Hipster Racism

With many thanks to The Angry Black Woman for finally providing a label I've been groping for, ever since that Lenny Bruce spew was thrown into my face as a great way to fight racism. That Lenny Bruce approach just didn't make it for me, and this explains why. (Of course we all know people who had / have this reaction to the LB spew -- or, say that ugly Blazing Saddles movie -- have no sense of humor, and certainly are no hipsters. Fortunately only second part is true. Such people also know what is funny and what is not, and this wasn't funny, and it wasn't satire either. People who live insulated lives like the Nyer editors are incapable of doing satire, because they are not hungry enough.*)

It also explains a certain class of racist who finds it unacceptable insult to his white entitlement for him to be denied the use of certain words and phrases, since 'they' use them. It's a part of the neo blackface / ministrelsy, proving what a cool cat s/he is (Lee Atwater, for instance was one of these, yanno, playin' da blues, on a Real! Guitar!), while deep inside terrified that, yanno, 'real' poc are of course, far more hip and cool than s/he can ever be, even in his dreams.

And that explains how the New Yorker did what it did, and why it can't accept it was wrong, because, yanno, we're THE NEW YORKER and we OWN the crown as the most sophisticated and hip of all.

Um, breaking news here, NYer -- not so much.

Now, apologize already!

For more on hipster racism, go here and here.

* * In case anyone wonders, NYer writers treat this casa very well, and we're grateful. This isn't sour grapes but authentic outrage at a publication that we'd always enjoyed, read and admired.