turner Broadcasting System, said they have sought to have more black characters in general but that they never suggested the Green Lantern character to the making “Justice League.”
Create and producer Bruce Timm, a sort of star in the confined world of superhero TV animation, said he chose a black superhero “so it wasn’t just a bunch of white guys saving the universe every day.”
Timm doesn’t think most viewers will give much thought to Green Lantern’s skin color. But, he added, “I would hope black audiences would watch those and say, ‘There is somebody I can relate to.’
A scholarly article was written by Phillip Lamarr Cunningham who asked why are there so few Black supervillains? One Black comic writer who tried to create more Black heroes (and villains) was the late Dwayne McDuffie, who was responsible for the Black Green Lantern:More than 20 percent of the CN’s viewers are black.
It’s an effort that should be undertaken with sensitivity, said Linda Simensky, the network’s senior vice president of original animation. Cartoon characters are by nature extreme personalities, often ripe for mockery. “You don’t want your first lead African-American character on the network to be shown in a negative light,” she said.
The selection has irritated some superhero fans. “On one hand they are mad we aren’t using their favorite version of the character,” Timm said. “On the other hand they are accusing of us of being hopelessly P.C. (politically correct).”
Timm please guilty to that last one. “It’s is a P.C. kind of move, but I don’t think it hurts anything.”
Milestone was co-founded by Dwayne McDuffie, who was black and would go on to write for a host of titles. He later became a writer for the Cartoon Network’s Justice League, which debuted in the early aughts. The writing staff chose the Stewart version of the Green Lantern specifically because the rest of the show’s superhero cast—which included an Amazon and an alien policewoman who was part hawk—was white. (Except for the Martian guy. He was green.) For a generation of superhero fans weaned on the popular cartoon series, the black Green Lantern has been the only one they’ve ever known. “If you ask a kid who Green Lanterns is, the kid will say it’s John Stewart,” Adams says.Knowing that at the time of World War II - and even today - a large percentage of American's had blue eyes and blond hair, the concept of Steve Rogers/ Captain America being drawn with those physical attributes wasn't that shocking.
The inclusion of nonwhite characters in the Justice League of America comic raised hackles among fans who thought McDuffie was trying to enforce a quota system on the pages. “The quota arguments … crack me up,” McDuffie said in an interview last year in the documentary Shaft or Sidney Poitier: Black Masculinity in Comic Books. “Which fictional character is losing a job?” (McDuffie died in February due to complications from heart surgery.)
McDuffie’s efforts won’t make it onto the big screen, though. When the big-budget Green Lantern movie rolls out in mid-June, white heartthrob du jour Ryan Reynolds will wield the power ring as Hal Jordan, the original white character. Captain America, another iconic superhero, is getting his own tentpole summer flick, out in July. Like the Green Lantern comic-book character’s story, Captain America’s mythology has been reimagined to explicitly comment on American racism. And like the Green Lantern film, the movie isn’t likely to touch on that critique. News reports from the start of the project said that the moviemakers were going back to the original source material and would hew to early Captain America tradition. Elisabeth Rappe, writing for Moviefone, stated, “I honestly think there would have been riots if they tried to update Captain America, so color me unsurprised by the news.”
The original Cap didn’t challenge much: Introduced in 1941, he was a scrawny, meek military recruit who becomes the only recipient of a super-soldier serum that augments him to the peak of human ability. The character was meant to be a totem of American ingenuity and grit and to drum up support for the war effort. The irony of creating a physically perfect blue-eyed blond guy as a counter to Nazi ideology was apparently lost on everyone.
Racialicious can whine all they want to over the lack of Black characters in comics, but the fact is comic book characters that are popular - and worthy of making a movie about - are overwhelmingly white. Hollywood is trying to get rid of the white action star (think Thomas Jane), but comic book movies won't allow that to transpire.
Even though the mutants in X-Men First Class might be gifted with extraordinary powers with Professor X and Magneto having the ability to destroy cities with their mind, Black writers and DWL-enthusiasts constantly pull out the metaphor of the X-Men representing Black people or other oppressed minorities that society shuns.
No Black person, sexual or racial minority has the ability to destroy a city with their mind (a city with a majority of Black people do however have that ability as Detroit and Birmingham evidence), so trying to have X-Men stand in for minorities makes little sense.
The real reason Black people and DWLs disliked X-Men is because it was too white. The film was drenched in an unbearable whiteness (all the good mutants were white mind you) and in 2011 this isn't possible anymore.
Which is why you'll find more and more movies set in an older America, one untouched by the wonders of diversity and Black-Run America.
Super 8 coming out today is just the beginning. Remember that Black people are being rejected by popular culture, and you'll understand why they are upset about the whiteness inherent in comic book movies.
82 comments:
SBPDL wrote:Which is why you'll find more and more movies set in an older America, one untouched by the wonders of diversity and Black-Run America.
Which is why I have recently become a huge fan of the show Mad Men (well, that, plus it is very well written, directed, produced, and acted).
America is becoming increasingly exasperated with the politically correct, leftist-media constantly trying to shove an agenda of "diversity" in our faces and down our throats; an agenda that attempts to tell us that "we're all the same", even though we all know we're not. If we're "all the same" then there cannot be any actual, true diversity. Furthermore, Americans are sick and tired of having to be made to feel guilty about being white just because other racial and ethnic groups can't seem to get their act together and achieve anything that the world wants.
In the news this week Naomie Harris has been reported by legitimate news organizations as having been in talks with the producers of the James Bond movies to play a role. What role that is has yet to be disclosed, but it could be anything from a Bond Girl to a revamp of the role of Moneypenny, or even Q.
Personally, I don't think she's attractive enough to be a Bond Girl, but no matter what role she might play in the next film, she'll inevitably be criticized by other black people in the media for playing a "house nigger" or a subservient role to a white man, or somehow her character won't be allowed to be 'fully black' or some other such afro-centric nonsense. They've already recast Felix Leiter with a black actor (Jeffrey Wright), even though Ian Fleming wrote the character as a 6'2" tall, blonde haired, blue-eyed white Texan male, so the potential to recast Q or Moneypenny with Naomie Harris is not as far-fetched as it might seem.
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b246036_this_daniel_craigs_newest_bond_girl.html
As I read this, I kept screaming the same thing over and over in my head:
"Show me a white character created by a black author!"
Blacks keep expecting white authors to create black characters for them....kind of like how they keep expecting white people to do most everything for them.
I doubt a creative black person would ever want to create a white character, outside of a black-obsessed white girl or a door mat white boy.
After 60 years of comics, it's damn hard to think of original characters, black or white, if they want a super-malik, it's up to them.
Paul,
Just for fun, who's your favorite comic book characters of all time? Who's your favorite black character?
Mine would be
1. Punisher
2. Deadpool
3. Sabretooth
4. Longshot
5. Hulk
Favorite black character was Barracuda, I liked that he was a thug with a brain, but his weakness was his black ego.
Comic book movies? Really? LOL! My stepdad (black) and my mother (black) liked 'X-Men First Class' (I don't watch these dumb films). Like all blacks--not black talking heads and pontificators--a movie is just a movie, regardless of the colors of the actors. So long have we seen white screen stars that we are so used to it.
We simply don't care.
Historically America was a white country with a Black problem.
According to the Kerner Commission:
"What white Americans have never fully understood - but what the Negro can never forget - is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto.... White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.
You cannot deny this. If you have a problem with blacks, blame your forebears. They set up this system. The blacks to which you despise are deeply and truly American-made.
Blaming the 'black problem' on anything else is historically inaccurate. Remember: superiority and inferiority cannot exist without each other.
Before someone says I'm blaming whitey, please read a history book.
Now, America is a country dedicated to advancing the principles of BRA, and it has a white problem.
Black people have no political power.
Once Black people refused to assimilate to America
LOL! Black people have assimilated very well, to the point black women are burning their scalps with lye relaxer and black men date white women.
now white people refuse to fully submit to BRA.
This is funny because most white people don't believe there is a such thing as Black Run America. Most white people have no idea what you're talking about.
Oh yeah, that's right: because it doesn't exist.
By the way, what happens when Obama's 8 years are over? Will BRA still be a buzzword used to take the money from poor whites even when there's no nigger in the White House?
That's how it all started, right?
There are no Black supervillains because there is nothing particularly civilization-threatening about an individual Black. No extraordinary foresight, genius, or capacity for deceit. Blacks are more often represented as rampaging hordes in the White imagination (e.g. the orcs in Lord of the Rings).
-Gv
The weeds always take over the garden.
The Engineer
"Super 8" does in fact have an absurd black character ... the scientist, but of course. He is the only one with the intelligence and morality to have battled the government for 20 years over this secret, and only he has the compassion and wisdom to comprehend the solution. But what do you expect? The flick was directed by someone named Jacob Abrams, a Sarah Lawrence grad who according to Wikipedia gives money to the likes of Obama, Harry Reid, John Edwwards and both Clintons ... and a token Mexican Republican.
I would not say Black people are being rejected by popular culture as much as Black people have not been able to do anything other than create music, and of late not even that. Black music from 1890-1980 was among the most moving, masterful, and (still to this day) beloved music, matched only by that of German speakers from Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. Hollywood will use either the music of the German masters (Beethoven's Ode to Joy in Die Hard 1 & 2) or classic Motown when they want to create evocative moods in audiences.
There is no barrier to creating iconic Black (or Latino) characters today. Both DC and Marvel remain open to new Black and Latino writers (unlike the closed-shop mentality to White writers without extensive novel, movie, and TV experience). And there are many, many Manga and independent publishers.
Bottom line, Black, White, Hispanic kids love Harry Potter. Because JK Rowling created a character kids love: an orphan searching for family and meaning, in a fantasy school where he and his friends save the day. If something is GOOD: Harry Potter, James Brown's music, Marvin Gaye's music, Louis Armstrong, Sherlock Holmes, Superman, everyone will love it. No one will care about who is what race.
You cannot quota-mandate brilliance and creativity. You can mandate that say, lame Black characters like Black Lightning (DC), Falcon (Marvel), Hardware (Milestone), Icon (Milestone), Steel (DC) are made prominent, but no one loves them for a reason: they suck! They are about being Black, not about being a super-hero.
And here's the point about Superheroes. They are all about character, just amplified by power. You can't force White or Black people to love them just because they are the "correct" (read: Black) race. Superman is loved because he's all about restraint. He has all this power, which allows and also forces him never to be really violent with anyone (which is precisely why little kids love him the most). A Black writer could create a superhero tomorrow that people love -- he'd just have to be well, good.
But cultural creativity requires stability and middle class values. Ghetto behavior and values are twin barriers to creating things loved by everyone.
Niggers seem unable to grasp that America and everything good in it were created by and for White people.
Maybe someday they will have their own country, then they will be too busy dodging cannibals and building mud huts to worry about movies and comics.
"Why are there so few Black Supervillians?"
LOL
That is like asking why there are no Hurricanes with Black names!
I like the fact that the bulk of comic books movies are mainly for white audiences. Anything that keeps down the number of black theater goers (save for Tyler Perry movies because who gives a rat's ass) is full of win. If you've had the pleasure of being in a theater with more than ten black folks and it was enjoyable, consider yourself lucky.
Instead of crying around about the lack of black's represented in comic book movies, how about creating a compelling character that isn't Keeping It Real Man or I'm President Charlie Woman, as other have eluded to on this site. Amazing how that works.
As the price of going to the movies has increased, it makes perfect sense to go to a show that leaves you with a feeling of being entertained, and not one in which a case study in pahtological behavior had to be observed.
Whiskey:
"Black music from 1890-1980 was among the most moving, masterful, and (still to this day) beloved music,"
Nomen omen.
Black music from 1890-1980 was among the most moving, masterful, and (still to this day) beloved music, matched only by that of German speakers from Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven.
Purest horseshit.
"That is like asking why there are no Hurricanes with Black names!"
I seem to recall that some congresswoman whined about that every thing; wish I could remember who.
Notice, however, there are NO huricane names from those people who control the media and run everything! It's yet another of their nefarious plots to bring down America while they count their gold!
/ must I?
"Historically America was a white country with a Black problem. Now, America is a country dedicated to advancing the principles of BRA, and it has a white problem."
SBPDL. You hit a home run with that quote.
I rarely see movies in a theater, can't afford to go these days. I'm to busy trying to support BRA with my money and I can't afford the $10 ticket prices!
Enjoy the movie reviews here and the commentary, though.
Blacks keep expecting white authors to create black characters for them....kind of like how they keep expecting white people to do most everything for them.
You have solved the restaraunt and tipping question from elsewhere here.
That is like asking why there are no Hurricanes with Black names!
Hurricane Shaniqua followed by Hurricane Tennoa?
Makes sense.
Not a comic book, however I suffered through the first Matrix, the other day. The two bad guys are white (one a computer simulation in a suit, and the other an almost skinhead type). A black guy plays the part of John the Baptist to a hip white guy savior. But the hip white guy wouldn't be able to manifest his moral goodness if it wasn't for a black voodoo priestess.
All the Third World types were geniuses, and I even think there was a punkified blond-haired lesbian in the cast. When has anyone ever seen a good looking lesbian? What a stupid movie.
One of the advantages of moving to a White community is that we can now attend movies without the annoying black teens being disruptive.
I agree with Desiree to the point that such movies are a bit silly. However I find it hard to believe that most (not all) blacks could actually appreciate the highly advanced technical creativity required to produce such films.
One of the reasons there is no "African Hollywood" is that movie making requires intellect. Bright and creative Africans are few and busy themselves with more productive endeavors, like fooling around with foolish White women and procreating future presidents.
Africans-in-America movie makers are also few and far between. One could cite Spike Lee. His films are both boring and boorish. Danny Glover and Laurence Fishburne are true talents, but their moving making careers are short of stellar.
And so go X Men and appreciate that everything from the creative film production, to the plot, to the architecture of the theater where you sit are products of White Western culture. Savor the moment. Listen to the loud obnoxious blacks youths disrepecting other moviegoers and ponder the fact that this contrdiction is our nation's future. As black run America sucumbs to South Africa, Rhodesia, Haiti and Detroit it will be something to tell your grandchildren about.
I generally like Whiskey's stuff, but he is completely wrong about music. Beethoven, Bach and Mozart are great because they invented the rules of music on which all music that came after sits.
I seem to remember that Marvel tried to have a line of comics for "Urban Youth" in the 90's but it was an utter failure. I couldn't find the name of it online but I did find a link here:
http://www.nostalgiazone.com/doc/zine/07_V3N1/thataintfunny.htm part of this article says black comics made by blacks for blacks were available as early as the 40's.
The fact of the matter is you can not force some people to read comics or any other material. This is very similar to the studies that show when black and hispanic youth have access to computers they only use them for social networking, music, and porn.
Wow! First time on this sight and can't believe you losers waste your time worrying about blacks??? You need to be worrying about the cancer that'll be killing you or someone you know within 10 years. Now, that's worth talking about. The world (not just US) has suffered more under the hands of whites (stealing, pollution, etc.) that if you want to waste any more of your precious time brewing, devote it to reality, not perceptions, biases, prejudices, whatever your preference.
Still LMAO, though. This is comical!
"Once Black people refused to assimilate to America
LOL! Black people have assimilated very well, to the point black women are burning their scalps with lye relaxer and black men date white women."
No, when whites refer to blacks not assimilating, we're referring to that little "contributing nothing more than excrement to the world while being openly hostile to every other race while terrorizing everyone else with murder, rape & robbery while having zero interest in anything of value" thingy about blacks.
I don't really get the love for X-Men from this post. Most movies these days whom have all white casts are directed for the enjoyment of DWLs and SWPL whites. I watch little movies and series and listen to less music because it's targeted for leftists or have underlined liberal messages. I always have to monitor what I read, listen or watch unfortunately.
Whiskey,
I agreed with everything you said until this:
"A Black writer could create a superhero tomorrow that people love -- he'd just have to be well, good.
But cultural creativity requires stability and middle class values. Ghetto behavior and values are twin barriers to creating things loved by everyone."
A black writer can create a great comic book hero (I agree with you that the former characters sucked because they where black). Anyone thinking otherwise is obtuse.
However, assuming that the lack of mass market creativity from blacks outside of music (Yes, even today's black music is exceedingly popular with whites) is due to ghetto behavior is total tripe.
You fail to realize that most products sold in this nation are made by whites-for whites because the group who produces the most capital and has the highest spending power are white people.
Diversity is a constant effort and a noble one but whites still enjoy seeing themselves on screen, in books and magazines, and in ads. This is a function of white self-preference, nothing else.
Furthermore, the old truism is that for every writer who makes it big, there are a 1000 who struggle to pay rent.
For all we know, there could be tons of black underground comic book writers, as well as some who have the potential to make it "big" but are refusing to reverse diversify (i.e. make whiter) their characters.
Your argument is ridiculous.
"Purest horseshit."
A cursory glance at music history verifies that black musical acts have always had the most cross-over appeal. Rap/hip-hop's ghetto genesis has invaded all corners of the globe from Slavic hip-hop junkies to Korean B-boys.
In addition to the white European classic composers, no other group of people but blacks have so indelibly shaped musical forms in such a widespread way. This is an incredible feat given the overall powerlessness of blacks and a testament to the originality, quality, and infectiousness of black music. Black music is a global phenomenon and a proven success; it has seemingly infinite derivatives, including white forms.
White kids spinning Jerry Lee Lewis took out Little Richard when their parents weren't around. Whites slipped into jazz clubs in Harlem to listen to authentically black music; seeing the capital generated from these white patrons, clubs were set up specifically for blacks to play their music to whites. Jimi Hendrix was possibly the best guitar player ever and he had whites eating out of his hand at concerts, white women going nuts.
I think the Beatles marked the beginning of divergent tastes among blacks and whites. Nevertheless, though, going forward, black music, not the inverse, was still consumed by whites in large numbers.
You can personally disagree with the idea of black music being among the most moving and masterful but history and the market says differently. I'll side with history and the market.
One of my Open Your Eyes moments occurred in a theater. I'd taken my mother to see Saving Private Ryan. During the Omaha Beach scene when the American soldier walks around in shock looking for his arm that had just been blown off, I heard raucous laughter from the other side of the theater. I looked over: a group of You Know Who. Laughing at a white boy who was as good as dead.
My mother (a liberal) said that maybe they were laughing due to nervousness, out of the shockingly accurate violence portrayed by Spielberg (one of the few things he's good for), but I knew the truth. They were laughing because they thought it was funny.
Jones,
White rock music has reached every corner of the globe as well.
And in fact, the top 10 biggest selling albums of all time doesn't include a single rap album and only two black people, michael jackson and whitney houston.
In fact, if you look at the top selling albums of all time, you won't see any rap music at all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_worldwide
The truth is, white kids listen to rap when they're young and want to be accepted, but they grow out of it very quickly.
And Jimi Hendrix is the most overrated guitarist of all time.
I thought Blade was one of the baddest comic heroes ever...and he was black.
I've been here for only 30 minutes so this is only a first impression but - I don't get this website at all. Blacks don't have the economic or political power to cause trouble at the scale of white advanced liberals. At the moment the site seems like a tragic waste of a much needed intellect. *shrug*
Martin from Australia.
All good black music consists of the black qualities of earthiness, spontaneity, and lack of inhibition which have been HARNESSED within the western musical rules and structures that were developed over the course of thousands of years. This is what jazz and rock are. People in this thread and elsewhere talk about "black music" as if black people created jazz and blues and whatever else out of whole cloth. They didn't. White people created the rules, the structures, and the instruments. Blacks applied their blackness, dabbling within a pre-exisiting framework, and created new sounds. Some of their musical accomplishments ARE of value and ARE of great quality. But those accomplishments would have been impossible to blacks without the musical framework and tools provided by whites. You may have noticed that our society coming under the grip of BRA has corresponded with the large scale abandoning by blacks of the desire to learn to play instruments. With blacks in control of their own musical expression, rap has taken hold. But even rap, as we know it, would be impossible without the computers and modern recording equipment which came into being without the input of black people.
I've always wondered why whites fall over themselves to praise black musical artists but blacks seem to have no interest in returning the favor. Who wouldn't be shocked to find a black kid with a poster on his wall of a white performer? I remember seeing Bruce Springsteen in a packed OAKLAND stadium back in 1985, and the only blacks I recall seeing were empoyees and Clarence Clemons.
"The truth is, white kids listen to rap when they're young and want to be accepted, but they grow out of it very quickly."
Wrong. There are still a lot of 35 year olds that listen to at least the rap we grew up with. Not all the time but, some times. Along with just about every form of music known to man.
"Wow! First time on this sight and can't believe you losers waste your time worrying about blacks???"
Think of some new material, you negroes all write the exact same shit.
"A cursory glance at music history verifies that black musical acts have always had the most cross-over appeal."
Translation:
Whites will listen to music by non-white artists, blacks will only listen to black artists.
Even when you look at the top selling albums of the united states, you hardly see any rap.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_in_the_United_States
You also don't see that many black people.
The only real rap album on there is Biggie Smalls life after death, and the brother had to die to get that.
I won't lie though, biggie smalls is the illest.
Silent Running...I laughed during the Green Mile at the end electrocution scene...I kept thinking how Shock the Monkey by Peter Gabriel would have been an appropriate background song.
@Silent Running ...
Consider the reaction of your liberal mother to be denial. It's common among liberals.
I've also noticed blacks think it great fun to watch Whites suffer.
In the now-famous video of a black bouncer robbing a White patron in a bar restroom, you hear the black camerman laughing at the White victim's dilemma.
source
"White rock music has reached every corner of the globe as well."
White rock was invented by black people. I mentioned that as a "derivative." Check the first inductees into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame.
"And in fact, the top 10 biggest selling albums of all time doesn't include a single rap album and only two black people, michael jackson and whitney houston."
Rap was just an example of a highly infectious and monumentally successful black musical form. It needn't be among the top 10 to be globally significant. You should know that.
Hell, Backstreet Boys was listed. Where the hell are they now?
Number one was a black man!
"The truth is, white kids listen to rap when they're young and want to be accepted, but they grow out of it very quickly."
Wishful thinking.
"And Jimi Hendrix is the most overrated guitarist of all time."
That may be so but he left his mark, and that is what we are discussing. We're not discussing personal opinions here, just facts.
No offense to Hendrix but I like to think of him as a Whitney Houston: enormously talented - a given - black enough to be interesting, white enough to be safe.
Believe it or not there are studios making black entertainment and movies most go straight to DVD.
While living in Asia on occasion I would take a long bus trip and for whatever reason they would play one of these black films made by blacks for blacks. I have to say it was the most sophomoric shlock ever.
Sample plot:
Staged in a primary black city, Atlanta would be a favorite location.
All the characters work for Fortune 500 companies majority black and are either high powered lawyers or stock brokers, etc.
Evil White boss rapes his black female underling who actually does all the work he gets all the credit.
She refuses report the rape for fear of losing her job BUT the husband/boyfriend finds out anyway. They also find out that the White boss is a major drug dealer/slave trader, etc.
A plan is devised to expose the corruption, there is gun play, the evil boss eventually gets shot and killed, end film.
If these films were not so fantastical they would be pure torture. Check them out sometime makes Harry Potter seem more realistic.
Wow! First time on this sight and can't believe you losers waste your time worrying about blacks??? You need to be worrying about the cancer that'll be killing you or someone you know within 10 years. Now, that's worth talking about. The world (not just US) has suffered more under the hands of whites (stealing, pollution, etc.) that if you want to waste any more of your precious time brewing, devote it to reality, not perceptions, biases, prejudices, whatever your preference.
Still LMAO, though. This is comical!
Iz de sun shinin'? Beware of Gheddo Lobsta!
Diarrhea, how many F'ing names do you have??
BTW, aren't you banned?
James McD...
Well stated, sir.
"White rock was invented by black people."
Please explain how the music of Wolfmother and Monster Magnet was invented by black people.
BTW Diarrhea, you are a fucking idiot.
Jones,
Electronic music was created by white people, but you're claiming it's black and rules the world.
Elvis played black music and from there, white people took rock over.
Since then, we've had 50+ years of incredible music made by white people for white people.
Your attempt to co-opt all of that as "started by blacks" shows you appreciate how powerful that music has been.
Did anybody see Will Smith playing a drunk superhero in "Hancock" three years ago? That movie sucked in my opinion. I'm guessing that there was no "Hancock" comic book out prior to this pathetic movie.
It's true that the young brits who went on to play in led zeppelin, the stones, beetles etc. all listened to black blues guys when they learned to play guitar.
That's why they all sound so american when they sing.
But they created their own style of music, and since then, rock has been distinctly white.
Then the Brits even created their own very distinct form of rock, punk music, and white people in america started sounding british when they would sing. Look at early greenday. They even used to say they were british.
Jones,
A black man who saw himself as a white boy.
The black half of Slash is is a hell of a lot better than Jimi Hendrix
"And Jimi Hendrix is the most overrated guitarist of all time."
Wrong. Hendrix was a damn good blues guitarist: see "Red House," for example.
Hendrix was an overrated artist: terrible songwriter and mediocre singer. He's lucky he died, because his career was going nowhere.
One thing I find interesting about Coates' analysis is the narcissism of it all. Must everything be a parable about blackness, as if blacks are the only people who have suffered?
Speaking of rock, rock as such is practically dead in the US. White teens have flocked to rap and hip-hop, spurred on by the white liberal zeitgeist that nothing white can be cool and hip. Even white female pop singers have adopted black performance norms, compare them to how Madonna danced in her mid-1980s videos. There is one rock subform that whites are flocking to, and that's heavy metal. It's still mainstream popular in Europe, and has a nearly exclusively white audience both there and in the US.
Martin from Australia: The phrase is not my invention, but as I see it, Black Run America is a reference to the propaganda apparatus that struggles to create the illusion of racial equality. Throughout America, Black failure is concealed and a false picture of Black achievement is promoted. It is as if the institutions of this country were run primarily for the benefit of Blacks. Get the joke?
Jones (and company)--
McD is right--but he doesn't go far enough. Most people agree whites invented music--white people. The Asians have no problem admitting this. What McD failed to point out were a few other facts.
1st of all, almost every "black" hit was written by a white guy or white guys. Go look up the greatest motown hits and see for yourself. The only exceptions to that were those written by Ashford and Simpson.
Number 2-- Rock-n-Roll is not a derivative of so called "black music". Black music was never any more than Rap--here or in Africa. Without the white man, that's what you get--Rap. Makes no difference if they use the white man's technology today, or African "technology", i.e., a log hollowed by ants. All blacks are capable of on their own is a "beat". Granted, it isn't much of a beat, but it is a beat.
Were did so called "black music" come from? Black gospel music, right? But where did the blacks get that? It didn't exist in Africa and still doesn't. They got it from whites--Celtic whites to be precise. They learned it from poor Celtic whites who were singing their 400--500 year old folk songs, that's where. Songs song by whites long before any of them ever met an African. That is where you will find the syncopated beat that made "black music" and rock-n-roll. Invented by Celts before they ever came to America--long before there was ever an English colony here. You will not find that beat anywhere in Africa or in Rap music.
Don't believe me? Go watch the movie "The Songcather", produced by PBS. It's the true story of a woman who had a grant to record these songs during the great depression--long before mass media had reached the mountains where these people lived and still live.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210299/
Rap? the funniest part about rap is that the biggest rapper of all time is a white guy. Thus proving, that even where blacks excel, a white man can always do better.
No black has ever invented anything of any note--other than criminal behavior--at that they excel.
ON blacks and dancing--
I find it funny that blacks are supposed to be good dancers. What dancing? Jazz and Tap? Well, maybe, if you don't compare them to white guys. The funniest on screen moment ever is in the movie "White Knights" when Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov squares off against Gregory Hines--arguably the best black dancer of his generation. Mikhail goes against him in Hines' own dance style/medium and simply toasts him. You can see it on Hines' face--he cannot hide it. Michail did the whole scene, without practice, in one take. Simply superb. Could Hines even come close to Michail in classical ballet? Are you kidding? Could Hines even touch Gene Kelly? NO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haBZCrBHMm4
Watch it and see for yourselves, the white man versus the black man on his own turf.
Oh, BTW, the first musicians to rap were English punk rockers circa 1978--long before Hip-Hop or rap came into the black conscious. Blondie even did one in 1978.
This whole 'invented by blacks' thing is something I have been seeing a lot of online the past few months.
They are blatantly ignoring the facts and just making things up. It really is maddening.
Did anybody see Will Smith playing a drunk superhero in "Hancock" three years ago? That movie sucked in my opinion. I'm guessing that there was no "Hancock" comic book out prior to this pathetic movie.
"Hancock" was racist. This black superhero was trying to be the 'average Joe' and he had a massa--the white guy--and let him talk down to him.
He almost gave his life for those white people and then, at the end of the movie, he put the stars in the sky for that sorry-ass white massa of his.
Terrible movie and very racist, I thought.
SBPDL, comic book movies are some of the worse movies being made today.
@ Anon:
Diarrhea, how many F'ing names do you have??
BTW, aren't you banned?
What the hell are you talking about?
Oh, LOL, you're still accusing other black people of being me!
LOLOLOLOLOL! There are over 6 billion people in the world. Get it together!
@ Jones:
Number one was a black man!
Michael Jackson--who I blog about--was only good when he was not trying to be white. When he started being white, that's when he sucked.
The good thing about most white Americans when it came to Jacko--compared to Europeans--is that they smelled bullshit with the skin thing; they liked him black, too. Michael was most loved before he turned into a bleached caricature of an Asian alien.
PS: don't debate music with white people. They say they started rap (no) and get in a hissy fit when you gently point out that black people started rock and roll.
They can start everything and we can start nothing. All of the stuff about blacks not contributing anything and when you gently mention music they want to deny that, too.
It's called culture banditry. My favorite revolutionary thinker, the late Brother Del Jones, was a funk musician and wrote two books about white culture banditry.
None of these whites on here could take him when it comes to music!
His own from his 1970s album "Positive Vibes"; I own it; it's great. Music for the revolution!
:-)
http://www.youtube.com/artist?a=GxdCwVVULXcgWHjJVtlnUMnOr8EibTXA&feature=bottomfeedr
I just watched a movie called "Being There". You could easily switch Mr. Gardener with our NPOTUS. Too bad no Negro could ever sit through a movie like this.
The Engineer
To all,
I read every comment before it is approved for publication. If it is declined, don't take it personally. Obviously you didn't stay on topic or talked about a topic that is tangential to what SBDPL is trying to accomplish.
And Jones, you are obviously Desiree. Why create yet another moniker?
I've been gone all weekend, but I did see "Super 8" and was blown away. I knew it was going to be "The Goonies" and "ET" on steriods, but I was mesmerized by the film.
Highly emotional (yes, there is one Black Fictional Image in the Black scientist) movie that shows what America once was and what the nation can be again.
I really mean that.
When you finally see what is in the locket at the end... powerful stuff and a glimpse at why cinema is such a powerful medium.
And I left the theater believing that "Captain America" is going to be a huge hit.
Great responses to this piece everyone. Thanks for reading it and enjoying it.
As to my favorite comic book character, hands down Frank Castle/ Punisher. Then I'd say Bruce Wayne/Batman, and finally The Comedian from "Watchmen".
FYI - The Backstreet Boys are on a highly profitable tour with The New Kids on the Block. I don't think any rap artist has ever gone on a tour that was able to sell out huge venues consistently.
Rap is tolerated by white guys because they like seeing white girls dancing to it. End of story.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
I was explaining to you that no white guy is ever going to marry you.
Although there are white guys who will take you out on dates, then bang you like a cheap whore (as many already have)...as soon as they see you for the white-hating black-racist that you are, they will run for the hills.
Remember you read it here first.
I miss the days of the “all white cast” in movies or when black parts were not so overpowering.
John Hughes is long gone and I long for the days of “The Breakfast Club “.
The only good movies with mostly an all black cast came out in the 70's, they reflected more the black reality, “ Car Wash “ is a good example and is hilarious, “ Lady Sings The Blues” is also an excellent movie although a different genre altogether.
I am not dead set against black representation in the movies, it's just that it'd be nice for us whithey to watch a movie without the mandatory AA candidate once in a while.
I have abandoned watching TV series such as “Law & Order” ( all of them ), Criminal Minds, and CSI as I find it doesn't mirror reality anymore.
As for music, I loathe rap, hip hop, house music and basically most music produced or performed since the early 90's. I have yet to hear decent material from mainstream black artists since the mid 80's. They've traded creative work for mass produced vapid noise accompanied by vulgar ebonics.
"They can start everything and we can start nothing."
I TOTALLY agree with this statement.
Robert B: The first rap I ever heard was "Trouble Comin' Every Day", on Frank Zappa's first album, "Freak Out". That was 1966. It's about the Watt's riot, and I think he made a rap out of it because rapping was something that Black kids did. I gather that it was the Black equivalent of White kids making up new, dirty lyrics to Ricky Nelson songs or what have you. Nobody ever bothered to actually record a rap album until the 1980s, but Black kids had been doing in for decades. Nobody ever bothered to record my smutty version of "Travelin' Man" either. I must have been born too soon.
"All good black music consists of the black qualities of earthiness, spontaneity, and lack of inhibition which have been HARNESSED within the western musical rules and structures that were developed over the course of thousands of years."
Wrong. Your own statement kills your credibility: you are of the belief that whitened black music sounds best when it was unrestricted, raw, sexy no-holds-barred black sound that woke white people up in the first place!
Music was invented by black people and they've been playing it ever since, in both isolation from and in presence of whites.
"Harnessing" is the "problem" with white music in the first place. Mozart truly, truly painted pictures with his compositions but he was ordered. This separates popular from classical, first of all, but lack of order is why popular is so much more appealing to most people. It appeals to your soul.
"This is what jazz and rock are. People in this thread and elsewhere talk about "black music" as if black people created jazz and blues and whatever else out of whole cloth. They didn't."
They did.
Don't claim jazz because that'd be total crap. When whites hijacked swing and the big bands, the form became repetitive and boring. You mentioned it: spontaneity. White folks couldn't be spontaneous in their music if their lives depended on it; they knew not a thing about it. In the most minute form, that is the GREATEST mark on music blacks have left.
Damn, I cannot believe your anti-black pathology runs so deep that you'd even want to take credit away from the true originators simply because you have a problem with the "White Man" not creating everything!
Do you want to take credit for the blood pulsing through my veins, too?
You're history's totally skewed. Blacks were playing music distinct and original from whites since they were brought here, singing and playing with call-and-response, harmonizing with vocal complexity, playing instruments like they had in Africa. The banjo is essentially an African instrument, mbanza, for example. It was only when white ears pricked up and listened that they got in with blacks' music, sneaking over to honky-tonks deep in the swamps to listen to black musicians and singers.
That whites were moved and applied capital should not take the credit away from the true innovators and originators: blacks.
"White people created the rules, the structures, and the instruments. Blacks applied their blackness, dabbling within a pre-exisiting framework, and created new sounds."
This is just wrong. Just wrong. You got it all skewed! Whites simply listened, loved what they heard, and brought it to whites. They applied capital.
Before Elvis, there was an executive who looked at the breadth of black male singers and said, "Now if I can find me a white man with a black voice, I'll have a million dollars."
I know Mariah Carey is black but she looks white. This woman is a great example of white self-preference, much like Elvis Presley: find a white girl who sings black. She still has the highest number of Number Ones, I believe.
You're mistaken if you believe it was black going to white and not white going to black.
RobertB,
"Most people agree whites invented music--white people. The Asians have no problem admitting this."
I mentioned in the comment that did not make it for some arbitrary reason that Asians have contributed virtually nothing to the global musical landscape. As far as I am concerned, their opinion - frequently upholding the White Man's greatness - means nothing. Why you think it does is beyond me.
Actually, you have shown your ignorance. The classical music of the Europeans is Music - capital M. When an opera singer is worn out they try to get her to sing naturally.
I love classical music; my mother would be the hell out of me if I stopped loving it. But there's a difference between the order of Music and the natural, human, soulfulness of music. Music spread because Europeans spread but music was first, always. Blacks did music; they created music.
"1st of all, almost every "black" hit was written by a white guy or white guys."
What the hell does that have to do with anything? You could have lyrics on a page but without a singer you don't have shit.
Sure, they could get a Jerry Lee Lewis bouncing on his piano chair and singing like Little Richard but the point had been made: they wanted the black sound. Furthermore, the point of Motown was black artists for white audiences. Most blacks of the older generations know that the black pop acts of Motown and it's imitators had been stripped of all of the spontaneity and complexity that caused people to love black music in the first place.
We were still playing it, though.
"Rock-n-Roll is not a derivative of so called "black music". Black music was never any more than Rap--here or in Africa. Without the white man, that's what you get--Rap. ... All blacks are capable of on their own is a "beat". Granted, it isn't much of a beat, but it is a beat."
Re: rock, hate to bust your chops but it is a derivative. It definitely became white, no doubt about it and it is currently white.
And if you think rap is the only thing blacks have created/accomplished musically, YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT BLACK MUSIC, ABOUT RAP, AND YOU'RE TALKING OUT YOUR ASS.
Re: beats, you have to be kidding with that. You obviously have not been exposed to anything besides this autotune bullshit. Please explain what you mean by "not much of a beat." There has to be something besides ignorance behind that.
"Were did so called "black music" come from? Black gospel music, right? But where did the blacks get that? It didn't exist in Africa and still doesn't."
Talking out of your ass again; clearly your music appreciation is pretty limited. Gospel is a patchwork, most definitely, and "it" would technically not be around unless blacks had been Christianized but I suggest you go through Youtube and listen to music from Africa. It's not the same but gospel is definitely a derivative.
(cont.):
"That is where you will find the syncopated beat that made "black music" and rock-n-roll. Invented by Celts before they ever came to America--long before there was ever an English colony here. You will not find that beat anywhere in Africa or in Rap music."
That beat did not "make" black music. What you will not find anywhere in white music is that spontaneity, that complexity, the call-and-response, the stuff that keeps you guessing when you listen to instruments playing together. That's what makes music music and what makes music Music: the latter doesn't have it.
"Rap? the funniest part about rap is that the biggest rapper of all time is a white guy. Thus proving, that even where blacks excel, a white man can always do better."
Eminem has sold records like nobody's business but he is NOT the be-all, end-all of rappers. He happens to be the most popular because white kids who'd been listening to rap finally got to see themselves rapping.
Vanilla Ice wasn't cutting it! Eminem is an exception to the rule. I can guarantee there will never, ever be another Eminem, and he's not even the greatest. He sold out because he was speaking to white kids - the majority - who have the greatest spending power anyway.
I suggest you actually listen to rap - East, West, Dirty South, chopped and screwed, old school, "gangsta rap" etc. - before you say something about Eminem... That's the same shit people wanted to say about the Beastie Boys.
"Oh, BTW, the first musicians to rap were English punk rockers circa 1978--long before Hip-Hop or rap came into the black conscious. Blondie even did one in 1978."
Uh, no. Rap had been done way before a recorded album had been done. Tell me you're joking. Blacks had been rapping for decades before they put it in the mainstream.
Funny how you first say rap is the only thing blacks could have made "on their own" and then go ahead and say a white guy made it. Which one you want? Pick your poison, man. Either way you lose.
"No black has ever invented anything of any note--other than criminal behavior--at that they excel."
I'll give you an "lol" for this one. The best criminals are in the highest ranks of business and run Internet scams out of Eastern Europe. The hallmark of excelling at criminality is not getting caught.
"I find it funny that blacks are supposed to be good dancers. What dancing? Jazz and Tap? Well, maybe, if you don't compare them to white guys."
There are dozens of styles of dancing, first and foremost. Gene Kelly was a great dancer, so was Fred Astaire. But the "blacks are great dancers" truism is based on natural, spontaneous dancing - a skill many people are expected to be able to do - not trained dancing and more blacks than whites seem to be good at it.
You know, this isn't about hegemony or supremacy. It's about origins. That's where white folks seem to get tripped up, unfortunately.
FoxSnooze: "I've also noticed blacks think it great fun to watch Whites suffer."
The forced-running scenes in Schindler's List proved highly amusing to the negro audiences in Oakland, too.
"White rock was invented by black people."
Please name the black people who invented this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEOmJ_OeVhU
Remember, "We're not discussing personal opinions here, just facts."
@Anonymous
"Please name the black people who invented this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEOmJ_OeVhU"
Lol! Well, that contains Egyptian iconography/references, and everyone "knows" the ancient Egyptians were black and created Western Civilization, so I'm sure it's possible to put it all together somehow. ;)
"The Dark NIGHT Returns"? FAIL.
Lincoln,
I was hoping I didn't write that, and I hit control F to locate that wording and it was in one of the quoted articles... too funny!
You're history's totally skewed.
Jus' lik ure gramma!
"I know Mariah Carey is black but she looks white."
Rather like Michael Jackson then?
Since Elvis, rock music has been made by white people for white people.
The fact that black people want credit for the last 60 years of rock and roll shows just how good they know it is.
Blacks became so irrelevant in rock music that I remember how strange it was to see that the band living color was a bunch of black guys playing some great rock music.
But then I saw they were from england and it made sense.
"But even rap, as we know it, would be impossible without the computers and modern recording equipment which came into being without the input of black people."
This is wrong, just wrong. A standard trope put out by people who don't know a damned thing about rap. Rap is first and foremost about the spoken word, about flow, and about lyrical content. It's already spit to melody. All recording studios, autotune, synthesizers could be destroyed and there will still be lyricists spitting, making beats with hands and mouths.
A beat track is ancillary.
Rap has nothing to do with white people, like most black music.
"Your attempt to co-opt all of that as "started by blacks" shows you appreciate how powerful that music has been."
I'm not trying to co-op anything; I'm just telling you how it happened - It's you who wants to deviate from truth and hijack reality. Rock music's evolution has definitely been white; I don't deny that. The most cacophonous of rock is purely white!
"Please explain how the music of Wolfmother and Monster Magnet was invented by black people."
What a strawman; we aren't talking specifics here. Keep up.
Maybe not Monster Magnet but there's some definite call-and-response and lots of spontaneity used by Wolfmother, and we know that is uniquely black...
"Whites will listen to music by non-white artists, blacks will only listen to black artists."
Black people like their own forms. You cannot fault them for that. Black music - using voice and instrument - is so natural and appeals instinctively to most people.
It's funny because for all of the advancements put in place by Asians, they have contributed virtually nothing to the global musical landscape.
"I've always wondered why whites fall over themselves to praise black musical artists but blacks seem to have no interest in returning the favor."
I think this primarily has to do with the fact black music, unlike "white music," has had tremendous impact on whites and white musicians (and they acknowledge this truth, unlike you people). You cannot say the same about black music being impacted upon by whites, although I thank you for applying capital.
This is just a testament to the black ancestral roots of so much music in the Western world.
"But even rap, as we know it, would be impossible without the computers and modern recording equipment which came into being without the input of black people."
This is wrong, just wrong. A standard trope put out by people who don't know a damned thing about rap. Rap is first and foremost about the spoken word, about flow, and about lyrical content. It's already spit to melody. All recording studios, autotune, synthesizers could be destroyed and there will still be lyricists spitting, making beats with hands and mouths.
A beat track is ancillary.
Rap has nothing to do with white people, like most black music.
"Your attempt to co-opt all of that as "started by blacks" shows you appreciate how powerful that music has been."
I'm not trying to co-op anything; I'm just telling you how it happened - It's you who wants to deviate from truth and hijack reality. Rock music's evolution has definitely been white; I don't deny that. The most cacophonous of rock is purely white!
"Please explain how the music of Wolfmother and Monster Magnet was invented by black people."
What a strawman; we aren't talking specifics here. Keep up.
Maybe not Monster Magnet but there's some definite call-and-response and lots of spontaneity used by Wolfmother, and we know that is uniquely black...
"Whites will listen to music by non-white artists, blacks will only listen to black artists."
Black people like their own forms. You cannot fault them for that. Black music - using voice and instrument - is so natural and appeals instinctively to most people.
It's funny because for all of the advancements put in place by Asians, they have contributed virtually nothing to the global musical landscape.
"I've always wondered why whites fall over themselves to praise black musical artists but blacks seem to have no interest in returning the favor."
I think this primarily has to do with the fact black music, unlike "white music," has had tremendous impact on whites and white musicians (and they acknowledge this truth, unlike you people). You cannot say the same about black music being impacted upon by whites, although I thank you for applying capital.
This is just a testament to the black ancestral roots of so much music in the Western world.
Another point on gospel:
Black slaves were segregated from whites and gospel is based on the negro spiritual. If you actually listen to the wail, the howl, the cry of black Americans singing gospel, it is a direct descendent from the singing of Africans.
Recall the CALL AND RESPONSE, the spontaneity!
Like most American music forms, gospel is a tapestry of different colors. But to say it doesn't exist in Africa - some beat - is crap.
I saw Cameroonian pygmies on an old Nat Geo documentary fishing with their hands and the whole of them broke out into song, harmonizing, making beats with feet and hands in the damn water as they sang. It was complex with not even one instrument present.
These people have a myth that goes they were thrown out of heaven because they were too loud, always singing and vocalizing. Blacks are some of the best singers, orators, and musicians because they know timing. They know the exact moment to sing or speak or make a beat or strum a lick that makes the audience feel.
That's the foundation of gospel!
By the way, Africa is a continent.
"we aren't talking specifics here."
Not "we".
You.
Here's your exact quote:
"White rock was invented by black people."
I don't see any reference in your quote to "specifics".
"Maybe not Monster Magnet"
Really? Are you now saying that the white rock played by Monster Magnet was NOT invented by black people? How is that possible if "White rock was invented by black people"?
"there's some definite call-and-response and lots of spontaneity used by Wolfmother"
Ok, so based on your claim that "White rock was invented by black people."...please name the black people that invented the white rock of Wolfmother. If you are unable to do so, please be honest enough to admit it.
"Black people like their own forms."
Translation:
Whites will listen to music by non-white artists, but blacks are race-obsessed and will only listen to black artists.
For the last time. If these people want more non-white superheroes, let them create the characters, publish the comics, and write the movie scripts.
These people are nothing but lazy. They want the white man to do all the creative work and then they want the white man to transfer his hard work to them.
Here's my suggestion for a black super hero. He's a hip-hop 'artist' by the name of "Rapper". His power comes from his gold chains which were forged in ancient Egypt when black Egyptians were flying their planes around the pyramids.
Oh, yeah, he has a white, blond girlfriend.
See, another white man doing the creative work for blacks.
Saw CAPTAIN AMERICA today, and the Howling Commandos were in it, sans the real Nick Fury. And, true to form, the nigger character Gabe Jones, (who actually is a nigger in the comics), is depicted as being smarter than his white comrades by being multi-lingual, among other things.
Which brings me to my biggest gripe about the film: My father is a World War II veteran. I know from his firsthand accounts that 1. No niggers served in white units, and 2. the only niggers he ever saw were those who drove supply trucks.
These nigger bastards, in typical cowardly fashion, tried to take the trucks and leave the battle zone. The white soldiers had to turn their guns on them to make them turn the engines off and get out of the trucks.
My father said he never saw a brave nigger in his wartime experiences.
So when you see Captain America returning to a racially mixed WWII unit, remember that niggers serving in white ranks during World War II is FICTION.
Saw CAPTAIN AMERICA today, and the Howling Commandos were in it, sans the real Nick Fury. And, true to form, the nigger character Gabe Jones, (who actually is a nigger in the comics), is depicted as being smarter than his white comrades by being multi-lingual, among other things.
Which brings me to my biggest gripe about the film: My father is a World War II veteran. I know from his firsthand accounts that 1. No niggers served in white units, and 2. the only niggers he ever saw were those who drove supply trucks.
These nigger bastards, in typical cowardly fashion, tried to take the trucks and leave the battle zone. The white soldiers had to turn their guns on them to make them turn the engines off and get out of the trucks.
My father said he never saw a brave nigger in his wartime experiences.
So when you see Captain America returning to a racially mixed WWII unit, remember that niggers serving in white ranks during World War II is FICTION.
As a white male, I totally agree. My grandpop was a WWII veteran also. He told me much of the same thing.
Here is what I have noticed about Obama and military service members since he has been president: Almost every time Obama gives a speech at a military base, or poses for a picture at some event which involves the military, it seems that a concerted effort has been made to EXCLUDE white males in uniform from being in the background of the camera's angle. It's as if somebody has been trying to create the impression that the US military is now made up of mostly just white women, non-white males, and non-white women. Soon enough, the Obama White House will likely also start doing the same thing with openly gay US military personnel.
In reality however, heterosexual white males still represent the real warriors of the US military, and without them, the US military would never have won any conflict it has ever fought. One of the few times when the Obama White House could not downplay this indisputable fact of life was when it was time to pay tribute toward our two most recent living recipients of the US Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest award for bravery and valor in combat. No black faces to be seen here - just white ones. The most recent living recipient of the US Congressional Medal of Honor was US Army US Army Sgt. First Class Leroy Arthur Petry, a white man who serves in the Ranger Battalion. Did anybody see this guy? He lost his right arm below the elbow while trying to throw a Taliban grenade back over a wall before it exploded near two of his wounded fellow Rangers, and this was after he had already been shot through both of his legs. Now Sgt. First Class Petry wears a prosthetic arm with a robot-looking hand, but he is still serving in the US Army Rangers. That's what I call having some heart there. There's no way in hell I could ever see some black guy making it through even half of Sgt. First Class Petry has been through already.
Brilliant story telling on par with the Dark Knight. The Actors are all amazing after the X-Men Trilogy which in my opinion was lacking terribly. What a breath of fresh air breathed back in the series
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