I was recently made aware of a "comic" Named Charles F Kipp's and his drag character Shirley Q Liquor . Mr Kipp dresses in a large Moomoo dress dons blackface make up and proceeds to act out the worst African American stereotypes. To get an idea of what this act is like take Tyler Perry's Media and remove all the real word play, situational comedy and originality. Or watch this and judge for your self. It is painful to watch on many levels but hiding from this social train wreak of a racist act is to be complicit in it.
As a Anglo of Scott , German, Irish, and Cherokee decent who grew up in Dallas Tx, I see blackface in the same light as jim crow laws and cross burning . It is a method of keeping African Americans stereotyped as “less than” and dehumanizes them. In order to oppress a people or even eliminate them you must first see them as less than self.
Charles F Kipp's work is racially insulting, insensitive and in its negative stereotyping of African Americans in the form of this Shirley Q Liquor ranks up there with Julius Streicher’s Der Stürmer Nazi propaganda the jews. He may mistakenly feel entitled by way of being in an oppressed group ( drag, gay, and libertarian) to stand outside of the bounds of normal social ethics. A sentiment echoed by RuPauls defence of Kipp’s act in saying “Critics who think that Shirley Q. Liquor is offensive are idiots. Listen, I've been discriminated against by everybody in the world: gay people, black people, whatever. I know discrimination, I know racism, I know it very intimately. She's not racist, and if she were, she wouldn't be on my new CD” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Knipp So being a member of an oppressed community or several places you above being the oppressor? No, absolutely not. Just because you have been oppressed does not give you the moral license to violate others by depicting damaging stereotypes in offensive ways NO MATTER YOUR INTENT. Engaging in racism to end racism is akin to fucking to regain virginity.
AS to Mr Kipp’s body of work.... I have watched this man preform his "act" via youtube and find there is not enough bleach to cleanse my minds eye of it. There are no redeeming comedic qualities to it.
The Shirley Q Liquor character is an embodiment of every negative stereotype assigned to lower income African americans. It seems a dollar store knock off of Tyler Perry's Media character. Yet, there are non of the things that makes the Media character work as a real person. As for comedy, it has no word play, or situational comedy, or anything else to laugh at but disgusting idiosyncrasies and negative stereotypes presented about African Americans. It shows African Americans as inferior in intellect, hygiene, industry, and vocabulary among countless other ways. That makes it racist.
The Betty Butterfield character is the same but Anglo in sunglasses and horrid lip stick. It seems a direct knock off of the Landover Baptist satire character Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian. Found here: http://www.bettybowers.com/ but again with no redeeming comic qualities but to hold that stereotype up to ridicule. It is unoriginal, arguably plagiarized, freudenschade, Shit.
The Shirley Q Liquor character is an embodiment of every negative stereotype assigned to lower income African americans. It seems a dollar store knock off of Tyler Perry's Media character. Yet, there are non of the things that makes the Media character work as a real person. As for comedy, it has no word play, or situational comedy, or anything else to laugh at but disgusting idiosyncrasies and negative stereotypes presented about African Americans. It shows African Americans as inferior in intellect, hygiene, industry, and vocabulary among countless other ways. That makes it racist.
The Betty Butterfield character is the same but Anglo in sunglasses and horrid lip stick. It seems a direct knock off of the Landover Baptist satire character Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian. Found here: http://www.bettybowers.com/ but again with no redeeming comic qualities but to hold that stereotype up to ridicule. It is unoriginal, arguably plagiarized, freudenschade, Shit.
TIME TO EAT THE LAMA
The reason this man can and dose do this horrible act of racism , besides a skewed sence of entitlement to oppression and truly lacking a sense of humor, is because WE the community not only condone it but endorse it through our silence. We Allow this evil to exist because we do not speak up against it. Just as a majority of whites pre civil rights moment just accepted that "that is the way it's always been" as an excuse for apathy for the unequal treatment of African Americans.... We look past the right or wrong of a thing and excuse inaction with freedom of speech and move on. Inaction condones behavior. WE CAN AND MUST DO BETTER.
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