Tag Archives: post-racial

post-racial slur survivor

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s_watermelon

its been two years since the NAACP officially “buried” the word nigger. deemed “the greatest child racism ever birthed“, nigger had a full funeral replete with a procession, a eulogy, and a rare sighting of a standing christine beatty to symbolically put an end to the power behind that word.

even before this strange act, post-racial bigots already put that word on waivers, realizing that you just can’t go around calling everybody niggers anymore (unless, of course, you’re ghostface killa or frank sobotka). in its place are dozens of terms, phrases, code words, epithets, and idioms; synonyms for “black” lingering around the american lexicon and causing more uneasiness and deferred discomfort than an ugly baby.

today, with your help, verysmartbrothas.com will begin to put an end to this phenomenon with our first ever installment of post-racial slur survivor

the champ will list 11 of his favorite post-racial racist code words and slurs, and we’ll decide in the comments which term will officially be voted out and buried in the plot next to nigger

1. communist/socialist

—although this coding seemingly surfaced overnight, america has a long and storied history of branding educated blacks as anti-american anarchists perpetually plotting towards the country’s demise (which we are...but thats besides the point.)

2. urban

—a term that’s become so synonymous with black that six months ago, a group of arkansas businessmen petitioned to boycott the entire city of little rock when hearing of plans to open an urban outfitters there, saying that the retail chain’s title “promoted crime and miscegenation”¹.

3. church groups (from trenton)

—just read and weep. or laugh.

4. inner-city

—am i the only one who’s felt that the connotation of inner-city doesn’t just suggest “they live in the city” but that cats live inside the city? like we actually live inside of stairwells, sewers, and streetlights and sh*t?

yea? ok, moving on

5. at risk

—although usually used by educators to describe certain school districts and neighborhood populations, “at-risk” itself is so ambiguous that it can be applied to basically anyone.  i mean, why can’t you describe a college freshman class as being at-risk even though the risk they’re facing is chlamydia?

6. thug

—although it originally derives from the thuggee’s of india, the term has become so racially charged that espn.com and other websites have actually begun to censor it out of the comments on it’s articles. we tried doing that here as well, but liz our moderation is racist

7. illegal/foreigner/muslim

—code words that serve as reminders for a bigots prevailing feeling that minorities are america’s mother-in-laws: needy, unwelcome visitors with bad food, strange hair, and gout

8. affirmative action/quota

—terms used by those conveniently forgetting that white women exist

9. regular/hard-working

—while these terms aren’t used to describe blacks per se, they are used to imply what blacks are not. a politician or pundit making a reference to “regular, hard-working americans” is basically saying “not niggers”.

the same could be said for “trustworthy”. but, since i don’t trust most of ya’ll niggas either, i can’t fault them for that one

10. n-word

—this isn’t really any type of racial code. i just really, really, really hate this f*cking word.

11. ghetto

—used when inner-city isn’t quite black enough to accurately describe “black”. its almost like it implies “no, not just black. really, really black. superblack. ultrablack. uberblack. so black that if you turn off all the lights, all you’ll see is a d*ck and some teeth”

people of vsb.com, vote for which term you’d most like to see buried next. remember, you can only choose one. also, since i know i haven’t covered them all, please feel free to mention any write-in candidates you’d like to nominate.

the carpet is yours and sh*t

¹i’m lying. admit it, though. you can totally see that happening

—the champ

“greens, please” the vsb guide to questions random whites probably shouldn’t ask

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flashback to the late 80′s:

an adolescence champ and his parents are at the harambee, an annual summer street festival in homewood. (for those unfamiliar with the burgh, homewood is basically pittsburgh’s version of compton, right down to the topography and the fascination with the color blue. there even seems to be a disproportionate about of cats there named “kane”) as we’re walking around, browsing african art and teasing ugly babies, an excessively earnest 40-something white woman approaches us. the young champ was initially taken aback by the fact that the excessively earnest white woman was dressed as if she was out hunting dinosaurs…

hey big guy. do you know where i can find some pigsfeet?
hey big guy. do you know where i can find some watermelon?

…too young to realize that this is usually how excessively earnest 40-something white women dress in the summertime.

anyway, the velociraptor gatherer eventually nears, extends her hand, and introduces herself. then, out of nowhere, she reveals her devious plot:

“hey“ she asks with enough sincerity to drown a mule, “do you all happen to know where i can buy some greens?”

being that america has supposedly entered this era of transcendentally post-racial (ha!) elephant walking, i’ve decided to devote a day to help our much, much lighter brothers and sisters out so that we can all happily join the mulatto making orgy.

you see, there still remains quite a few things that many non-blacks are unaware of, things that could possibly create unwanted friction and throat-punches at a time when we’re supposed to be coming together. today, we’ll examine the most prominent of these things, the questions you’re probably not supposed to randomly ask a black person under any circumstances.

i’ve included the “randomly” qualifier because context matters.

for instance, asking a cordial black co-worker about the history and current relevance of hbcu’s while you’re sipping frappachinos and shooting the sh*t in the break room? good!

seeing a grambling sweatshirt rocking black chick at the bus stop, and asking her if the food they feed you at black colleges makes your booty grow? bad!

basically, if you’re the lone white at an excessively hot and potentially violent inner-city arts festival, its probably not the best idea to approach a middle-aged black couple and their pre-teen son to ask them how to quickly procure greens, black-eyed peas, weed, chitterlings, or any other soulfood, because it’ll probably make them wonder (to quote my dad) “why, out of all the thousands of people there, did she pick us to ask about greens?? i mean, were we the greasiest, green-eatingest looking n*ggas there or something? sh*t, its not like they don’t sell greens at giant eagle!!“, and you don’t want black people thinking that you think they’re greasy, green-eatingest looking n*ggas.

so, good people of vsb, to insure that no “greens” questions ever happen again, lets all give all of our white brethren a chance to join into the country-wide multicultural coitus by making a list of all the questions that you’d probably be better off googling instead of actually asking a random black person.

—the champ