(Name-mce) ListServ Black entertainers... N-word

[Teja Arboleda]

I'm currently producing a documentary called, "Crossing the Line"
Multiracial Comedy", with my co-producer, Professor Darby LiPo Price, Ph.D.
His dissertation was on multiracial comedians. One of the big questions he
asked for his thesis, and one that we asked during our interviews was,
"Where is the line". In other words, who (comedian by ethnicity) can use
what word with what audience (ethnic/racial make-up).

I arrived in LA on November 16th, just in time to hear about Michael
Richards contribution to our story. The interviews with the 16 multiracial
comedians, and the three comedy shows we produced at major comedy clubs in
LA, SF and Berkeley were partially fueled by Mr. Richards' blow-up. From a
comedian's standpoint, the idea of not being prepared for hecklers, is
unprofessional. To respond with such vigor and with comments of his choice,
make it clear that in fact he had most likely constructed responses well
ahead of time. In other words, although much of comedy is ad-lib, comedians
must be quick to respond to hecklers (particularly in racially divided
America) in a mixed-race setting, and therefore must have loaded responses
ready for launch. Failure to launch constructively, and with humor, spells
failure. I know this, as a comedian (multiracial/multiethnic) myself.

During the same week, an innocent Black man was shot down by police in NY,
and the Pope mentioned some very unfair comments about Islam. The question,
posed by many of the comedians we interviewed, may not be necessarily
relevant to just race. There is a larger question, and that is, what are we
protecting, and how? If, as humans, we have an inherent need to protect
'what' we are in the context of culture, race, religion, class, sex, gender,
etc., who can say what to whom?

Comedy and laughter can be used as an informational healing tool. And has
been since the beginning of human culture and communication. Crossing the
line, however, is subjective and objective, and hard to evaluate when the
'N' word is still acceptable by ANY group. The late comedian Richard Pryor
himself vowed to never use the word again upon his return from Africa.

If you are interested in how comedians are dealing with the 'N' word, and
other words that demean people or groups (race, culture, etc.) I welcome you
to support our effort to tell this story, in Crossing the Line.

Producer/Director
Crossing the Line: Multiracial Comedy
Teja Arboleda, M.Ed.
Entertaining Diversity, Inc.
PO Box 126, Dedham, MA 02027
(781) 329-7040


on 12/3/06 9:26 AM, name-mce-request at nameorg.org at
name-mce-request at nameorg.org wrote:

> Send Name-mce mailing list submissions to
> name-mce at nameorg.org
> 
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> http://mail.nameorg.org/mailman/listinfo/name-mce_nameorg.org
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> name-mce-request at nameorg.org
> 
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> name-mce-owner at nameorg.org
> 
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Name-mce digest..."
> 
> 
> SAVE THE DATE for the 17th Annual International NAME Conference -Baltimore,
> Maryland- Oct.31- Nov.4,2007
>>>>>>>>>>> 
> 
> 
> Today's Topics:
> 
>    1.  Black entertainers struggle with the N-word (bill at billhowe.org)
>    2. Re:  10 Most Important Books: Poll (Dennis Swender)
>    3.  Webinar - Helping Undocumented Students Navigate the College
>       Pipeline (Anselmo Villanueva)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2006 09:22:24 -0500
> From: <bill at billhowe.org>
> Subject: (Name-mce) ListServ Black entertainers struggle with the
> N-word
> To: <Name-mce at nameorg.org>
> Message-ID: <003101c7161d$4baf49b0$6601a8c0 at howe0kjj38f3m1>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> Commentary:  The use of the "N" word comes up in my classes all the time,
> usually raised by white teachers in a rather defensive tone, asking why the
> kids can use it but if they did, they would be called racist. I actually
> look forward to when this occurs since it is a great time to start being
> more open and honest about personal biases. It is a signal to me that the
> class is comfortable enough to get more uncomfortable....Bill
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Black entertainers struggle with the N-word
> 
> After Richards flap, some comedians say they'll quit using epithet for
> laughs
> 
> 
> 
> By Darryl Fears
> 
>  
> 
> Updated: 12:28 a.m. ET Dec. 2, 2006 (Washington Post)
> 
> 
> Paul Mooney is a popular black comedian with a foul mouth who's used a nasty
> racial epithet as part of his shtick for decades. But when his friend
> Michael Richards, who's white, spewed that same epithet during a gig at a
> Los Angeles comedy club, Mooney said it "freaked me out" and "filled me with
> disgust." 
> 
>  
> 
> Mooney joined the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) this
> week in calling for a moratorium by entertainers who use the n-word, the
> nation's ugliest black pejorative. The proposal, spurred by Richards's
> racist rant last month, initiated the latest round of a long-standing debate
> about the term. Black people have fought over the word for years. And
> nonblack hip-hop and rap music lovers now ask, "If black people can use it,
> why can't I?"
> 
>  
> 
> Mooney said he believes Richards "was trying to channel Lenny Bruce," the
> edgy comedian who first turned invective into laughs. He was also imitating
> "Paul Mooney and a bunch of other people," Mooney added in his mea culpa.
> "He had heard it in rap and all that. I'm part of the problem. I contributed
> to it, yes."
> 
>  
> 
> Randall Kennedy, a black Harvard University professor who authored a
> controversial book about the word, says he understands its complexity: "It
> does have a terrible history. It is a word that quite frankly is steeped in
> blood."
> 
>  
> 
> But over centuries, it underwent a sort of Jekyll and Hyde mutation,
> particularly in black communities. "Like so many words, it does mean
> different things in different contexts," Kennedy said. "It can be used right
> now to terrorize and demean people. It can also be used to say you're my
> man, to show solidarity, to satirize racists and put them down."
> 
>  
> 
> 'A romance with the word'
> 
> 'Which is how Mooney used it in his comedy -- far too much, he said: "I was
> having a romance with the word, and I was married to it." But now, Mooney
> said, "I'm free of it. I won't be using that word onstage, and I won't be
> using the b-word. We're asking the rappers and all the people on Earth to
> stop using the word."
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 
> Reaction has been mixed. Some black people said Mooney's stand is principled
> and noble. But others, including comedian Dick Gregory, who said he was once
> Mooney's mentor and will perform with him today at the District's Lincoln
> Theatre, reacted as if the comic had made another joke. Gregory said he
> might pledge to continue using the word to poke fun and force Americans to
> confront the ugly side of race.
> 
>  
> 
> That happened in earnest on Nov. 17 when Richards singled out a black patron
> as a heckler -- wrongly, it turned out -- and launched into a hate-filled
> tirade, rattling off the word like a machine gun and saying that 50 years
> ago the man would have been hanging "from a tree." The rant was captured by
> a cellphone video camera and distributed on the Web.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Gregory said he was one of the first to use the word onstage, without
> crossing a line as Richards did at the Laugh Factory. In the 1960s, during
> the civil rights movement, Gregory joked that when a white restaurant owner
> shouted to him and other black protesters that "I don't serve [blacks]," he
> dryly replied: "That's okay, because I don't eat 'em."
> 
>  
> 
> The late Richard Pryor, once the most famous black comedian, rode the word
> to fame in the 1970s with chart-topping albums that crossed over into white
> culture. Another black comedian, Dave Chappelle, duplicated Pryor's feat by
> using the word as slapstick and social commentary on his Comedy Central
> cable show.
> 
>  
> 
> Both Pryor and Chappelle backed away from the word. Pryor vowed to stop
> using it after traveling to Africa and saying he saw no one there who fit
> the description. Chappelle said his skin crawled when a white youngster
> casually used the word while praising one of his TV sketches.
> 
>  
> 
> The word is so reviled that newspapers, including The Washington Post, often
> refuse to print it. Television and radio stations censor it with a bleep.
> 
>  
> 
> Jackson said the word should be permanently muted. He called on Americans to
> not buy the DVD boxed set of the seventh season of "Seinfeld," the hit TV
> show on which Richards portrayed the character Kramer.
> 
>  
> 
> Mooney, who wrote for a number of shows and foulmouthed black humorists,
> including Redd Foxx, said he will wean himself from the word like an
> alcoholic. "One person can make a difference," he said. The Laugh Factory,
> he said, has banned the word.
> 
>  
> 
> The word is widely used in black entertainment. Comedian Damon Wayans, star
> of the syndicated black sitcom "My Wife and Kids," even tried to patent it
> for a line of clothing this year. That effort failed, as did a dozen or so
> others before his. "I resent the word," Gregory said. "I think it's the
> filthiest thing in the history of the planet. But we want to get rid of the
> word without really talking about it in America. You don't clean it up by
> denying that it exists."
> 
>  
> 
> Mark Anthony Neal, an associate professor of black popular culture at Duke
> University, said the word should be policed in most media but not deleted
> from the culture altogether.
> 
>  
> 
> "Before we can start telling white people who aren't using the word as a
> pejorative that you can't use it, we need to be honest about how we've used
> the words," Neal said.
> 
>  
> 
> Richards clearly crossed a line, he said, then added, "How much political
> capital do we want to use in admonishing Michael Richards? Should we worry
> about people who call us [that word] or about people who treat us like
> them."
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Bill Howe 
>  <http://www.billhowe.org/> http://www.billhowe.org
> 
>  
> Past-President 
> 
> National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME)
>  <http://www.nameorg.org/> http://www.nameorg.org
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> -------------- next part --------------
> A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
> Name: winmail.dat
> Type: application/ms-tnef
> Size: 10752 bytes
> Desc: not available
> Url : 
> /pipermail/name-mce_nameorg.org/attachments/20061202/89eb265e/attachment.bin
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 02 Dec 2006 11:30:28 -0600
> From: "Dennis Swender" <deswend at kckcc.edu>
> Subject: Re: (Name-mce) ListServ 10 Most Important Books: Poll
> To: <name-mce at nameorg.org>
> Message-ID: <s57163e4.053 at netware.kckcc.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
> 
> 2006, Banks, James S.
> Cultural Diversity and Education / Foundations, Curriculum, and Teaching
> 
> 2002, Cummins, Jim.
> Language, Power and Pedagogy.
> 
> 2004, Diuguid, Lewis W.
> A Teacher's Cry / Expose the Truth About Eduction Today
> 
> 2005, Follmi, Danielle & Olivier (eds).
> Origins / African Wisdom for Everyday
> 
> 2002, Guinier, Lani and Torres, Gerald.
> The Miner's Canary / Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming
> Democracy
> 
> 1991, Heat-Moon, William Least.
> PrairyErth / a deep map
> 
> 2005, Kozol, Jonathan
> The Shame of the Nation / The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in
> America
> 
> 2003, Lawson, Steven F.
> Civil Rights Crossroads / Nation, Community, and The Black Freedom
> Struggle
> 
> 1999, McAuliffe, Jr., Dennis
> Bloodland / A Family Story of Oil, Greed and Murder on the Osage
> Reservation
> 
> 2004, Pollock, Mica
> Colormute / Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School
> 
> 2002, Wu, Frank H.
> Yellow / Race in American Beyond Black and White
> 
> 1988 (there is a more recent edition), Wurzel, Jaime S. (ed)
> Toward Multiculturalism / A Reader in Multicultural Education
> 
> D. Swender
> 
>   
> 
>>>> gorski at edchange.org 11/24/06 9:12 PM >>>
> Hello, friends.
>  
> I'm doing a bit of a poll. It's very simple. Please send me what you
> believe
> to be the 10 (or up to 10) most important books related to equity,
> social
> justice, and/or multicultural education. Please send the book title and
> author name. 
>  
> Feel free to think outside the box. The books don't have to be about
> education explicitly and they don't even have to be non-fiction. But I'm
> hoping for books that push boundaries, that aren't, in essence, "soft,"
> celebrating diversity sorts of things.
>  
> As an example, I'm listing 5 of the books that have been most
> inspirational
> to my work below.
>  
> Thanks for your input,
>  
> Paul
>  
> 1. Borderlands: La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua
> 2. Multicultural Education as Social Activism by Christine Sleeter
> 3. John Brown by W.E.B. DuBois
> 4. The Critical Pedagogy Reader by Antonia Darder (Ed.)
> 5. Global Critical Race Feminism: An International Reader by Adrien
> Katharine Wing (Ed.)
>  
>  
>  
> ********
> Paul C. Gorski
> EdChange: http://www.EdChange.org <http://www.edchange.org/>
> Multicultural Pavilion: http://www.EdChange.org/multicultural
> Social Justice Store: http://www.cafepress.com/edchange
> Multicultural Poster Store: http://www.EdChange.org/posters
> SoJust Civil Rights History: http://www.SoJust.net
> <http://www.sojust.net/>
>  
>  
> _______________________________________________
> This is a mailing of the National Association for Multicultural
> Education -
> (NAME) Listserv list - www.nameorg.org. The materials included reflect
> diverse perspectives of NAME Listserv participants and do not
> necessarily reflect a position of the National Association for
> Multicultural Education. If you would like to subscribe (or
> unsubscribe)to this listserv go to
> http://mail.nameorg.org/mailman/listinfo/name-mce_nameorg.org. You can
> read all past postings in the archives at
> http://mail.nameorg.org/pipermail/name-mce_nameorg.org/
> 
> 
> 
> Name-mce mailing list
> Name-mce at nameorg.org
> http://mail.nameorg.org/mailman/listinfo/name-mce_nameorg.org
> 


--
There is no box.
 
Teja Arboleda, M.Ed.
Entertaining Diversity, Inc.
PO Box 126, Dedham, MA 02027
(781) 329-7040