rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

errr aint no sub about it

I didn't watch the "I'm Shithead" tosh segment but I'm really gonna be surprised if the subtext is "you're racist for enjoying this thing we put on national TV"

i didnt see it either but i don't think he really calls out the audience much - usually just the people who make the videos

@heyjeannie Casual racism is harmful and perpetuates negative and outdated stereotypes? Impossibru! #altreddit

has anyone here interacted with this piece of media that's been posted about for the last few hours

me watch 'shithead' one day

Hi, haven't checked in for a while but the Whiney angle that some dude extrapolated on is one I agree with completely. Going "whooa, this is a racial stereotype, good thing we aren't racists!" is pretty much the cheapest thing people are doing on tv.

I mean, other than america's funniest tosh.0

Going "whooa, this is a racial stereotype, good thing we aren't racists!" is pretty much the cheapest thing people are doing on tv.

can't OTM this enough. there was a time, not so long ago, when "ironic" mock-racism arguably had some real subversive power. this power was dependent on unacceptability, on genuine offensiveness. the shock and discomfort it generated could be used to call attention to pervasive racism that might otherwise go unmentioned.

once it became an ordinary part of everyone's comic arsenal, however, it lost this power and became a mechanism for the perpetuation and normalization of racist thinking. it no longer said "people are racist, and it's totally fucked." instead, it began to say "people are racist, this is what everybody thinks, and hey, what are you gonna do?"

which might be a good thing in certain regards, i dunno...

the "i'm not saying, i'm just saying some people might say" approach

thinking of writing a song called "Everybody Knows You're Racist"

"this is what everybody thinks"...?

i mean, obviously we're familiar with these stereotypes, but suggesting that people think they're anything more strikes me as a little off

contenderizer otm

I honestly think the tipping point for that was Chappelle's Show being a wildly sophisticated show that people were just too stupid to fully understand on the level it demanded.

there is a lot of OTM there; it's half of why Chappelle pulled the plug on it (the other half being "too much pressure, must smoke weed and play WoW")

uhhh, what?
I realize that Chappelle's Show dealt with these issues pretty intelligently but to call it "wildly sophisticated" is going to raise a few eyebrows

damn dude, how many eyebrows do you have

from wildly sophisticated posted frogbs

thinking of writing a song called "Everybody Knows You're Racist"

Imagining this to the tune of Jeff Buckley's "Everybody Here Wants You."

i mean it was definitely levels above a lot of what came after but there was still an awful lot of "white people derp derp derp, black people doot doot doot"

what do colombian people say?

I like how black people are inherently musical in frgobs's subconscious

As an Chappelle example from IRL, I knew someone parroting back the "itis" routine after a particularly big BBQ dinner. He honestly had no idea what the slang word really meant or what it was short for or what its history was—which is something Chappelle clearly expected from his audience—he just thought it was a funny way to say 'full of BBQ." When he had it explained, he was pretty fucking mortified.

Pretty sure that happened like 100 times a day on college campuses ca. 2003

http://www.photocase.com/stock-photos/38361-stock-photo-woman-green-eyes-near-frog-eyebrow.jpg

I like how black people are inherently musical in frgobs's subconscious

what the hell are you talking about?

I think for a lot of people Chapelle was being contemporary, but for a lot of people (and the target market of Comedy Central) it aimed high as far as audience maturity and experience. Not that a good cable audience would have existed, other than maybe a premium channel where the barrier to entry was higher and people would have to seek it out or rely on word of mouth. Instead, the same people who thought dressing up as Aunt Jemima for their drinking parties were watching.

Now the standard tv audience is doing this knowing nod "that's so racist, I'm not a racist" shuck and jive. That worked occasionally when you got the feeling the writers or performers were working from a post-racial stereotype angle and being ridiculous, but usually it's just lazy shorthand for "race humor is awkward, awkward is funny"

x-p did Chapelle say "the itis?" I remember it more from Boondocks

Yeah, 100% agree with everything that people are saying all day re: "I'm Shithead" which sucks and don't watch it if you haven't, I wish I didn't.

I do feel that this thread/ILX in general casts its net a little wide w/finding offense in comedy sketches, tho. Apparently two people on this board think Tim and Eric is minstrelsy? Whoa.

Chappelle had a fake commercial (starring Rashida Jones iirc) about a sleep aid for African-Americans called "Ribs" that worked by triggering "The Itis" (side-effects could include "mudbutt")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNh_mQo9fXo

(Not defending Tim & Eric in terms of "funniness"-- not my thing, really) xp

which commercial was Rashida Jones in? they are all kind of blurring together for me

(frogbs: have you looked back at your post and figured out what I was talking about yet)

they all blur together in my daydreams, and they are all amazing and star Rashida Jones

As an Chappelle example from IRL, I knew someone parroting back the "itis" routine after a particularly big BBQ dinner. He honestly had no idea what the slang word really meant or what it was short for or what its history was—which is something Chappelle clearly expected from his audience—he just thought it was a funny way to say 'full of BBQ." When he had it explained, he was pretty fucking mortified.

parroting terms that white people generally don't know the history of != "wildly sophisticated"

now i have chappelle's "i'm the black sheep the real black sheep, doodley doot doot doodley doo" song stuck in my head

the "skeet skeet" bit was pretty sophisticated

I don't know from itis.

(frogbs: have you looked back at your post and figured out what I was talking about yet)

you're reaching pretty damn hard, but someday you'll get there

Wait, what are we assuming "itis" is short for?

mh is white, btw

frogbs, dan was joking.

titis

As an Chappelle example from IRL, I knew someone parroting back the "itis" routine after a particularly big BBQ dinner. He honestly had no idea what the slang word really meant or what it was short for or what its history was—which is something Chappelle clearly expected from his audience—he just thought it was a funny way to say 'full of BBQ." When he had it explained, he was pretty fucking mortified.

i hadn't seen the sketch or the boondocks ep. what is 'itis' short for and what is its history?

i wasn't aware of 'the itis' having any racist subtext tbh

i think we're all about to learn something very interesting from whiney, or about whiney.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=the+itis

3rd def down

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
i seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I'm not really sure how it makes a show 'wildly sophisticated' if 90% of your white audience (and some % of your black audience?) isn't going to get a throwaway joke

Now the standard tv audience is doing this knowing nod "that's so racist, I'm not a racist" shuck and jive. That worked occasionally when you got the feeling the writers or performers were working from a post-racial stereotype angle and being ridiculous, but usually it's just lazy shorthand for "race humor is awkward, awkward is funny"

haha i cannot tell if mh is fucking with us by casually using "shuck and jive" in this way

The itis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The itis is a Caribbean term in Black American Vernacular English to describe a condition of sleepiness associated with eating meats and sauces, a real human phenomena known as food coma. The term "itis" or "The itis" actually derives from its racial(ist) connotation "*****ritis" with the racist word later being dropped as usage of the term came to the U.S. This word derives from slave owners trying to describe why slaves did not want to work after eating. After slavery was abolished, their replacements (the Indian "coolies"鈥攁nother racist term) did such work in order to appease the former slave owners.

The foods commonly considered to be soul foods are generally high in both fat and carbohydrates, and are thus more likely to induce sleepiness. The suffix -itis, while used clinically to describe an inflammation, has come in the public mind to refer to any medical condition, along with -osis. With the advent of modern popular culture and the popularity of black comedians in the United States, the concept of the "Itis" has moved beyond its provincial roots and has become fairly well known throughout American culture, and to a certain extent beyond.

[edit] The itis in popular culture
Comedian Dave Chappelle, on his program Chappelle's Show, featured a joke advertisement for a sleep aid specifically for black consumers known as "ribs," consisting of pork ribs cooked in barbeque sauce, explaining that it induces a state known as "the itis."
Aaron McGruder's cartoon program The Boondocks featured an episode where the grandfather opened a soul food restaurant named "The Itis" serving the Luther Burger. Customers would reserve a table and, following their meal, would rent naptime in a bed provided by the restaurant.

You see when any person take food the blood is diverted to the 21 feet of intestine, hence reducing the amount of oxygen to brain, hence the body compensates by stopping all physical activities so that vital organs receive blood & oxygen . So the best option is put the person to sleep, a normal physiological phenomena.

lol are you guys for real that you couldn't actually infer that

Itis??? This is a "thing" that is, like, A THING?!? Have never heard it in my life, just watched Chapelle skit and it's making like two iotas more sense but not much.

xxxxxxxxxp holy shit

had no idea (about 'itis' or the word it comes from)