Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at 8:00AMin Is It A Crime?
Ashley McRae, 21, was not a gang member. She was shot and killed allegedly by her boyfriend. There were no other suspects. Her shooting happened after an argument between the two of them escalated into violence. Yet at her funeral Tuesday, tensions were high because allegedly different members of local gangs were in attendance and couldn't put aside their nonsensical, petty bull crap for a few hours to honor the life of a young woman, cut down before her time.
The Snob is spending her first Fourth of July in the Nation's Capitol. Oh goody! I'll probably do something very not glamorous and eat more food than I should. Might write a few letters to Elin Woods to see if she feels like joining in a few business ventures with me since it looks like she might have a little extra cash floating around soon. (Or not!) Or I just might get drunk and watch no-sexy-times vampires versus werewolves fighting over that one girl who thinks one day her fans are going to murder her movie. What are you going to do? The one thing I'm not going to do is update this puppy until something strikes my fancy. And I predict that something will strike my fancy around Monday. Until then, enjoy yourselves. Don't get too drunkity-drunk and blow up anything with yer sparklers n' such!
Here's a round-up of stories I'll be occasionally checking on:
Did you hear the one about the episodes of Aaron McGruder's "Boondocks" that ripped up BET heads Debra L. Lee and Reginald Hudlin and subsquently got ditched from Cartoon Network's Adult Swim? That's been running around the web for a while now, but I just recently stumbled across the videos online today on Liz Burr's blog.
While I quasi fell in black nerd love with McGruder when "Boondocks," the cartoon strip, first debuted, I've been reluctant to watch much of the Cartoon Network reincarnation. While I was able to laugh and cringe my way through "Chappelle Show," on Boondocks I mostly just cringe. It was bad enough when the strip became less character driven as McGruder grew weary under grueling newspaper deadlines, but this show just pushes so far to be provocative that what good there is of it is negated in the fact that the message gets lost in a flurry of expletives, n-bombs and risque sexual humor. I'm not saying that black people can't make edgy, provocative art. We have a tradition of such but there is a point where your message becomes so subversive that it pretty much ceases to exist.
Much like how BET was originally created to be all things to black people -- to both entertain and inform -- "Boondocks" used to be about humor and political insight. I'm not saying that "Boondocks" and BET are on parallel planes. For one, BET is viewed in far more households and has next-to-nil substance. But I could see how someone not attuned to racial politics wouldn't see a difference. Nudity without context is pornography. "Boondocks" starting to suffer from a severe obscuring of context.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at 8:00AM
