So word on White Street is that being black ain't that hard, yo. Matter of fact, researchers are telling us that caucasian americans think it'd be tougher to go without television than swing the whole Invisible Man thing. One hundred times tougher:The researchers asked the participants, who were white Americans of different ages, questions such as how much they would need to be paid to have television completely taken away from them for the rest of their lives. The majority of people said about $1 million.
Comparatively, they were asked how much they would need to be paid to be black for the rest of their lives. The majority answer to that question was less than $10,000.
Wow, talk about television evangelists. This is totally great sketch material, where you have a club of tv fiends talking about all the ethnic atrocities they'd endure to make sure they can still watch Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader. Then they're like, "well don't be dramatic TAN. Obviously we could give up 5th Grader, or According to Jim, it's the good shows that are the problem. The Colbert Report. The Sopranos. Charm School. Could you imagine?!? No HBO. No Comedy Central. No Oprah. I would definitely take some unlawful arresting over missing Flight of the Conchords. Being a minority is so underrated."
I personally don't blame the white people. I blame black kids like the ones on the right. If I saw them on the train I'd walk over and scream at them, "DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEMS YOU'RE CAUSING MR. MOHAWK? DUDE, ONLY ENTITLED MOTHERF*CKERS GET TO WALK AROUND LOOKING SO RIDICULOUS. HAVE YOU TAKEN A LOOK AROUND AT SOCIETY YOU SELFISH PRICK? DO YOU SEE ANYONE ELSE WEARING A F*CKING MOHAWK?!!? GROW THE REST OF YOUR HEAD OUT AND GET THEE TO A MAILROOM AND STOP MAKING THE WHITE MAN THINK EVERYTHING IS SWEET WHEN IT OBVIOUSLY IS NOT! AND FOR GOODNESS SAKE TAKE THAT F*CKING MORRISSEY SHIRT OFF!! JESUS!!"
I see a gang of kids like that and I just think, "where the hell are the parents."
But as an assimilated negro I've been trained to see things from the average caucasian-american perspective. I've been groomed to understand. So I'm thinking they just misunderstood the question. When Harvard professor Mahzarin Banaji says "White Americans are blind to the cost of being black," she's probably thinking about the effect of being raised black in america. Which I can only hope the subjects in this study are not taking into account. Is the question about magically turning black, or being raised black?
Because if a white person turned black tomorrow, it might be weird, but they'd have the same family and friends. And probably keep their job and general lifestyle. And they could always Netflix Black. White for the vagaries. It'd be like going blonde, except in reverse, and with your skin. Whatever.
If you flip the question around and ask black people how much they would need to become white, I think we'd continue to find the valuation is placed not on the race or color itself, but on the cultural assimilation. Since I already have a semblance of access, you'd have to pay me a lot more to magically turn white now, than to go back in the days — before I was plucked from the
So maybe the cost is roughly the equivalent of a private school education, from 9-college. Maybe tack on thirty years of counseling/therapy. All in all, definitely more than $10K, but probably less than $1M. If you go more you'd have to start arguing for physical/genetic costs. And I don't think Magnum XLs are that expensive.
So I guess the final lesson in all of this is simply: white people watch too much television.
And also, that kid with the fro-hawk should stay away from cameras. And me.
Study Searches for Cost of Being Black [U-Wire]
I'm still trying to get over the mohawked young man in a Morrissey T. He is truly an outcast, no matter where he hangs out.
ReplyDeletethere's a reality show over here (spain) where a few families go without tv for two weeks.
ReplyDeleteit seems fx just went the easy way.
[Laugh] God, man you are saying the stuff that leaps into my head. Took public transportation to the city the other day and I saw something similar . . . not as frightening . . . but similar and almost the exact words formulated in my head.
ReplyDeleteYou the man. Preach brotha'
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ReplyDeleteyour blogs always crack me up. but you couldn't pay me enough to be white for the rest of my life. black people are cool. lol.
ReplyDeletenow would i date a white person? ...heck yeah i'd date brad pitt or matthew mcconaughey!
and i think his fro hawk is hott. the t-shirt however, blows.
there is nothing wrong with that kid, or his hair. individual style is in! :)
ReplyDelete"If you flip the question around and ask black people how much they would need to become white, I think we'd continue to find the valuation is placed not on the race or color itself, but on the cultural assimilation."
ReplyDeleteMade me say "Amen Brother" out loud in the coffeeshop. Nice.
"get thee to a mailroom"
ReplyDeleteLOL!!!!!
I'm going to be saying that to my black friends in the office (2) all week.
wow...how do you know the kid wasn't raised in europe or something where someone's race and the way they portray it isnt such a prevalent issue?
ReplyDeleteI had a friend, half german, half mozambiquean n he had a mohawk..i dont see anything wrong with that..
That kid is beautiful. How much shit do you think he takes from his classmates dressed like pre-schoolers?
ReplyDeleteNice post.
"All this means is: we want the access and opportunity, not the skin cancer." HA! HA!
ReplyDeleteThanks Tan, its all about access. I read some of the researchers study, and someone made a good point that I will paraphrase. White people are so ignorant of the disparities between the races. They really think we are on equal footing. HA!. Or, they were being PC white America, and totally lying. Like my white friends that say they will vote for Obama. Yeah right. HA!
don't talk about morrissey! Better that than Fiddy & bathing ape
ReplyDeleteDid they ask them if they want to be middle class black Americans or underpriviledge, poor black Americans. I am sure, if they told them that they would have to live in the ghetto, the answer might be slightly different.
ReplyDeleteI think any sudden or otherwise race change would be pretty dramatic. 100k is the minimum I would demand. A lot more if it meant I had to have been raised in the bronx and not get a brand new SUV on my 16th birthday and a free ride to college and my bills paid til I was 30.
ReplyDeleteThat they asked for a million is just pathetic. I guess I would ask for whatever I thought I could get, but since I am too cheap and apathetic to pay for cable tv or pay more than 20 bucks a month for netflix I would have to put it at less than 10k or whatever a lifetime of 20 dollars a week is.
On the other hand this survey shows white people are even shockingly more stupid than I previously believed, so maybe I would demand less to remain white.
oh, god...the Morrissey Minions have been awakened.
ReplyDeleteOK, you had me at "hello!" but dude... you're way off about the Frohawk. Brothers have always sported Frohawks. Not necessarily assimilated brothers, though Frohawked brothers are usually the more daring of brothers. And the more musical... Doug Pinnick (King's X) for instance. And didn't Vernon Reid and/or Corey Glover (Living Color--the band not the show) sport one at some point? Recently, at my Sun's violin concert, there was a young kid of about 7 who was sporting a Frohawk. Frohawks--and Mohawks are "in" right now...
ReplyDeleteBut the Morrisey thing... that's a problem...
Sorry, I don't buy it. Those folks polled were trying to be PC. The real answer is you couldn't pay them enough to be Black. Some people might feel that to say that would be considered by some a racist comment.
ReplyDeleteMohawk----Yes
Morrissey----No
This post was fucking hilarious! I think that for white people black people are just a perverse curiosity. I agree that they'd probably want to be black but have the exact socio-economic status that they had as white people.
ReplyDeleteOnly in America would this poll be funded at all.
and s. said.
ReplyDeleteno, you should not say, "get thee to the mailroom" to your black friends at the office, or to any black person on any day of the week.
massively unacceptable.
tan, its time to think about diversifying your melanin musing by crossing the atlantic and/or pacific-more challenging and less obvious targets.
just saying...
There are those of us... (you decide the "us"), who have been victims of parental assimilation. As a child I was oblivious to it until 3rd grade when I was 1st called a Nigger and didn't know what the word meant. By the 5th grade I realized I was the only little dark speck in school and I channeled my confusion by beating up the boys - easier targets than those mean spirited, booger-eating girls who cared what kind of top I wore. If you look closely, these kids on the train are all just confused and don't know it. And I cannot say "especially" lil' man, but his confusion is just more blatant. Plus, all men and most white women don't know and can't see the nuances of the Black female at all enough to see that the girls' clothes and hair are just as wrong as poor lil' man's frohawk and T-shirt! They obviously are the only 4 specks at an all white school, desperately trying to fit in without knowing why. Only Missy with the glasses on her head has some cultural influence in her life. The red tinted bangs give away the fact that she may have cousins in her life that attend a more culturally diverse (accurate?) school. From one who continued all through school to be called "oreo" or told that I "talk too proper" I can tell you, it's not these kids' fault, it's their assimilated parents who are trying as best they can to give their kids what they didn't have - a chance. A chance at what? That is up to these kids to figure out. Hopefully they don't wait like I did until un-T.A.-negroes at an all black college ran my "privileged and proper" (relatively speaking) narrow black ass back to California, where I am now nearly "straight ghetto" compared to my parentally assimilated black husband from Illinois – way, way, way south of Chicago and too far north of St. Louis to count for much at all.
ReplyDelete~Dez
destinationreflection.blogspot.com
As a white woman, I realize that I don't understand the hardships of being black in white America, but not every white kid has "a brand new SUV on my 16th birthday and a free ride to college and my bills paid til I was 30."
ReplyDeleteI have had to fight every step of the way to get where I am. I just think that maybe things are hard for a lot of people, in different ways. Yes, growing up in the ghetto trumps growing up poor white, but honestly, I think the ones who deserve scorn are the ones who can afford to think that television is more of an issue than race, or poverty, or a million other issues.
-Jenn
Personally, I think the question itself is insulting. Why would you have to be paid to be black? The question didn’t specify drug addict v. schoolteacher, criminal v. celebrity, healthy v. terminally ill. Is it really so awful to imagine being black (or any other minority for that matter)? Life would be different, yes. Probably more difficult. But, not automatically worse. I think the higher the bribe, the worse the insult. What about the things you can’t put a price on: culture, history, community?
ReplyDeleteOr maybe we Americans just like getting paid for stuff.
Re:Jenn's comment-
ReplyDeleteYes but you are still white, which means you are by default provided with a host of privilege and cultural capital that people of color are not, no matter what there socio-economic status.
As far as the Morrisey kid goes, white kids can dye their hair purple, blue, yellow and be covered with piercings and no one looks at them twice. Why can't black kids do the same? Assimilated is assimilated. This has nothing to do with entitlement as he appears to feel comfortable in his own skin for which he deserves credit.
"If you flip the question around and ask black people how much they would need to become white, I think we'd continue to find the valuation is placed not on the race or color itself, but on the cultural assimilation."
ReplyDeleteThat's just it. I think the issue of race in this country is about cultures more than skin color. And I believe that depending on how you define "black culture" is the stem of the problem. If you define black culture using the "thug life" or ghetto culture, and have Tupac or Ludicris as role models, and instead of caring about education and self actualization; all you care about is what kind of sneakers you wear, and having 15,000 worth of rims on your car, when you don't even make 15,000 dollar a year; than a lot of people not just white people have a problem with that. If you define the black culture as the “entitlement culture” that vote’s Democratic and doesn’t even know why other than the Democrats want to increase welfare spending than there’s a problem there. Cultures should be viewed or defined in terms of their effort in part or as a whole for trying to better them selves. Just look at Native Americans or the Asian community look how they have raised up against adversity. Here is something to think about in today’s world; not the old world, but today’s world. How many Asians hold ANY public office? How many Mayor’s or Governors, Senators, Representatives, hell any high position in state or federal government? I can’t think of any. Yet I don’t see they Asian community at the same poverty or low education levels. I don’t see them in such need of entitlements. You want to know why the black culture that embraces the “thug life” is doomed to fail for the average black man and women. It’s because it’s a mirage, and a veneer. Just look at DMX, a very successful, rich, black man, right? So, go to Google, and put DMX and arrested in a search and see what comes up. I don’t understand why he needs to steal cars. Don’t even get me started on Michael Vick, Tupac, B.I.G., and on, and on. Now tell me why, when black person, like say Condoleezza Rice is the most powerful black women in American History; she is shunned by the black community for not being, I don’t know black enough. She isn’t trying to be white, black, Asian, Mexican, or anything else. She has just tried to be the best she can be. She and many other like her should be the role models for black youth, and anybody who can see a recipe for success and has the intellect, will, and strength to follow it, and not let finger pointing or bitching get in the way.
No really, this was an awesome post. I'm subscribing this instant. Peace ...
ReplyDeleteThe “entitlement culture” that vote’s Democratic.
ReplyDeleteAfter all that would be the only reason to vote for them.
not the GOP taking from the poor to give to the rich,
or the rising cost of living, but the “entitlement culture”, not the war in Iraq, not the fact that most Americas think the country headed in the wrong direction, not corruption and incompetence.
Tenaciousbt you need to stop getting your news from Fox.
Whites just said that to be politically correct, like many have already acknowledged it on this blog. Most whites kids, including the ones who like hip hop, don't want to be black in reality.
ReplyDeleteThere is a difference between surveys and reality. Just like when Whites are saying they are gonna vote for Obama or Colin Powell for President. You know that's not true. Look at Tom Bradley, the late black mayor of Los Angeles. Surveys consistently put him as the favorite for the governorship (that would have made him the first black governor in U.S history), yet he still lost not once, but twice (1982 and 1986 I think). And that was in California, a open-minded state. Can you imagine in a presidential election where the black candidate must face States such as Texas or Utah. No comments.
And please leave the little mohawk kid alone. If white kids can dress like blacks, then so should black kids dress be allowed to dress like white kids. But I do admit, he does look ridiculous.
fuck the dude that says white people are stupid...your ignorance should not be tolerated in a true forum of discussion. fuck you.
ReplyDeleteTHIS IS SO STUPID
ReplyDeleteARE YOU TRYING TO SAY THAT JUST BECAUSE THESE KIDS LOOK HAPPY THAT THEY ARE TRYING TO LOOK "WHITE"
IS IT THAT HARD TO COMPREHEND THAT BLACK KIDS CAN BE HAPPY...NOT ALL BLACK PEOPLE ARE STRUGGLING!!! BLACK SHOULDNT BE A SYNONYM FOR BEING GHETTO!! BUT THIS ARTRICLE ENCOURAGES IT...BECAUSE THESE KIDS ARE NOT "GHETTO" THEN THEY ARE TRYING TO MAKE IT LOOK AS IF BLACK PEOPLE ARE NOT STRUGGLING...WHATS SO WRONG WITH NOT STRUGGLING? SHOULD WE ALL WALK AROUND LOOKING DEPRESSED!