Comments

1
How about "inrage?"
2
Who cares? Yeah, I get why it's offensive. But again, who cares? Comedy is frequently offensive.
3
There is new outrage every week now, and it has more to do with the sped-up click-bait news cycle on the Internet. Racism is a serious problem in out culture and society, but going into outrage mode every week doesn't really fix the social and economic underpinnings of racism. It's all cosmetic.
4
"Outrage" works for me, because frequently that's what it is. The discomfort and ambivalence Kamau Bell expresses is a different thing altogether. He's conducting cultural criticism, and it's worth reading.
5
Great post, Dan. <3 Honestly. You saw outrage you didn't completely understand and listened and boosted the voice of someone (who is awesome) whose experiences are relevant to it. Exemplary ally work.
6
"Outrage" is by default the best word. Paul Constant hasn't written it so many times, it's burned in my Slog brain.
7
I watched the show live and thought Leslie Jones was great. I could sense the studio audience squirming a little, but her delivery was really strong and the bit was worth it. Some squirming is okay in comedy.
8
woah. her presence is awesome. I want to see more of her on snl!
9
That video was hard to get through.

I don't mean the slavery jokes, those were at least delivered with some degree of charisma. I mean that the rest of the segment was horrible.
10
SNL is still on? Why?

I must say, though, that they've been a lot worse than that particular Weekend Update the last couple years. If this is part of a trend, and they keep improving, I may have to start watching again.

As for the Leslie Jones bit, I didn't think it was particularly more unfunny, tasteless or embarrassing than say, watching SNL in the first place these days. I don't understand what all the excitement is.
11
how does this world of retards NOT see this as a direct response to the past few weeks headlines about slave comments and the nba??? There are more black people in prison TODAY then there were enslaved at the HEIGHT of [US] slavery! u fucking idiots. Your all blinded by your refusal to accept that modernity and civilization in general is progressively getting worse for EVERYONE, especially POC. Profoundly brilliant skit by the way.
12
"most black Americans today aren't slaves"

How many still are?
13
@12
Perhaps you could go to any number of BDSM dating sites, and start counting from there. Or quicker, ask Dan in the Savage Letter section. He'd be the guy to give a good rough trade estimate.
14
She's being judged for her rape jokes when Chris Rock wouldn't have? I don't see the clip as funny, and I don't think that's much of a defense. She started with a great premise - white people elevating Lupita Nyong'o is the equivalent of your grandma saying 'they sure have cute babies' - but the plantation jokes just don't work. Amy Schumer probably could get away with rapes jokes, but she would because they would somehow relate and be funny.
15
Bell’s take on this type of comedy sounds very similar to what happen when Dave Chappelle took a hiatus several years back. Chappelle said the final straw was that a white guy was laughing just a bit too much for the content of a joke he was telling. It sounds like this is the same concept of “not being able to relax” that Bell refers to.

Bell says the reason for that inability to relax around white people is historical slavery. In fact, he uses the pronouns “we” and “us” when talking about being “literally” watched by slave owners. If that really is the general feeling in the black population - that they believe white people still view them as slaves - it’s going to be a long time before things get better.
16
And Dan's comment about not feeling he even had the right to weigh in is good insight into the white perspective. This is definitely an issue black people need to deal with among themselves because white people would rather just forget slavery happen at all.
17
@16 Speak fer yourself, honky
18
Wow, everything up to the Jones bit was bad, high-school skit comedy bad. The Russian lady bit was embarrassing and derivative, What's next some Pollock jokes? Lets bring back Yakov Smirnoff - What a country!

As for the slave bit, context is key. I can't help thinking that it somehow is in context because of the recent Clive Bundy incident. What was unsettling about Clive Bundy wasn't so much he said it, but that he said it publicly. In the last few weeks people have been talking about slavery, so Ms. Jones' comments seem to flesh this slavery issue out in public again. Seemed like it was satire of Clive Bundy's comment.

This context is clearly different than Chris Rock's bit. He was speaking about black people to black people. White folks might laugh, but they weren't the main audience.

In contrast, I think Ms. Jone's bit was for white people. It was to make them feel uncomfortable. It was easy to dismiss Clive Bundy, but maybe not so easy to dismiss her point.

Seems edgy to me and possibly missed its mark, but not sure it was as out of context as the Salon piece indicates.
19
If that really is the general feeling in the black population - that they believe white people still view them as slaves - it’s going to be a long time before things get better.

Yep.
20
Jimmy the Greek is spinning in his grave.
21
I thought the bit was funny, but outrage and outrage at the outrage is probably coming from people just as lame as the same idiots on both sides of a fence that ruin everything

It's just as lame as both sides that were responsible for taking whether or not council meetings could open with a prayer, all the way to the supreme court.

It's not a one sided deal, it's the assholes on both sides, the ones who insist-- or worse --only insist because they know it pisses some other demographic off.

They are the problem

The problem is not the actions that were taken in the past, they are the actions taken every single day, by every asshole because there can always be a line drawn to distinguish wrong from right, no matter what idiots claim, the simplest way to figure it out is whether you can be honest about the situation, or whether you have to lie and manipulate to have what's right in your view predominate

Saturday Night Live would get a hell of a lot more leeway to say offensive things (although I didn't view it as offensive) because that is what they do, everyone knows not to take them seriously, or at least not to actually believe that SNL's evening news, is a real evening news

where one might be inclined to believe the shit they say, unfortunately, due to a rash of piss poor journalism, it's not just a biased point of view you'll hear

You have completely fabricated and bullshit "news" story which are always accompanied by video footage, because too few editors put their foot down and say no, to tabloid journalism

Please wait...

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