NPR, Where They Sneer at the 'Vanilla Side of Town' and Laugh at 'Kill Whitey' Jokes
NPR is supposed to be a very, very civil space to talk. But apparently not when NPR stations air the weekend talk show of PBS star Tavis Smiley and his Marxist professor friend, Cornel West. Brian Maloney at the Radio Equalizer was disturbed by West alleging the media and the politicians only care about the "vanilla side of town" and the hosts were "laughing hysterically at a 'kill Whitey' joke." Their guest was 1970s Saturday Night Live star Garrett Morris. Maloney asked, "Can you imagine jokes about killing black people airing on NPR?"
Smiley & West (podcasts here) is distributed by PRI (Public Radio International) across the country and debuted in 2010.
Smiley was laughing at Morris’s banter from the beginning they began with an old SNL skit where Morris sang about how “I’m gonna kill all the whiteys I see.” It was inspired by a (true?) story about a white woman allegedly being pressed into singing her favorite song on an Art Linkletter program and she sang about how “I’m gonna kill all the [n-words] I see.” Smiley laughed at that, at how Linkletter “got burned” by the racist woman. Morris explained:
MORRIS: Bill Duke and I and some other people we did a thing called "Slave Ship" and so when we were improvising with, you know, Imamu [Amiri Baraka] and Gilbert Moses and the NAC and places like that, we did more improvisation that was for real, about problems of addiction and stuff like that. And so we didn’t have a lot of comedy and our improvisational space went from 'Hate whitey' to 'Kill whitey,' which is a very small space.
CORNEL WEST: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
TAVIS SMILEY: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! A very small space, that’s funny!
Morris added his SNL castmates had a much broader style of improvisation with humor: "I stood there in amazement that they had shtick they could come up with that was funny, whereas I had a lot of angst and stuff, but not really stuff that was going to make you laugh."
Morris also mocked Jesus with a curse word on the program, that he would naturally attract women who wanted to have sex with him: "We don’t know what Jesus did between 12 and 30. You mean a man is back there healing people every other way and some lady gonna say please [bleep] me. Come on. Oh, my God, did I use a four letter word? Oh, my God. Please forgive me."
Earlier, Smiley and West discussed the death of 18-year-old Ramarley Graham:
SMILEY: NYPD, you know, has the best training of a police force in this country. It's just hard to figure out how somebody who's unarmed ends up being put to death this way.
WEST: If the same thing happened on the vanilla side of town, among the upper-middle class white brothers and sisters, there would be a major outrage and in fact we’d probably get some comment from the White House, we’d get comments from the governor. We’d get comments not just from the mayor, but from a whole wave of people who for the most part are silent about these things. And it’s just sad and ridiculous that we have to deal with this kind of double standard.
- Tim Graham's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
If this happened on the vanilla side of town?
Submitted by MrLuigi on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 6:19pm.
Mr. West- On the "vanilla" side of town these things don't happen because for the most part people know how to behave themselves and don't live by the mantra "f**k the police" like they do on the black side. Until you can teach your folks how to acquiesce to the authority of the police these things are bound to happen again. Remember, it's hard to "dis (respect)" someone who hasn't earned any.
What about the Chocalate side of town......
Submitted by nonncom on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 11:17am.
hmmmm.....yeah....I guess that makes the white House the Malt side of town....
A Graham incident would not
Submitted by bfrank on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 6:21pm.
have happened on the 'vanilla side of town' because 1) drug dealers do not hangout on the street 2) An 18-year-old youth would not be running from the cops holding only a bag of pot because they know better to simply stop, raise your arms and surrender to the police.
Ha Ha...it must suck to be Roland Martin.
Submitted by NeoKong on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 6:28pm.
They mocked Catholics during the Grammys and these two guys are tearing it up on Whitey and nobody cares. Crack a joke about some uptight gays and you're gone in 24 hours.
YEP cornel
Submitted by OldJarhead77 on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 6:52pm.
we sure do have a double standard! If any two white hosts had done what you had done they would have been EXCORIATED on PMSDNC Rev al and Rev jessie would have been in front of their place of business demanding that they be fired. Cornel West you are nothing but a RACIST and not just a racist but the WORST kind. You hide behind your skin color and cry OHH WOE is ME Look at me I am a poor put upon black man........ and yet you condem as racist those that say the same things as you did except they might say it about black folks or hipanic folks or gay folks. Oh there is a word for you and tavis smiley...... HYPOCRITES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was just
Submitted by bobsmom on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 7:02pm.
thinking the same thing. Where's the outrage? The editorials? The calls for their heads and for them to be fired from every job they've ever had and anything they might have in the future? Yeah, right...........never mind.........
Were they laughing at a kill
Submitted by balboa on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 7:15pm.
Were they laughing at a kill whitey joke or at the lack of comedy, as Morris says, that he had in his act before SNL?
Kill Whitey
Submitted by Schofield Kid on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 7:35pm.
I believe they thought it was funny how it was a "small space" to go from hate whitey to kill whitey. And in my opinion, Morris was the least funny in that original SNL cast. It just seemed like everything he did was stiff and unnatural.
⇒ Balboa
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 7:46pm.
When he used that humor on SNL it was OK?
When Eddie Murphy did it, it was OK?
I admit I have no clue when it's OK to tell "N-word" jokes, much less "Kill N-word" jokes.
Could you help me out as to when it's appropriate, since you're splitting hairs about it.
Can't help you out.
Submitted by balboa on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 8:20pm.
Can't help you out.
Well, bal
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 10:19am.
You certainly were interested in the distinction as to when Morris used the jokes.
I just figured you had some insight as to when such things are proper.
I think, much like
Submitted by balboa on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 11:23am.
I think, much like pornography, I know it when I see it.
For the record, Eddie Murphy was hilarious on SNL.
The dreadful truth of racial double standards
Submitted by CO2Maker on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 7:37pm.
Here's the sad truth of all of these racial double-standards: Black commentators say things that would get a white commentator fired, and nothing happens. White people use a completely innocent word like "niggardly," endure hyperbolic protests from the likes of Revs. Hymietown Jackson and Tawana Sharpyton, and finally give in to the notion that perhaps they should have been more "sensitive" to how people would "perceive" the word. Both groups and both "sides" in the racial divide settle on the assumption that it really doesn't matter.
Things won't change substantially, and if they actually do, both the advocates for change (Jackson, Sharpyton, etc.) and the contrite whites continue as before with the assumption that it really doesn't matter.
Whites still have power, nonwhites don't and are excluded from power by the built in "institutional racism" rather than by their own failings in school, in work attitudes, in antisocial and criminal behavior, in drug use, etc.
Both sides are comfortable with this arrangement, even if it makes everyone angry, and so they keep on repeating the same old same-old, over and over, always able to find new ways in which the old racial grievances occur, new subtle "inherent" or "subconscious" forms of discrimination and bias, new "code words" and "dog whistles."
Just look at Tawana and Hymietown: they've made a lot of money with their shtick. Why jeopardize that by declaring success and moving on to something else?
IIRC, this is the central theme of Shelby Steele's The Content of Their Character.
I'm from Prince Georges County Maryland and the city
Submitted by gmaniac1 on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 8:05pm.
I lived in was the only remnant of vanilla so to speak. The rest was a cesspool of drugs and crime. I got more respect from whitey than I ever did from blacky. Blacky has no respect in that county but for themselves in general so to expect them to be above the fray is not very common. My family was the exception not the rule unfortunately. Then again, my dad was an Air Force colonel and mom was a University of Virginia grad though both came from parents who did not or barely finished high school.
And unfortunately,
Submitted by GeneralAl on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 6:55am.
"My family was the exception not the rule unfortunately." And unfortunately, us whiteys have a tendacy to judge you based upon the likes of Smiley and West. Its too bad its that way and its not right but we're sick of guys like that and yet we're exposed to them by our wonderful media. God bless your Dad and Mom, both for their service and for positively affecting you!
"Old Soldiers never die, they just fade away"!
Thanks General and trust me their were whiteys that tried
Submitted by gmaniac1 on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 9:43pm.
to act all "black" and vote democratic in that state, especially our county. I love where I'm from and my home, and I'm an alum of the state university. That said, the politics there are nothing to be desired and I remember when black people were the ones that were (1) the most to be married and least to divorce, (2) were corrected on our grammar constantly to keep pace educationally, and (3) attended church on a regular basis, which the last one is still pretty accurate. However, those black Christian, conservative minded thinkers, still vote for no good secular liberals. I guess we need to get back to the educated part of the equation;)
Smiley and West are nothing more than race pimps and they are not just a disservice to the black community with their lies and deceit, they are a disservice to the white race that has supported civil rights in the past. They are the new Bull Connors of the day, as is Barack Obama!
Also, let's say we do have some civil unrest between blacks and whites as these two dolts presume. All-in-all who do they think would win? Whitey would put a smack down on everyone else just because of sheer (sp) numbers alone. So that's just idiotic thinking, mostly from Dr. West.
Racism of Smiley and West
Submitted by Steve Cakouros on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 9:44pm.
I will say this for Smiley, he is color blind. He caters to Marxists of all colors.
Smiley is an over sensitive black man that is preoccupied with race issues. I think his program is for the most part superfluous a staging platform for his bitterness.
What Smiley thinks of white people is not important. I personally like being white. My people gave the world Solon the father of democracy.
Black men on the other hand should feel guilty for the way they treat their women and routinely abandon their offspring.
Booker T. Washington called blacks like Smiley whiners who because they are always whining about race do not command respect.
ummmmmmmmm whitey ain't
Submitted by jkwtrading on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 3:42am.
ummmmmmmmm whitey ain't amused and whitey be ready..
Tavis Smiley, Congenital Moron and Race-Baiter
Submitted by Motormouth KOS on Wed, 02/15/2012 - 2:11pm.
Smiley is a talent-free clown who likes to hear himself talk.
However, he is so guilty over his very marginal success (see, he is not on Food Stamps) that he feels compelled to talk some ghetto jive and feign indignance at alleged discrimination.
Of course, he's so hip he can say n$%%^&gger. He's black! It's OK!
Of course he looks the other way when misogynists and women-beating blacks denigrate females in the name of "art" (think rap)
Of course he and Alfalfa West can ape it up and talk about crackers.
They are the oppressed and there are no rules for them.
The Obamination... A crisis leading to a catastrophe..(please donate to MRC)