Click here to meet some players on the black satire scene:
A comic strip called "Ghetto Fabulous." T-shirts with the words "Uppity Negro" splashed across the chest. A book titled "How to Rent a Negro."
Welcome to the new black humor. But not everyone is laughing.
It's a form of satire that gets its power from using racism as a weapon. It's raw and bites on many levels. And some people in the black community have no patience for it.
There's no question the statements coming from these young black commentators resonate with the masses. Who doesn't think it's crazy that rappers are getting $5 million record deals in prison? And what black person isn't annoyed when a white person touches their hair?
But some worry that members of the hip-hop generation are delivering their messages in a way that is too brash, too ignorant, too in-your-face. In essence, they think there's too much airing of the culture's dirty laundry.
Aaron McGruder is the mastermind behind "The Boondocks" comic strip, which has been attacked by both politicians and the hoi polloi for satirizing sacred civil rights figures. (AP Photo/Sony Pictures Television, Kyle Christy)
The Rev. Al Sharpton came out blasting when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was shown saying the n-word on Aaron McGruder's animated television series "The Boondocks." And the Rev. Jesse Jackson was upset when jokes in the movie "Barbershop" took aim at MLK sleeping around and questioned Rosa Parks' role in civil rights history.
"It definitely seems to be a generational clash," says Robert Brown, assistant dean for undergraduate education at Emory University. "The younger generation is taking more of an in-your-face approach that is somewhat foreign to older African-Americans. While some might say that the younger generation folks need to be educated somewhat more, there is a manner in which people are making the commentary that is emblematic of the younger generation."
There has never been a monolithic way to express blackness. Some people followed King, others were with Malcolm X. Some people favored the Black Panther Party while others didn't want anything to do with that militant group. Some read the brash works of James Baldwin, while others preferred the steady storytelling of Ralph Ellison
"What we are seeing are the fruits of the black power movement," says Elizabeth Amelia Hadley, a professor of Africana studies at Simmons College. "These young people are involved in a continuum. I get annoyed with the Jesse Jacksons (of the world) who criticized McGruder. They were about McGruder's age when they started protesting. We didn't like Sharpton all the time. We didn't like Jesse all the time. Even now, young people ask me, what has Jesse ever done?"
The truth is, the hip-hop generation has never experienced Jim Crow laws, never been bused to separate schools, never protested at the lunch counter, never stood in a crowd watching King or Malcolm X or Medgar Evers give a speech. They were not born when the words they now use to market their work were hurled at black people to degrade them.
Some critics feel this discredits them from making such brash statements about black leaders, racism and the social ills of the community.
"I don't think King using the n-word takes us anywhere," says Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and an expert on race relations. "It takes you into a negative place that makes us feel it's not necessary to respect the icons. Do I see an overall value in his comic strip? Yes, I think it takes us to another level of humor and perspective. But where should the line be?"
That's the big question.
Aaron McGruder also turned his strip into a televison show. (AP Photo/Sony Pictures Television)
Brown, the dean at Emory, says there is no right or wrong way to deliver a message. He says some of these satirists may not use much tact or have much class, but this is a free society.
Daphne Brooks, a professor at Princeton University who's working on a book about black feminist satire, adds that the diversity of voices is what keeps the black community alive.
And how else can young African-Americans be heard? They say they can't count on placing an op-ed piece in The Washington Post or The New York Times, or booking an appearance on a morning talk show -- especially since some of their messages are controversial.
People like McGruder and damali ayo (author of "How to Rent a Negro,") are trying to make their statements in a way that feels lighthearted but is actually deadly serious. Mainstream America doesn't always know how to take it.
"You have to realize leaders, such as Sharpton, are very much mainstream," says Maya Rockeymoore, a political scientist and author of "The Political Action Handbook: A How To Guide For The Hip Hop Generation." "They wear business suits. They walk a very fine line. They make sure they don't go over a certain edge.
"Satire, whether it be a Web site, a comic strip, or T-shirt, allows you to slip in there and give a cutting-edge message."
It can be a dangerous move.
If you work in corporate America and are running an Uppity Negro web site on the side, you run the risk of losing your job, as Andrea Carter did. She says putting the term on her resume may be costing her jobs.
But Rockeymoore says the discussion needs to happen.
"If we are truly trying to move our community to a place where we minimize poverty and ensure people have opportunities, there are some hard-hitting truths we are going to have to talk about more openly," she says. "Some of these deal with class and generational and age issues."
 (AP Photo/HO/Peter Epstein/5W Public Relations) | Jarvis Stewart works with public figures on how to present themselves to the world.
|
So who are the current risk-takers on the front lines of racial commentary? asap talked to four black satirists who are creating some interracial tension with their work.
Call her an Uppity Negro
Not so good in the 'hood
The other n-word
Knocking Black History Month
Megan Scott is an asap reporter in New York.
___
Want to comment? Sound off at soundoffasap@ap.org .
©2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.
