Borat Wasn't the Problem

I watched Borat on DVD this weekend. My husband and I have date night every Saturday and we usually use that time to go see a movie. I’m telling you this to let you know we had an opportunity of see it at a theater near us. We saw the trailers week after week. I don’t really remember, but I’m sure we did discuss it the week it came out. I’m also sure neither of us ever considered it seriously. I don’t like slapstick or jokes that don’t include all the players. My husband has other issues that would preclude him from watching such a movie, but I won’t go into it because this is my blog.

I didn’t laugh one time and I don’t remember smiling. The bits were much funnier in telling someone about them than in watching them. What really struck me more than anything else was the incredible patience Americans had with this “Kazakhstanian” visitor, in spite of his stupidity and crudeness, as they carefully explained the anti-Semitic racist American way.

At least a third of the time when I go out into the world to ask strangers anything, the best I can hope for is silent disdain. I have a degree from one of the top ten colleges in the country, I’m neat and clean in public, and I don’t speak loud or rudely. I can’t think of one of his bits that wouldn’t have gotten me arrested at the very least. For my husband and two sons, also well kept college graduates, they would have been shot anywhere in this country doing at least two of Borat’s stunts. How do I know this? Because Black men have been shot by the police doing much less.

I’m not saying the movie was anti-Semitism or racist, I don’t believe it was. It was satire or parody. Sacha Baron Cohen has a firm grasp of American’s underbelly. In one scene, a dinner party of genteel Southern attendees, Borat says and does things that should have gotten him booted long before dessert. The party included Newt Gingrich and his wife. What finally upsets the host and Gingrich so much that he jumps up and takes his immediate leave? Borat’s “date” for the evening arrives, an overweight Black woman that Borat identifies as a prostitute. They saw her and immediately announced that diner was over and Borat had to leave. The prostitute was friendly and mild mannered. She wasn’t banishing a weapon or using loud and or crude language; she just appeared at the door.

Don’t get me wrong, I would not have wanted this women to show up at my door under the same circumstances; but had she been acting the way she did in the movie, even dressed as inappropriately, I could not have been so rude. And that goes for her white or Asian counterpart. That women showing up, in my mind, was the most benign thing Borat did at the party–unless black folks at your dinner party is a deal-breaking problem.

I hope there’s a black film maker out there working on his own version of Borat. I’m not sure how it can be done without putting the main actor in harms way, but I hope somebody figures it out. I do hope the film company will check in with the police first in each city they visit. They’ll have a hard enough time dodging the bullets of the good everyday citizens and shopkeepers.

Heads in Trees

Years ago a friend said, when he was a little boy, he used to hang out with the old guys. He figured one day one of them would slip and say something that would reveal to him, once and for all, what black folks had done to whites to make them hate us so much. I remember thinking he’d been wasting his time. First of all, there was no one thing beyond our continued presence here after the job was done. The cotton had been picked, the buildings built, the houses cleaned and the babies raised–now go home! Secondly he was hanging out with the wrong group. If he really wanted to know the real deal about anything, he should have been hanging out with the old women. I love old black women. Is there any other group on the planet who can cut through the crap with greater precision?

I’ve had a hero for years in an old sister girl who’d been accosted in her home. I saw her on the evening news. She shot and killed the intruder. An interviewer asked her was she sorry she killed him. The camera zoomed in as the stately grandmother thought about it.
“Well, I woke up and he was standing over me in my bedroom. I didn’t invite him and I didn’t know him. What we got to talk about?”*

What indeed.

I’ve got a new hero, maybe not to replace Stately Grandmother but to add to the pack. My daughter and I were channel surfing on Friday, the day before St. Patrick’s day. We stopped on a news item, I assume, that showed a group of mostly black folks standing around a big tree. The interviewer gave the microphone to a young person who claimed a leprechaun had been spotted in the tree. As I’m sure you can imagine, that got my attention. The interviewer went to several people all claiming to have seen said leprechaun. The interviewer wasn’t convinced. Finally he stuck the mike into the car window of an older black woman. I don’t know if she was coming or going, but she certainly wasn’t standing around joining in the festive atmosphere.

What did she think?

“It was probably some crackhead that got hold of some bad stuff and climbed a tree.”

So there you have it. If you really want to know ask an old sister girl.




*(not my endorsement of guns. She could've used a knife)

I've been invited to blog by "Mother" on her site Chittlin's and Chopsticks. The invitation couldn't have come at a better time because I woke up this morning thinking about motherhood. Okay, I wake up most mornings thinking about my kids so that wasn't a big stretch. This morning I was thinking about washing my hair and the fact that I'm having problems with my right arm.

I asked my husband to wash it for me and he immediately made excuses. He's usually pretty good about helping me with things, but I understood his refusal. You see, in years past, that whole "help me wash my hair," was--how can I put this delicately--a coded foreplay invitation. His refusal was based on the fact that he was sorting clothes to wash. The only thing on his mind was his work wardrobe. I could have explained that I really needed help but the thought sounded like too much effort when I ran it past my brain.

By the way, I have a unique relationship with the sentient being I call my brain. It a fun place that goes off in myriad directions and paths without any input from me. I know I've sounded crazy or arrogant trying to explain to people that I like the way my brain thinks. It's not that at all because I have no control over it. Like a toddler it's forever doing and saying things that I didn't expect, couldn't have anticipated, and often find embarrassingly "cute."

Anyway, the brain said don't explain to husband just go find somebody else to help you. I said, "yes, master," and off I went. I have two kids at home right now, our 25 year old son, Geoffrey and our 27 year old daughter, Regina. Geoff is a twin, his brother lives in Austin, Texas. If any mother has more helpful, wonderful, sons I haven't met them.

Geoff's bedroom door was open and he was putting on a shirt over his tee shirt. I asked him. He said he was on his way to a Kings basketball game, but he would do it when he comes home. He kissed me and took his leave.

I hadn't seen my daughter yet this morning. It was time to confer with the brain. Regina is a wonderful child too. Anybody that likes her will tell you she has a very giving heart. But people never explain a person's heart unless it's something the casual observer can't see. Brain told me to wait and see what kind of mood she was in first. She just appeared to let her puppy outside. I asked, she said yes. She never once looked at my hair like she was wondering how to wash the snakes.

Aren't kids great? I love motherhood.