Look, their Security of the First World were dancers doing pseudo-militaristic dance steps while toting plastic toy guns. What were they going to do, squirt water on Whitey?
In the last 30 years, there have been quite a few musicians get praise far beyond any real musical worth, based on irrelevant sociological or political considerations. The Clash, for example, were an outstanding band, but did not begin to merit their slogan as "the only band that matters." Yet they were rushed into the Hall of Fame the first instant they were eligible, while Lynyrd Skynyrd languishes. Punk rock and descendents have been particularly rife with this kind of critical nonsense.…
Article comments
76 - Bob A. Booey
And who are "those same people," exactly? "Negroes"?
Let's be honest here about what you mean to say.
That is all.
77 - godoggo
Haven't read the other comments, but I do know what the signifying monkey is, learned it from an old book called Rapping and Styling out.
That said, we've seen this kind of crap again and again and again from Barger. It's a pattern, and an adolescent one at best - and I know that he's not chronologically an adolescent.
My pet peeve happens to be people who's pet peeve is political correctness, because, of course, the opposite extreme is so very much worse.
Little anecdote: when I was a kid I moved from a Black neighborhood to a lilly white one, and was suddenly confronted by all these vile little Bargers saying things like "I don't hate Black people, I just hate niggers." I tended to respond irrationally.
78 - uao
Public Enemy were great; I listened to It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back constantly; especially when running or working out. I didn't always like the politics, and I'd have loved to sit down with Chuck D and argue some of those songs with him. On other issues, he and his bud Flav were right on.
As music, it delivered fresh new punches, something I always want in new music.
Then when Fear Of A Black Planet came out, I listened to that one incessently. I'd still have the same arguments and offer the same praise in regards to that one.
I'll take 'em over Beastie Boys in a heartbeat, much as the Beastie Boys are OK in my book.
I lost touch with them after that; I moved overseas, discovered other music.
A few months ago I played them for the first time in maybe 13 years. Got me movin' round the house in an instant. Great stuff, worthy of its legend maybe even more so, even with the uneven quality of the lyrics. As music, it's great, and the lyrics are dead-on sometimes.
As for the debate on the language used in the post and replies, I think it wasn't a good idea, and enough people seem offended by it that it would be a mistake not worth repeating. But I do believe the writer didn't intend to offend. But I always think people need to consider the baggage of iffy words when they write, because words are all a writer has.
79 - Bob A. Booey
I'll paraphrase "race-baiting Negro" Malcolm X here:
I have much more respect for the racist wolf who lets you know he's against you than the sly fox who waits for you to fall asleep.
I have even less respect for unfunny, unlearned people who hide behind passive-aggressive race-baiting, self-proclaimed "satire" without moral foundation and concepts they're unfamiliar with to get a reaction. If you want to call black people "Negroes" and "monkeys" and criticize civil rights, go right ahead and defend it. Don't claim mock ignorance and surprise when people are offended and take weird positions to hint at a larger point you're afraid to come out and make.
Hyenas are scavengers, not predators. And you can't hunt, big boy. That much is clear to us all.
That is all.
80 - Al Barger
UAO, I'm all about Fear of a Black Planet, but I just do not see what was so great about Nation of Millions. Just not a memorable collection of songs at all.
Godoggo, that "I don't hate Black people, I just hate niggers" thing you cite- that wasn't me. If memory serves, that was Chris Rock. Take it up with him.
81 - JR
Note to self: do not use the term "negro".
Okay, got it. I must have missed the original memo.
Er... now whom do I write this check out to?
82 - Al Barger
How does this thing with the racial terminology work anyway? Do they have a special black folks meeting every couple of years where they change the pass words, and which words are proper and offensive? Then when Whitey uses the old word, they GOT him!
But moreover, how do the likes of Goddoggo get let in on the new lingo? Does he get to go to the meetings with Bill Clinton on account of their special exquisite sensitivities, being down with the Brother Man?
83 - Bob A. Booey
The UNCF was founded early in the last century, when that was the common usage, genius.
Yeah, that's right, black folks are just out to get YOU and deny you your basic right to be offensive and hateful and exclusionary. How dare they object to the name you call them! You're right to be afraid of them and make fun of Rosa Parks and call them "negroes." After all, they disagree with your childish words. And they killed Kenny!
They're just signifying, those monkeys.
They're all talk and can't back it up from behind their keyboards. Oh wait, that's ...
all.
84 - uao
Here's how I figure on the etymology and the 20th century usage preferences for terms for black people.
(I intensely dislike such words as 'black' and 'white' as signifyers of anything anyway, because I don't believe in the fundamental concept of race as a real thing -only people's misunderstanding of it is real- but that's a post for a different day, different thread)
The etymologies vis-a-vis "nigger" and "Negro" make sense to me in how they evolved. It also makes sense that "Negro" would therefore be looked upon as a suspect term.
What isn't clearly explained is who used "Negro" first as reference to black people? Was it a black or a white?
I suspect it was a term adopted by whites first as a means of classification. By the general Enlightenment of the Civil Rights movement, it became a term many of both colors saw as wrong; too uncomfortably connected to the epithet, and too much another example of whites trying to define what black is.
Some whites and blacks in some regions adopted "colored" for awhile, but again it seemed to suggest a difference from the norm, something that would only occur to a white.
After segregation ended officially in 1968, "Negro" and "colored" were still frequently used by well-meaning whites as well as racists.
In the early 70's (when I was a kid in a 60% black working class neighborhood in NY), I first started hearing blacks use "Afro American"; hairstyles were "Afros". This seems to me to be the first black attempt to redefine itself as part of a lineage with roots. This coincided with "Roots", the Panthers, the Women's Rights movement, the antiwar movement -all of which drew mixed groups of support-, and were the first to gain widespread usage among whites.
"Afro-" wound up not being the perfect term; it fairly screams 1970's, and it's a reduced form; in the 1980's "African American" was the te-tooled term, on par with "Irish American" "Italian American" "French Canadian" etc.
This gave the term equal footing. But it has its own drawbacks. I seldom refer to "Irish American" as its own distinct culture, nor do I routinely even use the term. I usually refer to 'my friend Tom', not 'my Irish-American friend Tom'.
Also, African-American makes some assumptions that aren't necessarily true; black people, just like white people and all people, all races, don't have a monolithic history. Some black people emigrated from Africa in the last decade or two, others ancestors were brought as slaves; are the two similar culturally? About as similar as a redneck and a yuppie.
Which brings us back to black and white, the terms I despise. I stick to music posts; I don't post cultural/social issues, others here are way better at that. But when race is an issue in my articles, I stick to "white" and "black" and "interracial" (i.e., the band was one of the first interracial bands to tour the south; the bassist and singer were white, the drummer and guitarist were white).
Some white people think this confusion of appropriate terms is too much bother to keep up with, or irrelevant, or a way of black people to annoy whites or something.
But it's not; it takes more than a generation or two to develop language. Given the history involved, we use the best possible words we have, and those words should come from the people they describe. And whites can be gracious for once by not grumbling about it. It takes time.
Is how I see it.
85 - Bob A. Booey
The 1960s and 1970s also saw "black" become a term of pride and self-identification.
There was no such thing with the colonial language of "Negro," which comes from the original French term for Africans that we now derive "nigger" from as well.
Blacks in this country came from all over Africa, but they're united in a diasporic way by a common legacy of struggle in this country.
And Al Barger understands none of it.
That is all.
86 - uao
TYPO: In the illustration of the band, one of those "white" should be "black", I'll let the reader choose either one.
87 - Michael J. West
Sorry, Al; despite my post today officially proclaiming Elvis as God (and He is, praise Elvis), the refutation on Trader Mike is pretty much right on.
It's also fair to note, for you AND Trader Mike, that Chuck has retracted his comments about Elvis and actually expresses respect for him these days.
88 - Michael J. West
Wow! I only just now realized that this is a two-year-old thread. I also saw it in the sidebar. Huh.
89 - Bob A. Booey
I love Elvis and Elvis loved black music.
Elvis wouldn't have liked this stupid piece.
That is all.
90 - Al Barger
Yes, Mike, Chuck D has significantly toned down his rhetoric as a more mature person. That's good, as I've also noted in another old column. I'll note, however, that it was not just that Elvis quote that annoyed me. In itself, it's just a minor point that wouldn't have been worth noting.
In fact, it was not primarily the Elvis quote, but the whole calculated way in which they played to every worst and least productive bit of racial resentment and paranoia in the black community purely as commercial schtick.
I spoke harshly here of Chuck D basically because I believe their cheesy radical chic was hateful, disreputable, and ultimately bad for the whole community of all colors.
Naturally, calling out this racial demagogue makes ME the bad guy. Imagine how impressed I am to see the silly white boys competing to show how morally superior they are to evil ol' Al, and to demonstrate their exquisite sensitivities to the plight of minorities- as if their baroque displays of empathy did anybody any bit of good.
91 - Michael J. West
And it wasn't the racial/political component that bothered me. (Everybody's entitled to their opinion, after all, and that means you're entitled to your opinion about other people's opinions.) Just the musical component.
Objectively speaking, there really was no other rap/hip-hop performer that had the impact and influence that Public Enemy had. You might personally like the Beastie Boys better, but in terms of importance...well, Eric Olsen is correct.
92 - Al Barger
Okay Michael, I've cooled a bit in the last couple of years on the Beastie Boys. I could at least halfway see if you rated PE over the Beasties.
But please don't tell me that you think they're musically in a league with either Elvis.
93 - LegendaryMonkey
Damn, that's a lot of comments. However, I had to stop when Al declared the Beastie Boys to be the greatest rap act of all time.
C'mon, Al. You have such a vast knowledge of music... so how do you pull statements like this out of your piehole?
Beasties good? Yeah.
BUT WU TANG IS FOR THE CHILDREN!
xoxo,
LM
94 - Michael J. West
Well, Al, seeing as how I declared Elvis to be the Deity today, it's fairly tough for me to put anyone else in his league.
As for the other Elvis--well, admittedly I'm less familiar with his work than I am with PE (I only have his first three), but I do tend to listen to PE more frequently...
95 - Bob A. Booey
Al, I'm not white.
These words fit your writing awfully well too:
"worst and least productive bit of racial resentment and paranoia [...] hateful, disreputable, and ultimately bad for the whole community of all colors."
If you had just called out Chuck D and said you don't like his music and politics, that's fine. But calling him a "Negro" and finding some convoluted way to call him a "monkey" without being man enough to be upfront about what we all know you were really saying shows you're far more reactionary than he ever was.
I don't like Chuck D, but at least he was making his stand against some of the most backwards politicians in the country who were employing race-baiting rhetoric to refuse honoring MLK. What's the point of your race-baiting? Who are you defending or standing with?
And I'll leave it to any reader of this stupid post to determine who the "silly" one is.
Have some courage for just once and answer me. Be accountable for your fears and empty words.
That is all.
96 - Bob A. Booey
And my "baroque displays of empathy" allow me to function in the adult world as an engaged human being with moral responsibility and regard for others. I'm able to influence people beyond trying to provoke them with passive-aggressive race-baiting, ill-founded prejudices, patently obvious insecurities and childish attention-seeking.
That is all.
97 - Michael J. West
Geez, Bob. I tend to agree with you politically (most of the time), but what's the deal with you filling your comments to Al with personal insults, then demanding a response from him?
No offense, but if you launched that kind of vitriol at me, I wouldn't respond to it either.
98 - Al Barger
Monkey, "WU TANG IS FOR THE CHILDREN"? Now you now that ain't right.
99 - Bob A. Booey
Personal insults? The dude gets outraged and insults other people who respond to his race-baiting. I'd say calling black people "Negro" and trivializing the use of "monkey" in reference to them in not one but TWO separate threads counts as a pretty serious personal insult more worthy of concern.
He doesn't respond not because he's offended but because he's afraid of me.
Go back to the old Cosby race discussion there where I had to educate our dear Senator and make his racially backwards arguments look silly. He's been afraid of debating me ever since.
That is all.
100 - LegendaryMonkey
Hey man, they said it, not me... at the Grammy Awards several years ago.
But I do love me some Wu Tang. "Triumph" is poetry, nothing more, nothing less.
Now ignore me and go stand toe-to-toe with BAB, because I want to see this argument played out. I've got popcorn.
101 - Bob A. Booey
What's even more comical is that someone who claims to be so out of touch that they still use "Negro" tries to pass himself off as some sort of expert on hip hop and Prince. Oh please. Which is it?
I welcome it, but I guarantee there'll be no going toe-to-toe. He evades and hides every opportunity he gets. He's a hyena in the jungle, not even good enough to be a signifying monkey. I'm way too alpha for him to argue with and he won't even defend his ridiculous words he wrote here with anything more than the limpest offering: "What good does all your empathy do, huh? Oh my God, they killed Kenny!"
That is all.
102 - Bob A. Booey
Let's see that "hawk" side, big man. Summon up all your courage like your hero the President and give us some tough talk right about now.
You cite Malcolm X approvingly. Well take his words to heart and respond when you've been called out, Senator. Show us what you really mean to say instead of hiding behind cheap jokes.
That is all.
103 - LegendaryMonkey
Poking with pointy sticks, I hear, is all the rage in schoolyard debate these days.
104 - Bob A. Booey
3rd grade conversation is all he responds to. Have you read anything he's written?
That is all.
105 - Viqi French
Trying hard to allow head-space for your opinion, but there are so many places where the "point" of P.E. seems to have shot about 500 miles over your head.
Here's why P.E. once dominated their corner of the rap market, and why they'll always be lifted in praise:
1. Their wild, piercing tracks were fresh to Black ears back then. No, the "music" may not stand the litmus test of time. But to judge an act on instrumentation and performance alone lacks depth.
2. Speaking the minds of disenfranchised, inner city youth was an essential echo in the Black Power movement. P.E. need not apologize for filling that void, giving voice to the little understood.
So basically, you've argued an irrelevant point. I don't want to say "P.E. wasn't about the music." Guess I'd just say you might expand your ideas about what makes music work. There's more to it than mere instruments and voice. Other currencies include soul expression, psychical communication, and even imagery (water guns though they may be - lol).
That these ingredients missed you is okay, but telling.
106 - Al Barger
Welcome Vigi, and perhaps you can enlighten me. I am open for correction. Perhaps you could break down for me a bit of knowledge on how "soul expression, psychical communication, and even imagery" are expressed in practice, where the artistic nuances are that I may well be missing.
Note however, that I'm not saying here that Public Enemy didn't make any good music. I reiterate that Fear of a Black Planet may be one of the top ten best ever hip hop albums.
My criticism is meta-musical, stuff that strikes me as cheap racial hucksterism, mere radical chic.
107 - gypsyman
Goodness me, I guess my P. C. meter must be malfunctioning, cause I hate to say it but I couldn't see anything racist in any of what Al said. At no point did her refer to any person as a monkey, he actually, as another comentator pointed out, showed an understanding of another culture that was suprising and refreshing for this day and age.
All I was going to comment on was the point about lack of feeling threatened at the concert. I'm not a rap fan, so I've never been to a gig by a rap act, but when it came to feeling like I was in the wrong place, albiet only a little, was at a Peter Tosh concert, when he sang, Black Man, and me and my buddy were two of very few pale faces in amongst a crowd of a couple of thousand.
We turned and looked at each other, and started to giggle, then went back to enjoying the show. Threat is in the ear and mind of the beholder, or like Al I'm just too stupid to know better.
peace and love from the nice moderate gypsyman
108 - Shark
Oops. Sorry, wrong folder. I was looking for the one where the Comanche dude equates Janet Jackson with a gorilla.
Peace, Boyz.
S
109 - Shark
By the way: for those interested in a critical analysis of RAP music from a white, self-proclaimed "hillbilly", Libertarian Senatorial candidate from Indiana, I found a thread where a Hassidic Jew from Tel Aviv is expounding on the qualities of barbequed pork rib joints in West Texas.
~Makes sense to me!
110 - Bob A. Booey
Where does he show understanding of "another culture," Gypsyman?
By having ill-informed opinions about rap music?
Quote ANY sentences Al wrote on this topic that show he has any appreciation for or understanding of black people, racial language, African literature, black culture or the struggle against prejudice.
That is all.
111 - Al Barger
Thanks Gypsyman. The thing is that in some quarters a white dude cannot significantly criticize ANY black person claiming any supposed racial grievance, no matter how specious or malicious. My criticism here is of a specific black man for specific statements and actions. This is of course exactly not racism.
Again, that PE/DU show was one of the best concert experiences I've had. They had some good acts all at their creative peak. We was all one nation under a groove doing "The Humpty Dance."
The faux Black Panthers stuff with the S1W dance troop worked really well as entertainment on the stage. It went with the agit-prop sound of their musical approach to make a most entertaining package, causing me to spend my money on more PE albums- exactly the point of the display.
But of course I wasn't taking their political message to heart. I recognized it for schtick, like the Clash or the MC5. I suspect that some young black guys, ill-educated in crappy government schools with poorly trained critical thinking skills, further encouraged to racial paranoia and victimhood from all directions might take stuff like this seriously, which is just not going to be good for them or any part of the community.
This did seem less likely however seen in the context of this concert, mixed in with the light pop of Kid N Play and the goofy Humpty Hump. Good times.
112 - Bob A. Booey
You can criticize art without going for cheap-shots. And your "criticize any black man and you're a racist" strawman argument isn't something anyone's actually said. It's typical evasion and deflection from an intellectually and morally unsubstantial writer.
You're racially backwards because of the language you use. It's a little odd that you take Chuck D to task for going after politicians who didn't want to recognize MLK, but your points about his music or his posing in concerts may be valid.
Your use of "Negro" and cheap, calculated misuse of the literary term "signifying monkey" as a title to get attention isn't valid.
It's stupid and offensive, much like your Rosa parks thread or your trivializing of calling blacks "monkeys" on the Native mascots thread. This is getting to be a disturbing pattern even for you, Senator.
That is all.
113 - Bob A. Booey
You say Chuck D is a poseur who can't back it up, but you continue to hide from your own words.
If you're going to race-bait, at least be a man about it.
Malcolm X would laugh at you. I laugh at you.
That is all.
114 - maroubra_boy
what that nigga said was true, jews are responsible for the wickedness on the planet
115 - mullatochic
Okay public enemy! Genius, pure genius. Someone who comments on Elvis as some great musician should be able to say why public enemy is what it is. They were people doing the right things at the right time, was Elvis any different. What makes public enemy so hot? They did it with their own style, their own lyrics, and they built themselves. Unlike Elvis, whose style can be traced to Jackie Wiilson, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard, not to mention the dance moves that can be cited back to the original black swing dancers of the early 1900s. He's been able to get away with the greatest the greatest robbery in history via this music business, only to be followed up by simply red and Milli Vanilli!
Now the Beastie Boys, I will say they did their thing in a major way, but one of the greatest; never that! I must agree with my man, Wu Tang forever! LOL
I'm out ya'll half gorilla, half mayonaise monkey! :+) How does that make you feel?
116 - Al Barger
Mullatochic, do ya gots a body hot enough to justify that sharp tongue? Enquiring minds want to know.
Now I grant that Elvis did not invent blues scales, nor appear entirely out of the blue with no form of precedent- though the things that he came from were half white, most notably Hank Snow.
However, Public Enemy did not entirely show up out of the blue either. James Brown comes to mind, for starters.
That's cool too- way to use your influences to make something new and different. But Elvis didn't go around being disrespectful like that to people- especially not gratuitously as in "Fight the Power."
As to being "half gorilla, half mayonaise monkey," I don't know. Half mayonaise monkey, half Kentuckian perhaps. Then again, the distinction between a gorilla and a Kentuckian might be tomato vs to-ma-toe to some less than carefully discerning folk. It's all good.
117 - eric daniels
For the white deniers and racial double standard types, here is some ditties from White America's favorite bands who have influenced Murder,Rape, and Mayhem amongst your youth. And this will be my last post on this site, as many of my Black friends have told me in the past and recently, "White Americans wouldn't know a double standard or truth if fucked them in the ass". I always thought 'your race' wouldn't know it If you spotted them the 'Double'.
big man with a gun
i am a big man
(yes i am)
and i have a big gun
got me a big old dick and i
i like to have fun
held against your forehead
i'll make you suck it
maybe i'll put a hole in your head
you know, just for the fuck of it
i can reduce you if i want
i can devour
i'm hard as fucking steel, and i've got the power
i'm every inch a man, and i'll show you somehow
me and my fucking gun
nothing can stop me now
shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot
i'm going to come all over you
me and my fucking gun
me and my fucking gun
Not to be Outdone Marilyn Manson
Get Your Gunn
goddamn your righteous hand
i eat innocent meat
the housewife i will beat
the prolife i will kill
what you won't do i will
i bash myself to sleep
what you sow i will reap
i scar myself you see
i wish i wasn't me
i am the little stick
you stir me into shit
goddamn your righteous hand
goddamn, goddamn (oh, lord)
goddamn, goddamn
pseudo-morals work real well
on the talk shows for the weak
but your selective judgements
and goodguy badges
don't mean a fuck to me
i throw a little fit
i slit my teenage wrist
the most that i can learn
is in records that you burn
get your gunn, get your gunn
get your gunn, get your gunn
pseudo-morals work real well
on the talk shows for the weak
but your selective judgements
and goodguy badges
don't mean a fuck to me
i am the vhs
record me with your fist
you want me to save the world
i'm just a little girl
pseudo-morals work real well
on the talk shows for the weak
but your selective judgements
and goodguy badges
don't mean a fuck to me
get your gunn, get your gunn
get your gunn, get your gunn...get
And never to be outdone welcome to the wonderful world of Nercophillia courtsey of Slayer
5. Necrophiliac
[Lyrics Hanneman/King; Music Hanneman]
Mortuaries, dead of night
My body starts to rise
In my mind the horror lives
To feel death deep inside
Relentless lust of rotting flesh
To thrash the tomb she lies
Heathen whore of Satan's wrath
I spit at your demise
Virgin child now drained of life
Your soul cannot be free
Not given the chance to rot in Hell
Satan's cross points to Hell
The earth I must uncover
A passion grows to feast upon
The frozen blood inside her
I feel the urge the growing need
To fuck this sinful corpse
My tasks complete the bitch's soul
Lies raped in demonic lust
[Lead - King]
Her stomach bursts the casket breaks
The seed has taken form
A writhing shape of twisted flesh
The Devil's child is thrown
Hungry for the smell of Death
He rules forbidden evil
Vengeance with a frenzied hatred
The bastard now must die
Lost souls of the dead
Form legions that burst through Hell's Gates
Death of one sacrifice
To avenge the raped corpse from the grave
Blood of one mortal man
The fire grows stronger within
Fate of a frenzied lust
Lucifer takes my dark soul
Down to the fiery pits of Hell
(Down to the fiery pits of HELL)
[Lead - Hanneman]
Now these songs may have inspired a grave robber or two or not, people have free will in this world (unless you are a black american)Or As Barger asserts If you are a young black person you can't discern between NWA's gangsta fantasies and the fact that some of these black kids may have dealt with police officers of all "races' but particularly white ones who have harassed them for even going into a store. Oh that's being a victim and we can't have amongst you WHITE P.C. ers. But I quess that's why Black People hate white american folks more. You see what you want to see. I bid U Adieu, and there is already a race war, It's called American Politics.
118 - Bethany
White Irish Catholic girl with Jewish boyfriend and 1/2 Jewish son thinks Chuck D is in top 3 of all-time hottest sexiest mutha-fuckers.