Quick "racist" question

[Inchworm]

The Lounge ain't answering as fast as the beers are kicking in.

I got into a "visual art" mode earlier.

Simply...

Why does the idea of "Hambone" strike a racial nerve with me?

It's just a type of expression.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnrlzc39edM

There's a whole song I learned growing up that goes with it, but nothing racist is mentioned.
Worsest (yea, I said worsest) part about the song I know is mention of collard greens.

It's very artful but forn some unknown reason I feel odd mentioning it.

ideas?

:shrug:

[1]

1. your sig line is racist...

i'm just saying...

[Inchworm]

3. saying as a point?

anything can be racist?

Or really.. you think my sigline is racist?

:shrug:

[1]

13. just that. anything...

[Inchworm]

15. and frogs bake cookies

don't worry me with my sigline when I'm being serious.

Hell, I actually wondered.

x(

[tomreedtoon]

27. The monkey is easy to fix.

Just put him in a white shirt and black tie, make the coffee a can of Mountain Dew, and put him in an office cubicle with a computer. Then label him "Code Monkey." (Listen to the song by Jonathan Coulton to understand. It's a silly song that gets heartbreaking by the end.)

[Inchworm]

29. fuck dat

he's a cool munkee. He ain't selling much to the un-tv folks. Get Milk ain't the point of the munkee

Yea!

:P

[BlooInBloo]

2. (shrug) Golly - something black folks invented, and now anyone can do. How worrisome...

Maybe I'm missing something.

[Inchworm]

5. I ain't worried

I just wonder.

I feel that way from some damn where.

:shrug:

[EFerrari]

6. Apparently now anything lifted from black culture is racist?

:crazy:

[Inchworm]

10. no no no

am not saying it is...

I'm asking why.

:)

[BlooInBloo]

11. Just claiming fictional confusion, adding to the lie that "we don't MEAN to be racist...

it's just so GOSH-DARN hard to tell - because black folks are SOOOOOO oversensitive!" bullshit.

Possibly it's unintentional.

[XemaSab]

18. There's a fine line between homage and racism

n/t

[EFerrari]

33. Not really. They move in opposite directions. n/t

[EFerrari]

4. There's a lot of information on line about this form.

Have you searched any of it?

http://www.linktv.org/programs/hambone

[Inchworm]

8. I have and had no luck

was hell to get the lyrics I did find. I thought it may have been that.

They were tame 'cept mention of collard greens, omg.

:D

[EFerrari]

16. Video

http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=hambone&b=22&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-501&fr2=tab-web&tnr=21&vid=000199670568

[Inchworm]

17. Thats sort of my point

I slipped into this in The Lounge. Same dude in fact.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=8648638&mesg_id=8648711

got no replies, or after.

I realized after I watched the downside that I may have been being racist.

Then I drank :D

:toast:

[panader0]

7. You are making me hungry.

I'm white, I love watermelon, fried chicken, collard greens, grits, ribs, and many other supposedly "black" foods. Rather silly I think, this ethno BS about food. I also love Mexican, Greek, Italian, Chinese, and many more. The differences in our cultures should be celebrated. It's what make humans cool. Don't even get me started on music..........

[Inchworm]

12. I dint say Ham bone

:rofl:

Hambone is kneeslapping that is common to where I'm from.

:D

[RoyGBiv]

9. Perhaps ...

Perhaps you associate the racial archetypes of the early 20th century with it ... or a certain Shirley Temple movie.

[Inchworm]

14. I wonder this.

That's whats cool about GD.

Handles are jumped, but I get sense out of it usually.

:)

[RoyGBiv]

23. The thing is this ...

The late 19th and early 20th century was full of cultural representations of blacks that drew both from stereotypes and genuine cultural expressions and formed this amalgamated, archetypal "black person."

I mentioned Shirley Temple because of Bojangles Robinson and his trademark tap dancing. Now there's nothing racist about tap dancing ... now. But there's another side to this. Tap dancing was derived from stepping, clogging, and similar styles, and it was a popular bit done in minstrel shows by black faced white performers. Of course that's overly simplified, but it shows the outlines of the pedigree. The character Robinson played in Temple's movies was, according to a certain way of looking at it, the smartest person in the room, but he was also based on a romantic southern archetype for blacks, the "happy servant" who dances and sings and smiles, this archetype in turn being derived from the "happy slave" who always wears a smile and is just giddy to be out in the fields picking cotton all day long.

There's nothing racist about smiling or tap dancing or picking cotton or doing the hambone. But then there's context.

I naturally do not know how your mind is processing all this, but in general when we see or hear certain things, strings of memory get called that can lead to these sorts of things.

[Inchworm]

26. I love you man

See.. thats what I thought. I got kinda in the midsts with a lounge thread but never gave it a though.

Noone replied.. I was sipping beers.. wondered why.. ended up in GD asking :rofl:

There were about 37 seconds where I thought Hambone turned them away... I posted in GD

Now I know lol

:hug:

[canetoad]

25. Race or poverty?

That kind of rhythm making may be associated with the southern states but it occurs all over the world in different cultures and to me is more associated with people not being able to afford an instrument.

I was born in Scotland. I can't remember what, if anything it was called there, but there was always someone at a party doing it when the whiskey had been consumed and it was time to make music. Playing the spoons too - the poor person's castanets. Even penny whistles and ukeleles cost money but no matter how poor, most people can bang out a rhythm with their hands.

[Inchworm]

28. I want to get back into it but can't

We spent hella hours playing music on porches. voices were extra. 2 of the 10 ould racket out some spoons and the ones with instruments would just play.

Hambone and the spoons got the most attention.

:shrug:

[canetoad]

30. You want racist?

My Grandfather plays a Jew's Harp

:yoiks: :yoiks: :yoiks: :yoiks: :yoiks: :yoiks:

[southerncrone]

19. Seems I remember some movies form the '30's & '40's may have portrayed

African-Americans in a lesser light, that featured them "doin' da hambone". Could be wrong, but I must have this memory from somewhere.

I think the phrase "hammin' it up" was derived from dancin'the hambone, too.

Here's some interesting info on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juba_dance

[Inchworm]

21. omg, thanks!

I guess I worried too quickly.

:D

[Inchworm]

20. So, just quick blurts of frustration

and smack. no answer

I'll ask my buddy that laughs when he sees it why.. when I see him.

:grr:

[provis99]

22. Louisianans call themselves "Coonasses". Is that racist?

Or what about what Chris Rock noticed: that any city with a Martin Luther King Boulevard is always through the blackest part of the ghetto. It that tendency to put MLK Blvd in the black neighborhood racist? :shrug:

[Inchworm]

24. I guess I jumped the gun

In my personal skull I got a racist worry about posting cool shit. I din't know why. I wondered and asked.

I figgered it may be an easy reason that someone might say.

I learn as I go.

:P

[wellst0nev0ter]

32. There's An MLK Boulevard right next to the state capitol building in St. Paul

not that it takes away from what Chris Rock is saying, just saying an exception that proves the rule.

[IntravenousDemilo]

31. Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handy

“If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins most? I'd say Flippy, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong though. It's Hambone.”

That's what I think of.