Mark Steyn: Keepin' it real is real stupid

Macleans ^ | 09/28/06 | Mark Steyn

[LexBaird]

"Further damaging is the blood-in-the-water response from reputable news operations, notably National Public Radio. They have magnified every question about Thomas into an indictment and sacrificed journalistic balance and integrity for a place in the mob."

Alas, Juan has forgotten. The lead reporter at the Thomas hearings for NPR was Nina Totenburg. Just this last Sunday, while dicussing the Clinton/Wallace interview, Juan and Mara Liasson praised the very same Totenburg's jounalistic credentials. I guess Juan forgot that Nina will gladly ditch them whenever it suits her agenda.

[hattend]

Steyn Rocks BTTT

[SunTzuWu]

Williams recalls that in 1956 "a gang of white men dragged the famous black singer Nat 'King' Cole off a stage and beat him because they said he was singing love songs to white women." They weren't wrong about that: my mom loved him. In the early sixties, he called up his record company, whose coffers he had enriched for many years, and hung up in disgust when the receptionist answered: "Capitol Records, home of the Beatles." I think we can guess how Cole would have felt about gangsta rap. Duke Ellington has more in common with Ravel than with Snoop Dogg. Scott Joplin would have regarded today's "black culture" as an oxymoron. To eliminate a century and a half's tradition of beauty and grace from your identity isn't "keepin' it real"; it's keepin' millions of young black men and women unreal in ways the most malevolent bull-necked racist could never have devised.

Thanks for the Ping Pokey.

[HHFi]

There was an article posted awhile back from the New York Times about Harry Anderson, who had moved to NO after "Night Court" went off the air and opened a comedy club and magic shop. He stuck it out and kept his bar open as a meeting place through the flooding and tried to help the city, but after getting mugged twice and seeing Nagin be reelected, he's moving to (I think) North Carolina. His comment on Nagin's reelection was that "this town is stuck on stupid."

Now, every time I see Nagin's face, the phrase "Stuck on stupid" pops into my mind. He should be wearing it on a T-shirt at all times.

[Cecily]

I happened to listen to about five minutes of the Michael Eric Dyson radio show this morning. The subject was the attempted suicide of Terrell Owens, and someone called in to theorize that Owens was being lynched indirectly in these United States because of the commercial he appeared in with Nicollette Sheridan. Dyson validated the caller's point of view. I have never heard such idiocy in my life (well, except from the moonbat callers to C-Spin's Washington Journal show).

When you are a moron and you believe moronic things and crazy conspiracy theories and fantasies, yes, life will tend to be difficult.

[HHFi]

Just thought I'd toss in that there's a company in Britain called Proper Records that releases 4-CD boxed sets of digitally-remastered, out-of-copyright songs by people like Nat King Cole, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald at really low prices. I can pick them up in bargain bins around here for as little as $22 and have quite a few. The King Cole Trio box ("Cool Cole") is currently playing all day long at my house. God, was he great!

[SunTzuWu]

Thanks for the tip. I just googled Proper Records and found their web site. Their server is having problems at the moment but I'll be keeping an eye on it.

[Cecily]

Ella Fitzgerald singing Duke Ellington songs with his orchestra. Black American singers and musicians have hugely talented predecessors. The rap "artists" that dominate the black music scene these days can't even come close to those people in terms of talent and musicality.

[GOPJ]

...if being black means being a self-destructive self-gratifying criminal rutting machine, and building a career, settling down, getting a nice house in the suburbs, raising a family is acting white, that would seem to hand whitey an awful lot of advantages

BINGO

[GOPJ]

Trouble is they're the ones that are the worst racists. Their hatred for everything they perceive as being white keeps them from seeing the beam they thrust in their own eye while they complain about the mote in their brother's eye.

Insightful.

[.cnI redruM]

>>>>>"Keepin' it real," noted the writer Nick Crowe, equates, in effect, to "disempowerment." Because if being black means being a self-destructive self-gratifying criminal rutting machine, and building a career, settling down, getting a nice house in the suburbs, raising a family is acting white, that would seem to hand whitey an awful lot of advantages

It's a shame that people like Juan Williams get beat up for pointing this out. Even though Steyn paraphrases things more brutally than Juan Williams ever would, this is essentially what J. Williams is telling anyone who would listen.

[7thson]

The word "chit" is used alot in the Navy. Special Request chit, leave chit, etc.

[.cnI redruM]

Being of about 40% German pedigree myself, it took a moment or two to get that one...

[okie01]

It amazes me how "inner city" kids say that studying hard is "acting white" and then they have the chutzpah to complain that racism is the reason they don't succeed in life.
Will someone please explain the logic of that to me because I just don't get it.

When you stop and think about it, they're right.

It is racism that's holding them back. Their own...

[Tax-chick]

Anderson moved to Asheville, NC, or the Asheville area.

[Tax-chick]

I grew up in the Navy. I guess "chit" has caught on in other services, because when my oldest daughter was born in an Air Force hospital, the doctor told us, "Take this chit to Major Something in Nursery, and she'll issue your baby, and you can go home!"

[7thson]

Heaven forbid you lost the chit! Your daughter would still be in the hospital! 8-)

[Tax-chick]

That's certainly the impression they gave! "No chitty, no baby!"

[Ruth A.]

To eliminate a century and a half's tradition of beauty and grace from your identity isn't "keepin' it real"; it's keepin' millions of young black men and women unreal in ways the most malevolent bull-necked racist could never have devised.

Wonderful, as usual.

[decal]

There's always a money quote in Mr Steyn's columns. Every sentence in this one is.