Of course I missed the Super Bowl (an event that oppresses black people like nobody’s business), but I did catch an article about this confused Super Bowl ad:
(Yes, it is a form of oppression. Poor black youth see black males succeeding in that social context and not in many others. Because of this, the ghetto youth invest their entire dreams in the pure fantasy of professional sports.)
i like your style of writing….here’s my spin
“they invest their entire dreams in the fantasy …of jacking off to Daytime Soap star sarah palin … while reporters for the Stranger ignore any meaningless conversations held at the G-7 in Canada this past weekend.”
Wouldn’t all major sporting events be considered oppressive under those standards?
Not sure I agree, interesting point though.
I guess this means poor black kids can’t think or make decision for themselves and need to be helped.
“Wouldn’t all major sporting events be considered oppressive under those standards?”
Except hockey.
So… the NHL oppresses Canadians?
Well then nothing is more oppressive to black youth than a black president.
Uh oh, don’t make fun of environmentalists…..it’ll only prove what we already know, they have no sense of humour.
Also, NASA is oppressive to white kids. The vast majority of astronauts have been white, and both poor and rich kids aspire to be astronauts, but it’s even more of a fantasy than pro sports. It’s cruel and oppressive to show children people who look like them excelling in a field that’s almost impossible to get into.
diesel is still a fossil fuel. audi’s not as funny as they think.
The Green Police was the excited, fevered dream of the right-wing nut jobs. This ad only hurt the enviromental cause.
1) For all the “comparisons” like hockey and NASA, you miss the other fundamental point Charles was making…that absent OTHER views of black men being successful in other venues (business) the image of them in the Superbowl creates the illusion that it’s the only way a black man can be successful. That’s why the NASA and Hockey comparisons fail. But, I will grant that the President represents a step in the right direction.
Also, I agree that this ad hurts the environmental movement more than it helps.
Charles is correct. It does so especially so not by way of the professional athletes on display in the Super Bowl, (who receive some compensation for playing, however limited). It’s in the ten-times-greater number of college athletes, and the ten-times-greater-than-that number of high school athletes, who perform for their masters for free, with almost no chance of advancement and at great risk of debilitating injury, not least to their supposed educations (which are mostly fake).
However, his argument also applies to the form of entertainment he enjoys the most: hip hop. All those prancing fools in their gold jewelry and semi-naked attendants on TV are falsely luring hundreds of thousands of poor black youth to abandon their studies and reach for rap success, which is even more of a chimera than sports success.
what kind of animal is that supposed to be sniffing at the truck? it isn’t a dog…
Comparisons to NASA fail thus: If you don’t make it to NASA, the pathway you chose to get there (an education in science) will likely have you gainfully employed elsewhere. With pro sports and, yes, hip-hop/rap, it’s mainly all-or-nothing. It’s a risk/reward situation-aspiring to pro sports is high risk, low reward.
The steps we’ve taken as a society to reduce our impact on the environment are like a bandaid on a sucking chest wound.
And it’s already oppressing people like a police state!
Ha ha ha.
That’s hilarious!
@14, that’s an anteater.
@11 I was thinking the same thing, it was a republican wet dream. I’m sure the right wing nut job calls of its prescience if we try to fix global warming have already begun.
Charles,
Hmm? You do pose an interesting question. I’m not necessarily in agreement that the image of black players appearing in the Super Bowl “oppresses” black males but good on you for sticking to your principles and NOT watching the Super Bowl if that’s what you believe. I agree with @13 Fnarf. That opinion is more to the point. Hip-hop/Rap music/culture is just as if not more problematic. So, if the Super Bowl is representative of that “oppression” then Hip-hop is also guilty of it as well. It’s allure to young black males is quite possibly venomous and false as too many aspire to be a hip-hop artist and neglect their studies and avoid other important lifestyle choices.
Yeah, I saw a comment on another message board about how that Green Police ad could become reality and we should be scared. He was completely serious too.
“OTHER views of black men being successful”
You mean other than the most powerful man on the planet who is on every TV and newspaper every day of the week?
@12, @15 – I really think your logic is totally off here. Why would you blame sports or the hip-hop industry for the lack of other options for poor young black males? I could understand blaming a substandard public school system or systemic economic disadvantages, but why blame existing avenues of success, even if they’re narrow?
Is the implicit theory here that if young black males didn’t have sports or hip hop as the only apparent out, they’d start studying harder and learning better and magically overcome all the existing barriers? How can you be so sure that it wouldn’t just create an even more entrenched sense of helplessness?
It amazes me to hear folk, especially Republicans, go off on environmentalism. It just exposes their stupidity. Doing something that lessons our impact on the earth is wrong?
Remember, the earth isn’t going anywhere. At some time, however, we could. The earth hiccups and we are history. Ask the dinosaurs.
Hey @12 Ian…if you’ll read my entire post, I did grant that the President is a step in the right direction.
Sports and entertainment may be false ladders for a lot of people — extremely rare but prominent examples of upward social mobility that maintain the illusion that anybody can become rich — but the use of “oppression” in that context seems a bit heavy-handed. “Hoodwinking” might be more to the point.
Timothy, thanks. my point has no depth; it’s truly simple.
A viewing of “Hoop Dreams” might come in handy here.
Mudede, did you know that one of the coaches coaching a Super Bowl team is black?
@28Fnarf,
I viewed that movie. An excellent documentary. My brother actually graduated from the HS profiled in that film. I think Steve James made the movie. It’s quite an accurate account. Good tip.
@29, point still holds. Some people win the lottery too.
@28, when I taught inner city youth, i did my best to make them watch that documentary. my best. all they had was rap and pro sports on their mind.
” I did grant that the President is a step in the right direction.”
Just a step?
@33 Yes, just a step. At least, in part, because he’s seen as more extraordinary than, say, Clinton. It stops being a “step” and becomes something more when if someone says “CEO,” “lawyer” or “English professor” and our immediate visual image is not necessarily of an older white man.
The idea that driving a car, any car, can be “green” is hilarious to me. There is no such as a “green” car, and there never will be. Ever.
By the logic of the post I don’t understand how a black president is a step in the right direction, since a child is much less likely to become president than play in the NFL. It’s just a more egregious instance of oppression.
“There is no such as a “green” car, and there never will be. Ever.”
I agree which is why I don’t give a fuck and own and drive 2 of them.
” It just exposes their stupidity.”
Actually it exposes how humourless the loony left is.
@37
Please elaborate. You are pro-pollution?
Man I must have really been oppressed by white rock musicians. Add to that I didn’t even get to grow up on goverment hand outs and never got a special place saved for me in colleges or jobs due to my ethnicity.
I’m pro-not-giving-a-shit and enjoying my life unrestricted by what fundementalists like you think is the correct way to live. Plus I’m European!
Honestly, I’m finding this science market to be all or nothing. I should have played football.
And to be fair, it’s just as much of a trap for the white poor as it is to the black poor.
Damn, if the Green Police are repressing all those unemployed American synthetic chemists.
@41, we are all europeans. this is the meaning of the world market.
On this commercial- so, I guess the message is, if we were to get to the point of environmentalist fascism in this country, and totally normal Americans get busted for living the way we always have been, you’ll be just fine with one of these cars. Great message for America, at a time when teabaggers and anti-environmentalist conservatives have pretty much just fucking had it with treehugging liberals
i drive a oil spewing chipper shredder to work every day. It runs on brand new babies. what are you gonna do? ask me if I’m pro pollution? I’ll be here every single day trolling for hate. Thanks.
hey Charles your post reminds me of a concept that I think you’ll appreciate in a demented, science fiction kind of way:
after the Emancipation and the end of the Civil War, southern slave owners traveled through time to the latter half of the 20th century to become coaches of sports teams. this of course gives them the power to still command a group strong, young black men all day. weird.
of course I do enjoy having a beer and watching a game every now and then, but I can’t help watching some white guy bark orders and look pissed from the sidelines without imagining a whip in his hand.