I Want You to Shut the F#ck Up

by D. L. Hughley

  Stop regarding us as having a hive mind. When one black person says something Republicans don’t like, he’s indicative of all black people to them. “That’s how they all think! They all think the same way!” But when a black person says something that Republicans like, then it becomes, “Why can’t you be more like this guy?” Just because we’re all unified against the GOP doesn’t mean we’re all unified otherwise.

  Unbutton the collars. In 2008 I said on CNN that the Republican National Convention looked like Nazi Germany. I had never seen a whiter and more austere gathering. It wasn’t simply that it was all “white”; it was buttoned-up white people and their buttoned-up sons and daughters. White people as a group can be pretty diverse. You’ve got George Bush, and you’ve got Kid Rock, and you’ve got Lady Gaga. Show it!

  Stop the legal double standard. When the system is rigged to deliberately make it harder for my kids than it is for white kids, then clearly the party of “order” is fighting against me. This double standard crosses all criminal activity. I read an article referring to the Department of Justice, and it pointed out that 75 percent of people arrested in this country are white. Yet a majority of the people in jail are black. Judges, consciously or not, prefer to mete out “mercy” for their own, the white offenders, while delivering “justice” for people they have no connection to, poor black males.

  Die. One of my close friends is a die-hard Raiders fan. I asked him what it would take for the Raiders to get better. “They’ll get better,” he told me, “now that Al Davis died.” It’s the same thing with the Republican Party and those who run it. All the Newts Gingrich, all the people who look like Romney, all those people who believe that there’s a certain way you’re supposed to be—when that mentality and that physical presence dies, the GOP and the world can move on.

  It’s like America’s waiting for its grandmother to croak so we can inherit her house. We don’t want her to die, and I certainly don’t wish for the death of anyone (especially someone who I simply disagree with politically). But at the same time, just like with Grandma, it’s impossible to deny that some good will come out of this death. Without a death, there can’t be a resurrection.

  That old mentality, those old ways of seeing the world, is a major reason why the Republican Party is anathema to the black community. The vitriol and the venom and the acrimony in our politics comes from people who never in their lives thought they would see a black man being the symbol of America. It was unfathomable to them. In many ways it remains unfathomable to them. It’s driven them mad to the extent that they will purposefully damage this country to get rid of him.

  Of course, I won’t actually be waiting for a call to take over the Republican Party. There are much easier and more palatable jobs that I could be doing, like running Godfather’s Pizza. But the fact that the GOP isn’t doing any of these somewhat obvious things demonstrates that it’s out of choice. At the end of the day, the Republican Party is less interested in the black vote than it is in the black voter simply going away. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the Republicans’ very own home page, GOP.com. Here’s a screen grab as I write:

  At the very top are links to subpages for RNC Latinos and RNC Women. But there’s no welcome mat for black Republicans. There’s not even a perfunctory page talking about Rep. Allen West taking on the CBC or what have you. I’m not putting words in their mouth. If you invite two groups into your home and are silent with regard to the third, at best you are indifferent to them. That sure don’t sound like Abe Lincoln to me. The man may have been much more racist than people realize, but he wasn’t about to let freed blacks wither away and die.

  Here’s where I’d like to point something else out. I began this chapter by mentioning that blacks vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, and that certain white groups vote as overwhelmingly for Republicans. These kinds of figures are discussed on the news constantly and are not controversial. It is possible to statistically predict how a certain group will behave in a given context. No one would have an argument with that. After all, demographics are the basis of marketing—political and otherwise. Polling is also based on this concept. But there’s another, less positive term for when statistics predict how a certain group will behave in a given context: stereotyping. And the predictive power of these models brings me to my next point: that stereotypes exist for a reason.

  THE idea that stereotypes are social constructs with no relation to reality is itself a social construct with no relation to reality. Every nation, every group on earth, has some stereotype about some other nation or group that is different from them. I bet that even these contemporary Paleolithic societies have jokes about their women and their elderly. When something is a universal element of the human experience, it surely has some basis in fact.

  Let me give an example to illustrate my point. One time during the filming of Studio 60, I was hanging out backstage with my costar Nate Corddry. Nate mentioned the song “Stairway to Heaven.” I was a little surprised that white Nate listened to soul music. “You like the O’Jays?” I said.

  “The O’Jays?” Nate replied. “Who’re the O’Jays?”

  “What do you mean? They’re the cats that sing ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ ”

  He looked at me like I was messing with him. “D.L., ‘Stairway to Heaven’ is by Led Zeppelin. It’s like their biggest song.”

  “Really?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Yeah, it’s on the Led Zeppelin IV album. I can’t believe that you don’t know that.”

  “Well, I can’t believe you don’t know the O’Jays. Isn’t it funny that you assumed that I would know what you know?”

  It should come as no surprise that the black dude liked “Stairway to Heaven” by the O’Jays and the white guy listened to Led Zeppelin’s song of the same name. Like I said: Stereotypes exist for a reason. Somehow, when a stereotype is not offensive, we can acknowledge it as a fact. Liking soul music or Led Zeppelin is not offensive to anyone. But if a stereotype is offensive, that doesn’t make it false. That just makes it an offensive fact.

  I experience stereotyping a lot. There have been many times when I’ve sat in first class on a plane, and the white passengers have questions for me: “What do you do?” “Are you a singer?” “Should I know you?” “What’s your name? Everybody knows you, right?” If you see a white guy in first class, he can just be on some business trip for the regional branch of a cell-phone company. But if it’s a black dude sitting in first, he’s famous. He’s an athlete or an entertainer. Now, how can I complain about that stereotype when I embody it? I am an entertainer. The stereotype, in my case, is true.

  Why deny that these ideas exist? Someone who denies reality is a crazy person. That’s what being crazy means: not being in touch with reality! We all know that black people tend to talk loud at the movies. I don’t know why, but I’m never shocked when I hear black people yelling at the theater. I might get annoyed, but I don’t get surprised. Does anyone?

  Sometimes stereotypes are so spot-on that it’s ridiculous. I’ve seen things that are almost a caricature of real life. When I was in Los Angeles a few years back, I witnessed the aftermath of a car accident on the street. It looked so weird to me, because it was a white dude who had run into an Asian guy. In the back of my mind, I was so convinced that it had to be the Asian’s fault that I started trying to figure out how the Asian guy could have made such an accident happen. The only way it was possible was if the Asian guy had backed into the white dude—which was ridiculous. I turned to the man standing next to me, who had seen the whole thing. “Dude, what did he do?” I joked. “Back up into him?”

  “He actually did.”

  “What?” I thought he was kidding.

  “No, that’s actually what happened. He was coming out of the parking space, didn’t look, and backed up into him.”

  The stereotype had been justified once again. I know I’m not the only person who thinks like this. It’s a shock when Asians don’t kno
w arithmetic. Everyone assumes that they know all the math. You just do. Every time I go get blood taken at the doctor’s, it’s a Filipino nurse. Every. Single. Time. The New York Times had a piece about how the shoeshine community is almost exclusively Brazilian dudes. Is the New York Times an organ of prejudice and anti-diversity racism? Let’s be real.

  What’s amazing to me is when people get in trouble for saying things that everyone knows to be the truth. You get in more trouble for speaking the truth in this country than you do for lying. In 2010, Rick Sanchez got fired from CNN for making comments about how the Jews run the media. Is he wrong? I’ve been in the entertainment industry for over twenty years. Over that time period, every meeting I’ve ever gone to had a Jewish person in the room. Why is that? Is it just the biggest string of coincidences in history? Ben Stein, Jew, once wrote an article entitled “Do Jews Run Hollywood?” His conclusion was, “You bet they do—and what of it?” If something is acceptable for a Stein to say, it should be acceptable for a Sanchez to say as well. Facts are facts regardless of the speaker. That’s what makes them facts and not opinions.

  Juan Williams was another dude who got in trouble for speaking his mind about stereotypes. Juan got fired from NPR because he said he got nervous and worried when he saw Muslims board planes. Who doesn’t? Shortly after 9/11, I was taking a flight. I watched as the staff kicked a Middle Eastern dude off the plane. They didn’t ask him anything and they didn’t say anything to him. As a black man, part of me thought that was racial profiling and it wasn’t right. But another part of me had no problem with it whatsoever.

  The thing is, most people are more interested in denying that stereotypes exist than actually fighting them. In the summer of 2011, the Department of Homeland Security released a public service announcement to help prevent terrorism. The terrorists in the ad belonged to every race—with one glaring exception. Old ladies? Check. Middle-aged man of unclear racial history? Yep, he’s there. Guess who was missing? Here’s a hint: Stereotypically, he should be driving a cab. Homeland Security tried so hard to not be stereotypical and racist that they ended up making clowns of themselves. It starts at the top and permeates its way down. When I was in Chattanooga, their Most Wanted Terrorists poster was so hilarious that I just had to take a picture of it. It was full of white dudes! So Conway fucking Twitty has joined the mujahideen?

  People always get worked up over shit like that, but I never do. Why get upset? We should try to avoid getting upset and laugh these things off. It’ll be easier for everybody. So much of comedy is based on people feeling uncomfortable, because being uncomfortable forces you to think and to question your behavior. We can’t get past racism if we can’t laugh about it. If you’re not comfortable laughing it off, at least mess with people about it. I’ve done it myself and the results are hysterical.

  There were two times that I was out for dinner with my manager, who is white, and a similar thing happened. The first time, I ordered the Caesar salad and he got the ribs. The second time, I got the salad and he got the fried chicken. The story turned out the same way: The waiter came back and put the salad in front of the white dude, while I got the fried chicken or the ribs.

  I thought it was hilarious. If I got offended by stuff like that, like when white people hand me their keys to bring the car around, I’d be offended a lot. So I decided to have fun with the waiter. “Man,” I said, “I didn’t order the fried chicken. He did.”

  Apparently they had beets on special that night, because that waiter instantly turned beet red. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

  “Why would you put it here?”

  He got flummoxed. “I’m … I’m … I don’t know!”

  But he did know, and my manager knew, and I knew. The waiter just didn’t feel comfortable saying the truth that was in front of all of us. The political correctness forced him to be deceptive instead of simply being truthful. But it wasn’t like he was fooling anyone, least of all me.

  All this talk of us living in a post-racial, colorblind society is nonsense, as far as I’m concerned. Seeing a color isn’t the same thing as hating a color. I heard Charles Grodin say that he knew he had come a long way with regards to race when one day he looked out and all the Knicks were black—and he hadn’t even noticed. My position is, he would have noticed if he had gone to a board meeting and all of them were black. Anyone would notice that, because people go where they belong. They go where you assign them. If I’m on a plane, I expect that the pilot is a white man. I only notice when it’s a female or a minority.

  Can anyone tell me they’ve never met a person that is the very embodiment of a stereotype? Not one? For us to pretend that stereotypes are these conjured-up notions that don’t exist is dishonest and straight-up bullshit. I know Jews who act a certain way; I know blacks who act a certain way; I know Mexicans who act a certain way. I would say most of them act that way, and the exception is the one everybody holds up. What drives me crazy is when you mention a stereotype, and the person you’re speaking to brings up that one counterexample: “I’m friends with Nichelle, and she’s black. She doesn’t dance.” But that’s the exception, not the rule. You notice it when a white dude dances very well. I especially notice it because I’m a terrible dancer and I despise dancing.

  There’s certain things you aren’t going to see black people do. You just won’t. You won’t see a black dude mauled by a grizzly bear in Alaska or Montana. When killer whales turn on their trainers and kill them, you know immediately that that’s not a black person. We generally get killed by drive-by shootings and the police. Who comes out ahead in the above scenarios? Which of these stereotypes is “bad”?

  I can prove to everyone that stereotypes exist for a reason. I was gigging in Baltimore in 2010 when I heard this news story: Some dude broke into a house to burglarize it. While the robber was there, he decided to kill two birds with one stone. He used the homeowner’s charger to charge his cell phone. Then he ran off with all the loot—and left his cell phone behind and got caught. Could that have been anyone other than a black dude? That’s nigger shit, right there.

  When Michael Vick got a $100 million contract, some commentator on MSNBC said that if Vick was white, he never would have gone through what he had. Well, he probably also wouldn’t have been that good of an athlete, either.

  As I write this, I’m working on a radio show. I headed to United Stations to do a mock episode that we could then shop around. We were taking calls, and after a while we got very tired. I asked the program director who set everything up if we had enough material.

  “Oh, we’ve got more than enough,” he told me. “But we’ve got six more calls so let’s use them, because we paid for them.”

  “So even though we don’t need them,” I asked him, “you want to use them?”

  Pop quiz! Was this program director:

  A) Jewish

  B) A Jew

  C) Of Semitic descent

  D) All of the above

  “That’s the most Jewish thing I’ve ever heard,” I told him.

  And he laughed. Of course he laughed, because my comment made sense. If he had been British and I’d said, “That’s the most British thing I’ve ever heard,” he’d just get confused. (Actually, if he were British he would have never made such a Jewish comment, but that’s beside the point.)

  Another example: Once I had neighbors who were two men who lived together. We’ve all had neighbors who are horrible, who make you wince because every time you interact with them they annoy the shit out of you. Well, these dudes were the exact opposite. Every time they said something, it was helpful: “Your dog got out, but we brought him back.” “I watered your plants.” “I went to the store and I picked something up I knew you would like.” I don’t get why they had statues of David everywhere, but that was their business. Now, I had never seen the two men be intimate with each other. They never said to me, “We’re gay.” But did they really need to?

  Just like everybody else, I get nervous when I wa
lk down the street and I see a group of young black or Latin dudes. I’m not being hateful; I’m being cautious and I’m being safe. If it was a bunch of gay dudes, the only thing I’d be worried about is if they were judging my clothes. If it were black or Latin women, no one including myself would be worried. That’s because almost all violent street crime is committed by men. That’s not a racist statement and that’s not a sexist statement. That’s just math, motherfucker!

  When someone doesn’t know you and treats you like a stereotype, it’s not always a hateful thing. It could just be a matter of playing the odds. When I go to restaurants in the summer, the waiter often brings out a free appetizer for the table. “The chef made this special for you,” he’ll tell me as he puts down that plate—which is always with watermelon. I never get worked up over shit like that. How can I be upset when people are trying their best to make me a treat to enjoy, for free? Guess what: Black people like watermelon. So does everybody else. How the fuck can you find watermelon offensive? It’s spectacular! After a hundred years, it’s not even a stereotype anymore; it’s an American tradition.

  Are we not supposed to see stereotypes? Or are we not supposed to say what we see? As a comic and as a person, it’s my job to do as the Department of Homeland Security urges: “If you see something, say something.” Words are linguistic tools we use to connote things that exist. If stereotypes exist for a reason, then they’ve got to have a word attached to them, a name to call them. A word that is used to connote an offensive stereotype is a slur. Just like stereotypes, these words are very powerful. But sometimes this power can be used for good instead of evil. My wife, LaDonna, provided the perfect example of this.