The Bridge: In The House and "House Niggers"
After
watching a recent Black comedy show (without finding a d**n thing funny),
I thought it appropriate for Blacks to get a brief history lesson.
Once upon a time in slavery days, Blacks were separated into two main
groups—those who worked in the Field and those who worked in the House.
Typically, the slaves in the big house drew the favor of the slavemaster.
Some would go out of their way to gain that favor, even if it meant
demeaning themselves and/or their family.
When uprisings were organized (yes, some slaves actually got together and
kicked Massah’s ass, even though many were summarily attacked and
killed), or escapes planned (contrary to historical reports, we didn’t
just sit around and wait for good ol’ Abe), the House
Niggers would often gather information and report to Massah, in order
to capture the favor of the slave master.
House Niggers would
even take up the beating of other slaves to show Massah that they were
indeed “good Niggers.”
Typically, House
Niggers would do anything and everything to gain the favor of the
slavemaster, while Field Niggers did all of the hard work and were
generally the only ones to stand against slavery.
Malcolm X often spoke about House
Niggers and their self-effacement, explaining that if Massah would
talk about his sickness, the House Nigger would ask: “We sick, boss?”
But somewhere along the way, people stopped talking about House
Niggers and Field Niggers as though they ceased to exist.
Now, we hear elitist Blacks talk about poor Blacks, as if they are the
problem. But poor Blacks are not the race’s problem. Our problem is our
image and our image is in the hands of politicians, criminals (who are not
all poor), athletes and entertainers, including comedians who are live on
stage, making people laugh AT us.
My contention is that there has been a diminishing of pride in our race,
because even we are sucking up the mostly horrid images of us in the
media. This is the precise reason why we are in such poor shape.
If there were more pride left in our race, House Nigger comedians would
not be laughed at by us, they would be chastised. We would not pile into
Def Comedy Jam, or any other modern Minstrel show to laugh at ourselves
and/or our culture, and half of the House Nigger comedic actors with ample
work would be working in enmity of their own people.
If there were more pride left in our people, no one would hate me for
writing these words.
Here are some examples of House Nigger comedy and why it is dangerous:
DL Hugely tells a joke about the difference between whites and Blacks on
break at work. His joke has a typical punchline for Black comedy. He says
that whites do what they are supposed to do, but when Niggers go on
break—they break.
Chris Rock jokes about how there is a difference between Blacks and
Niggers and proceeds to tell the world that he hates Niggers. The audience
cracks up laughing, but the problem is that the white man in the back of
the audience is vice president of the company you work for and he won’t
promote you because HE ALSO believes there’s a difference between Blacks
and Niggers and he thinks YOU may be just like that Nigger Chris Rock.
Still funny?
The argument that House
Niggers, their advocates and apologists use when defending their
self-effacing comedy is that whites also clown themselves and their
culture. That argument fails because whites don’t have an image problem.
Blacks do. Moreover, no one has the ugly history with film and television
that Black people have.
Our relationship with film and television has always been a dicey
proposition at best and derogatory at worst. It began with historically
revisionist stories rife with negative images of Blacks found in the
“classic” Birth Of A Nation.
The relationship deepened with comedy relief icons like Stepinfetchit,
Buckwheat and Rochester, all of whom used to make “Massah” laugh and
feel safe by bucking their eyes when scared, talking in slow, silly
monotones and otherwise showing that they were completely without
intelligence and no danger to the white man.
The image of Black women were hardly safe with visions of the “mammy”
(the obese, motherly, often overly strong darkie who would attack her man
and neglect her own children, but lay down her life to protect little
white kids) being perpetuated by Butterfly McQueen, Aunt Jemima and
Sapphire.
Harmless, silly Blacks from Jimmie Walker and right on into Martin
Lawrence, The Wayans brothers and nearly every popular black comedian
today are bringing negative images from the early days of entertainment
into the new millennium, while pretending that they are doing something
new and revolutionary.
There is very little difference between the eye-popping buffoonery of
Stepinfetchit and the bulging white-eyes of Chris Tucker, Martin Lawrence
and Bernie Mac. There is very little difference between the horrible image
of Butterfly McQueen or Aunt Jemima and those fat loud women on “The
Parkers.”<br>
Once upon a time, most of our people would frown upon negative images like
these. Today, most of us think they are funny.
These comedians are demeaning the image of Black people, but ignorant
people will attack me for speaking about it. I will take the heat, because
I know that Black people have an image problem.
If there were no image problem, then some of the most prominent African
Americans would not be so anxious to distance themselves from the
experience.
The point here is that not everyone is all that happy with being Black.
The reason why is that being Black in America has been marketed as the
worst thing to be. Period. That marketing has been so effective, that even
some of us accept it, which is why we changed our label to African
American.
The conundrum is that being Black and the Black experience have been
diminished because of the antics of House
Niggers, yet House
Niggers are the first ones to rail against Black people, targeting the
most powerless of us.
In fact, some of the worst crimes perpetrated against Black people are
perpetrated by other Blacks. The charge against Affirmative Action was
lead by a House Nigger (Ward Connerly), sorry poets passing for rappers
push fake gangsterism as well as abject materialism to our youth, and do I
even have to evoke the racial crimes of Clarence Thomas?
It’s late in the day for any Black person to be acting like a coon to
entertain white people and get a paycheck.
Let’s not be fooled. House
Niggers are alive and well and causing our people a great deal of
misery.
Are you in the house?