boondocks on cartoon network

[Murphdogg]

not sure where to post this but my fav comic strip Boondocks is going to be cartoon network, anybody read the strip? seen the previews on adult swim?

[tamra]

Murphdogg,
I love the strip, one of 2 toons I still read. favorite Boondocks are a halloween strip where Riley goes "too bad, the game is to be sold, not told." when he was asked about what he meant about "imma get that candy, but I ain't gonna be no trick or treat"

and the other fav was when Huey asked his granddad to turn up the heat in the house. Granddad goes "HEAT?! HEAT??!!! all this money I'm spending on hats and coats??!"

[smjmcomic]

tI had no idea I love Adult Swim but I havent been really watching of late


But I keep finding disc's fulll of old toons from the 40's and 50's at the 99 cent store and yes sir that is the shit

[bingolong]

FUNNY SHIT!!!!

[tamra]

bingolong,
I saw it that was VERY funny. I can't remember one line, but I remember laughing throughout the whole show. it needs to be on HBO unedited.

but it took me a few secs to realize that was Charlie Murphy who was the banker's son who just returned from Iraq. even that story was funny.

I hope it lasts.

[bingolong]

tamra,
yep....we don't get the strip here so i have only read it small doses....but this was pretty good!!!!

[tamra]

bingolong,
oh I remember this one thing I've been laughing to all day: when Huey was ranting as usual, the granddad saying white people don't want to hear the truth. you have to lie to them. I'm going find me a white man to lie to right now.

and of course the civil rights protest and going home to get his rain coat

Regina Hall is also doing a good job as both Riley and Huey.

I better not forget to set reminder for next one.

[bingolong]

tamra,
Yeah I missed that whole first segment and had to leave a tape on last night to record it....just got thru watching it and man Uncle Ruckus was a fool too!!He called grandpa Mr.Tibbs!!!!

[tamra]

bingolong,
I know and turned the party out I saw it coming w/all that drinking.

but I guess it doesn't need to be uncensored. the appropriate censor beeps give you a good idea of what was said.

I would love for this to go IPod or wireless in general. it is hot.

[Visitor]

tamra,

Huck: "We Blowed out a cylinder head."
Aunt Sally: "Good gracious! Anbody hurt?"
Huck: No'm; killed a nigger."
Aunt Sally" We, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt."
-- An Exchange in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn

In a panel discussion at the Summer Television Critics Association tour this past summer, Aaron McGruder, creator of the popular comic strip, Boondocks, defiantly told the audience that he'll use the N-word as much as he pleases in episodes of the series on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. If folk don't like it, then they'll just have to get over. After all, everyone uses it.

He's right. Black comedians and rappers sprinkle the word throughout their rap lyrics and comedy lines, and black writers, and filmmakers go through lengthy gyrations to justify using the word. The word has been canonized in hip jargon. Harvard professor Randall Kennedy, in a provocative but conflicted, short polemic, nigger, published a few years ago denounced the double standard that blacks apply to whites. He railed that nigger is hardly the earth-shattering, illegitimate word that many blacks and whites brand it.

McGruder and N-word users and apologists loudly agree. Their rationale boils down to this, the more a black person uses the word, the less offensive it becomes. They claim that they are cleansing the word of its negative connotations so that racists can no longer use it to hurt blacks. Comedian turned activist Dick Gregory had the same idea some years ago when he titled his autobiography, Nigger. Black writer Robert DeCoy also tried to apply the same racial shock therapy to whites when he titled his novel, The Nigger Bible. McGruder and N-word apologists tick off an endless storehouse of defenses to justify use of the word. They claim that that it is a term of endearment or affection. They say to each other, "You're my nigger if you don't get no bigger." Or, "that nigger sure is something." Others use it in anger or disdain, "Nigger you sure got an attitude." Or, "A nigger ain't shit." Still, others are defiant. They say they don't care what a white person calls them since words can't harm them.

N-word apologists have no patience with those who want to purge the word from public discourse, wage war against classics such as Huckleberry Finn, encode it in hate speech laws and impose penalties and sanctions on professors, basketball coaches, and public officials who use it no matter how instructive or benevolent their intentions.

Yet in their passionate plea to recast public thinking and debate over the word, they forget, ignore or distort one thing. Words are not value neutral. They express concepts and ideas. Often, words reflect society's standards. If color-phobia is a deep-rooted standard in American life, then a word, as emotionally charged as nigger, will always reinforce and perpetuate stereotypes. It can't be sanitized, cleansed, inverted, or redeemed as a culturally liberating word. Nigger can't and shouldn't be made acceptable, no matter whose mouth it comes out of or what excuse is tossed out for using it.

There are still dozens of daily examples where whites (and other non-blacks) taunt, and harass blacks by calling them nigger, spray paint the word on their homes, businesses, churches, physically assault and even murder blacks. In the FBI's annual count of hate crimes in America, blacks still make up the overwhelming majority of victims. The N-word reigns supreme at the top of the stack as the favorite racial epithet hurled at blacks during these crimes. Even when the word isn't used, the sentiment is that blacks are still fair game too be abused and dehumanized, and the N-word reinforces that belief.

The word nigger is grotesque and will always have deadly meaning to them. And even if some blacks do occasionally go off the deep end and wrongly harangue whites for using the word, maybe that's because nigger pricks agonizing historical and social sores.

Some years ago comedian Richard Pryor publicly admitted his complicity in aiding and abetting the legitimizing of the word. The irreverent Pryor had practically made a career out of using the word in his routines. But following his return from Africa, he told a concert audience that he now considered the word profane and disrespectful. He was dropping it from his act because he had too much pride in blacks and himself. The audience exploded in thunderous applause.

McGruder would probably frown on Pryor's racial conversion as a betrayal of cultural faith and freedom. But Pryor got it right. And anyone who apologizes for McGruder's defense of the N-word should rent the tape of that concert to understand why there's nothing hip in using or misusing the word.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is the author of 'The Crisis in Black and Black' (Middle Passage Press).