Leslie Jones' skit on SNL wasn't funny past the part where she asked the host who he would rather have with him if he walked outside and there were some gang members out there. Even that part, the 'I-need-a-big-black-woman-to-help-me-with-these-gangsters' message, was teetering the line. Beyond the point where I personally did not find any of it funny, it was also inappropriate for a number of reasons that I believe Ms. Jones (not as a star, famous person, role model, comedienne, or even a black woman but as a human being) should have taken into consideration before she slid her chair behind that desk.
1: Clivin Bundy just said the same thing she said. Sure, his words were different but the sentiment was the same. The idea being that something, anything that black people went through as slaves, is better than our current condition. It doesn't matter whether it is said by a white man or a black woman, being a slave will NEVER be better than being free.
2: Unless she has been living under a rock, Ms. Jones undoubtedly has heard that hundreds of little black girls have been kidnapped in Nigeria and are suspected to be (right now, today, as you read this line) raped continuously and daily. To compare 'master' wanting to rape you or allow/permit/force other slave hands to rape you to being "wanted" is disgusting and despicable.
3. I have read quite a few people who support Ms. Jones by stating, "we do not get angry when members of our own race call each other Nigga and degrade women in rap songs and shoot each other and don't care about getting their education." To those people I would say two things, first you're stupid-I learned in kindergarten that two wrongs don't make a right, have you not had that lesson yet? Second, get yourself a new group of friends, no one in my circle thinks it is ok for black people to call each other 'nigga', no one in my circle celebrates women being degraded, no one in my circle shrugs at black on black crime and everyone in my circle believes that continuing to educate yourself-either formally or informally-is crucial to self-preservation and self-improvement.
4. As Ms. Jones said, as a comic it is her job to take things and make them funny. One would think that, as part of her job, she would weigh and determine whether something CAN be made funny. I would venture that, no matter how hard you tried, a grown man raping a young child so hard and so often that their intestines stick out of their anus, can not be made into a joke. I am going to go out on a limb and say you would be hard-pressed to find an audience that would find a joke about 9/11 or the bombing at the Boston Marathon funny. Sure, you CAN make a joke about anything. That doesn't mean you SHOULD.
5. Ms. Jones made herself (and, unfortunately by extension with other races who have no or little interaction with black people, US) look like a fool. She, for the time being, has become the First Lady of Coonery. If I could only say two words to Ms. Jones, they would be "Willie Lynch". I highly doubt Ms. Jones truly believes she would be a hotter "commodity" as a slave than she is now but she still put the idea out there. I challenge you to read Mr. Lynch's letter, let your heart and mind resonate with these two lines:
"You know, language is a peculiar institution. It leads to the heart of a people."
"...being a fool is one of the basic ingredients of and incident to the maintenance of the slavery system."
Sigh. Let's cut out the foolishness people.
Until next time,
Be blessed, be careful, never consent and never confess.
~LT
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