Enough Is Enough!
If I hear about one more state assembly issuing an apology for slavery, I just might throw up all over my blue and white striped lounging pants and cool blue hoodie I bought myself for Christmas.
Long-time readers are keenly aware of what I think about so-called slavery apologies.
An apology for slavery would make sense under this scenario, and under no other: former slavemasters and those complicit in the government at the time apologizing directly to the former slaves for keeping them in bondage.
Other than that, keep your stinkin’ apology and get on with real business. Here’s what you can apologize for, Mr. Government: for taxing the heck out of me, followed up with the concrete action of lowering my taxes and allowing me to keep more of the money I earn.
Enough Is Enough! Part II
Now this is something I can support. A group of people fed up with nasty depictions of black men and women on channels like Black Entertainment Television (BET) started a campaign called Enough Is Enough, led by Reverend Delman Coates, to protest against these negative images and lyrics. This is what the group wants. More from the site (emphasis added):
The campaign contends that music companies do not equitably apply standards for lyrical content that is offensive to blacks as for other groups. Likewise, many American corporations have different standards for sponsoring artists whose music is offensive to blacks than they do for material that is offensive to other groups. That is, many American corporations sponsor, through endorsements and advertising on radio and television outlets, artists who promote negative messages about black people, but would not provide such sponsorship for artists who degrade other interest groups.
That’s a pretty serious charge. This Saturday (January 12), the group will gather outside the New York City home of Philippe P. Dauman, President and CEO of Viacom, which owns BET. On that same day, others will rally outside the Warner Theater in DC to protest THE BET HONORS. Hey, I might join them. It would make a great story.
Apologies for slavery are an abject waste of time. Speaking out against the atrociously scandalous BET is a public service. So many people sit around privately complaining about what they don’t like. Reverend Coates and the campaign’s supporters are doing something. Show your support!
I’m joining NPR’s Bloggers Roundtable this afternoon, and these are two of the topics. I wanted to talk about the Washington Post/RIAA thing, but since it is a segment about black topics, I guess it doesn’t fit. Oh, well. 
Update: Listen to the segment here. We didn’t get to the apology for slavery thing, darn it. I really wanted to talk about that. That’s me at the end of the segment interjecting about BET’s religious programming.
I was on with Debra Dickerson and blogger Wayne Hicks. I met Dickerson, author of The End of Blackness, back in 2004 at a Cato book forum.
I knew you couldn’t stay away from social, political issues. It’s in your blood (heart)! Great post.
Comment by Tom Watson — 01.09.08 @ 10:26 am
Noooooooo!
Seriously, though, the social stuff is also cultural, so I’ll continue blogging about that. Straight politics? Part of my past.
Thanks for commenting.
Comment by La Shawn — 01.09.08 @ 10:33 am
As far as the so-called entertainment, I have to chime in with Enough is Enough. I’ve never watched BET (don’t have cable), but the former UPN had several black-oriented sitcoms (before they went to nearly all court shows) that made me wonder why “Amos ‘n’ Andy” was ever taken off the air.
There was one where the single (very fat) mother was hot for the junior college professor, the teen (very fat) daughter “not only didn’t know nothin’, she didn’t suspect much”, the teen guys were uniformly “dogs” and dumber than dirt, and only the white teen girl had any smarts (even the professor, while not unintelligent, wasn’t very “smart”). These were black people playing the worst stereotypes! And Esther Rolle quit because of stereotyping?! Her character and the rest on the show, were living in the projects but were reasonably intelligent and trying to do well, WAY better images than the more recent ones.
By the way, many of the litigants on the court shows are black and not the best examples.
EiE, You Go!
Maybe one day we’ll just be all “people”.
Comment by Dooz — 01.09.08 @ 10:46 am
Thank Heavens! What’s taken them so long!!
Comment by suek — 01.09.08 @ 10:59 am
As I was laid low with cedar fever this week, I watched the tube. I had never even heard of “I Love New York-[Tiffany]” and was stunned. At first, I was fascinated in a bizarre kind of a way [in light of what this says about our culture]that these were real people but as the episode went on, I was repelled by the filth and had to turn it off.
On another note…While I support the goals of Enough is Enough, I do not support invading people’s neighborhoods. To me, this is the kind of bullying that is so endemic on the left and it punishes the innocent.
Comment by jb — 01.09.08 @ 12:20 pm
I never was a slave.
I’m not currently a slave.
I don’t plan on being a slave.
Just thought I throw that in. Liberalism truly is a mental disorder. ENOUGH IS TRULY ENOUGH!!!!
Comment by Tyrone — 01.09.08 @ 1:33 pm
That “Enough is Enough” theme was taken up by Black Enterprise for the Nov 07, Dec 07 & Jan 08 issues, spearheaded by powerful editorials by publisher Earl Graves. Definitely a must read for the interested.
My only comment to BE is what took you so long? The handwriting was on the wall ever since the ascendecy of gangsta culture programming on BET some 10 - 15 years ago.
Dooz, with regards to Amos n Andy; at least they were really funny compared to today’s trash-coms.
Comment by Andy — 01.09.08 @ 1:42 pm
They make a strong point about the support of artists/music/images that denigrate blacks over other groups. Heck, anybody who buys certain Hip Hop music is doing exactly that no matter the color of the buyers skin.
Comment by Mark La Roi — 01.09.08 @ 2:46 pm
it is enough.. but not with losers like jesse jackson jr. who thinks that politicans don’t do enough and don’t cry enough for blacks when it comes things like katrina..
oof… i can’t stand obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNrlSn7ndAA&feature=user
Comment by fred jackson — 01.09.08 @ 3:25 pm
i’d like to know what the good revs. sharpton and jackson have to say about this.
Comment by thomas — 01.09.08 @ 6:44 pm
As a white dude, I never got the stereotype mentality until I read the website http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/menu.htm
It’s generally written in a Black supremacist manner, but the perspective was priceless in educating me as to about what so many were up in arms. It also depressed the heck out of me that this stuff actually was disseminated. Obviously both races have to dance together to solidify this crap, but dear God, what were they thinking? Couldn’t they see the endgame?
Comment by John — 01.10.08 @ 12:01 am
We all know that unless it impacts the bottomline ($) nothing will move any business to change.
Comment by gecko57 — 01.10.08 @ 2:17 pm
If you’ve ever thought enough is enough about something, don’t worry, you’re in great company. This weekend is Enough is Enough weekend, brainchild of Rev. Delman Coates…
Pingback by The Lunch Counter — 01.12.08 @ 9:29 am
i love you lashawn but if i hear you complain about this subject again i may barf. i’m not asking for an apology but i sure as heck ain’t gonna complain when it’s given.
a christian sister in atl
Comment by katrina — 01.12.08 @ 12:40 pm
#7: Andy, you’re just saying that because of your name-bias!
Seriously, though Amos ‘n’ Andy were egregious stereotypes (actually, Kingfish and Andy were; Amos was quite mainstream), my point, which you evidently got was that the newer shows are even worse stereotypes and foul as well.
Your point is well taken (and deserves repeating) that at least Amos ‘n’ Andy were clean and funny.
Comment by Dooz — 01.13.08 @ 12:06 am
La Shawn, in light of #14, I have to chime in on the apology/reparations issue. If this is going to happen, I also want to see my Dutch ancestors compensated by my English ancestors. My Dutch ancestors came to the New World, built a successful colony, and then one day found themselves British subjects, ridiculed by the beneficiaries of all their hard work (called “John Cheese” for their blond hair and appetite for cheese–in Dutch that’s something like Jan Kaese [yon kay suh], which likely is the source of Yankee).
We Dutch want nothing less than the return of New York City!
Okay, if that rant doesn’t show the silliness of apology, I don’t know what does.
BTW, Katrina, that’s a Dutch name; are you Dutch?
Comment by Dooz — 01.13.08 @ 12:13 am
This sort of reminds me of the Kids in the Hall bit where Bruce is forced to apologize for cancer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3oDtgBzMJE
Comment by Daniel — 01.15.08 @ 6:19 pm
Don’t worry, nobody is sorry for JACK! They aren’t sorry for the apartheid system they affectionately call Jim Crow, either. They aren’t sorry for using and abusing black labor to amass the wealth that they are still living on today. They aren’t sorry for cheating sharecroppers, they aren’t sorry for disenfranchising American citizens and subverting the Constitution; they aren’t sorry for the Peon labor system; they aren’t sorry for the Black Codes; they aren’t sorry for insuring the lives of slaves (as long as the money went to the white slaveholder), while saying free black men and women were uninsurable; they aren’t sorry for red lining your property and not giving black veterans of WWII the same federal housing loans that they gave their white counterparts; they aren’t sorry for anything. It’s an empty apology.
Comment by Ron — 01.17.08 @ 6:03 am
We are amongst the least racist countries ever. We had hundreds of thousands die to stop slavery. Islam had slavery for longer than us. In the history of the world, only Britain and the U.S. had huge efforts to stop slavery. Celebrate the West. If we denigrate the West - the only culture to stand up against slavery - and it falls, slavery could well come back. Instead of humiliating our country, we should celebrate being the least racist and most anti-slavery culture ever. We should celebrate Western Abolition month!
http://www.culturism.us
Comment by John Press — 01.20.08 @ 3:45 am