Forty years ago when he was
hosting Saturday Night Live Eddie Murphy appeared in one of the great
sketches in the show's long history of great sketches. He said that its been
said we live in two Americas: one white and one black. He then proceeded to
test the theory.
A group of black makeup artists
began to put whiteface on him and he prepared by watching Dynasty and Dallas
and reading a lot of Hallmark Cards. Then he went out into the world and
demonstrated – hilariously – that it really was two different worlds,
starting with a white cashier allowing him to take a newspaper without paying
for him and ending with him going to a bank and being able to take out as much
money as he wanted with no identification at all.
This still ranks as one of the
funniest things I've ever seen on TV. (I urge all of you to try and track it
down either on You Tube or Peacock where the episode and the sketch will
certainly be streaming.) The thing is the more time I spend among the world of
so many progressives and leftist doctrine I get the very really feeling that
this is in fact how society works for white males and everyone else.
Well speaking as a white cis male
I can assure you, every time I walk into a7-11 I'm not just allowed to take
groceries without paying for them by a cashier. When we are on a bus and there
are no African-Americans or other races present, we don't start having cocktail
parties. And I have yet to walk into any bank and just say give me $50,000 and
the cashier will just hand it to me, no questions asked, nor will the bank
president just tear up my loan application with laughter and send minority
clerks away with a thought. It's possible I'm doing something wrong but I doubt
it. I live in the same New York Eddie Murphy did forty years ago. And for the
record I'm pretty sure it's easier for Eddie Murphy to get better treatment in
society even though I'm a white man and therefore by the doctrine of so many
people have it infinitely easier than one of the most successful comedians of
all time.
I never thought I'd actually have
to say this in an article but like so much progressive dogma at this site and others its basically
assumed as fact. It falls apart the moment you breathe on it of course but I
don't think anybody even does that. The idea that a white trucker earning
minimum wage in Alabama or Mississippi is somehow treated better in America
today then Oprah Winfrey or Selena Gomez (to name just two people off the top
of my head) is laughable. And yet somehow when all the argument is made about
the class warfare of today no one wants to argue that they should have their
immense wealth – which is part of the ten percent of the one percent – taken
from them and redistributed among the poor.
I'm now going to move to another
SNL alumnus Chris Rock and something he said when hosting Saturday Night
Live a decade later, not long after the O.J. Simpson verdict. That was
treated by so many people as some kind of victory against racism but Rock, as
always, knew better: "It's not about race. It's about fame. If O.J.
had been Orenthal the bus driver, his ass would be on his way to jail!" I
don't think anyone would question he was right in that argument thirty years
later.
For that reason I've always
believed so much of the pearl clutching done with rich and famous people manage
to escape justice, whether it comes from right-wing or left-wing media is so
much pearl clutching. That's not a bug in our system; it's one of the perks.
It doesn't matter whether you're a Roman Emperor, a crowned head of Europe,
a dead white writer or a South American generalissimo. No matter where you live
all systems in our society favor the haves over the have nots. That's not fair, but where is written that
the world was supposed to be fair? (Except of course among progressive dogma
where it’s the only thing the world should be.) I'd argue, not entirely
sarcastically, that should be the true model for the American dream. Work hard,
be successful and become rich and society will bend over backward to overlook
whatever indiscretions you cause or even what crimes you commit. Become wealthy and powerful and you can treat
all those people beneath you like other shit with no consequences or penalties.
The world's always going to work that way; you might as well try to benefit
from it.
And its by that same logic I have
zero tolerance for those who yell at the top of their lungs when ever a
celebrity, almost always a white male, is revealed that he did horrible,
possibly illegal things for years and society covered up for it. First of all,
see the previous remark. Second of all, I find so much of this judgment highly
selective depending on which side you're on. Think I'm kidding? All right. We
white people will agree never to watch another Woody Allen movie and have them
all banned. In exchange, all African-Americans must agree to never listen to
another Michael Jackson song or go to the movie that's just been greenlit. Gee,
it got quiet all of a sudden.
(On a strictly personal note, I do
find there's an enormous hypocrisy in how in the fifteen years since he died
Jackson's entire past has been completely excused or erased by so much of
society, black or white. I advise you to watch Chris Rock's Never Scared HBO
special to remind us all just what the King of Pop was doing twenty years ago.)
Now to be clear I'm not doing this
to just point out progressive hypocrisy, though I can do this all day. I
actually do have a certain sense of morals. I truly believe that the same
standards should apply to everyone in this country, regardless of race, gender,
sexual preference or wealth. I know by and large they won't – I'm not naïve on
that score – but I do believe in the principle. And I believe if you break the
so-called social contract there should be consequences and your race, gender or
sexuality should not be a factor in it.
I do understand why in the eyes of
so many people, usually those of women or minorities, there's an argument of
the white privilege in so much of our society.
I also think that a lot of the time certain aspects of our society tries
to overlook certain flaws of our people because of our bias. I've given certain
examples above as to why we think this way, now I want to talk about more
recent events and it applies by something that happened yesterday.
Last night FX quietly cancelled
its comedy series English Teacher. There was no public reason given for
its cancellation but I wasn't surprised it happened, in truth I was expecting
it. As I wrote in my review for the series earlier this year:
"Creator Brian Jordan Alvarez was accused
of sexual harassment by a former male co-star
(Alvarez is openly gay). Alvarez denied the charges and in December the
show was renewed for a second season but by that point there was a cloud over
it. While some of awards shows such as the Astras did nominate it for
Outstanding Comedy Series I suspected and wasn't surprised that the Emmys would
ignore it. I wasn't even sure if the second season would ever air.
I'll be honest, I have no idea if
FX will stand by Alvarez after the second season airs and that the show will
disappear into the ether. It would not shock me if that were the case."
That they didn't came as no surprise
considering how FX chose to air it. They gave the show a three episode premiere
in its first week, then aired the next three episodes the following week and
the last two after that. At the time I
could read between the lines. FX was fulfilling its contractual obligation to
Alvarez because they didn't want to risk a lawsuit after renewing the series.
At the same time they didn't want to risk the bad publicity of keeping him on.
So they filmed the series, gave as little attention as they could and within a month
of airing its final episode cancelled the show with no comment as to why.
Much as I loved the show and
Alvarez's work I do understand why the people at FX did it. I even applaud it.
The show was a critical hit and it may very well have been a ratings hit but
Alvarez's reputation had a black mark against him and I'm pretty sure the
longer English Teacher was on the air FX was going to face increasingly
difficult questions. Cancelling his show as quietly as possible solves the
problem of what to do with Alvarez and its hard to imagine their being any real
blowback. Economically it was the right thing to do and it has the added
benefit of being the morally correct one as well.
In ways that have been subtler but
no less effective I've seen these patterns play out in the past decade
throughout the world of TV. The closest parallel involves Frankie Shaw. Once a promising talent Showtime bought the
rights to a series of hers known as SMILF and it became a critical and ratings
hit in late 2017. The show was renewed
for a second season and Shaw was becoming close to following the feminist
patterns. In one of her episodes she played a sheriff stalking the men of
nation with the line 'Time's Up."
However during that season
allegations were made against Shaw by female cast members who claimed that she
had been exploiting them and engaging in bad behavior. Despite the success of
the series Showtime cancelled it that year and Shaw had worked only sporadically
ever since even though no charges were filed.
Now if you wanted to look this in
the narrowest of senses Shaw has received the same treatment that both Jeffrey
Tambor and Kevin Spacey did when allegations were raised against them at the
end of the 2010s. At the time Tambor was the start of Amazon's most successful
series to date both from terms of critical and ratings acclaim Transparent. Tambor
had won two Emmys for it as well as multiple other awards and the series had
been nominated for Best Comedy twice. However after the release of Season 4
allegations against Tambor for sexual harassment became public and Amazon chose
to end the series with a one hour musical finale – with Tambor absent from it.
Similarly when allegation against Spacey became public in 2017 he was still one
of the leads of House of Cards. His character was killed off and the
show was abrupted ended the following season. In both cases Amazon and Netflix
were dealing with what were at the time their flagship series and it could not
have been an easy decision for them to do this knowing what was coming. But
they chose to do it anyway. It was purely an economic decision and I doubt
morality had anything to do with it but these are the world's that corporations
must live in.
Indeed we saw the exact same thing
play out when Roseanne was rebooted in 2017 and by the time the first
season aired she'd made a series of horribly racist comments about the head of
the network. The fact that she was the executive producer and cast member of
what was already a hit series put the network in a difficult position. It was
slightly different before – she was written out of her own show and they
created a new spinoff The Connors – but it is likely that had ABC stood
by her they would have faced a backlash from the more liberal sections of
Hollywood. Again it was an economic decision done against a powerful woman but
they treated her in the same way that played out with Spacey and Tambor.
Now I suspect that many of these
readers will look at this and say: "So what? You're saying that compares
to what the victims of these powerful men went through?" Of course not.
Only a monster would say that. But despite being a white cis male I don't make
the laws or have say in how society works save at the ballot box. I'd say the recourse was the ballot box or
the jury box but I know all too well that these recourses don't satisfy the far
left because as we all know they are 'rigged'.
Now I'd turn on the question on
them: what would you consider the alternative punishment? Because long before
the term 'cancel culture' was invented, it wasn't working before the internet
came along. Public shaming and raising
awareness only works for so long and by necessity many people can move past it.
I saw what happened to Don Imus the first time, that barely raised a dent.
Considering that you will argue we live in a 'post-shame' society, I'm
surprised there are still people on the internet who want to do it and I've
made very clear what I think of your raising awareness as a strategy.
And to be clear I know what you ACTUALLY
want to do because the left doesn't say th3e quiet part out loud. They're
not quiet about anything. Everything is chanted, written down and said in the
lyrics to songs for decades. I remain
unconvinced this is a workable strategy mainly because I've seen too many
examples in recent years of women, African-Americans and members of the LGBTQ+
community who if they are given money and power will act just as horribly as
their white cis male counterparts. Is the roster as deep as the latter
group? No. But it's not nonexistent either. And to be clear your fanbase will give a
mirror image of defense that they do for everybody who's in the white power
structure.
In a weird way the case of Alvarez
should almost be something to think about. Given the opportunity to have wealth
and privilege, a homosexual LatinX man proved to be just as capable of bad
behavior as a white cis male. Think of
it this way: FX treated Brian Jordan Alavarez when they learned the truth the
same way they did Louis C.K. when they learned the truth about his behavior: he
was cut loose from the network and they're trying to pretend he didn't exist. If that's not a sign of equality in this country,
what is?
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