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The Black Culture Thread |OT3| Lighten Up

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The Faceless Master

The Faceless Master

Member
PartTimeWarrior said:
Rofl

Nothing beats the Milk crate with the bottom cut out nailed to a wooden streetlamp, though
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nails are pretty pro... tied on with old shoestrings, that's the struggle...



Riovane said:
Well Paula Deen wishes she was in a lower tax bracket. That lawsuit. And then Food Network punting her show off the air. Just because she couldn't keep the racist comments to her damn self.
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she has restaurants in the south tho right? business is about to pick up!
 
D

DominoKid

Member
great article i found browsing Lipstick Alley (don't ask lol)

In Defense Of Kanye’s Vanity: The Politics Of Black Self-Love

Maybe it was the absurdly nonfunctional shutter shades or the audacious (and, let’s be real, honest) Taylor Swift interruption, but at some point in pop culture, Kanye West became a punch line. When he sat down with The New York Times’ Jon Caramanica for a rare, rather lengthy interview, the responses were predictable. Various media roundups* characterized his quotes as “ridiculous,” “textbook-crazy,” “obnoxious,” and, well, you get the point.** All of this makes me wonder if anyone actually read the interview, because he talks about (and complicates) the very thing that others so boringly mock him for: his vanity. I’m not here to convince you to love Kanye’s music or to love him as a figure. What I am interested in talking about, and what I think is often overlooked, is how race affects the way people perceive and respond to his vanity. Kanye is a part of a long tradition of black artists for whom self-love is a political act.

The concept of vanity is so rooted in the idea of a singular narcissist that it can be hard to catch that Kanye speaks almost from a populist perspective — a populist narcissism, if you will. Granted, the thematic focus on community vs. the personal has evolved from College Dropout to Yeezus, but take a second and remember the very first song on Kanye’s first album. He has a chorus of children singing, “We wasn’t supposed to make it past 25 / Joke’s on you, we still alive / Throw your hands up in the sky / And say we don’t care what people say.” If you chalk up his “we don’t care what people say” attitude to simply his ego, then you have missed the point entirely. This isn’t about ego; this is about boldly asserting yourself in a world that is not meant for you. This is a vanity that is rooted in bringing the community up with you. To the ire of some who are so wrapped up in the anxiety of respectability, the message he gives the kids (in front of all these white folks who are listening to his music!) is not to be modest but to unapologetically laugh in the face of a world that does not care about them. The joke’s on you, white America. We made it, and we don’t even have the decency to be grateful. We’re laughing. We dare to laugh.

This is why it’s so critical to really think about how and why folks are calling him “crazy.” There’s a great Dave Chappelle quote from his Inside the Actors Studio interview that really gets to the heart of this. In a conversation about the difficulties of black celebrity life, Chappelle explains, “The worst thing to call somebody is ‘crazy.’ It’s dismissive. ‘I don’t understand this person. So they’re crazy.’ That’s bullshit.” To continuously label what Kanye says as “crazy” is to dismiss him as not worth understanding and to flatten his deeply complex work and complex personality. Kanye told Rolling Stone in 2004, “I’m the rap version of Dave Chappelle. I’m not sayin’ I’m nearly as talented as Chappelle when it comes to political and social commentary, but like him, I’m laughing to keep from crying.” “Laughing to keep from crying” is a tone that captures so much of both of their work, but it’s also a survival mantra. Originating with Langston Hughes, this expression encapsulates a history of black artists who have used wit and satire to capture their exasperations and make light of the world’s absurdities. The humor shouldn’t be overlooked here; people seem to miss that Kanye is very tongue-in-cheek, that he is constantly making jokes. As Vulture’s Jody Rosen puts it, “Anyone who gets riled up about ‘I Am a God,’ or about the album’s title, is missing the joke — or rather, taking the bait. More than ever, West is aiming to provoke.” Yes, and also, sometimes he’s just making fun of you.

The jokes are fun, but the difficulty and power of his vanity cannot be emphasized enough. To assert that, despite the boundaries of a racist world that strangles your very view of what is possible, you are still going to be out here stuntin’ on everyone, that you will love yourself and love yourself excessively, is powerful beyond measure. And as many black artists have said before, for black folks to love themselves is a political act. The poet Audre Lorde captures it best: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." Kanye’s “vanity” is meant to be inspiring; it is not a mindless arrogance but it is pointed and intentional. One of the most compelling things he says in his Times interview is that he views his work, in some ways, as an extension of the fight for justice of the activists and artists who came before him. In their traditions but also in his own way, he is fighting for justice: “I’m going to use my platform to tell people that they’re not being fair… Justice. And when you say justice, it doesn’t have to be war. Justice could just be clearing a path for people to dream properly.”

Kanye’s infatuation with the sartorial world is also important to consider in the light of the black artists who came before him. As Monica Miller points out in the fascinating Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, there is a long history of black artists who use fashion, art, and a couture-level interest in looking beautiful and self-fashioning as a powerful tool of self-actualization. From as far back as the slaves who dressed in their Sunday best to the black dandies of the English Enlightenment, from the luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance to the greats of the Jazz Age and to contemporaries like Andre 3000, black artists have used art and fashion to re-imagine the possibilities of what it means to be black, of what is possible and imaginable for black identities. This play with dandyism is both about an individual’s self-image and about how they are regarded, it is personal and political, and it is within the community and about the dynamics outside it. Kanye is very aware of this history and this balance between the political and the beautiful has been characteristic of his discography. He tells the Times, “That’s how I was raised. I am in the lineage of Gil Scott-Heron, great activist-type artists. But I’m also in the lineage of a Miles Davis — you know, that liked nice things also.”

Conversations that take Kanye’s vanity as a given annoyance obfuscate the fact that Kanye has helped change the game entirely for how black men are allowed to express their vulnerabilities in public. In the Times interview, he talks about how, in the public’s imagination, “the idea of Kanye and vanity are like, synonymous.” He goes on to explain, however: “But I’ve put myself in a lot of places where a vain person wouldn’t put themselves in. Like what’s vanity about wearing a kilt?” If you see him simply as a crazy egomaniac, you’ve taken away his right to be a dimensional human being. You miss the moments when he is so boldly asserting his vulnerabilities, his anxieties, his humanity — the times he is placing his bare self on the line as an artist. This bravado mixed with a deeply sincere self-reflectiveness has characterized his career from the very beginning. It began with the earnest confessions of his first single and grew to become to an entire album where he sings — despite openly acknowleging he’s a horrible singer — about heartbreak. It’s hard to imagine the sappy crooning of Drake or the angsty emo rap of Kid Cudi existing if it weren’t for Kanye. And, to return to the sartorial for a moment, notice how in that quote, he articulates his expression of vulnerability in terms of fashion choices, in terms of a leather kilt. He’s keenly aware of the way black identity, and black masculinity in particular, is wedded to an image, a static image, and he purposefully plays with that.

All of this is obviously not to say that Kanye is immune from criticism or that I, myself, have never side-eyed things he has said or done. But ultimately, I am grateful for the space that his bold and unapologetically vain work has created for black artists, for black children, for dreamers. On a more fundamental level, this conversation begs the question, how much pride is allowed for one person? At what point does being proud of yourself turn into being “too vain”? Who decides? Kanye has just dropped Yeezus, an incredibly dense and complicated album that revels in a dark spiral of introspection mixed with the political articulations and sonic embellishing that is so characteristic of his canon. His work continues to refuse an easy reading, and this album boldly proclaims that he is someone you must pay attention to. You don’t have to love it, but you will respect it.
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D

DominoKid

Member
RedSwirl said:
I think I stopped sports when I moved to DC. RGIII all we got. It's especially bad coming here from North Carolina. I was at Mason the year they made the Final Four, but that was about it.
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when RG3 got hurt how somber was it up there. i was up at my aunt's house (in VA) the week before and they were so fucking excited to be back in the playoffs. after that i called my family and you would've thought there was a death in the family.

cdyhybrid said:
Should post that in the Kanye hate thread :p
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I figured it'd be more relevant to us on the culture tip.
 
N

Nakazato

Member
Just checked out the gaf shirt store for the 1st time in forever.....


We really need a black gaf shirt.

With either white weminnz or Mark Henry

DEVO make it happen.

Edit: KFC POPEYE what ever you choose is wrong
Dehumanizing stare
Stop Simpin
 
T

ThoughtsOfSpeaking

Banned
Finally subscribing to this thread. I always forget about it in OT and its actually quite cool.

Though to be fair, it shouldn't be named the Black culture thread. Clearly it is the Afro-american thread.
 
T

ThoughtsOfSpeaking

Banned
DominoKid said:
nah there's white people here. hispanics. asians?
canadians of both kinds.
africans.

it's bigger than just african-americans.
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But you are all talking about Afro-american culture, not black culture.

As a second generation Jamaican, living in England, there is very little ive seen that can be subscribed to and relatable to black people as a whole and a lot that you only will understand if you follow Afro-american issues. Goes par the course with being a US-Centric site, but still.
 
Z

Zeus Molecules

illegal immigrants are stealing our air
Man my buddies just convinced me to do one of those mudder races... I am out of shape, overweight and I got 40 days to train for it....FML
 
S

SousedLouse

Member
ThoughtsOfSpeaking said:
But you are all talking about Afro-american culture, not black culture.

As a second generation Jamaican, living in England, there is very little ive seen that can be subscribed to and relatable to black people as a whole and a lot that you only will understand if you follow Afro-american issues. Goes par the course with being a US-Centric site, but still.
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Well, that's true. It reminds me of that dust-up over in OT about what constitutes 'black culture' (I should probably look at that thread again, since I didn't see how it panned out the first time.)

But it's not as if news and information about blacks in other parts of the world is shunned; we've had discussions about stuff like Yityish Aynaw becoming the first Ethopian Miss Israel, or black orphans in China. And if I, for example, were to post about how the letter of the day in the Jamaican Gleaner was a cry to "shun patois drivel", somebody would post if they're interested.

I think that a better summation of the thread is that it's a community thread first and foremost - more like a party table than a pointed discussion - and since the more active posters are in or near the States, certain topics pop up more than others.
I can vouch that I've never heard of grits in any significant capacity until I started lurking this thread.

That's just an observation on my part; I lurk more than I post, and I almost never go into IRC, so I'm in no place to criticize.
 
D

DY_nasty

NeoGAF's official "was this shooting justified" consultant
ThoughtsOfSpeaking said:
But you are all talking about Afro-american culture, not black culture.

As a second generation Jamaican, living in England, there is very little ive seen that can be subscribed to and relatable to black people as a whole and a lot that you only will understand if you follow Afro-american issues. Goes par the course with being a US-Centric site, but still.
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it depends on who's posting

Not my fault part time warrior can't stop his clown act from constantly derailing anything that doesn't involve shit he saw on a BET movie
 
A

akira28

Member
ThoughtsOfSpeaking said:
But you are all talking about Afro-american culture, not black culture.

As a second generation Jamaican, living in England, there is very little ive seen that can be subscribed to and relatable to black people as a whole and a lot that you only will understand if you follow Afro-american issues. Goes par the course with being a US-Centric site, but still.
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People talk about what they know, but so far I've seen the BCT to be very open to anything anyone wants to bring to the table. If you have new perspectives to share that you haven't seen represented, I'm sure they would be welcome.

Bottom line, can't change the name now.
 
T

ThoughtsOfSpeaking

Banned
SousedLouse said:
Well, that's true. It reminds me of that dust-up over in OT about what constitutes 'black culture' (I should probably look at that thread again, since I didn't see how it panned out the first time.)

But it's not as if news and information about blacks in other parts of the world is shunned; we've had discussions about stuff like Yityish Aynaw becoming the first Ethopian Miss Israel, or black orphans in China. And if I, for example, were to post about how the letter of the day in the Jamaican Gleaner was a cry to "shun patois drivel", somebody would post if they're interested.

I think that a better summation of the thread is that it's a community thread first and foremost - more like a party table than a pointed discussion - and since the more active posters are in or near the States, certain topics pop up more than others.
I can vouch that I've never heard of grits in any significant capacity until I started lurking this thread.

That's just an observation on my part; I lurk more than I post, and I almost never go into IRC, so I'm in no place to criticize.
Click to expand...

DY_nasty said:
it depends on who's posting

Not my fault part time warrior can't stop his clown act from constantly derailing anything that doesn't involve shit he saw on a BET movie
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akira28 said:
People talk about what they know, but so far I've seen the BCT to be very open to anything anyone wants to bring to the table. If you have new perspectives to share that you haven't seen represented, I'm sure they would be welcome.

Bottom line, can't change the name now.
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Yeah, Don't think im complaining, Its the smallest of details really. It was just an observation. To be honest, the way amercian culture has taken over the whole, especially amongst the African diaspora, its much easier to just assume the two are one and the same.

Even the reverse is true, and you guys do copy Europeans, you copy the wrong things (Skinny jeans on men are universally bad, M'kay?)
 
K

Kreed

Member
ThoughtsOfSpeaking said:
But you are all talking about Afro-american culture, not black culture.

As a second generation Jamaican, living in England, there is very little ive seen that can be subscribed to and relatable to black people as a whole and a lot that you only will understand if you follow Afro-american issues. Goes par the course with being a US-Centric site, but still.
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Exactly, since most of the members on this site (and in this thread) are in the US, most of our discussion is going to be on issues black people in the US deal with. However that doesn't mean that's all we want to talk about. For example one of our regulars, FreeMufasa, shared his story about his experiences in Japan after leaving the forums for a period of time. If you have experiences or issues you can share that are different from what black people in the US experience please do.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
I paid for IGN Insider once for a year. Just for the head-to-head videos, comparing Xbox/GCN/PS2 versions of games.

Is IGN Insider still a thing?
 
The Faceless Master

The Faceless Master

Member
ThoughtsOfSpeaking said:
But you are all talking about Afro-american culture, not black culture.

As a second generation Jamaican, living in England, there is very little ive seen that can be subscribed to and relatable to black people as a whole and a lot that you only will understand if you follow Afro-american issues. Goes par the course with being a US-Centric site, but still.
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you got a keyboard. talk about stuff. let's talk about how Vybz Kartel is still rocking the charts from jail... and when is that trial gonna start?
 
M

Mr.Fresh

Member
ReXXXSoprano said:
How are back somewhere you never technically left? And it can't be that bad. Or can it?

And I'm catching the end of Don't Be A Menace. Still a hood classic!
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True, I just moved into my first apt with my cousin in a 4 story apt building my first time in a building and out of my moms house so tryna get used to everything. I grew up in this city so I know a lot of people here it just feels crazy living here again. And yea that's def a hood classic.
 
T

ThoughtsOfSpeaking

Banned
The Faceless Master said:
you got a keyboard. talk about stuff. let's talk about how Vybz Kartel is still rocking the charts from jail... and when is that trial gonna start?
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Because in 15 years, there hasnt been one dancehall artist that can touch him lyrically.


When his money runs out.


NB: I lost interest in bashment the day they made the crazy frog into a Dance. Haven't been to a blues in nearly 10 years.



Anywho guys. Like i said, just an observation. No biggie. Im sure if something springs to mind ill bring it up.
 
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