This Kid Is My Hero

For real. Period. (h/t Tiger Beatdown)

Class is in session, and it’s being taught by a ten-year old.

How To Ruin What Should’ve Been An Amazing Freestyle

[Trigger Warning: This is about more than just Hip Hop]

This should have been amazing. You have DJ Premier, arguably the best DJ to ever live; you have Mos Def, Black Thought, and Eminem, three incredibly talented Hip Hop artists; but leave it Eminem to ruin the whole thing with a rape joke.

“My dick is so big if I add another inch to it, you would swear when I raped you that you was actually into it”

Appalling.

If you think I’m being nit-picky and wondering how I can say that one line ruined the entire freestyle, you will notice that it’s that line out of his entire freestyle that gets a “whoo!” It’s this celebration (and implicit endorsement) of rape jokes that contributes to terrible incidents like this, where a 15-year old girl was gang raped and beaten while as many as a dozen people stood by and watched. If you can’t see the connection, you need to be locked away in a dungeon somewhere never to see the light of day again because you are dangerous.

People Act Like This Is Surprising?

This isn’t much of a surprise at all, but since Boston has been on my radar of places that I may live one year from now, I took notice. It’s not like 1989 was that long ago. And as you surely remember, there was that thing over a black professor and white cop there recently.

(Yes, I know that if I chose my new home based on lack of racist asshats, I might as well plan on moving to Jupiter, but I can hope, right?)

Diary of Boston Cop Hints at Deep Racism

The legacy of the Boston Police Department’s ugly racial past is playing out behind closed doors and under seal in federal court as lawyers battle over an explosive diary written by a former head of the homicide division.

Retired Lt. Detective John Daley – who led homicide from 1985 to 1989 – scribbled his personal thoughts on murder cases and professional life within the department in the 1980s in a diary that includes sharp critiques of black officers and the black community, according to brief excerpts contained in court papers.

According to the records, filed in the Shawn Drumgold federal civil rights case, Daley wrote that the department was “getting the bottom of the barrel” as it recruited black cops in the late ’80s and early ’90s. He called the removal of two white homicide detectives involved in the controversial Drumgold investigation a “sacrifice to the black community.”

“I’m not interested in talking about it,” Daley said when asked for comment outside his Marshfield home yesterday afternoon.

Of course you’re not interested in talking about it. It’s because all the other racists have moved on to, um, subtle racism.

Random Nostalgia That Makes Me Happy

What’s Happening!

I’m Not a Racist. I Just Play One on TV

Good news, racists! Apparently White Supremacy Inc.™ will give you a get out of racist-asshat jail free card for having a picture of Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela on your business’ wall (and, you get to charge 700x normal rent on unimproved property if you can produce a dubious membership card to the NAACP!), even if you do something as mind-bogglingly racist as putting up a sign about President Obama nigger rigging health care in front of your bar.

Someone might want to inform dude that the NAACP buried that word back in 2007, so I imagine his membership has been revoked.

Let’s Make Fun of Black Women’s Hair for A Buck.

I’m catching up on my Google Reader today, and I see Melissa has another Assvertising post up about this gem of an ad:

Yep, that’s pretty much nothing but fail. No questions there. Then, I start reading the comments (I have avoided just about every comment section on every blog on the web for the last several months, so this is big thing for me) and see a link that Scott Madin has posted to the Sociological Images blog, which has yet another really messed up KGB ad:

Um, excuse me? Is this company for real? Did I just watch a commercial asserting that black women getting weaves don’t know what “natural” means, and of course, when they find out what it does mean, it means animalistic hair?

I don’t even have words for this. Regardless of your thoughts on weaves, you have to admit that this shit is foul.

**There is also, of course, the issue of Chris Rock’s movie, the lead-in to the offensive ad in question in the above linked post, which should be taken into consideration here. I’m not convinced that Chris Rock isn’t doing anything other than what the commercial is doing as well. That will be the subject of another post.

***On a completely unrelated note: Why would anyone use this service anyway? Why would anyone pay to find information that is freely available all over the internet (and judging from the commercials, you’d get bad information anyway)? From the handful of ads that I could stomach, everyone is using a smartphone, an iPhone or Blackberry, both which should have internet access. It’s clear which demographic they are aiming for. So the “away from the computer” argument just doesn’t hold. Who would pay someone a buck a pop for information that they can get for free as part of their phone plan? So yeah, the combination of the really offensive nature of these ads with the audience that they seem to be going for…is just odd.

These Links Are Made for Clicking (8 Oct, 2009)

A few things I read or watched today that made me happy:

> Chris Rock Pulls a Steve Harvey: Stop Stealing from Black Women > Acts of Faith in Love and Life

“Mini” Doctrine: A Case of Morals >> Ill Doctrine

Dodge City >> Tiny Cat Pants (*Part of a series of ghost stories all to be found under the tag All The Same Old Haunts)