... the many articles over the last 20 years like this new one in Slate are pretty unintentionally funny:
I particularly like the picture of Kanye West trying to look tough.
Does this Purple Mink Make Me Look Gay?
The rise of no homo and the changing face of hip-hop homophobia
By Jonah Weiner
I particularly like the picture of Kanye West trying to look tough.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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36 comments:
No way this'll make it by Komment Kontrol.
That's not Kanye trying to look tough, Steve - that's Kanye hearing the news that his mother's black plastic surgeon killed her.
I'll bite - what's the joke?
What a typically b.s. Slate article. So his argument is by saying "no homo" that rappers doth protest too much? I think Mr. Weiner doth think too much. Sometimes a straight is just a straight.
"But the term functions in a more complicated way than a simple slur."
I wonder how many other slurs would get such treatment. For instance, maybe hiphop's constant use of "bitch" is really a coded feminist argument used to undermine male-dominated hiphop culture and...oh, whatever.
I don't get it.
Does the Ashkenazi IQ advantage really explain the, what, 90 -95% Jewish authorship on Slate? Or is something else going on?
That Slate article is so convoluted I lost the track of what the author was trying to demonstrate. But then it's about rappers, so who cares?
This reminds me:
"Symbol of Unhealed Congo: Male Rape Victims"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/world/africa/05congo.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=the%20congo&st=cse
Alright, once I get the joke... but I don't.
Is the joke that blacks are by definition not intolerant, so the challenge for the lefty journalist is to prove that what appears as intolerance to the unwashed masses is obviously a clever, new kind of tolerance once you become enlightened? Or is it simply that homosexuality is usually associated with soft, white culture and its OK for blacks to hate whites?
In the Bay Area, there's a self-consciously hip white radio host married to a black woman, who diversifies an otherwise all-sports format by extolling eveything hip-hop. He continually uses the term "down-low" to mean nothing more than hushhush, apparently unaware that in the black community its only use is to connote the occasional cross-over into gay sex.
It's always amazing to see liberals twist themselves into pretzels trying to maintain that
1. hip-hop is somehow high art, or morally equivalent to anything in the white world, or is remotely aligned with liberals values, or, for that matter, is anything other than the guttural animal will-to-power of their brown militia allies.
2. how elements of reality they don't want to acknowledge (i.e. islamic terrorism, the displacement of white people in America, or the "'down-low brother,' a closeted black figure often demonized as a disease-spreading boogeyman") only exist in wrong-thinking people's "anxieties" and "fears", and not in real life.
3. that normal heterosexual masculinity has all sorts of barely restrained gayness just waiting to burst forth. In fact, I think that one of the biggest errors people make in politics is to assume that people, whatever they look like on the outside, must feel the same way they do on the inside. Lesbian feminism studies professors think that other women must feel just as masculine as they do on the inside, and so wear skirts heels and makeup not as an authentic self-expression, but just as some sort of approval seeking and capitulation to fear. Stormfronters seem to assume that other white folks would feel the same way as them, if they were truly honest with themselves. And, most notably, NPR-listening, Volvo-driving, Starbucks-sipping, weekend-away-vacationing, enlightened-view having, high-achieving white professionals believe that ghetto blacks and barrio latins have an NPR-listening, Volvo-driving, Starbucks-sipping, weekend-away-vacationing, enlightened-view having, high-achieving professional inside of them, just yearning to get out - if only society would just locate and punish the residual Bull Connors lurking about creating institutional racism, and we would all learn to be more "inclusive". But nowhere is this error more glaring then when wimpy feminized white boys like Comrade Weiner assume that underneath a black buck's bursting-with-testosterone exterior (which is, you know, just a social pose) is probably a man who feels just as feminine as they do.
(and I also of course enjoyed Weiner Dawg's college-intro-to-sociology writing style (i.e. "Many have decried no homo as depressingly retrograde ...", "As society becomes increasingly gay-tolerant ..."). I mean, jeez, you could get a computer to write this stuff : "Many have suggested that the oppressive conservative-dominated modern society should be more tolerant.").
When white kids are raised by their mothers, they turn into crossdressing nancy boys, or at least a nontrivial percentage do, so my theory goes.
Why doesn't the same happen with blacks? More testosterone? Teh ghey is more taboo in the black community? Nature and nurture?
I'm seeing gayer, frankly, white kids these days, and I have to link it to more of them growing up without their father in the house. Yet it doesn't seem to be the case (Kanye West would be an example to the contrary, granted) with blacks.
Hmmm.
The double standard between blacks and whites, vol. MCMLXIII: When Dana White of the UFC went on an invective laden tirade a couple of months ago and used the word "fag", the gays went hysterical and he apologized like the corporate whore he is.
Rampage Jackson, just last week, was trash talking another fighter and said:
"Let me know that you’re a fighter so we won’t have the same problems like King Mo over here.Cause King Mo would be half cool if he didn’t have those gay ass. nipple rings & didn’t talk so much!"
Nobody even blinked, no sponsors threatened boycotts, no subsequent apology.
Chris Rock famously observed that no white person would switch places with a black man. That may have been the case 10 years ago, but today I'm not so sure; if being black means being able to dry hump female reporters and use politically incorrect language without having to apologize then call me Tyrone and pass the Colt 45.
I don't get the joke, though, but has any Jewish person in world history ever criticized a black guy, ever? It breaks down like this:
Jewish sportscaster: cool.
Black athlete: cool.
Jewish sporstcaster covering black athlete: decidedly uncool.
I don't know how far back it goes, all I know is that you couldn't have pried Cosell off Ali's nutsac with a crowbar and it's been that way ever since. It's a real problem, it makes Sports Illustrated unreadable these days, they just can't bring themselves to criticize the Terrell Owenses no matter how distastefully they act.
Weiner's piece leaves the same flavor in my mouth (shurely a salty one! - ed.) in that blacks being a slightly different flavor of anti-gay but still anti-gay moves him to applause.
trey: "Is the joke that blacks are by definition not intolerant, so the challenge for the lefty journalist is to prove that what appears as intolerance to the unwashed masses is obviously a clever, new kind of tolerance once you become enlightened?"
Bingo! I was going to say the same thing, but you've already said it better than I could.
The article is too clever by half. "No homo" sounds like something my friends and I would have laughed our asses off at as freshmen in High School. For grown men to say it in conversation, that's just... well, funny.
No wonder all the blacks voted yes on Prop 8! We forgot to add "No Homo" to our "No on 8" materials!
"1. hip-hop is somehow high art, or morally equivalent to anything in the white world,..."
Well, if Carl Sandburg is "morally equivalent to anything in the white world" so is hip-hop because they are both poetry when you get right down to it.
"I'm seeing gayer, frankly, white kids these days, and I have to link it to more of them growing up without their father in the house. Yet it doesn't seem to be the case ...with blacks.
I've noticed this also, however, I feel that the ratio of latent homosexuality in "the black community" probably brings the two even.
Personally, I feel it is either chemical (clorine, floride int the water, steroids in the beef etc.) or simply evolutionary.
I went to a junior high school campus last year and was abosolutely floored by just how many of the white boys looked "gay" if not just unbelievably soft. I would say 25%. The WHITE guys I went to school with would have beaten the shit out of them every day.
"That may have been the case 10 years ago, but today I'm not so sure; if being black means being able to dry hump female reporters and use politically incorrect language without having to apologize then call me Tyrone and pass the Colt 45."
From the looks of that video to which you are referring, and the broad's reaction; being black meant being able to wet hump female reporters after the interview also!
Uh oh! come to think of it, this young man just forced me to post an IWUI* Enjoy!
*(Instant White man's Ulcer Inducer)
He continually uses the term "down-low" to mean nothing more than hushhush, apparently unaware that in the black community its only use is to connote the occasional cross-over into gay sex.
Hush-hush was the original slang meaning for "down-low". That usage predates the closeted gay sex meaning. Undoubtably the second meaning was derived from the first.
If DMX could read, he'd undoubtedly kick Weiner's ass for what he wrote about him here.
To Ian,
I just have to say-- you nailed it. Wonderful post.
Truth said,
"Instant White man's Ulcer Inducer"
Ulcers are caused by helicobacter pylori. Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren won the nobel prize in 2005 for dispelling the myth that ulcers were psychosomatic in origin, but instead caused by germs.
Last week, while reading up on the Gates imbroglio, I read his daughter Elizabeth's blog entries at thedailybeast.com. She has one titled "Does Kanye Dress Too Gay?" which covers the history of black entertainers who dress flamboyantly: Prince, Eddie Murphy, Dr. Dre, Prince, Little Richard, etc.
Sadly, the attractive, barely-black Elizabeth Gates is another example of Steve's thesis that political correctness makes you dumb--she has nothing unpredictable to ay about anything. However, her post has a great shot of Kanye and his entourage looking like the cast of the Queer Eye show.
One of her commenters claims that black homophobia emanates from jailhouse culture:
"To survive in jail (a far too common challenge for black males nowadays), one must continually project a stomp-down-hell-no opposition to homosexuality, brook no quarter with anyone who even looks like he might have a more 'liberal' view of it, and never draw attention to one's self, except to show folks you will not be messed over."
That makes some sense.
--But nowhere is this error more glaring then when wimpy feminized white boys like Comrade Weiner assume that underneath a black buck's bursting-with-testosterone exterior (which is, you know, just a social pose) is probably a man who feels just as feminine as they do.--
Well said.
And yes many of today's white boys are complete wimps. They are a pathetic lot. There is definitely some degree of hypogonadism in today's male youth.
Check this study for population level declines in testosterone. The graph 2/3 down the page illustrates the problem.
http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/newscience/reproduction/2006/2006-1210travisonetal.html
"That's not Kanye trying to look tough, Steve - that's Kanye hearing the news that his mother's black plastic surgeon killed her."
A mere distinction without a difference.
"Ulcers are caused by helicobacter pylori...."
I read up on Misters Marshall and Warren and I also came up upon this interesting fact on Wikipedia:
"Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren were also finalists for the nobel prize in 2007 for dispelling the myth that internet one upsmanship disguised as neutral shared information was not as previously considered, caused by a high IQ, but rather by a lack of attention during a subject's formative years."
DON'T TRY ME SON, I WAS PEDDLING PEDDLING SNARK BEFORE YOU COULD PISS WITHOUT WETTING YOUR LEGS!!1
(just kidding bro, thanks for the info.)
Truth:
"hip-hop... [is] poetry when you get right down to it."
Sure it is.
http://www.snacksandshit.com/
It's depressing enough when partisans insist that Maya is a poet, but rappers? Good grief.
The video clip of UFC fighter "Rampage" Jackson linked to in this thread by the commenter Truth, and the life and death of George Sodini, tells you all you need to know about the sorry state of our society.
"DON'T TRY ME SON, I WAS PEDDLING PEDDLING SNARK..."
Snark is *very* highly correlated with homosexuality...
Truth! I never would have suspected it! You black guys really are good at keeping it on the down-low, hrmph.
Dana Stevens is the token minority over at Slate. I did like Dan Gross and Tim Noah both complaining about goys and their summer cabins, suggesting there is something affected about a summer vacation home. Actually, some people do like to get away from the city . . .
"The video clip of UFC fighter "Rampage" Jackson linked to in this thread by the commenter Truth, and the life and death of George Sodini, tells you all you need to know about the sorry state of our society."
And if that doesn't do it, you bringing up two horny young people having fun in the same sentence with a brutal murderer just about does.
Interesting that Slate apparently has money to waste on crap like this.
Zylonet -
OT, but I love this closing line in that link you provided:
"It would be unwise to dismiss these reports as mere statistical aberrations because of the potential threat these trends-- if confirmed-- pose to the survival of the human race and other living residents of our planet."
Yes, merely worrying about the survival of the human race would be speciesist!
Every day, in every way, we're getting worse and worse...
subcommandante dave,
down-low brothers are responsible for the rise in AIDS cases among black Americans.
Time spent behind bars seems to have something to do with a change of proclivities, hell even The Wire, acknowledges this.
yo bob
It's always amazing to see liberals twist themselves into pretzels trying to maintain that hip-hop is somehow high art, or morally equivalent to anything in the white world, or is remotely aligned with liberals values, or, for that matter, is anything other than the guttural animal will-to-power of their brown militia allies.
Though I've been AWOL from the popular music scene for quite a while now, it is my impression that rap is now so dominant hipster whites do not even bother justifying the obsessive amounts of time they (in typical white, nerdy fashion) devote to analyzing it and then integrating its "lessons" into their other high-cultural pursuits.
A Slate article on the hermeneutics of no homo? I'll see that and raise you a Foreign Policy article which uses Jay-Z to explain the subtleties of American soft power:
http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/07/13/jay_z_vs_the_game_lessons_for_the_american_primacy_debate
As someone who's been out of the loop for a few years now and away from NY for a decade, I've got to ask: does "that's homo" still exist as the other side of "no homo"
You see, it used to be that if someone said something like, say, the "You've got beautiful balls" from the article, someone else might say "that's homo" and other people would laugh at it/them. The "no homo" was self-immunization to a "that's homo" charge.
I remember one time in 95 or 96 that, in the middle of a class period, one of our students from Harlem ran out of his class into the hallway and spun around on his side (Homer Simpson-style) yelling "That's homo! That's homo!"
Never did learn what someone said to set him off.
So when you say, "when you get the joke", Steve, do I take this to mean that rappers are exactly like other men in the entertainment industry - that is, about ten times gayer than the populace at large?
"In the Bay Area, there's a self-consciously hip white radio host married to a black woman, who diversifies an otherwise all-sports format by extolling eveything hip-hop. He continually uses the term "down-low" to mean nothing more than hushhush, apparently unaware that in the black community its only use is to connote the occasional cross-over into gay sex."
Are you joking? "Down low" did originally mean "hush hush." The gay connotation came later.
Are the commenters here really that clueless about slang?
Greenrivervalleyman -
Hip hop is for white proles - both liberal and conservative. I don't know any upper middle class white liberals who listen to rap on a regular basis. It's funny - but the most liberal artsy SWPLs tend to avoid hip hop like the plague and listen to indie rock, which is as white as you can get. When liberals do listen to black music it's usually from Brazil or Jamaica or Cape Verde, or maybe African Worldbeat, i.e. "safe" black music that no black American ever listens to. At some level SWPLs recognize that hiphop culture - with its sexism, love of violence, and materialism - is spitting in the face of liberal values, so the SWPLs choose to ignore it or enjoy it "ironically."
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