Favorite Black Actors in Movies Month

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Don't matter what people call you its how they treat you that counts !
Sticks and stones

 

Just sad that I can't do more to stop its prevalence. I think it's a barbarous term meant to inflict damage and carrying barbed rhetoric along with it. It's done purposefully, without regard for other people's feelings; which is how I feel about its use in television and movies.

I guess my logic is like how can you tell a nine year old, for example, that it's wrong to call someone that name if you don't tell Tarentino the same thing. He may say "well, it's done to prove a point" or, like you pointed out "it's to show the character of the person using it". But it's impossible to separate the word from its history, so I say to heck with it! Just don't use that word. Do something else to demean the character of Kurt Russel I think it was.

Its use on this site hasn't gone unnoticed either. I have tried to pull others up when it is used but have met some resistance.

 

Don't let it get to you. We can never stop teaching our kids it's wrong to use that derogatory term, no matter if they hear it in a movie, in songs, hear thier friends say it, or hear African Americans call each other by that word, which makes it even more confusing to people that are not of that ethnicity.

 

Its normalized in (sub)culture in this day and age too. Its not just a historical word. That's wishful thinking.
Its not normalized in this day and age because Tarantino uses it so much in his movies: more like he looked at these parts in culture (as Eric said: not really hard to run into) and took it to use it in his movies. You would perhaps see it as abuse. I can see your point. I don't have a verdict on it. They say everything's allowed in love and war. I would say everything is allowed in art.

 

First black people I remember were those natives in old Tarzan movies on telly!

 

John Amos..

 

Ossie Davis..

 

^^^

 

I'm conflicted. I have both support and argument for this post. The artist in me is saying we shouldn't chide people from using it in film, music or writings, but on the other hand...it does make me cringe at times.

But I also see a strange merit in some uses of the word. For example, rap music was embraced by white people the world over. And it is criticized for it's proliferation of the "N word." But the way rappers use it, is entirely different from how racists use it. So in the future, people just might think of it as a synonym for dude, guy, homeboy, whatever, and not know anything of what it used to mean. So in a weird way, embracing the term as a society and changing its meaning might be the best way to destroy the word. If that makes any sense...

 

I guess I just don't see it that way. For me, there's no separating that word from its horrible past. In my minds eye there are still disparaging qualities to that word no matter who is using it; rap moguls or actors. The reason I feel this way is tied to my Racial and Ethnic Group Relations course. It explained in the first chapter that when we use the language tied to Jim Crow laws, segregation, and slavery we're actually perpetuating at least part of the problem. I won't bother quoting it because I don't think you'd find it particularly enlightening, and I think it might already be in this thread somewhere, because I know I've used it as an example before. What was said: an African American called a honky, while a white man referred to the former as "boy". Boy, for those who don't know was term used to belittle slaves during the time of involuntary servitude. And the book says that honky isn't as hurtful/harmful because it isn't tied to this long history of abuse, though it is offensive, and there is no equivalent of racism against the white victim as there is against the black victim. It goes on to say that if a police officer became involved that the African American knows that he wouldn't be received well, and no better in a court of law.

Anyway, of course it is protected by the first amendment, but I find it one of the most distasteful things anyone can say.

 

Can Gary Coleman get some Love..

 

I hope we're not going to turn this page into another Black History Lesson. Cant U just honor black actors and actresses without finding something to debate about.. just saying.

 

Ivan Dixon..

 

I didn't get it. Was this supposed to be funny?

 

i like craig david...isnt he a black actor?