Are white people who say "I don't like hip hop" yet listen to it when white people make it really saying "i don't like black people"?

Also, I can see why it may be hard for Merritt to see Cee-Lo's schtick as drawing from a sense of pride (not that Merritt is warm to the concept of "pride" in music, though "smug" I think he gets) over one's Southernness (and Southern blackness) if he's almost completely insulated yourself from Southern hip-hop in the last five-ten years.

Suggested title for the next Magnetic Fields album: Get Unhappy!!.

I seem to be incapable of staying on-topic in this thread, but I just wanted to observe that historically in America, those European immigrant groups were allowed to assimilate into whiteness through the specter of blackness. anti-black racism made it possible to reconceive of non-Anglo European groups as acceptably white. in a way, I think this is still going on with non-white immigrant groups (cf. the racial commentary in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, where in that one scene Harold and Kumar escape from jail and the black dude doesn't even try and is totally resigned to his unjust imprisonment: i.e. East Asian and Indian immigrants can assimilate on the backs of African Americans: it's the American way!) all of which is probably an aside, but still seems relevant to your train of thought, nabisco, i.e. why Merritt's attempt to just sweep away the "problem" of blackness by erasing the performance of it is so wrongheaded.

But Michael and Alex's point is fascinating. Based on the two concerts I've seen, Rufus Wainwright's between-song patter (again, without taking the musicianship into consideration) would be seem like a ridiculous stereotype if it was transcribed and performed in a Saturday Night Live sketch.

And Michael, I think the "asking to be more white" is more of a logical inference or implication: if you happen to have a really high sensitivity to any instance of black people "performing blackness," then surely what you're asking for is that they do it less -- that they blend in with the dominant culture.

(And it's true, in some cases, that black people perform blackness from a more earnest position, from a position of not being offered much opportunity to perform anything else, even from a position of embracing harmful stereotypes about themselves -- but really for the most part I'd say that black people in music, being black and knowing a whole lot about what that's like, are often way more savvy about the dynamics about it than most people want to give them credit for.)

It absolutely *is* inference one can make, but has Merritt made it yet, publically or no? (Though it's unconsciable if he has and blind and sad if he hasn't.)

I think Merritt's probably as smart and savvy as most of us are, and nothing in the interviews and articles I've read - or songs of his that I've heard - suggests that he has blind spots or holes in his musical knowledge that we boy detectives are going to spot easily. The only reason to assume he's unfamiliar with Dirty South hip-hop would be that he hasn't mentioned it in interviews and didn't recognize Cee-Lo.

I see no proof of this and considering the brutal discrimination and massacres that occured against Chinese Americans in the late 19th century I think you have it wrong. (The American phrase, "not a Chinaman's chance..." immediately comes to mind. The Japanese anti-immigration laws as well.) This seems to be more of the same quasi-Marxist rhetoric that assumes that groups are only successful at the expense of other groups. ("I am poor because Jews are rich.", etc)

this is quite an overreach based on the Merritt quote in question, you're doing exactly what SFJ did, albeit with a lot more respect than his blindside kick

please tell me this was a thought that was completely unconnected to any previous post by any other person.

I was being a bit reductive, but I don't buy this:
the only-too-apparent willingness of some computer jockies to overextend their intellectual capacities with regards to issues of race and society,
as being a particularly accurate representation of this thread, and I think it is basically arguing for people to NOT talk about things that they need to be talking about.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-2177992,00.html

"overextending their intellectual capacities" does not mean "thinking too much." If you thought that, it was a serious misreading. Overextending one's intellectual capacities means performing laborious mental gymnastics to compensate for an argument that doesn't make any logical sense-- and of course, failing in these efforts to generate a convincing logical argument (i.e. "if your music collection doesn't include a satisfactory number of black artists, then you're racist."). My point in that post, which I thought was somewhat obvious, was that you can't jump to ridiculous conclusions about racism simply by formulating so-called intellectual responses informed by your own sets of cultural standards and baggage. True, we might live in a world where we're increasingly aware of multitudes of cultural viewpoints, but it doesn't preclude the idea that you might just fucking like certain kinds of music, and that doesn't make you a racist. To claim that it does is narrow-minded, self-righteous, and just plain wrong.

Exactly what makes West African (or African American) music more "black" than the way more melodically oriented East African or North African music?

Did he shut it off? Or did he hear the spoken intro and start commenting on the intro? He wasn't generalizing about Cee-Lo as an artist - he was just responding to what the interviewer played for him. It sounds like Merritt's as riled about examples of minstrelsy as his critics are - he's just seeing it in a different place than them. (Again, it's not like he refuses to talk about these themes or puts his foot in his mouth when he does speak about them - he just has a different take on it than his critics.)

I don't know if Cee Lo's ever directly addressed minstrelsy or parodied it, but I'm pretty sure his take would be more interesting than Merritt's or The Frogs'.

Substitute a more recent song with a 'neutral'/positive mention of Jesus and I think a large number of ILXors would do exactly that.

I'm not sure using 'minstrel show' in one lyric or criticizing one Southern rap act as such constitutes a 'take' on minstrelsy.

Well, one right off the bat is 90%+ of gay men haven't recorded theirs. (When I do it, it's usually an expression of mockery toward the Chelsea Boy mentality, motivated by phenomena like gay crowds rushing to see the closeted-athlete drama Take Me Out on Broadway: "Ooooh, baseball -- ex-thotic!!!") I also can't think of many examples of homo-enacted swishery in the mass media that I've found funny aside from Scott Thompson's Buddy Cole character.

-- Eazy (chicagoflaneu...), May 13th, 2006 11:18 PM

it sez he shut if off:

it was too much for Merritt, who stopped the song after a few seconds of this.

-- Dr Morbius (wjwe...), May 14th, 2006.

He seems to have more of a 'take' on it than people who don't go off on rants about te Chrsty Minstrels when they hear a snippet of a 'conscious' rap song.

Perhaps some people here, much like Mr. Merritt, aren't familiar with Cee Lo's music. He was obviously raised in the church and the
intro is closer to a preacher working his way into a sermon than anything from a minstrel show.

Merritt apparently has poor listening skills or is so far gone into his ideology that he can't recognize the difference between, say, D4L and an artist who basically agrees with him (albeit using language he can't.):

Cee Lo, from Goodie Mob's "Still Standing" LP:

"A nigga done read history but yet his eyes didn't see,
the only reason you a nigga is because somebody else wants you to be.

And when they call me a nigga to my face'
can't do nothin' but walk away,
but here it is niggas call other niggas "nigga" each and every day.

Shit, I could've hit the club as fresh as I could be,
but really, it's all for another nigga to see.
You know how a nigga get when he see another nigga's outfit.
Don't want nobody to have what he ain't got,
somebody get drunk, get mad, and get shot.
I'm sick of lyin'. I'm sick of glorifyin' dyin'.
I'm sick of not trying, shit I'm sick of being a nigga.

So many black men out here trying to be niggas.
Keeping it real to the point that they dying to be niggas.
When in actuality the fact is you ain't a nigga because you black,
you a nigga cause of how you act.
But you don't want me to tell you the truth, so I'ma lie to you,
make it sound fly to you."

Louis Armstrong's reading of the "satisfac'shull" line = genius

Wait, who actually claimed this? I mean, I can see why, but I don't remember any instances of people using the R word to describe his attitudes towards "Chinese music" (or bebop, I guess).

Anyway, I heard this story from a (black, if it matters) Berkeley musicology professor about 5-6 years ago. Although he didn't use the word "racist" to my recollection, he basically implied that Armstrong got into hot water somehow, but my memory fails as to what that entailed. Perhaps it just accentued Armstrong's image of being someone who was out-of-touch with the new era of jazz.

Now that I think about this story, it strikes me as very similar to the Stephin Merritt controversy. Both seem to involve making comments out of personal candidness (and/or irritation), while failing to note the racial sensitivities of the people involved. Unfortunately, these are the kinds of things that's it's very easy for the public and the media to latch onto and blow out of proportion.

you can't jump to ridiculous conclusions about racism simply by formulating so-called intellectual responses informed by your own sets of cultural standards and baggage.

No one has been intent in this thread with labelling merritt a 'racist.' The discussion isn't about finding where Merritt is on the 'racist/not racist' line. We're just finding problematic aspects of his approach to the whole issue.

Deej, I'm certain that these "problematic aspects" you speak of have nothing to do with implications of racism. They obviously have to do with... uh... er... gee, what do they have to do with?

That aside, I think what you're trying to say is that the point of the discussion is not to lambaste Merritt for his "racism" per se but to deconstruct the mentality of someone who could say what Merritt has, and can do so without feeling any need for self-censorship and/or political correctness. There seems to be a certain shrill "THINK OF THE CHILDEN!!!" tone to the indignant half of this crowd, but what I haven't heard is one salient argument that clearly elucidates what exactly the problem is with what he said-- in concrete, not abstract, terms.

Thanks for proving my point.