Joan Rivers "Crash" Moment
It's things like that really drive in Jeff Chang's statement about the movie Crash and how white people hande "color."
"The whole idea that you don't have to think about race until you "crash" into it is not what most people have the luxury of doing. And that is what white privilege is. White privilege is not having to think about race."
Can White Hollywood Get it Right?; Alternet, 7/19/05
Watch the Joan Rivers video, and here is the transcript provided by Jay just in case you ignored her blatant racism = of course rivers would never say she's racist - I bet she tips all of us colored folks very well.
"And of course we have.. ethnic guys. Hi, ethnic guys! Muchas gracias. Whatever. Arigato. They all look so alike, you know. And the main thing is, we're a mixed bag here. We have our Black person. I'm not sure what he does, but we are absolutely color blind here at TV Guide. Right, Black person?"
I think Jeff and the 2006 Oscars have coined a new meaning of a recycled word to add to the urban vernacular:
crash; v,
1. To break violently or noisily; smash. To undergo sudden damage or destruction on impact: e.g.Their car crashed into a guardrail. The airplane crashed over the ocean.
2. Ignorant person acts as if she/he suddenly understands racism when confronted with a "racist" situation with a colored folk that generates instantaneous climatic nirvanic enlightenment about racial divides. One then acts as if she/he truly understands how it feels to be non-white and experiences orgasmic compassion and empathy for colored folks. One also may find oneself all of sudden very comfortable talking about colored folks - like wow that black comedian really made us white folks laugh, or hey what's up you ethnic people, or it must be hard to be Asian, or Let me help you find your slavery roots, or I love black people - I have tons of black friends, e.g. Damn Joan Rivers had a "crash" moment.
Any suggestions on how to refine this definition?
Technorati Tags: crash, jeff chang, joan rivers, racism
posted by Tricia Wang 王 圣 㨗 @ 4:48 AM
1 Comments:
I'm sorry Tricia, I think it's tasteless but no more so than any other "edgy" comic, which we tend to forget she was for most of her career until being embalmed in wax 3 years ago. So I'm kind of torn how to take it, since I think there's a double standard for white people - it's like, why do people of almost any other race get to say almost anything but white people don't?
If it was Dave Chappelle or Margaret Cho saying the exact same words, it wouldn't be news-worthy and even probably just plain funny. So taking Joan Rivers' jokes as examples of her innate racism that happened to surface itself is a bit of a knee jerk racist attitude towards white people, isn't it?
I mean, who in their right mind would think of Morgan Freeman as a token black person at the Oscars? That's exactly the point of the joke.
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