T. Johnson - Welcome to Braggsville

[DRAMATIC SIGH]

I’m reminded of this joke:

A very, very white kid walks into the kitchen where his mother is baking and rubs chocolate all over his face, and says, “Look, Mom, I’m black!”… No. Fuck that… An Asian kid walks into a kitchen. A handsome Asian kid. Real handsome. So you know he’s Malaysian. Smart, too. Smart as shit. In case you didn’t know he was Malaysian. (And shit is smart, smart is shit, who carries whom?) Walks into a kitchen where his mother is baking. He rubs chocolate on his face. He turns to his mother and says, “Look, Ibu, I’m a rapper!” His mother smacks his head, bends him over and spanks him, and says, “No. You’re going to law school! Go tell your uncles what you told me!” The boy finds one uncle and says, “Look, Pak Long, I’m a rapper!” His uncle bends him over, spanks him. Then tells him to go show his other uncle what he did. The boy runs out to the backyard, where his other uncle is medicating Cali-style. “Look, Pak Ngah! I’m a rapper.” His uncle laughs, reaches out to pluck him, but being heavily medicated, pokes him in the eye with his roach clip. The little boy — the smart, handsome little boy, that is — runs back into the kitchen and cries into his mother’s apron. What have you learned? she asks. The boy yells, “I’ve only been a rapper for five minutes and I already hate you Chinese people!”

See, as they say around Little D’s way, I ain’t no restaurant Tabasco. You heard my man, Big-C, fool! It’s gigantomachy, fool! Like Big-C, I still say it was a good idea. We’re activists. Activists are always ahead of their time.

And we never die — in peace or otherwise!

Sexicon (The Glossary for the Rest of Us)

Alien technology—See Incredible edibles.

Bingo wings—Aka triceps tacos, the bag of skin hanging inelegant from the triceps of many an arm. Most commonly seen when waving.

Braggsville—see U.S. of A.

Civil War—(1) Polite disagreement. (2) When people of the same race argue over what to do with people of another race. (3) Divide and conquer taken to the extreme.

Crumb catchers—Snake charmers.

Cultural relativity—We’re okay, they’re okay.

Curse of Ham—Genesis 9:24–25.

9:24—And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son [Ham] had done unto him.

9:25—And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

Also known as the Curse of Canaan, Ham’s son. For centuries apologists quoted this verse to justify slavery. During the Enlightenment, religion was supplemented with scientific justification such as phrenology (the measuring of skulls). In modern times, both justifications have been supplanted by standardized testing and speech patterns.

D-Nice

Digital literacy event—See chapters 16 and 22.

Dropping it like it’s hot— Maybach make it rain pole tea party

Essentialize/essentialism—Essentialize lives next door to stereotype. They have been dating for some time now, and they frequently appear together on Fox News and at conservative events.

Ewoks—(1) Mammal-like bipeds native to the forest moon of Endor. Made famous by the Star Wars movies. (2) Tree huggers from the wilds of Berkeley.

Freud—Nineteenth-century cocaine enthusiast. “Woe to you, my Princess, when I come I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump— you shall see who is stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn’t eat enough or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body. In my last severe depression I took coca again and a small dose lifted me to the heights in a wonderful fashion…” [from an 1884 letter to his fiancée Martha Bernays].

Hermetic irony—(1) Aesthetic productions delivered without the metadiscursive features traditionally relied upon to decode them. (2) The joke you don’t recognize as such. (3) Laurel and Hardy. Abbott and Costello. Amos and Andy. Laverne and Shirley. For years popular comedy and irony have depended on a clear separation of powers. A comedic duo has a straight man and a comic. The comic delivers the punch lines, and the straight man acts as the audience’s surrogate, expressing rage, frustration, aplomb, whatever the appropriate emotion may be, freeing the audience to laugh and assuring them that the joke is not on them, that it’s safe to be amused and not outraged. Many new media such as online videos or mock websites are self-contained. In other words, the audience has no windsock, no surrogate, and no laugh track, nothing to indicate where the joke begins and ends — hence, hermetic irony. When Louis method tweets the bumper sticker slogans, he thinks it’s funny because he knows he is joking. As Sheriff points out, and demonstrates, no one unfamiliar with Louis or the immediate scenario is guaranteed to come to the same conclusion.

Holler—A small valley or hollow.

Incredible edibles—See alien technology.

Institutionalization—The spiritual and emotional ossification of higher education’s long-term inmates.

Institutionalized racism—Structural racism.

Internet—The bisexual digital incubus.

Irony—The use of metal where wood is expected.

Ishi—Man.

Johnny Appleseed—Semen.

The Juniors—(1) Euphemism for buttocks. (2) Littler versions of yourself.

Kerana—Because.

Ku Klux Klan—Social club dating back to mid-nineteenth-century America. Bringing a Message of Hope and Deliverance to White Christian America! A Message of Love NOT Hate!

Likening — (1) Industrious folk climb the ladder of success, others take the escalator (to paraphrase the great Biggie Smalls, RIP). Likening is your pass to the escalator. (2) See Michael Jackson. (3) See Beyoncé.

Lynching—(1) Ceremonial purification and sacrifice featuring a piñata stuffed with sweetbreads instead of sweetmeats. (2) Ritual offering to the New World gods of honor and justice.

Mengapa tidak—Why not?

Methuselah—You’ll have to ask him.

Micro-aggression—The plastic gun of racism; you can sneak this one through security most of the time because it is comprised of nonracist ways of being racist, nonsexist ways of being sexist, and the like. E.g., You’re not like other BLANK people, or, You speak English very well.

Mondays—Be honest. Who likes them? You can be honest with me .

Oppression porn—(1) The depiction of poverty, oppression, and/or despair with the intent of provoking moral arousal. Frequently appears as digital media, literature, and pseudo-immersive favela tours. The most common side effect is a dangerously inflated sense of national and/or cultural superiority. (Fortunately this form of priapism does not require lancing, an icepack, ligation, or aspiration.) As with Internet porn, desensitization is a risk. See also favela tours. See also Sally Struthers.