No, it's the Jefferson Effect.

/Movin' on up

"What you talkin about?"

Wait, I don't understand the quote in the article about the Cosby Show being one step forward and two steps back. So now it is racist to portray an African American as sucessful?

So....having a black man in the White House means that any black person can do anything?

Hey, I'm white like the first 43 US presidents. Does that mean *I* can do anything I want? Of course not. The whole issue over race is ridiculous.

The dividing lines in the US aren't between black and white, man and woman, Christian and Muslim. They're between RICH AND POOR. If you're rich, you can do anything. If you're poor, you can't.

God help the rich if the poor people ever realize that.

Ludovicus: If you're rich, you can do anything. If you're poor, you can't.

I don't know that. Familial or married wealth couldn't buy McCain the presidency, and Obama's wealth is earned.

This is the Cosby decade. America loves black people.

ELKAY: Wait, I don't understand the quote in the article about the Cosby Show being one step forward and two steps back. So now it is racist to portray an African American as sucessful?

No, but it did, unfortunately increase white people's expectations that black people would universally adopt sweater wearing and making nonsense sounds while eating Jello^TM pudding pops.

Stereotypical Black cultural icon!


/loud noises

HighOnCraic: This is the Cosby decade. America loves black people.

Jheri curl effect?

Lank Thompson: Hi! My name is Lank Thompson! I'm a handsome man! [ laughs handsomely ] Oh, I wasn't always handsome - I used to be plain. [ holds up old photo ] But then I developed my courses: "Lank Thompson: I'm A Handsome Man", and "Lank Thompson: I'm A Handsome Actor." These courses have been available for over a year, and the rsponse has been, frankly, overwhelming! [ laughs ] And now, I'm proud to introduce my latest course: "Lank Thompson: I'm A Handsome Black Man." Perhaps you are familiar with Billy Dee Williams, Blair Underwood, and Don Cornelius. They're all graduates of my course, "Lank Thompson: I'm A Handsome Black Man." And now, I'd like you to meet another one of my success stories.

Tim Meadows: [ enters, sporting a handsome moustache ] Hi! I'm Tim Meadows, and I'm a handsome black man! [ laughs handsomely with Lank ] I wasn't a handsome black man. I used to be a plain black man. [ holds up old photo ] But thanks to your course, now I look.. fan-tastic!

Lank Thompson: You know, the basic techniques are covered in my first tape - "Lank Thompson: I'm A Handsome Man". And they helped form the core of "Lank Thompson: I'm A Handsome Black Man." Let's have a look. They are: "Smile When You Talk."

Tim Meadows: [ demonstrating, smiles ] It's great to be here!

Lank Thompson: Great to have you! [ they laugh ] 2: "Maintain Eye Contact." Do you understand? [ stares ]

Tim Meadows: Yes, I understand. [ stares back - they laugh ]

Lank Thompson: 3: "Be Tastefully Tactile." [ turns to Tim ] You're very important to me.

Tim Meadows: Get outta here! [ they laugh ]

Lank Thompson: You know, there are some techniques that are unique to the handsome black man. Technique #1: "The Two-Handed Shake." The handsome black man greets everyone with a shake that says, "Hey.. you're improtant to me!" Let's watch Tim in action.

[ cut to demonstration - Tim enters a club and approaches a black woman and a white man ]

Tim Meadows: [ two-hand shakes the white man's hand ] How you doing? Welcome to the club! [ turns to the black woman and two-hand shakes her hand ] You look.. fan-tastic! [ his guests laugh with him ]

Lank Thompson: And, of course, the variation of the Two-Hand Shake - the "One-Hand Shake-Hug.

[ cut to demonstration - Tim approaches two black men ]

Regular Black Man: Do you know Jim?

Tim Meadows: Know him? We're like brothers! [ gives him a One-Hand Shake-Hug, then exits scene ]

Regular Black Man: I like that he shook my one hand, then hugged me with the other arm!

Regular Black Man: That's a handsome black man!

Lank Thompson: Technique #2: When talking to women, deepen your voice.

[ cut to demonstration - Tim at a bar with a few other black men ]

Tim Meadows: [ in regular voice ] I'll see you guys later. [ turns to black woman next to him, deepens voice ] Hello. I'm Tim.

Janice: I'm Janice.

Tim Meadows: [ deep ] Hello, Janet.

Lank Thompson: That brings us to Techgnique #3: When talking to a woman for the first time, the handsome black man notices her strongest feature, calls attention to it, and uses it as a nickname.

Tim Meadows: [ deep ] I think you got beautiful eyes. I'm gonna call you "Sweet Eyes!" They are fan-tastic! [ laughs handsomely, and walks away ]

Janice: [ to a friend next to her ] Damn, he's handsome! I like the way he noticed my eyes, and then immediately incorporated then into a nickname!

Lank Thompson: Technique #4: The handsome black man laughs immediately at any mildly humorous story or quip, and acknowledges the universal truth in it.

[ cut to demonstration - Tim talking to a bartender ]

Tim Meadows: Hey, Jimmy, what's the word on the street?

Bartender: Two fly sisters came in here looking for Michael Jackson tickets. I told them, "Don't be a dog in the manger!"

Tim Meadows: [ laughs ] Fan-tastic! [ laughs again ] I know what you mean!

Lank Thompson: [ laughing ] He's a handsome black man! And you can be, too! Here's how to order.

Announcer: To order "Lank Thompson: I'm A Handsome Black Man", call 1-800-555-0199.

Lank Thompson: Alright, we're back! Now it's time for questions. Yes - you!

Testimonial #1: Hi, I took your course, "Lank Thompson: I'm A Handsome Man".. and I loved it. I just wanted to say Thank You.

Lank Thompson: Thank you! You're a handsome man! Yes - you.

Testimonial #2: I also took your course, and I loved it. I'm a Mestiso Indian. Is there a course for me?

Lank Thompson: Okay, hold on.. not yet! Alright. But, eventually, I will have a course for all men of Andean tribes! Well, that's all the time we have. Now, go on! Be handsome!

[ Tim comes back out, and the two handsome man give each other handsome handshakes until the scene fades to black ]

I think folks are over-thinking the wrong issues. If you want to boil this landslide election down to a jingo, try "Republican failure-fatigue".

jaidev: "Republican failure-fatigue".

Mullet effect.

FTA:

"Bill Cosby's white audience didn't want to be reminded of America's racial past," said Sut Jhally, who wrote Enlightened Racism after conducting the studies for the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "They loved the blackness, but only a certain kind of blackness...

"The unintended message was, 'If you work hard, you can succeed ... and if you fail, the fault must be yours,'" said Jhally. "In terms of overall race relations, it was one step forward and two steps back."

Yep - "Don't look behind the curtain - 400 years of oppression, enslavement, Jim Crow, being lynched for calling a white woman 'honey'...that all never happened."

ELKAY: Wait, I don't understand the quote in the article about the Cosby Show being one step forward and two steps back. So now it is racist to portray an African American as sucessful?

As far as I understand that (and it's debatable), there are bright and successful black people. There are also barely-competent black people. There are successful whites and utter fail whites, too.

The Huxtable effect is when barely-successful crackas perpetuate racism against barely-successful blacks, while using the "if they were smart and motivated like the Huxtables, I would respect them and hire them and not pull them over all the time".

Ludovicus: So....having a black man in the White House means that any black person can do anything?

Hey, I'm white like the first 43 US presidents. Does that mean *I* can do anything I want? Of course not. The whole issue over race is ridiculous.

The dividing lines in the US aren't between black and white, man and woman, Christian and Muslim. They're between RICH AND POOR. If you're rich, you can do anything. If you're poor, you can't.

God help the rich if the poor people ever realize that.

It's true. There will never be a president that had to live on food stamps, or came from a family working several jobs to get by, or having to work for decades to off their student loans.. oh wait.

I have to admit the fact that someone like that could be elected says a lot more than the fact that someone of mixed race can be elected. For the longest time the case has been rich black idiots can get away with murder, rich white idiots can get away with a trillion dollar deficit, and poor people can't do shiat one way or another. Then some guy rolls in from the south side of Chicago writes a book to pay off his massive student loans from Harvard, and amasses record breaking amounts on his path to President-elect. It's a brave new world where people can do anything if they set their minds to it.

Or it could be.

jaidev: I think folks are over-thinking the wrong issues. If you want to boil this landslide election down to a jingo, try "Republican failure-fatigue".


There are lots of things that contributed, and this is certainly one of them. The Democrats could have ran Billy Carter and done pretty well.

ELKAY: Wait, I don't understand the quote in the article about the Cosby Show being one step forward and two steps back. So now it is racist to portray an African American as sucessful?

The line that came after was the racist line, about hard work and succeeding. It means that if a black person works hard and still doesn't succeed it's not the black person's fault, but a white man's, inversely that also means when a black guy does succeed it was because a white man decided it should be so. Or perhaps it means that even when a black person works hard he will still not succeed because blacks just aren't good enough to succeed no matter how hard they try.

Either way that statement was shockingly racist.

I never understood why people cared so much about skin pigmentation, its like... don't you have more important stuff to worry about anyway?

ruthlessliberal: No, it's the Jefferson Effect.

/Movin' on up

Ludovicus: The dividing lines in the US aren't between black and white, man and woman, Christian and Muslim. They're between RICH AND POOR. If you're rich, you can do anything. If you're poor, you can't.

God help the rich if the poor people ever realize that.

Pssh, why? You already made it clear they can't do anything about it.

/let them eat cake

mftalbot: FTA:

"Bill Cosby's white audience didn't want to be reminded of America's racial past," said Sut Jhally, who wrote Enlightened Racism after conducting the studies for the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "They loved the blackness, but only a certain kind of blackness...

"The unintended message was, 'If you work hard, you can succeed ... and if you fail, the fault must be yours,'" said Jhally. "In terms of overall race relations, it was one step forward and two steps back."


Yep - "Don't look behind the curtain - 400 years of oppression, enslavement, Jim Crow, being lynched for calling a white woman 'honey'...that all never happened."


Unfortunately, none of that stuff is funny and the show was promoted as a modern family comedy.

Ludovicus: The dividing lines in the US aren't between black and white, man and woman, Christian and Muslim. They're between RICH AND POOR. If you're rich, you can do anything. If you're poor, you can't.

God help the rich if the poor people ever realize that.

you make the incorrect assumption that rich people make their money by stealing it in some way, from poor people.

/oh, wait, this is the decade of class warfare. I'm sorry.
//loads weapon

...given a set of words to describe blacks, at least one in five whites agreed with "violent," "boastful" and "complaining." One in 10 agreed blacks are "lazy" or "irresponsible."

Holy shiat, there's a lot of lyin ass white people.

67 Beetle: Unfortunately, none of that stuff is funny and the show was promoted as a modern family comedy.

Come on, Dave Chapelle could make a modern family comedy encorporating all of those things and- oh wait, you said funny. Nevermind.

BLR: Ludovicus: If you're rich, you can do anything. If you're poor, you can't.

I don't know that. Familial or married wealth couldn't buy McCain the presidency, and Obama's wealth is earned.

Obama had $600+ million in his campaign, much of it from people and places unknown, and the media in his pocket. That's tough to beat, if even possible.

barneyfifesbullet:

from people and places unknown (new window)

Every time I keep forgetting Obama is black one of you a-holes has to remind me. I'm actually pretty serious in this statement.

barneyfifesbullet: BLR: Ludovicus: If you're rich, you can do anything. If you're poor, you can't.

I don't know that. Familial or married wealth couldn't buy McCain the presidency, and Obama's wealth is earned.

Obama had $600+ million in his campaign, much of it from people and places unknown, and the media in his pocket. That's tough to beat, if even possible.


Ill give a clue where the money came from...
your neighbors..

thalidomide new and improved: Ludovicus: The dividing lines in the US aren't between black and white, man and woman, Christian and Muslim. They're between RICH AND POOR. If you're rich, you can do anything. If you're poor, you can't.

God help the rich if the poor people ever realize that.

you make the incorrect assumption that rich people make their money by stealing it in some way, from poor people.

/oh, wait, this is the decade of class warfare. I'm sorry.
//loads weapon


Ludovicus doesn't say that anywhere in his post, thalidomide, nor is it implied or assumed by anyone but yourself, based on nothing. Perhaps you lied so you could continue OLRY's "culture war" garbage; hard to say. What's easy to say is that you don't object to outright lying about what other people post. That's rather sad.... and lame.

barneyfifesbullet: and the media in his pocket

If by "in your pocket" you mean attempting to stay focused on the issues such as pointing out that Palin was extremely unqualified to be VP. How bad of a GOP campaign do you have to run to have Bill O'Reilly abandon you?

As for lack of surprises/negative news on Obama during the election, Hillary either found or would have found them in the primaries. By time the fall rolled around, there wasn't much left.

Exodus2001: Every time I keep forgetting Obama is black one of you a-holes has to remind me. I'm actually pretty serious in this statement.

ELKAY: Wait, I don't understand the quote in the article about the Cosby Show being one step forward and two steps back. So now it is racist to portray an African American as sucessful?

And attractive.

Because, you know, calling someone an attractive and successful African-American is a horrible insult.

The thing I hated about the election was that people were saying it wasn't about race, but as soon as Obama won that's all people seemed to talk about. "He's the first black president," "Look at all these black people crying," etc. If race wasn't a factor before the election, why is it such a big factor after the election?

FTA:

"'If you work hard, you can succeed ... and if you fail, the fault must be yours,'"

As someone who came from nothing, let me say that this is absolutely true. There are plenty of successful people out there from all racial and economic backgrounds, and plenty of people who grew up in "rich" homes found a way to fark their lives up. Life is what you make of it.

If you don't succeed, then who else's fault could it be?

Yeah, the media was totally in the tank for Obama with all of those stories about how he's winning and intelligent and McCain is losing and a crank who freaked out when the banks were going to go under and his campaign was run like crap and Palin is an idiot.

Facts have a liberal bias.

Switchblades: ELKAY: Wait, I don't understand the quote in the article about the Cosby Show being one step forward and two steps back. So now it is racist to portray an African American as sucessful?

And attractive.

Because, you know, calling someone an attractive and successful African-American is a horrible insult.


Huxtable represents the outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social disparities in our society which undermine the proletarian.

Inliving color effect^TM going on Fark

ELKAY: Wait, I don't understand the quote in the article about the Cosby Show being one step forward and two steps back. So now it is racist to portray an African American as sucessful?

Maybe because now we have the stereotype that all black men wear sweaters and eat Jell-O Pudding Pops.

Scratch Meany: ELKAY: Wait, I don't understand the quote in the article about the Cosby Show being one step forward and two steps back. So now it is racist to portray an African American as sucessful?

No, but it did, unfortunately increase white people's expectations that black people would universally adopt sweater wearing and making nonsense sounds while eating JelloTM pudding pops.

DAMMIT! I KNEW I should have read the thread before responding!

(At least I cut out that bit about making goofy noises so I don't look like I TOTALLY copied your post...)

Switchblades: ELKAY: Wait, I don't understand the quote in the article about the Cosby Show being one step forward and two steps back. So now it is racist to portray an African American as sucessful?

And attractive.

Because, you know, calling someone an attractive and successful African-American is a horrible insult.

Hey, man! I didn't put the bullet in the furnace! An' stop talkin' about my mother!

"One reaction might be, see, a black man can reach the top - why can't the others?" said Christian Crandall, a social psychologist at the University of Kansas.

"There's no way to avoid that problem," he said. "It's the price of success."

Given that this is one of the things that we largely make true or false by thinking it's one or the other, I'm not really seeing the problem. If you hold people to a standard of behavior and treat them with the same default respect as everyone else, the smart will rise to the top and the stupid will stay a the bottom or sink like with everyone else.

Maybe Obama can be a translator for Cosby.

Cosby: Gaawwwww...chee chee...with the children, and they all said goo, ga goo goo ga jooby.

Barack: Bill asked if anyone can recommend a good restaurant in town.

DarnoKonrad: Switchblades: ELKAY: Wait, I don't understand the quote in the article about the Cosby Show being one step forward and two steps back. So now it is racist to portray an African American as sucessful?

And attractive.

Because, you know, calling someone an attractive and successful African-American is a horrible insult.


Huxtable represents the outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social disparities in our society which undermine the proletarian.

Actually, he's talking about the filter. N***** is filtered to successful and attractive african american, or something. But you probably knew that and I need to get my sarcasm meter checked.

Huxtable effect: Just because The Cosby's was a #1 show for years or we have a black president doesn't mean white people aren't racist. Don't believe the hype! Whitey is still holding the black man down!

DarnoKonrad: Switchblades: ELKAY: Wait, I don't understand the quote in the article about the Cosby Show being one step forward and two steps back. So now it is racist to portray an African American as sucessful?

And attractive.

Because, you know, calling someone an attractive and successful African-American is a horrible insult.


Huxtable represents the outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social disparities in our society which undermine the proletarian.

HighOnCraic: Switchblades: ELKAY: Wait, I don't understand the quote in the article about the Cosby Show being one step forward and two steps back. So now it is racist to portray an African American as sucessful?

And attractive.

Because, you know, calling someone an attractive and successful African-American is a horrible insult.

Hey, man! I didn't put the bullet in the furnace! An' stop talkin' about my mother!

This discussion has officially gotten far too meta for my tastes. I bid you adieu, good sirs.

/I get it
//_{I think...}

Switchblades: DarnoKonrad: Switchblades: ELKAY: Wait, I don't understand the quote in the article about the Cosby Show being one step forward and two steps back. So now it is racist to portray an African American as sucessful?

And attractive.

Because, you know, calling someone an attractive and successful African-American is a horrible insult.


Huxtable represents the outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social disparities in our society which undermine the proletarian.

HighOnCraic: Switchblades: ELKAY: Wait, I don't understand the quote in the article about the Cosby Show being one step forward and two steps back. So now it is racist to portray an African American as sucessful?

And attractive.

Because, you know, calling someone an attractive and successful African-American is a horrible insult.

Hey, man! I didn't put the bullet in the furnace! An' stop talkin' about my mother!

This discussion has officially gotten far too meta for my tastes. I bid you adieu, good sirs.

/I get it
//I think...

The "Bullet in the Furnace" line is part of an old routine about Shop Class from one of Cosby's stand-up comedy albums.

Up yours

HardenedTaint: "'If you work hard, you can succeed ... and if you fail, the fault must be yours,'"

As someone who came from nothing, let me say that this is absolutely true. There are plenty of successful people out there from all racial and economic backgrounds, and plenty of people who grew up in "rich" homes found a way to fark their lives up. Life is what you make of it.

If you don't succeed, then who else's fault could it be?

Silence, racist scum.

krelborne: HardenedTaint: "'If you work hard, you can succeed ... and if you fail, the fault must be yours,'"

As someone who came from nothing, let me say that this is absolutely true. There are plenty of successful people out there from all racial and economic backgrounds, and plenty of people who grew up in "rich" homes found a way to fark their lives up. Life is what you make of it.

If you don't succeed, then who else's fault could it be?

Silence, racist scum.

But he is an idiot. You don't believe there are people out there who work hard and try and don't succeed? What world do you live in.

Proud.

Proud.

Disallowed.

/racially hotlinked