Jamie Foxx SNL: Conservatives Are Crying Racism, But His Appearance Was Pure Comedy
I grew up in Southern California, so many people's minor problems about race make little sense to me. I understand major problems, like Trayvon Martin, unemployment, pay gaps and high rates of incarceration. Two weeks ago, Jamie Foxx referred to Barack Obama as "Our Lord and Savior" at the Soul Train Awards. Saturday night on Saturday Night Live, he commented about killing all the whites in the upcoming film Django Unchained.
People have to be crazy to take this sketch as serious racism, but of course some are.
Thanks to internet ad targeting, here's the illustration I got while I was reading a Newsbusters article slamming Foxx. The ad makes it clear how necessary it is to take Jamie Foxx's comments to heart as racist hatred toward whites. The article quotes Foxx's opening monologue and then follows it up with some choice advertising.
Yeah, baby, dancing just like Vagisil!
News flash: Foxx has been making fun of Obama for years. And his Saturday Night Live appearance was not all politics; he also portrayed a Hostess Ding Dong and simultaneously played Tyler Perry as Alex Cross the detective, and Madea, the hot-tempered matriarch.
It's okay to laugh at Jamie Foxx, and see that he's making fun of preconceived notions about Obama and others. Foxx knows that Obama isn't going to suddenly change into the "ultra-black" president instead of the "white-Bama" he was for his first four years in office.
I have some recommendations for non-black conservatives who are bothered by what Jamie Foxx has said and think he's making racist attacks on whites. Watch some of Jamie Foxx's performances or the Soul Train Awards. In the 90's, my favorite TV show was In Living Color.
In Living Color was a black comedy sketch show that ran from 1990 to 1994 on Fox, created by Keenen Ivory Wayans and featuring his younger brothers Damon, Shawn and Marlon, and sister Kim. One of the other stars was none other than Jamie Foxx. The hilarious skits launched characters like Homey D. Clown (Damon Wayans) who originated the term "Homey don't play that" while he smacked kids on the head with a rock-filled sock, to the absurdly Gay Men on Film (Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier), who gave products they approved of "Two snaps up!"
In Living Color made fun of everyone from a black, urban perspective. The cast reversed the typical race mix of comedy shows like SNL, which featured one or two black people. In Living Color had a predominately black cast with only a few whites, like Jim Carrey. The show featured the multi-racial "Fly Girls," dancers which were choreographed by Rosie Perez, and included stars-to-be Jennifer Lopez and Carrie Ann Inaba.
In Living Color has been rebooted under the direction of Keenen Ivory Wayans, but the show's release date has been pushed back several times, and it is now scheduled for fall 2013. It's possible that the show has been delayed so many times because Fox believes that people are now more uptight about race than they were in the early 90s.
Jamie Foxx is hilarious, and so was In Living Color. If conservatives are going to get upset about Foxx's "racist" commentary, they should also be up in arms defending Hostess Ding Dongs, detective Alex Cross, Tyler Perry's endless Madea film series, and Barack Obama singing and dancing like a white guy on Ellen.
Here's the In Living Color classic parody of The Dating Game with Jamie Foxx as the world's ugliest woman, massage therapist Wanda Wayne, and Jim Carrey as the clueless host.
As we say here in Cali, it's hella funny, all good, and not racist.