I declare that for the next four years, linking monkeys with the Obama administration is off limits! It is a "Nipsey Russell-Gong Moment" for me. That is, it just doesn't feel right. I shouldn't be forced to get into arguments about when it is ok to associate monkeys with anything that has to do with Blackness versus when it is not. Spare us all--just leave monkeys out of it.
What is a “Nipsey Russell-Gong Moment?” Three decades ago, the great entertainer Nipsey Russell was a guest judge on The Gong Show. On one episode, a White male ventriloquist appeared as a contestant. His dummy was white, but he (inexplicably) sloppily painted it brown, hence, it looked a bit like blackface. As the man told bad, though not racist jokes, Russell gonged him. Russell explained that he gonged the man because something just wasn’t right. Sometimes things just feel wrong. If you get that feeling, don’t doubt yourself. Just gong ‘em!
No comments:
Post a Comment