Why Can't You Take a Joke, Bitch? Part 2

The Chinese Freestyle Rap videos use a historically black form of music in order to mock Asians. There's a blackface intersection and parallel.

In the 03.26.07 addictedtorace.com podcast, guest speaker Harry Allen (AKA Media Assassin and close collaborator of Public Enemy) calmly and succinctly defines his view on minstrelsy. This is spoken in response to the recent rash of college "gangster parties", incidents where predominantly White party-goers dress in accordance to Black stereotypes in the media, such as painted face, buckets of fried chicken and artificially enlarged pants. I think what he said is perfectly adaptable to this instance, because DiCamillo's 'Chinese Freestyle' is essentially a minstrel show at the expense of Asian people.

The following is a paraphrase of Harry Allen's comments on the podcast on the subject of these degrading parodies of black identity:

I think that what Black people want most from White people is the elimination of White supremacy, and anything short of that is really just minstrelsy, in a manner of speaking. And what those parties and all that play represents to me is 1) making fun of Black people, which is part and parcel of domination, of belittling, making fun of people you dominate. And 2) a tremendous absence of will and courage to actually do right, to, instead, delay justice by having fun -- by more or less just goof off.

Allen continues:

... then they have to scream out, 'Why do they hate us?'
(answer) they hate YOU because YOU are hateful -- hate-filled!'

But, because it is all play to you, when the boomerang comes back around, you're shocked when it hits you in the head.

Allen then concludes:

...I think that a lot of the White kids who do this 'may not know better,'... (but) that's not an answer in and of itself. That those kids 'do not know better' is a huge indictment on them, and on the surroundings and the world that we are building... So, what kind of gift are you giving to your children? What kind of world are you asking them to inhabit when this is the pollution you produce-- when this is the pollution of character and of mind that you produce?

When told that the party organizers/offenders claim that they are not mocking Black people, but instead are mocking the MEDIA PORTRAYAL of Black people, Allen gives the following snappy response:

So I would say, 'when you are (actually) mocking Black people, what would you do differently?