Bill and Bubba: Times, They Are A Changin'
I read a post on Just a Girl in Short Shorts, see sidebar, and thought it was a joke. Becky linked to a YouTube piece that had a montage of photos and what seemed like Bill O’Reilly’s voice. I listened twice to what he said. I then Googled “O’Reilly Harlem.” It seems he did a bit on his show about going to Sylvia’s Restaurant in Harlem with Al Sharpton. He said:
“And I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship [sic]. It was the same, and that’s really what this society’s all about now here in the U.S.A. There’s no difference. There’s no difference. There may be a cultural entertainment — people may gravitate toward different cultural entertainment, but you go down to Little Italy, and you’re gonna have that. It has nothing to do with the color of anybody’s skin.”
Bill is so clueless in so many ways. It makes me think of the song Time Warp and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but in a bad way.
“Bubba, Bubba, pay attention now. We may have to rethink this whole prejudice thing.”
“Bill, stop that shit. You and I both know that the Guvm'nt can’t make us sit down with them people, ‘cept at lunch counters 'n bus stations.”
“Bubba, listen to me. They acted just like you and me at the Golden Corral, except they had a bit more class. I’m tellin’ ya, it was amazin’, colored folk runnin’ the place, eatin’ at the tables with not a problem, I liked ta never to saw it.”
“Still don’ mean I gotta.”
“Bub, I’m tellin’ ya, I got me a funny feelin’, some them colored folks could be like us.”
“Bill, just stop it right now. You keep with this thinkin’ and FOX ain’t gon’ renew that contract and I got 10% of that renewal comin’ to me, I’m the one that got ya where ya are ya know.”
“Bubba, we’re forever, ya know that, but, damn, first that Obama fella being articulate an’ all, now just plain folks with dark skin actin’ jus’ like me, I don’ know, times may be a changin’. Damn Bubba, what you stick me with that needle for?”
“Bill, it seems we have to adjust your medication, the buddy therapy isn’t working with your present dosage. Nurse, would you help Mr. O’Reilly to the lockdown unit; oh, and call FOX and tell Rupert that he seems to have a case of the 72 hour flu.”
My apologies for the dialect spellin’ and the southern slam.
5 comments:
If you would listen to the conversation in it's entirety, you would learn that the whole point of the segment was pointing out a HUGE problem in American pop culture today. That mainstream rap tries to pretend that that the lifestyle portrayed by rap artists is a true representation of black America. Bill used Sylvia's in Harlem as an example of what black America REALLY is ... and how he didn't see that gangsta lifestyle anywhere to be found in Sylvia's.
Anon,
I'd read most of it before the post and I've gone back and read the whole thing after your comment.
O'Reilly is in context talking about rap and gangsta culture and making the point that it isn't mainstream.
But the tone of his comments is condescending. In 2007 he's amazed that there are black people that "are starting to think more and more for themselves.... They're just trying to figure it out: "Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.'"
Later, after the Sylvia's monologue, he expresses further amazement "I went to the concert by Anita Baker at Radio City Music Hall and the crowd was 50/50, black/white, and the blacks were well-dressed....The band was excellent, but they were dressed in tuxedoes...."
Well imagine that, black people running a restaurant, patronizing it, getting dressed up to go to a concert where musicians wore formal wear."
As I said in the post, it's as if he stepped out of a time warp, having missed the last fifty or so years, and discovered that black people aren't all alike. He did indeed use Sylvia's restaurant "as an example of what black America REALLY is," it's just his tone of discovery that is irksome and I think belies his views on race.
I appreciate you taking the time to comment and making me think through my thoughts.
You DEFINITELY do NOT want to get me started on "O'Reilly." Condescending to my thoughts about him is a very mild description. Don't ask me what I think would be more appropriate cause I probably don't have the vocabulary at play within me to come up with a good word for that man! Does the fact I lump him and Limbaugh in the same group give a clue as to my feelings about both of those two yahoos!
Don't apologize for what you wrote there. I can fully picture that scene playing out in my mind's eye.
Hi Dave.
Debo Blue
I, being a nurse would like to be the first to vounteer escorting "Billo" to lockdown
Post a Comment