Thursday, January 10, 2008

to white folks: shuck & jive is NOT 'bob & weave'

Pandagon :: Andrew Cuomo on Obama: ‘You Can’t Shuck And Jive’ at a press conf :: January :: 2008

dude.
really?

that's like the time my white, liberal, lesbian (i.e., 'should have known better') dissertation chair said to me (while i was helping her carry some things for our seminar): "Ding, thanks so much, but I really can't have you be my step and fetchit."

oh, yes, she did! Step 'n Fetchit.

i suppose, nowadays, that would be synonymous with, um, 'helpful grad student.'

but, boy howdy, i sure am glad racism is dead, though.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

i've never heard either of those used before. Well, i've heard "Jive"... in the movie Airplane when the Beaver's Mom offered to help the flight attendant speak with the African American passengers that had a heavy accent. But that's really the only time I've heard that.

Excuse me while I consult the Racial-Slur Database.

http://www.rsdb.net/

Delia Christina said...

wade: it's not in common parlance but when it's said, there's no other way to construe it any other way.

bitch: yeah, that was a golden moment for me. of course, i turned it into a very funny story that was instantly spread throughout the department and confirmed everyone's impression of my dissertation/department chair as remote, problematic and out of touch. perhaps that wasn't very politic of me, but dude. 'step 'n fetchit'? bitch deserved it.

(you should have heard the story of the time she snatched a paper plate of cookies out of a homeless guy's hand and threw it away in front of everyone while she snapped, 'That's just for faculty and students.' she was full of the milk of human kindness, MV was.)

Delia Christina said...

crap, i should have just left that sentence without the 'any other way.'