Spike Lee tried to warn us...
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ก.ค. 2024
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This video looks at the 2000s Spike Lee film "Bamboozled" and examines what it says about the concept of "co*ning", aka being a black person who explicitly works against the interests of other black people. How and why do Co*ns do what they do? What should we understand about them in order to address the harm that they do?
00:00 I almost Quit TH-cam last year
02:48 A quick look at the career of Spike Lee
10:39 Explaining Bamboozled pt 1
20:22 A quick aside on Black Radicalism
24:26 Explaining Bamboozled pt 2
29:34 What is a Co*n?
44:44 Explaining Bamboozled pt 3
5148 Are we too hard on Co*ns?
59:48 Bamboozled's hidden message
Edited by @NeedlessNick
Featuring @Mannof1000Thoughts , @victorythecreator , and @Readus101
Audio support @ForeignManinaForeignLand
Works cited
Tyler Perry and the Mantan Manifesto: Critical Race Theory and the Permanence of Cinematic Anti-Blackness - imixwhatilike.files.wordpress...
In Defense of Uncle Tom Why Blacks Must Police Racial Loyalty by Brandon Starkey - www.amazon.com/Defense-Uncle-...
What should Black folk do with the word coon? - andscape.com/features/what-sh... - กีฬา
The fact that TH-cam demonetized the original upload just elevates the point of this video. I can go on a tirade on how so many hateful and bigoted channels never face demonetization, but I should probably save that pent up anger for an essay.
this part!!
A lot of 'rightwing' channels are demonetized. fully.
And with 'rightwing' I mean people critical of the status quo from a more conservative perspective rather than a full blown left of Marx perspective.
I have no interest in extremist talking points, the only reason this channel got into my feed cuz I watched his white rapper paradox video wich was a good video but the more political takes kinda make me feel like I am watching some Black Panther recruitment or something.
@@khululyp oh really?
@@khululyp Ah, the only thing more cringe than a right winger: a centrist (ie a right winger that pretends to not be a right ringer).
@@khululypGuess you should stick with Tim Poole, Joe Rogan or whatever.
"We should be more demanding of the audience" ~ Lee
This is still so accurate.
Yessss, or give us some credit, maybe we can handle something more
Yes. And the audience should WANT to be challenged.
What he should have said - and pardon for being pretentious to presume what another person was thinking or meant - is we should expect more from the _studio._
It is the studio that prevents works like this from being made for fear of failure.
@@jenski5338 that's what all art is and should be
Look at every iconic film
It made us think and challenge the status quo
A good example of this is "Star Wars"
I know that George Lucas himself said the Empire was inspired by The Nixon Administration/American Imperialism (He even said White supremacy) and the rebels were rhe Vietcong (mentioned the Zulu nation as well the name jedi and Jedi Mace Windu was actually based on IzZulu warriors called the Juba/Jebai)
And to add to that he referred to Disney as "The white slavers"
Ironic, considering his films are incredibly palatable, obvious, and poorly constructed in all technical aspects
As a 18 yr old, soon to be 19 yr old black man, ur channel has helped me navigate the world and understand my experience as a black man in america, i never had the words or concepts to express or even proccess the things I experience that u explain so well, thanks for everything F.D
you just verbalized exactly why i love his channels
As a yt 26yr old woman who lives in the UK I sincerely feel the channel is so eye opening and educational to all.
Literally the only reason I started caring about POC issues (because I grew up in Wales that such discussions were never even talked about let alone considered) was because I watched that (and I now realize what a terrible movie it is) "The Help" movie when I was 14-15. Channels like this opened up my eyes so much and made me so aware of my ignorance.
It is so important for content creators like this to exist and to make sure they're supported and their message spread.
@@fawnieeejust say white
@@brianbadonde9251you got a problem?
Hey that's a nice and well deserved acknowledgement! Continue searching and questioning...
I was a student at Alabama State in 2000. The university paid for us to watch Bamboozled at a theatre, for 2-3 days. People were in tears at the end. Everybody black needs to watch it. Watching culture devolve like Bamboozled in real life over the years has been like WTF. But because of this movie, a lot of us saw it coming.
I just wanna take a second to extol the fact that not only Unc successfully brought us a media analysis, knowing that they normally don't perform as well for the breadtube gaze, but a media analysis on a movie that I'm sure none of us even watched before.
Goes to show that the genre is evolving and it's being ushered in by good hands
Whoa. Spike's catalog top to bottom is amazing and can't be recommended enough. He's touched almost every aspect of this "breadtube" space from a black man's perspective...and even some of his more mainstream works (i.e. yt) like 25th Hour, Inside Man, and Summer of Sam, are indictments of the systems we live in. There's something there even in some of us his lesser known works like Red Hook Summer, Get on the Bus, and Da Sweet Blood of Jesus.
Not an indictment at all of anyone who hasn't seen them all but definitely major props to imho a top five film director due to the scope and breadth of his films catalogue.
Love what yal do btw.
I grew up in the 90s and that propaganda definitely worked. I always thought Spike Lee films weren't for me. This video showed me that was an incorrect assumption.
Right??? Spike Lee was before my time (I'm 28) but F.D.'s analysis of his movies has made me really interested in watching more of his old ones
When I first saw this movie about 20 years ago when it came out I cried. I’m a poc with black and indigenous ancestry, not that I’m black but the dehumanizing of this and oppression that black ppl STILL FACE was so raw and heartbreaking. I saw it at a very young age before the internet and I had never seen the minstrel show or the other images used to dehumanize and stigmatize black ppl. This is happening to all oppressed ppl, these caricatures have been used for indigenous, Jewish, Latinx people for ever and seeing it so clear changed my life and I realized how disgusting and pervasive racism actually is.
Some of us know this film word for word!
I like how TH-cam forced you to bleep the word "c**n", but doesn't have a problem with you saying "c**nery" lol. The arbitrariness of algorithms.
is it arbitrary? or does the algorithm just not know that word?
Shhh, don't let the Al Gore Rhythm hear you 😂
@@JuiciferPandoraRex The AI programs cannot 'think' about how human language works. Programmers just ban certain words and call it a day
My mind had to try 2 or 3 other words before I realized what was censored 😆 OH
Doesn't censor the nword either
Even when other black folks say it
This man is so overlooked and underrated. Spike Lee is a pioneer. Great video
"Damon Wayans was mostly known for In Living Color."
Man, this was 2000, he already did Major Payne, Blankman, Mo' Money, Bulletproof, The Great White Hype, etc.
True, but he was still mostly known for Living Color!😂
@@Kwekwe in 2000? Nahhhhhh.
In living color is what opened the door for those other pictures
@@Kwekweyou must be trippin
The family also wrote, directed and acted in the first two Scary Movie films which were hugely successful.
There's nothing more tiresome than hearing "It's only us that does this to each other." from people who know better. Also should note that Tyler Perry was known in certain black circles since the mid 90s, so there's a chance Spike did more than predict. I remember seeing ads for his stage plays around 96/97 and thought "WTF is this super c**n sh*t?" Very telling that I first saw his ads running on Jerry Springer.
Glad I'm not the only one who remembers those commercials
You are right!
I remember seeing the ads during JERRY. They were strategically placed there for an audience that was already desensitized by the Jerry show circus smh
@@dozhadeville444did you strongly dislike jerry
Yeah you may be right. I was a kid living in New Orleans in the 90s. I remember hearing ads for Tyler's plays on the radio and on TV. Safe to say it is possible Spike ran across Tyler Perry's works long time before he produced Bamboozled.
Is Tyler Perry like a traitor to y'all?
I don't know much about his work. So I'm just interested in learning what y'all might think?
I wish TH-cam would begin to engage intellectually with what is andwhat isn’t appropriate language.
There was no need for this video to be demonetized, and I feel like at the very least, upon human review, you should have been able to post a video without censorship.
Which sucks because I feel like the conversation within this video is so necessary and deserves more recognition.
What does subconscious doesn’t wanna admit to all of us is that it has everything to do with “w…e” supremacy
TH-cam bites hard on the controversy cookie. They pretend they don't but what they censor is just what is incomvenient and not what is fucking evil. Thats why they censored so many LGBT-adjacent terms.
It's the result of everything being automated due to the amount of content uploaded to the platform on a daily basis. Tens of thousands of hours of video, to the point where i don't believe "human reviews" even go past 10 seconds of the video/reading description and comments. For every creator like FD, there's 100 people uploading plain and outright bigotry so real intellectuals get filtered out for speaking on controversial topics.
When u start giving TH-cam millions of dollars for advertising thn u can decide that. No matter the color of your skin, he who has the gold makes the rules kid
Take some time off and resource brothers. There were a lot of black people who were against Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., his mother, was murdered by a black man two years after his assassination. Malcom X and the Black Panther Party were sold out by other blacks
Bamboozled has been one of my favorite movies ever since it dropped. Was in the theater in tears. Thank you for these thoughts and highlighting that excellent work.
the ending montage of this movie with all the archive minstrel footage was more horrific than any film i've ever seen. It stuck with me.
Delacroix's name in Bamboozled makes my Francophone ears perk up because there's something sneakily intelligent about the filmmakers referencing French colonialism and the long history of French people assaulting and producing children with black people in French colonies. Black French people get looked down on for mispronouncing words, so him pronouncing his name in a French accent despite being in a non-Francophone setting is sort of flagging up 1. his insecurity 2. his awareness that he needs to prove himself to be one of the ones who speaks French correctly lest any white French Americans or French Canadians dismiss him automatically and 3. his desire to appeal to white people by invoking French, a language white Americans associate with culture and class and elegance. The film is working on levels most people aren't going to catch but which make nods to anti-blackness in multiple countries, and I respect that.
Wow same thoughts... I wasn't motivated to put pen to pap... Uh fingers to screen.
Well said.
It's to be fancy for the white business people. I think most are going to catch that much.
@@Theeosees That's an oversimplification. That's the equivalent of saying your same statement is the entire plot of "Sorry to Bother You".
@@Theeosees seems almost insulting to spike lee that he didn't give the name any thought apart from that. I just don't believe he would just go "lets just make it fancy so white people like it"
Love Morgan's analysis here... would love to hear from Spike on it.
@@harasewych He definitely could have, you're right
thank you for mentioning the fly in the milk experience. im one of those "flies" who grew up predominantly surrounded by white people until secondary school and grew up watching idubbbz and pewdiepie and its something that i still feel the affects of to this day in terms of my image as an 18 year old black dude. i still have moments where i feel like i'll never fit in with the community because of previously being called a kinder egg or an oreo or whatever. but i also have to take some responsibility too since i did end up internalising my feelings and adopting anti-black behaviour through letting my non-black friends say the n word just so i could fit in and feel a sense of community. ive since grown and know better and im making sure to actively engage in and with the community. i really appreciate you touching upon us "flies in the milk" and how the environments we're in often end up desensitising ourselves to anti-black behaviour, and i hope the kids of today in similar situations don't end up repeating mine and many others' mistakes
Relatable fs, I feel like a lot of us former flies in the milk had similar experiences, because at least in my case, my folks were doing everything they could to give me and my brother a good life, and they just didn't have time to really think about what growing up surrounded by whiteness might feel like. I was raised Black but at school saw very little Blackness and it sucked in some ways fs. Luckily though I've gotten comfortable in my weird Blackness (most of my Black socialization came from old Black folks until high school, so I have a old head accent lol) and spent some time unlearning some harmful stuff. The Black community is a big one and we can always come back home ❤🖤💚
@@ADubbs-fd8xf oh 100%. i can never fault my parents for wanting my brother and i to have a better life, it just sucks that they couldn't control everything outside of that. i was the only black kid in my class for the entirety of primary school but that was ok since we were kids and none of us thought much of it and im from london, so even though the area i grew up in was pretty white, the city as a whole is extremely diverse so its not like i was entirely isolated, especially since i had a lot of family over here and our church is black too. it was only during my pre-teens and the early half of my teens that i began internalising and adopting anti-blackness unintentionally since i got called white-washed and stuff when i just wanted to fit in. at least we've both come to terms with our experiences since we'll always be black and like you said, we'll always be welcomed back home
So relatable, I hope he does a video about it more, it's an issue that's so complicated to navigate in
Commenting so FD will consider doing another "fly in the milk" video.
This reminded me of my experience being the only black guy in high school it wasn't easy at all the anti blackness being a "fly in the milk" is so ingrained and hurtful you learn to numb to it.
Looking back i realise how important having fellow black classmates are being the only one leaves you so vulnerable to racism
Please, F.D., don't quit your amazing work because of doubts regarding authenticity, you still are one of the very few black creators working black issues with such sensitivity, good taste and the right jargons and humour to the point to resonate even to me, a queer middle class middled aged white woman in South America. You confront and question me in a way I don't feel offput or stranged enough to give up learning from you, self-analizing and bringing this to other lives. If I'm like that and I'm only one and your work changed my life so much, imagine how broad and impactful your influence is over the hundreds of thousands of your real target audience, American urban and semi-urban black boys and girls, young men and women in their everyday struggles. It's so weird that I can't relate so much with the female black creators, I don't know why, I just don't feel the same connection with the experiences and opinions they bring.
Bamboozled is my favorite Spike Lee joint. I will die on this hill.
This is so good. Really thought provoking analysis. Thank you for talking about this film I love and the complex social commentary therein.
It’s an extraordinary piece of work.
As a black person, images of blackface obviously offend and disgust me deeply, but aside from that, I genuinely find most of it objectively terrifying to look at. 😨
yesssss! that's part and parcel of minstrelsy--to emphasize how terrifying Black people are while simultaneously demonstrating power over them
@@mikey-wl2jt Indeed.
I'm white and I always hated blackface.
@@leogen8879
Are you old enough to remember when Ted Danson did blackface while he and Whoopi were dating? I mean, she asked him to don the makeup at her roast, and she wrote his seriously offensive jokes. She said it _"took courage."_ It was insanity on both their parts.
@@mikey-wl2jtit ends up just emphasizing how awful and drunken on white supremacy white people were that they thought that was funny. I feel sick to my stomach thinking my great great grandparents were probably watching that crap.
Spike Lee is actually a neighbor of mine (well he lives a couple streets over but he’s a staple in the community) and I have to say he is one of the most genuine and down to earth people. Him being so cool led me down the path of watching his films and looking at black history. He really has had quite the impact on me
he did defend woody allen tho
@@iscmpn certainly not his best take. no one’s perfect i suppose
🌝
🍿
Tell Spike my mom says she loves his work and if he's ever in Montana, she'd happily make him a lasagna.
@@iscmpn What did he say about Allen, exactly?
I started this video when you first posted it, having never seen Bamboozled, with it sitting in my wishlist for years. The montage of Damon's speaking voice in the beginning sold me. Finally got it during the most recent criterion sale, watched it this weekend, and finally finished your video. My one and only regret is that I didn't realize Spike -was FORCED to- shoot it on digital cameras (c. 2000 digital cameras!) and still opted for the "4K" edition. Oof, it looks like dookie but what an incredible and thought-provoking experience. Keep killin it man.
This is what I noticed too. The image quality of the cameras used is raw and not very processed. Same with the sound. Here in the UK this image quality is more daytime TV. Now I see Spike had limited access to equipment (because of his opinions) and used what he could get his hands on to just get it filmed.
No idea if you'll see this, but I hope you do. I may be an outlier, but I'm an older white man who watches you regularly. If I may be so bold as to give my opinion, I don't need, or want you to be moderate for my comfort. Sometimes, we all need a little shock to the system to truly get the damn point. I've never thought of myself as a racist, implicitly or not. However, your content has made me think about myself and how I relate to the world around me. It's made me see certain subjects and people in ways that had simply never occurred to me. Even if it's difficult for everyone sometimes, being easy on us rarely makes anything change.
The Irish actors who played negative stereotype characters in the British show EastEnders faced a somewhat similar backlash, but since the Irish have (at least most of) their own state there was an actual diplomatic incident.
I just thought it was good point out that the black struggle is both extremely specific and unique but also universal and global in terms of oppression everywhere.
Poignant on point, uh point man! :)
I thought of the Irish situation as well during the video, specifically in terms policing internal behaviors to ensure a united front against oppression. Terms like shoneen have a similar role in the nationalist tradition here like terms mentioned in the video. Obviously very different context but in terms of a response to oppression and members of the oppressed groups becoming apologists for the oppression I think its a good comparison to make.
And said Irish has been apologized to, as well as greatly compensated for their mistreatments.... so I'm going to have to say... PLEASE stop comparing the plight of the Irish with those of BLACK people in America & abroad... no one knows they're Irish unless they mention it; yet being black takes no words in most eyes .
@@zerotolerance5019 ... what? No they haven't. Brexit just threatened to restart the armed conflict there...
@@zerotolerance5019 "And said Irish has been apologized to, as well as greatly compensated for their `mistreatments..." When did that happen? The Irish were subjugated (slavery, mass murder, social engineering/trying to wipe out Gaelic, attempts at eugenics, pretty much every evil there is) by the English way longer than Africans were (~700 years compared to ~300) and most people today don't know it happened and if they did, don't consider it all that bad. In fact some people even get upset if you call it bad! Compared to the Atlantic slave trade where basically everyone knows about it and agrees it was horrific.
Also, what compensation? The English never gave Ireland shit. They still own half the goddamn country. 😂
It's not like you can objectively quantify human suffering, so it's pointless to argue which is worse. You might think one is subjectively worse than the other but they absolutely are comparable in a practical sense because the English took the MO they developed colonizing Ireland and applied it everywhere else they colonized.
The dancing gorilla defense prediction was mad eerie.
Also, as a black man workin in the film industry your initial point of that struggle on how to carry yourself really resonated deeply. Especially when most older black figures, or poc in general you meet in the industry decided to keep dancing in order to maintain their careers.
But lets be real how many chances do we think that guy had to be relevant especially in something their passionate about. No winning he embraces it while the money is hot or get shut out probably forever for being real.
Fd ending was real, like at end of the day we need that white Google money. Glad fd is opening doors but not many got the safety and funding to keep fighting.
There options out there and people fighting to change it but it hard to say naw I ain't taking that money right now especially when you start off bad
@@TempRawr OOF. I hate to say it, but you got a point. 😓
@@TempRawr Damn that's real. I guess in that case, the best we can hope for is that he does something positive with that money.
A naive question from a white guy in Australia. But what is the difference between him calling himself that and black people calling themselves the N word?
How is being in the industry right now
Leo from Mexico here.
Your content is helping me see things from a different prospective
😄
"Let the audience decide" is pure Franz Fanon... "every spectator is either a coward or a traitor" is the harshest piece of "communication theory" ever written. The media system response is "the audience is the hero", hero's journey forcefed for all. In a "media driven society" all of us are condemned to be spectators... or to reproduce the system as "content creators". Wherever you stand in this society, even rebels and pseudo-radicals are part of the play. Plato's Cave for all forever. That's Spike Lee's cross to bear, and he is a genius to be praised.
Damn, the "fly in the milk" expression made me recall something that happened when I was in first grade. We had one black boy in our grade named Nick, the only black kid in the entire school (rural Maine), and he had been adopted by a white family. We had two first grade classes and Nick wasn't in mine. One day the teacher in my class started to discuss racism and she made the comment that it might be hard for us to understand since we "didn't have any African Americans in our school". I immediately raised my hand and asked her, "Well, what about Nick?". She proceeded to tell me that Nick wasn't black.
I will never forget it and consider it a pivotal learning experience, probably my first experience of people altering reality to fit their agenda or make themselves feel more comfortable. But I can't imagine what it must have been like for Nick. He was lighter skinned to some degree but still very obviously black, and yet the overriding mandate -- I can only assume a collusion between the school and his adopted parents -- was to make him think he was white. Part of me understands, as I don't think he knew he was adopted, but at the same time what was it like for him to look into a mirror every day while the entire world was trying to tell him he was a Caucasian. The cognitive dissonance must have been overwhelming.
Nicks story is my story 😔
Define black?
A person of African heritage or lineage would be the definition when referring to someone as black.
I think she had a point though. Fallow me for a sec. A black boy adopted by white parents, only getting exposed to white culture, definitely has more in common with white culture. This is more extreme the further the child is removed from their place of origin, like a black Japanese, Or a white Jamaican. She makes sense but now try explaining that to children. Her answer, all though jarring to hear, is closer to the truth than not. Given this point of view and origins of black people (Africa let's say) I must say American blacks have been more white than black for a long time. If you disagree, I explore you to task yourself, how much African culture do you practice? I bet my life that the overwhelming majority says ZERO.200 years ago the term white was synonymous with American. Most of us, yellow, red, black, white that have been here for some time, are culturally white whether we like it or not. Sure, as time moves Forword and demographic changes, so do definitions but if you plucked out an early American from the 1700 and showed them how diversity of this country's population, he would be amazed how blacks, yellows, and browns or reds, in this time period, sure act white (American).
@@jacobrosario9735 Except being a certain race is different than belonging to a specific culture. If you’re ethnically Whitewashed (i.e.: you don’t engage with your culture, don’t know the customs, don’t speak the language), but you yourself aren’t White, then you’re still whatever race you were born as.
If an Italian person doesn’t speak the language, isn’t familiar with the food or history, and has never interacted with the country itself, they’re White. However, this doesn’t work the same when we’re talking about non-White people because, phonetically, they’re still a minority. Race refers to how a person from a particular community typically looks, (skin tone, hair texture, facial features), and by extension, informs how they’re systematically treated, while ethnicity refers to their shared cultural history and customs.
Also, Black people are still Black if they have no self-identifiable connections to Africa. African, African American, and Black American are very different identities because African Americans have notable ties to specific African countries while Black Americans have curated their own culture and history in North America. People only get confused because the umbrella term Black is vague, but I’m not confused because I know that despite our similarities, my experience as a Black person in America is different from an African person’s experience.
I was today years old when I learned that Tyler Perry referred to black people IN AN INTERVIEW as 'negroes'. And pitted us against one another. On a public platform. I CLEARLY need to start watching interviews. I almost fell out of my chair.
He was a major player of the Agenda. Notice ALL of his movies are pitting man vs woman
@@dozhadeville444 What is specifically wrong with Tyler Perry stuff? Only movie I have seen of his is Gone Girl. It did not seem overly problematic apart from it was not a film that I enjoyed. It probably was the whole man vs women thing, like you say, that I did not like. Not sure what all the hype was about with that film.
@@dylanmeyer6614Gone Girl isn't his movie. He was an actor in that movie. He's directed and written a slew of his own movies.
Google and find out why he's problematic.
@dylanmeyer6614 boy if you can't see how problematic and stereotypical his contents are😂
@@dylanmeyer6614Gone Girl wasn't a Tyler Perry film; he just acted in it. The films he writes and directs are the problematic jawns folks are talking about.
Thank you for bringing some more recognition to Bamboozled (not to mention your analysis!!). Incredible film that is not discussed enough.
An excellent take on Bamboozled. And it's funny that you questioned the ending because I was curious about that too when I first watched it. I'd like to think that Spike was looking for a realistic scenario. As you mentioned, it's rare that we know the people in power who are pulling the strings. The puppets attacking the puppets is true to form, either because we can't reach or often don't put the effort into reaching the puppet master. This also includes Sloan taking out Delacroix when she knows who greenlit the show. The ending really sat heavy with me from a younger age.. sitting in my dorm on the hill. The misdirected anger we hold. It made me question if any judgement I give to people who look like me is warranted, or if someone else is pulling their strings. Thanks again for the breakdown
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve saw the “well I’m black and I think-“ or “as a black person, this is why-“ I’m sure anyone who’s been in the paradox of the right wing/centrist media can finish those sentences for me. It had to sit and marinate with me that a black individual who panders & puts their demographic in a position to be degraded would receive a much higher voice than a black individual who’s peacefully speaking their mind. Everything about being famous and black, is being silent & repressive.
That stuff kills me. "The I'm black" and as a way to justify some bullshit about their own race and gain points with another race. It always feels like going against the grain for the sake of standing out.
I think about this all the time. “de la qoi” is a character, but a character so many black conservatives will take on in order to gain traction; still having to be a little louder & little more belligerent even when pandering to the higher demographic. It’s hilariously sad.
I see this a lot on hip hop music videos, but reverse.
"I'm a white metalhead, but this right here I like" (or something to that effect). I see it *ALL* the time..
it's like they think:
-everyone else watching the video in the comments is black aka rap is for black people
-"i deserve to be noticed because I'm white and I'm listening to rap, and hopefully some black folks will reply back and commend me for being so open minded with my music selections"
what else would be the point of bringing up the fact that you're white in that context? they want credit for the sole reason of being white. it may be unintentional, but it is ignorant, and it is racist.
not to mention the new type of racism black people are facing in the newest century, which is “reverse racism” often times when I see the black community setting boundaries or gatekeeping sacred aspects in their culture; accusations of racism will be brung and thus making the voice of the ‘victim’ much louder than the voice of the supposed ‘racist’
If you want to silence a black person, just claim they’re racist.
Confirmation bias. There's no way to tell the race of each commenter when they don't mention it (or really at all for that matter.)
The first two minutes almost made me cry, you have described what I am going through so much. When I WANTED to become an author there was so much love and support. When I became an author, people started looking at me different. When I became a best-seller for the first time, people started treating me different. When I published my 10th book, saying everything I learned made me feel like it was my first then I felt like a total exile. 15 books in now, and I have an amazing core fanbase but they're global, and not physically present in my everyday life. It's such an odd and lowly existence as a Black artist.
Link your books
Subbed to your channel ✊🏾
@@Shamino1how, they didn't shill their book they just told his experiences. Can you not give them the benefit of the doubt
@@TempRawr No, because we cannot ever give grace to a black creative, but have a growing list of white folks who can "come to the cookout"
I'd love to read your books. But if I'm seen reading on my way to work, someone will eventually accuse me of being a c**n.
I'm kidding of course, I'll read your books anyways.
As a white guy, I want honesty.
It's true, how western media depicts certain groups in particular ways that skew perceptions, and as a result, my understanding of the world is terrifying lol. I've spent the past 15 years deconstructing the world view I was indoctrinated to build a more pragmatic, critical perspective of the world.
Like I saw a video out of pakistan the other day. Just day to day life. And honestly, I wouldn't of ever guessed it was filmed in Pakistan. Could have been a borough anywhere in Canada where predominantly Pakistani people immigrated to. Which Is natural for any people travelling/moving somewhere entirely different from you own. We always look for something familiar to us, something we can understand due to better cultural understandings. anyway point is that ive only really seen middle eastern life as in despair, and constantly violent and yeah. Not to say that those dangers don't exist but that those negative events are not their identity, that's not the norm.
But western media has us convinced they all want blood. I'm sure some do, but the vast majority probably want peace, just like mostly everyone else
Kudos. And thanks for your insights.
I must say. I've been watching your content for quite some time now. However, upon all you have done, I have never felt more compelled to sign up and support your efforts after going through your reel and stumbling on this one (to be honest it was not a stumble). I admire this channel and the bravery it takes to put yourself out there. I poke the bear with alarming regularity and accept that some day one has to get up close to make sure it's dead, which will likely not occur in either of our life times. Keep up the good work and keep pushing. 👏🏾
Correction: PewDiePie didn't call someone the N-word because he though it was "funny". It was his reflexive, instinctive, first-choice word for a put-down, an insult. The same way that calling someone a p*ssy or a girl is seen as an insult because women are seen as less-than.
The whole "heated gamer moment" excuse was actually a further indictment, because if you throw out the N-word as an insult without even having to think about it, it means that it's so deep in your bloodstream, in your autonomous nervous system, that it comes out precisely when you DON'T have time to filter yourself. He was annoyed at someone, so he called them something bad, and he reflexively chose a derogatory term for black people. That says something about the people he surrounds himself with, the culture he's steeped in.
in all honesty mate in most countries outside the US people don't really understand the n word and it isn't much of an issue, Pewdiepie is just a gamer from Sweden and he woudnt have grown up with the stigma around the word, but just thought of the word as an insult, not fully knowing the origin of the word, im from Scotland and a lot of words here that may cause offence in other countries are normal here, not excusing the use of them, but when people use them its not usually for the official meaning of it.
@@alxonpc9388 I get what you're saying, and it's a common counterargument, but: I'm also Swedish, a few years older than PewDiePie, and that word isn't even in my vocabulary. It just isn't something you say to anyone, ever, and I was well aware of its meaning even in a small Swedish town back in the 90s.
I know that you're not explicitly coming to his defense, but I just wanted to explain that even a Swede born and raised in a small Swedish town in the 80s and 90s, who didn't have access to the internet until age 13, was taught why it was a loaded word through primary school. PewDiePie was 28 when his first public use of the word was recorded, and had been chronically online for at least a decade by then. There's not a chance that he wasn't well aware of the word and its historical implications by then. A child in a small Swedish town in the 90s? Understandable. A 28-year-old online personality in the internet-saturated year of 20 goddamned 17, just 5+ years ago? Nope, ignorance isn't a viable excuse anymore.
@@alxonpc9388that's also not the best because it means he's heavy in circles that throw it around all the time without anyone checking them
Black Fatigue-Term popularised on 4chan. Describes deep mental exhaustion from being forced to care about black people and their actions 24/7.
As the 7th riot this month broke out in his town, Tyler was beginning to develop serious n-word fatigue.
lol so Pew turned out to be a big asshole. I was totally not surprised..he's a gamer for goodness' sake
Do The Right Thing may not have been nominated for an Oscar, but who remembers what movie did win? Do The Right Thing is a classic that will not be forgotten.
lmao it was Driving Miss Daisy stg
@@mikey-wl2jt Did you remember that Driving Miss Daisy won the Oscar that year or did you google? 😄
@@danawynkoop9511 To be fair, remembering that "Driving Miss Daisy" won that year is part of the lore surrounding "Do the Right Thing." You have Spike's movie, a challenging, thought-provoking piece on race relations, being overlooked for a trite, sentimental, syrupy flick where Morgan Freeman drives a racist white lady around. (It was basically "Greenbook" before "Greenbook.") I was a kid at the time, but I remember people commented heavily on how fucked up that was, and they still do to this day.
@@danawynkoop9511 oh hell yes i googled that shit 🤣
@@RoxanneJ81 I see your point, but (and I could be way off) I think way more people have gone on to watch Do The Right Thing today. Do The Right Thing is being assigned to students in film school while most young people today have never heard of Driving Miss Daisy. And I also can't imagine who would bother to rewatch Driving Miss Daisy, There is no comparison between the two films. The film business is a business and most of the people in it are not the brightest.
Honestly dude. I always creeped on your content and just subscribed. You are a real one.
Bamboozled is such a great thought provoking movie, it's my favorite Spike Lee joint behind Do The Right Thing. My other favorite by Spike is He Got Game, I'd love to see you do a video on that one and it's messages of redemption, and the pressures of being a being a black athlete.
The paradox of "success" in a broken system. It never gets better, only worse.
I'm gonna check out this movie. Also, after Michael Rappaport has spent the last 3 months spewing Islamophobic garbage on tiktok, seeing Spike rightfully rip into him on national tv is a blessing.
I’m glad someone did. At this point, until we understand as a collective that nice is not synonymous with good, we need to ban cookouts until 4024. Those gates need to be more secure than a Cisco firewall.
I don’t follow him on TikTok, so I had no idea he did that kind of shit! His views on black culture as a white man have always been weird to me, because I feel like you can’t really speak on the culture unless you’re from the culture.and having him be Islam phobic is just so absolutely disgusting
Bamboozled is brutal and so worth a watch. My film teacher lent it to me in my first year of college (UK version of college so I'd been 17) after I called out some casual racism in a lecture. So glad he did. Even gladder that F.D is using it here. People sleep on that film so badly.
@@EvolvementEras that part! My bonus mom is Jewish and has been in my life for almost 30 years. Her and her family have embraced me since, and has given me the title of an “honorary Jew” (their words, not mine), but out of respect, I just can’t cross that line and speak on something as complex as Jewish culture and won’t. It would be the same thing if she was Muslim, Lebanese, Igbo, Kikuyu-etc.
@@fromlissawithlove absolutely!
Bamboozled was ahead of its time
I think what makes you and your voice even more special and important to conversations is you can be really in depth and cutting with your critiques and views while also not being condescending and antagonistic. There is always a time to argue and there is a time to discuss and you fill the latters place very well. I am a 34 year old white guy who has always wanted to view things different and I feel like a lot of camps in the left spaces right now have taken the rights playbook and post content that’s made to start and argument but I never get that from you. I don’t know how to put it into words, it’s like the difference between “Your take is shit and your a shitty person for thinking that” and “While I think everything you are saying is wrong I can understand why you would feel like that, let’s get you to where I am” kinda thing.
Hearing Siskel and Ebert talk frankly about racism in America truly shows how far the narrative has shifted.
For the good ?
@@michael-antoineassoumou6984 calling out America’s racist history is treated like “woke radicalism” by todays metric. It’s proof of the ratchet system. Two clicks to the left, 5 clicks to the right.
I had become so pessimistic that I was surprised to see them talk about it like that. The likes of Twitter fried my brain.
@@VostokApollo Ebert was highly criticized by other white critics for giving films by black other non-white creators equal praise with white ones. They accused him of being too liberal and trying to appease black people.
@michael-antoineassoumou6984 I don't think so. That was over 20 years ago and I can't really imagine a major critic or journalist doing the same today
I think the "fly in the milk" experience as you call it often leaves out black immigrants, who as children are taught by our parents to "copy the white kids" to survive. That's what I did and was promptly told that I "talk like a white girl" by my African American peers. I didn't choose any of that but here I am dealing with complex racial stereotypes and self-preservation tactics that predate me
Same here!!
a lot of immigrant families also come here under the influence of the american dream and opportunity which fits under the whole “i’m just happy to be here” and grateful attitude that this country expects out of you. It’s all about being educated which you have
@@Jsmoove8kthese people lost their brain cells . Wtf
@@coldhardtruth333 it's very, very common. Many immigrant families idolize America for being an exclusive land of freedom and opportunity because of how their home countries lack stability (oftentimes because of the US)
That’s not just something African immigrants were told.
oh myyy goooodness bro you hit sooooo hard I love these video essays so much. I hope this spreads like wild fire. It's so frustrating hearing people be full of opinions and emotions about things they have no historical understanding behind and it's so hard to talk about this movie with people without them judging it by it's cover. I'm very greatful that this video exists. Thank you.
Just watched this on Nebula, But had to come here, because I wanted to give you the small thanks that I can.
I will continue to watch there, to support those efforts and experience the depth that is often not available Here.
I Must saluter your scholarship, nd the bravery sew few people have, when dealing with this and other important and Urgent subjects
Thank You Sir.
I discovered you this year. I'm not black, I'm middle eastern and out of everyone in the lefty world, you significantly changed my mind in a lot of subjects. I appreciate your youtube channel and learned a ton.
As a silent viewer and african in Kenya who started watching to better understand the plight of the black people abroad, I've learnt a lot from you. As a Kenyan, You covered the maumau portion extremely well. Only a black radical would name the group after anti-colonial rebels. Good catch
But the way he only talks about the conflict in terms of the violence done by rebels rather than the actions committed by the British government including the murder and torture of tens of thousands in detention camps. Just seems weird to frame the conflict not in terms of colonialist violent repression.
@@suledaley4353 I think that part was more or less implied. One of the biggest recurring themes on this channel is colonial violence and racism instituted by white European and European-descended (in the case of the US) imperialists upon black peoples, and the lasting effects of said colonial and racial violence. The fact that the Mau Mau Rebellion even happened, and was one of the most brutal violent anti-colonial movements in history, can imply to an informed viewer that the violence and brutality inflicted by Mau Mau was matched or even exceeded by the British colonial authorities, as was par for the course across the British Empire.
I'm an African who moved to the US a few years ago and honestly I thought I knew about race then but I was mistaken; being in the US, the white gaze is on you at all times and it is HEAVY. I feel its weight every day in a way I could only have imagined back home - watching this movie was so vindictive to me because it does really feel like white people expect me to be a certain way and will just close their eyes when I act differently.
This is so well done ❤ I was only 9 when this came out but I never forgot it! This is now one of my favorite TH-cam breakdowns ever 😩
Your channel found me last week. I've watched several of your videos so far. While I can't say I agree with you on every position, having the conversation is refreshing. Keep doing what you are doing. Subscribed
For any problem I have with Spike Lee, he has always been at his most interesting artistically the more demanding he has been of the audience. Like Blackkklansman is a crowd-pleaser and at times oddly "not-all-cops" for a Spike Lee joint, but the way it ends forces the audience to reconcile with the visibility and threat of white supremacy in the current day. That sure they are stupid and buffoons but their threat is very real and not to be ignored.
Wow that's exactly how I felt when I watched Blackkklansman. I had some moments where I was like...hmm idk about this...but the ending was just. Wow. Powerful and important. It brought me back to reality in full force but not in a jarring way, more in like a "we gotta do something about this" way. Idk anyway just wanted to say all that since what you said resonated/was how I felt back when I watched the film
I found the scene which seemed to be drawing an equivalence between Belafonte and the klansmen to be actively offensive. But bottom line, I've seen almost all Lee's movies and I've never once walked out of one thinking "well that was fine enough entertainment I guess, I have nothing about it of interest to think about now". Or even "ok, another Spike Lee movie, now I've seen a dozen this didn't add much" which I definitely feel about other auteur directors sometimes, Scorsese for example.
You gotta watch American History X. Brilliant film.
So glad this is back up! I've learned my lesson and will be watching IMMEDIATELY when posted 😭
I was in the middle of it the other day on my lunch break and suddenly she said OOP
I got caught right in the middle!
@@drattyg8099 I'm sorry, I did not mean to laugh 😂😂😂 My feelings would've been too hurt!
Me too 😂
Yeah I have ALL the notifications up and never saw it. I saw it only because FD got me to sign up for Nebula
Keep educating. You have helped me and so many different folks as well. Thank you.
You should be proud of every bit of content you’ve got up on this platform (and likely elsewhere , tho I can’t speak to anywhere else but YT). You are a superb creator who has something worth saying and who says it eloquently. I’m proud of you and I don’t say that as some form of fatherly figure or someone who’s above you (I’m most definitely neither), but as a fellow brother trying to make sense of this world. Far too many 🦝 in our midst and it’s shameful that they know who they are as much as we know who they are. The difference is the same way we’re disgusted by them, they’re disgusted by the notion that others can’t comprehend why they’d sell their entire souls for some money.
If u or any other black creator gets a , "I would like u more if you didn't get so political" from mainly non blk consumers it just means, "I dont like the harsh realities you speak on of racial topics and I'd rather close my eyes n ears than embrace them" and y'all have to b doin something right. Sure yall get that but keep on and thx for the content. Love ur honesty.
Lol nobody had ever said that. You want to believe they said it, lol but nobody has ever said those words
@@annastarr2043 ahem... "shut up and dribble"
@@annastarr2043someone said it in reply to a highly voted comment around here lol
@@annastarr2043 It gets said constantly what are you on about
No it probably means "I like ur content and am sympathetic to your plight but now you're demonizing an entire race of people, doing exactly what we did to you, when in reality in the last 50 or 60 years or so, since the 1960s, they've tried giving u more control over the steering wheel that is our nation's vehicle and you've damn near driven it straight into the ditch." If the situation was reversed would blacks have gone to war with their brothers to free a different race of people from themselves? I think whatever debt we owed African-Americans for slavery has been paid many times over in blood.
I have a soft spot for She Hate Me and Girl 6. Two films NO ONE talks about. Mainly because Anthony Mackie is one of my favorites. Theresa Randle had my heart as a teen. But it was also amazing to be a teenage black male having access to challenging black films in the theater. Great time period. Sorry this is off topic. Had to come out. 😂
I was thinking about Girl 6. I would love to see a retrospection on the film.
@@Quantumedicis it one of your favorites
@@Quantumedic Girl 6 is way underrated.
Girl 6 is one of my absolute favorites and for all of Spike’s focus on race moreso than Misogyny and Patriarchy…I’ve always found that film to have Feminist undertones.
I saw the movie in theaters. Looking back that was the first time I saw anything sex workers related that was positive. Most films about sex work were scary and cautionary. Hookers On The Point for example.
Just wanted to say, I greatly appreciate the work you do and the essays you make.
I always like your stuff but, and it might just be that I'm high right now, I am REALLY vibing with this one. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate you and your hard work. Thank you so much for making content like this.
This is why I love FD's videos, he's doesn't shy away from showing proof and explaining why.
As a young black man getting into the entertainment industry, it's important that I keep myself aware of these easily missed pitfalls that a lot of black creators fall into unknowingly.
"Too black for white people but too white for black people" was literally my life growing up.
You can't develop a solid identity when you're constantly seeing everything from an outsider's perspective.
Then add on familial trauma with an already confused family and you have the perfect recipe to do a lot of unintentional c**n shit as an adult.
Trying to involve myself in black spaces is not easy, everything I do is not good enough, no one takes you serious, even saying n*gga can feel weird sometimes cuz it's not natural to you.
that's why I'm actively trying to understand being black in America as much as I can before I get too popular and unintentionally exhibit c**n behavior.
I find this is pretty true for black kids living in the burbs. Not quite black enough but still talk too white.
I'd argue some of our most influential black voices have been people who can stay true to their blackness, but able to move through white spaces easily. Talk the language of both. A sort of bridging of the gap in a sense.
Which is a skill you can't be taught, it's learned. So take advantage of your position, I know I am. It helps when you refuse to allow others to define blackness for you while also being able to see whiteness from a perspective of growing up around white kids. Once you figure that out no one can tell you anything.
Yeah, that short you made about looking for "less toxic people [your] own color" kind of reads in a concerning way.
I get it, I do, but it lambasts black women as if you're attacking an institution, instead of as a handful of a few unwelcoming individuals that exist in every race and space. I hope you can engage with more aware content and take a step back to read the room every now and then. All love, you got this ✌🏿
@@bwackbeedows3629 that short was made years ago, I've matured more since then. I do still think that finding black spaces that aren't negative and toxic is hard to do but not impossible since I have found some since then.
I don't understand that last part about "finding more aware content" and "stepping back and reading the room" cuz we're literally under an FD signifier video, that should tell you a lot right there about where I am in my journey.
What are you trying to do in entertainment
@@crishnaholmes7730 filmmaking and acting mainly
I'll tell you this, I appreciate your willing to address specific personalities on the internet. Many would rather talk in generalities for fear of retribution.
retribution from what lol they dont own anything anyway
@@OFFICIALSDSK I don't know. Being roasted or raided or doxed. There are a lot of cowards on social media.
Who is he talking about ?
@@ogdreamgirl tyler perry, candace owens, jesse lee, thomas sowell, kevin samuels, kanye etc etc
@@afrosamourai400 sorry I meant the TH-camr , he listed all those other ppl in his video but not the TH-camr controversy which I thought might be gideon? But not sure
This is a very powerful video bro seriously. All I can say is wow.
U put words on exactly how I feel a lot of the time… that’s deep. I feel like you often feel that you want to make an impact but then you realise that you change too and that change is often underestimated. You try to fight it but it’s inevitable.
Dude I remember my mom sitting my sister and I down and making us watch Bamboozled when we were edgy teenagers and it was a slap upside the head from God telling us to act right
At the tail end of my graduation in medicine (at one of the best colleges in the country and I say that to stress that I was the one black guy in the whole class) my friends and colleagues asked me to perform in a play about a particular racist patient and relieve one singular episode of racism I suffered from them, for laughs. Granted it was a very sick woman with no blame in it all on the cause of dementia, and it wasn't anything violent or too harsh - but I simply couldn't do it. I had this funny feeling in my stomach telling me that was, somehow, against my personal code of honor. Today, after this video, I understand why I said no; Regardless of fine prints and silver linings, I'd be a black man, on stage, being laughed by majorly white people for being in a situation only a black person could be into. God I'm thankful for being as paranoid as I ever was
Thank you so much for letting your dignity guide you.
@@DubG9 I'm so unbelievably proud of you for listening to your instincts. It's something mistreated demographics of people being told too frequently to ignore.
The amount of times, as a woman, I've been told that I'm just "paranoid" because a certain man is making my alarms go off is endless. Now I've learned to keep my fears to myself and just excuse myself from the situation, because no matter how common it is for us to be mistreated, they still don't take us seriously.
It's always "you're just paranoid" until something does happen then it's either "oh it was your fault" or "it probably wasn't that bad".
No one questions a person's fear of dogs if they've been bitten or everyone they've known has been bitten. But no matter how common it is, we're just meant to trust everyone blindly even if they make our instincts go off, and if it does happen it's probably our fault anyway.
I'm late to the party...but this was so well done...I'm still floored that it was initially demonitized...It's the gall of TH-cam for me but again this kept my interest it was very insightful well researched 10's all around....new sub❤
It's crazy I knew you were referring to Bamboozled by just reading the title for this video. I love that movie so much! Can't wait to get into this!
Hello, I'm not sure how to start this, and I'm not the best at typing when I'm nervous, but I feel compelled to share my appreciation of this video. I'm an 18 year old guy (ftm) that fits the description of the "flies" you mentioned in this video. Ever since I was a small kid, I've grown up in predominantly white and non-black spaces, and I never really got to experience life in black spaces, at least not for a long period of time. After spending most of my formative years with only my parents (who have honestly passed down so, so much internalized racism towards me that im still unravelling so much even rn) and once a year holiday trips to see my extended family in another province, I went to a predominately black high school. I was excited to finally feel like I had the chance to be friends with other black kids, but I blew it so bad. I'm still not sure what I did, but I can see that they had their reasons to be hesitant towards me because i unfortunatley became friends with the idubbz, pewdipie, gamergate type dudes and latched on for so long because I thought that was all I had (my parents were honestly horrible towards me and always seemed to defend any racism I experienced when I was younger and because of my c**n behaviour i obvi didn't have any real friends). I didn't even know what I was doing was wrong because I was never taught otherwise and was often encouraged to engage in that way. As an adult, I think I've changed a lot, but I can still see the effects of internalized racism on everything I do. I've kind of accepted that I'll probably never really have the community that I want and desire, but I just kind of stay away because I don't want to perpetuate any harm, make anyone uncomfortable because of my upbringing, and I honestly feel like I'll never fit in because "I don't know how to be black" even though that doesn't make sense. This video was very informative, and I believe that it's helped me understand how I've avoided criticism of my actions and has helped me be more empathetic and less bitter towards other black people that have understandably avoided me. thank you
I felt the same way growing up, it's an issue that needs to be discussed way more
give it time my man. i felt the same and then i made life long friends in the black community at my first job. And most of the conflicting feelings I had went away as I grew older. Time and being willing to find and join groups of black people who have had similar feelings will come up.
Being black and having those types of parents always makes these things so much harder than they should be. Power to you!
I hope you find your way out of the trauma bro, and I wish you nothing but the best.
I wish more guys were as self-aware as you.
I related to this deeply. As a black man in tech, specifically in development with programming, you definitely have "fly in the milk" moments, it's very challenging to be in the world where you can't be too black, but you also have to go home with everyone and realize you can't bring that whiteness there either. It's a special space, and I think the more we start to occupy these spaces, the more others will come after me and start filling out behaviors, norms, thoughts, theories, and everything else in between.
One of my childhood friends currently dealing with the same thing as you, same field. Hate in their hearts man. I can only imagine and witness.
Just got done rewatching this on nebula(godbless no ads), and I thought "this is one of his vids that comes together really really really well". After sitting on that thought for a bit, I realized how impressive that is cuz I've thought similar things starting ever since I started consistently watching, which was prolly around around the time of Black Men and Love or the Bo Burnham video. I wanted to avoid kinda even jokingly saying that it hit a peak or anything of the sort, but I find it really impressive that at no point has the creative fervor or understandable and digestible analysis or push to seek other POVs or meshing all these things in a way that's engaging and often charming but has some meat to it, that at no point have any of these fallen flat but rather have only continued to rise in strength I wanna say is astounding. More frequently than not, the subject matter and core idea of the projects are obviously heavy and frequently in questioning and discussing heavy subject matter, but partially because of that and because of the approach when it comes to learning and bringing a much needed light to these subjects as well as your finely crafted "teacher/prof but one of the cool ones you actually like going to class for" manner of doing so, I look forward to watching these vids. Them serving as a jumping off point for other ways of seeing things and getting into other creators frequently makes the day feel that much more enjoyable or a smidge easier to deal with, even if the obvious fact remains that a youtube essay ain't the end-all be-all by any means.
Much respect and props. The words spoken in beginning talk directly to me and people like that coming up in this youtube space
Kinda wished you had talked about Mantan Moreland rather than (or as well as) Stepin Fetchit -- I had always assumed that the Mantan character in Bamboozled was a reference to Moreland -- Moreland was a huge star on the 1920s-1940s black vaudeville circuit, starting in mistrelry but quickly breaking out and becoming famous for his (brilliant) two-handed patter routines, which did get incorporated into his later movie roles -- but in movies he was always forced into playing the servant or the chauffeur. So he was a comedian/actor who already had a career but got forced back into more minstrel-type roles once he started making movies.
thank you for making this comment - i never guessed mantan was a direct reference like stepin fetchit, so i'm reading up on moreland now, and seeing that he could've been one of the three stooges!!!! holy shit
As a black woman who is in IT, who is also at a senior level, when you said that we are all “shuckin and jivin” in some way, this resonates so much with me.
Let me also say that as someone who as a child, was not even a FLY in the milk, but a mosquito sucking up all of what was around me, who later transitioned to an all black space and became so radicalized that I disassociated from every variation of the black experience that wasn’t defined by MY terms (I was in my 20s at the time and immensely jaded). Now at 42, I define my pro blackness by being a safe space of empowerment for all variants of black, I.e, black and queer, black and biracial,- ESPECIALLY for those black people in my field and in particular for the younger generation of black youth looking to get into IT.
To your point about you and Candace Owens both being paid by Google, at the end of the day, we are all oppressed by the same system. Some are aware, some are aware but in denial, others are in PURE denial and the latter is just blissfully ignorant. I choose to either love you up close or love you from a distance. Either way, it’s best to focus on being purposeful with your blackness as you elevate in whatever your chosen field is, in the best way you can, with the tools you are given.
Lastly, let’s give Spike Lee his flowers. 💐 The man is, was and will always be legendary.
As a black person in IT, and a person who never ever makes youtube comments:
This.
@@clarissak.4587 for real. I'm white and queer, so my experience is a bit different. But the vibe is similar, I think. There's so much shit about dressing "properly", never rocking the boat too much, always the pressure to be "one of the good ones" and never correct anyone when they say something bigoted or get your pronouns wrong or whatever. Can't use slang, cant make jokes that would make Tiffany from the office uncomfortable, cant talk frankly about your life because they'd get awkward, hostile, or overly curious. Can't be yourself, because that's not professional.
It's so fucking DRAINING.
Professionalism is a burden on everyone, I think, but the more you diverge from the standard mold the more exhausting it is. And there's always this question of "how much of myself am I going to give up in order to get/keep this job"
Absolutely love your work, especially your self-questioning. In my opinion, the only way to remain honest is to constantly question motivation, process, and alternatives. Much better than the alternative of unquestioned self-righteousness. The truly righteous are consciously trying to avoid unnecessary harm, the false righteous don't care who gets hurt as long as they can profit.
Excellent comment, that is real human behavior right there!
ngl raccoon noises are iconic
I remember seeing that movie as a teenager. And when I saw the ending, I had the same question you did: "Why did the performer have to die?" I'm just glad I wasn't the only one wondering why.
The mental gymnastics I went through then boiled it down to "He was the one they could get access to."
My first impression was "most black (and also marginalized people in general) political activists have only the power to ostracize people of their own kind, but not the white men in power"
Which, i mean, kinda sounds deep and powerful on paper, but the way it's portrayed in the movie is unsatisfying enough for me to do these mental gymnastics to justify it.
I first watched Bamboozled right around the time I quit stand up comedy. Literally a few days after a show where an audience member started laughing when I said I was trans. Hadn't even finished the joke, and had that Chappelle Show moment of "Oh, they aren't laughing with me." The Paul Mooney scene hurt me, and helped me come to the conclusion I needed to walk away, because I couldn't build a career without being "one of the good ones". I valued being able to tell jokes I'm proud of and having my integrity, more than whatever awful career I could carve out for myself. My best case scenario, what success would mean in industry terms, would be providing cover for streaming services like Netflix, and probably staring in a movie written by cis people and for cis people that promotes harmful stereotypes (or at least relies on them). The similarities to my own struggles as a trans comic that I could see in the film left an impact on me, and I'm probably gonna rewatch it again now that I'm in a much better place mentally.
Mainly commenting so you get algorithm love, but I really enjoyed your analysis.
Sending you love as a fellow artist. We all (trans, black, women, POC) have a moment like that and decisions to make
I’m glad you are in a better space mentally. Sending you love across these digital wires that you can create your dream world on YOUR terms. You deserve that and much more ❤️
Man i had never heard of this movie and the analysis felt almost as good as watching it myself. Thank you for sharing this
I had to go and watch this movie after seeing this video. You gave me knowledge and insight to the word c**n. Spike gave so much insight to his world into this movie, it was before it’s time like you said.
Keep up the good work and videos!!
Nobody is putting out content like this, and that's what makes me check out each new video! Real and thought provoking review of a movie that always stuck with me.
Go check out Intelextual
Lots of ppl put out trash 🗑️
I think his takes are generally trash, but I respect the smart approach to black culture & content.
Yeah nobody putting this content because it’s hateful, can’t wait for him to be banned
This was an extremely insightful look at a topic that is overloaded with landlines. Well done. I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with spike Lee’s films. Many feel overly heavy handed. But this helped me understand where he’s coming from a little better..
As im watching this, the more i realise how much your content has played a part in my life for the past 6 months or so.
I think that your content is very important and significate. Keep doing what you are doing. F everyone else.
Finally watched this last night and knew at the end that I needed to watch your video on it as soon as possible
I couldn’t help but think about some rappers being bankrolled by big labels to reinforce the worst stereotypes.
Thank u was hoping for a comment to point this out. Legit modern day minstrels.
THIS
Yup, Lee is not subtle in encouraging this comparison in Bamboozled!
The secret meeting...
@@tupacmachine I've noticed it with many streamers and TH-camrs too, scarily.
I loved this video👍🏾 I would argue that Spike wasn’t attempting to diminish the ideology of people like Frantz Fanon by hiding it within the buffoonery.
Ideally, it would’ve been great to channel that messaging in a more intentional manner, but I’ve always interpreted these moments as indicators that there are legitimate truths behind the buffoonery, you know?
Like sometimes, I’ll make comedy skits that talk about how uncomfortable school can be, and for the most part, the theme is entirely comedic. But occasionally I’ll drop a line that’s like
“the system is broken, the students aren’t given the appropriate amount of attention, and more and more teachers are getting discouraged”
Then the skit will go back into the more comedic theme.
At the very least, I like to think that Spike Lee was attempting to sneak in legitimate notions of black radicalism
Longbeachgriffy is a good example of this!
@@jjdilla9848 ehhhh not much of a fan of him tbh. He leans a little more on the transphobic side of the internet and that’s not really my taste. He’s talented tho
Considering how involved Spike seems to be on the topic and clearly demonstrates real passion and concern to bring up the matter in his work, I think it's fair to say he really meant to explore that bit of history but was probably unable to fit it in the movie for a variety of reasons. Him being under heavy scrutiny by Hollywood at the time probably didn't help
Absolutely
I agree but I'm not Black. Just a mixed Indigenous person that focuses on decolonization
30:58 Tyler Perry bringing up Italians not complaining about the Sopranos is hilarious because the Sopranos had an entire mini-storyline that mocked that exact thing happening to them 🤣
Thanks bro. loved this segment , Salute to you 😊
I'll give this another watch, gotta make sure it doesn't get flatlined by TH-cam.
👏🏿
Great idea. Doing that now
People think your explaining your shit is you defending your life/experience. But i think, for the real fam, we respect how much work your doing to give us perspective and your humanity when you shouldnt have to explain these truths and experiences.
Always huge respect for your craft and the momentous effort you put in to make sure its understood by many who deserve and dont deserve it
Thank you
Wow…this was amazing. The research, analysis, production values, content - stellar. Subscribed.
I think a lot of people need to be aware of what Lee did and what you are doing here. I don't always agree with your points but I'll support this every time you bring it out. Not surprising that you had it taken down for a while. Glad you have it back up. I appreciate it as a history teacher.
This analysis was excellent! I saw this movie as a freshman in college and my friends and I left the theater enraged and in tears. As someone who grew up in impoverished neighborhoods I used to ignorantly feel resentful toward middle and upper class blacks. With maturity and age I have witnessed and experienced the masks we have to wear in professional spaces and it is infuriating. The scene that hurt most is when Tommy Davidson said “sleep and eat” over and over as he was putting the blackface makeup on and fighting tears. This reminds me of the book “our kind of people.” They have an entire chapter on “passing” for white. One person explained no matter how wealthy and credentialed his family was, he would never be able to escape the police and prejudice (everyone in his small southern town knew his family was black). He left the south moved to California and married a white woman , passed for white and never contacted his family again. He was running from the anger and humiliation many of us have to live daily.
Isn't Our King of People a movie or show on Hulu now?
Thanks gonna look that book up
@@yoyodre you know what…I think someone did make a movie or documentary based off of the book.
@@garywilliams4154 I hope you enjoy if you decide to read it. I’m so humble because I consider myself well read and I’m an enthusiast when it comes to Black history but the more I learn the more I realize how much I don’t know and how most of us didnt learn about many aspects of American history.
As a black person from an upper class neighborhood I appreciate you for having the grace and self-awareness of you being ignorantly resentful. Most will never admit that. It’s easy for me to be friends with other races of any financial class, but sometimes, I find it hard to mingle with blacks who didn’t grow up the way I did cause a lot of them immediately notice our differences when we initially talk, then write me off and instantly turn cold/standoffish. It doesn’t surprise me anymore but it’s always disappointing…as a response to the coldness I’d become the same way back to them. As I mature I’ve learned not to do that and just leave the interaction. Everyone always complains about white people having preconceived notions about us but actually a whole ton of black people do the same thing to eachother. You admitted it and I related cause I am also guilty of doing it too. That’s never acknowledged or spoken about. Nice to talk about it here.
I love the statement that anger can be constructive. There are times we should be angry and channel it. Anger can fuel our actions. We need anger otherwise nothing changes.
Yeah without anger we won't even survive..
anger will start another dark age ... no problem for me (and definitely not a problem for hate), as the world was always the devils from the start.
no more "exorbitant privilege for the fantasies of the usa'" aka our special protected world famous classes and sins.
as the usa's power dwindles, evils like what is happening in gaza will start to happen often and everywhere....then learn what true reality is and the will to forsake anger and hate will be there but it will be too late.
everyone figures it out in the end, after its too late.
let me put it in understandable words -- soon, world will forget, because the stage was never suppose to be urs and the exit is happening.
anger will start another dark age ... no problem for me (and definitely not a problem for 8te), as the world was always the d3vls from the start.
no more "exorbitant privilege for the fantasies of the us of a'" aka our special protected world famous classes and labels.
as the us of a's power dwindles, 3vls like what is happening in g4z4 will start to happen often and everywhere....then learn what true reality is and the will to forsake 4ngr and 8te will be there but it will be too late.
everyone figures it out in the end, after its too late.
let me put it in understandable words -- soon, the world will forget, because the world stage was never suppose for us of a sub groups and the exit is happening.
@@ginxxxxx what are you trying to tell me?
You put a lot of work into dissecting Bamboozled and pulling out sources to back your arguments. Im impressed and enjoyed this a lot. Thank you
Thank you for this video.
Spike is so amazing. Bamboozled is so underrated and should be watched YESTERDAY. Thanks for this, FD.
He really messed up on oldboy though
@@Blingdung hah yes, Oldboy shouldn't have been touched. He has a few that weren't the move
I was a teen when it came out but I remember watching Siskel & Ebert and saw how much they did not like the film.
It was called distasteful, Spike went too far etc.
Yet it's beyond relevant today.
Kat Williams is channeling the same spirit.
@@khaldub I used to dislike him quite a bit because he said he believes that yt people shouldn't make POC movies but then remade a Korean movie while also demanding none of his films ever be remade.
I have a new found respect for him thanks to this video. While I still disagree with him on that issue, I had no idea just how talented he was when it came to something he was incredibly passionate about. Which makes me wonder if a studio demanded he direct that film, similar to the "one for you and one for me" that Taika Watiti has to do to make the movies he's sincerely passionate about.
@@fawnieeethat's something I've thought about as well. I've seen some interviews with him from that era and he doesn't seem as enthused as other projects.
Interestingly enough, I think racial solidarity can get kinda complicated when discussing black liberalism/neoliberalism vs black leftism/progressivism. Look at the divide among black people over democrats handling of Israel and the genocide in Gaza. In terms of supporting Biden/Harris they're at each other's throats. When MLK was talking about the "white moderate", you can definitely include black moderates/liberals in that convo too.
Familial solidarity can get hairy when it comes to politics lol so I'd definitely agree within the race it's bound to happen. Gives another nod to the saying "All skinfolk ain't kinfolk".
Yes. I think the bottom line is once anyone gets any sort of success / position within the system, they become invested in the survival of the system. The reason MLK's white moderates are so dangerous is that no matter their professed objection to the harms of white supremacy, ultimately white supremacy is delivering for them and they know it, so they are always going to be endlessly reluctant to risk change.
And even for folks the system wasn't built for, and no matter (sometimes because) how much harder it was for them to get some success / position with the system, once they are there they too are being provided for, and so become reluctant to risk it.
@@camipco EXACTLY!
So a black person is a "white moderate" if they vote for Biden this year?
Please, don't go outside and touch grass! Find some 70-80 year old black person involved in the movement. Until then, you're on punishment. No more TH-cam for you.
This is an excellent honestly complete show, on facts in life. On how we are extensions of each other and what you do does matter. What you say and do does affect others, it all counts. Keep up the great work Fam.
This is a movie that could've been made TOMORROW and be just as relevant. Spike truly is a man who can predict the future. (I apologize for the essay following but I so rarely see a video that addresses this amazing movie in such a thoughtful way.)
When I watched it, one thing that stood out to me is the woman who made the "Man-tan Manifesto" is Jewish, and pointed out before even starting the meeting that "my parents marched with Dr. King at Selma." I laughed out LOUD at that part. We (Jews) are *so eager* to point out our points of solidarity with Black people in order to deflect from the racism endemic in our community. Jewish American and Black American history is intertwined, for good and ill. We got big in the entertainment industry because that industry was seen as "dirty" and "beneath" the work of Good Clean White Folks. (Ashkenazi and some Sephardic Jews were granted whiteness in the 1950s in exchange for assimilation.) And that work is intertwined with Black entertainers, whose work was also looked down on even as it was loved by those same white folks! (As you expertly explained in your "white rappers" video.) Rappaport, a Jewish man, embodies this! He thinks he has transcended the racism in our community with his proximity to Blackness. He hasn't.
One thing about the infamous Blackface-ridden movie "The Jazz Singer" that gets overlooked is that it is one of the only mainstream blockbuster films ever made that centers a sacred cultural Jewish American experience widely known in our community but virtually unknown in the gentile community: the chanting of Kol Nidre on Erev Yom Kippur. After Hollywood got white money backing it, you didn't see those kinds of themes outside of Jewish Film Festivals. We gave up our cultural uniqueness to keep that whiteness, once again as you said in your "white rappers" video. And, because the ugliness of Blackface, the beauty of the cultural clash between Jolson's religions family and his artistic ambitions becomes lost. The solution to this isn't to say "The Jazz Singer is OK, Actually" - it's for us to create stories like that without the exploitation of Black culture doing the heavy lifting in it.
One final point: Terrence Blanchard's score for the film is beautiful and haunting, one of the best I've ever heard, frankly. The ending montage music with the imagery brings me to tears. Sorry for the long comment, thanks for indulging me, thanks for the excellent challenging thoughtful work.
Interesting thoughts, good comment!
As a white person, bamboozled was the film that made me really look at myself and seek out other media that challenges my understanding of race and the black experience in America. It’s such an important film. Thankyou for being an amazing creator, love your videos
Regarding the intro, don't let that imposter syndrome get you. You've earned it just as much as anyone else has. Know what the end goal is and stick to it
i dont think thats what he was saying
Theres a very big difference in asking if what you are saying is actually empowering your community vs imposter syndrome
definitely wasn’t imposter syndrome 😭
Definitely not imposter syndrome. You completely misunderstood his position. His dilemma is remaining authentic to his core black audience while, balancing his success, which is a consequence of the influx of white/other folks viewing his content.
I think you missed what he was saying there
Brother I’m wish that I had know about your well thought out, sensible channel before now. You had me within the first 2 mins. I had to subscribe!
Robert Townsend did this same thing in his movie "Hollywood Shuffle"