Aunt Jemima's Revenge: Dumb Novelty Items

Monday, December 22, 2008

Are Certain Novelty Items Made For White People Or Black People Or Just For Idiots Who Like To Spend Their Money On Dumb Ass Stuff?

A few weeks ago, my sister was engaged in a short debate with a white professor who was just flabbergasted at the idea of a gyrating to da' music Barack Obama doll. He was absolutely flummoxed when my sister replied that these things as pictured above are made for white folks. In typical professor fashion, he got all indigent about the very subject he brought up without the prompting of others and began asking my sister is she had an "irrefutable evidence" that such novelty items were made for white folks. She calmly replied back, did he have any evidence that these novelty items were not made for white folks. End of discussion.
This story did relate an interesting question in my mind. I personally find these kind of items horrifyingly scary and cannot imagine owning such an item. I remember wanting to take a flamethrower to a huge stacked collection of James Brown singing and dancing dolls in a CVS a few years back. I don't think these things are cute or a tribute to the individuals these are proposing to mimic. And I do find that white folks get a bit too excited over these things when they involve black folks.

As the comic Paul Mooney said and I paraphrase him here - "Ain't nothing cute about no California Raisins, it's white folks way of being sneakily racist with their singing "I heard through the grapevine" Nigger raisins, I say we get some marshmallows and let them sing a few Beach Boys tunes and then we'll see how cute white folks think it is then."
Quiet as it's kept, I didn't like the damn bobblehead dolls either!