The Unbearable Whiteness of Being

Being white is like a job lately on account of all the other white people embarrassing you.  And yeah I totally know my job is much easier than yours if you are non-white!  But I am trying to do my part and collect these dummies, and I honestly don't know what the hell is going on anymore.  I've already addressed this white "I'm too precious to wear a mask and I have a condition" nonsense.  But in the intervening days white people have been, guess what?  Yep, doing embarrassing shit again.  

So now I have to talk about this "OMG, I didn't know that was racist!" thing going on.   Because all this innocence is getting on my nerves. 

Let's begin with Tina Fey.  I am probably rare among white women liberals in that I don't really like Fey.  She gets on my nerves big time.  One of the biggest reasons is that she has this huge Madonna/Whore complex going on.   I can't dig up every quote from her that magnifies this condition, but some probably came out of Bossypants which I did read.  It really came to a head IMO when she and Amy Poehler bullied Taylor Swift at the Golden Globes:

"Fey got a particularly huge response when she singled out the 23-year-old country music star, saying, "You stay away from Michael J. Fox's son," who served as this year's Mr. Golden Globe -- an award traditionally given to the son of a celebrity who assists at the annual show.

"Or go for it," Poehler jabbed.

"No, you need some 'me' time," Fey said to more applause."  

I actually watched it, live, and it was even worse than that.  It was really distasteful because here were two middle-aged moms bullying a much younger woman because the woman...what?  Dated too much?  Are you fucking kidding me?  

Frankly, it was disgusting and inexcusable.   But Taylor was made fun of in the weeks that followed, and then also dismissed as someone who "can't take a joke."  Gee, where have I heard that one before?  Could it be from sexist men who degrade women and then say, "oh you just can't take a joke!".

Anyway, so, I never liked Fey, and I never really found her funny either.  I will never forget in 2008 when she made a "joke" that she is the type of woman who will tell everyone she's voting for Obama but then when she gets in the voting booth, she would totally vote for John McCain.  Everyone thought it was a jokee.  But I didn't.  And I still don't. 

As a result of this nonsense and much more like it, I never watched her shows, 30 Rock and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.   So I was completely clueless about Fey's pretty freaking shocking racial history.  And her damn smugness about reactions to it.  Once, when criticized for racism on TUKS, she said

"There’s a real culture of demanding apologies, and I’m opting out of that.”

Oh is that right Tina?  You're opting out are you?  

This week, Fey woke up from her smug stupor and realized her stupid ass could get run out of town yet, and ran to release a statement that she has asked NBC Universal to pull the 4 episodes of 30 Rock that feature blackface.

I'm sorry, blackface??  And this was in the 21st century?  See, way back when 30 Rock was in its original run, (2006-2013) I knew blackface was a racist thing to do.  Period.  Oh and guess what?  I even knew that in the 90's!  But Tina Fey is reevaluating her comfort with blackface in the year 2020.  Well, good on you Tina.  Your cookie is in the mail.

A deeper dive into 30 Rock tells us that this is not the entire story, nor are these 4 shows the only racist moments on that show.  

She then went on to TUKS, where she thought it was a good idea to have a white woman play a Native American.  

And that brings me to Liz Warren.  Yeah, I gotta go here, sorry

So, here is the problem with Liz.

There are a lot more videos, and a lot of them are much worse.  So, I honestly don't know if it was all the fashion to think you had Native American ancestors or you were part NA back in the day.  I really don't.  But this went on for decades, and she was still preaching it in 2012, and nope, sorry, nope.  The Democratic party cannot in the year 2020, have someone on the ticket, who claimed to be a woman of color for most of her life.   And while I may not know what was hip in the 70's, I do know that in 2012, if someone had told me, "you may have NA roots, you should get a DNA test you might be Native American" I would have said, bitch, what the fuck are you talking about?  That might be an interesting 23 and me exercise or whatever, but I'm a white woman.  I'm sure I've got LOTS of different threads in my DNA, that doesn't make me NA or anything other than what I appear to be and what I have always been treated as; white.   And all the privilege that comes with that. 

Liz is white.  Please don't force me into having to defend this shit in order to get rid of Trump.  Actually, I won't defend it. 

Period.   Next.

Jimmy Kimmel, Sarah Silverman, and Jenny Slate.  Madone.  

Okay.  Let's make fast work of these 3.  Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman both did blackface.   Here's Kimmel:

"Kimmel explained in his statement that "On KROQ radio in the mid-90s, I did a recurring impression of the NBA player Karl Malone."  and "In the late 90s, I continued impersonating Malone on TV. We hired makeup artists to make me look as much like Karl Malone as possible," Kimmel further explained. "I never considered that this might be seen as anything other than an imitation of a fellow human being, one that had no more to do with Karl's skin color than it did his bulging muscles and bald head."

Okay, so, big 90's girl here.  Yeah, we didn't do blackface where I come from, nor was it considered anything other than what it is; racist.  

So, sorry Jimmy, your "surprise motherfucker! now blackface is racist, how could I have known?" thing doesn't fly. 

Sarah Silverman revealed in 2019 that she was fired from a project because they found pictures of her doing blackface in 2007.  2007!  I am not going to post them here, because honestly they are really disgusting.   

Sorry, Sarah, your "OMG blackface was considered just the thing in 2007 how could I have known!" surprise face doesn't fly.  

Jenny Slate.  Okay, so, Jenny has never appeared in blackface, so far as I can tell (important disclaimer because I don't follow these assholes around 24/7 nor do I want to start).  The issue with Jenny is that she was voicing the biracial character of Missy on the Netflix series, Bigmouth.  Missy's mother is white and Jewish and her dad is black.  Jenny thought it was okay because she's Jewish.    

What happened next was that Kristen Bell saw this story, and was all like, gottamn why did Jenny open her BIGMOUTH (ha) now they are going to call for my white ass to give up my cushy role as the voice of Molly, a biracial character on the Apple TV+ series Central Park.  

Yep, she had to follow suit.  Now, this may not seem as blatant as blackface, but taking jobs as voice actors of black and biracial characters, and making loads of dough and padding your resume on them, is not good.  And I know that if someone had said to me, "hey Cat, you have such a great voice you should play this biracial character on our show" I'd say, you know, that doesn't sound like a great idea to me?  And btw, this could happen.  I have a great voice.  My sister-in-law tells me I should do phone sex.  And I was like, yeah, I totally do it, all the time.  But then I found out she meant for money. 

I am not doing any phone sex business because I enjoy sex and I figure if I ever had to listen to the stream of depraved filth that is in most men's minds, for my work, that would end my sex life for good. 

And, I'm not doing any voicing of WOC characters, on account of, I'm white. 

Now, these are just the biggest stories this week in white fuckery, I mean, there are tons more right now.  I can only write about so many of them.  But celebrities you've been warned and don't make me come in here and address your shit again.