I’m not sure if it’s because I was fired up after watching the Popes of Blackness (Al Sharpton, Michael Eric Dyson, Cornel West and Jesse Jackson) along with others of the General Board of Blackness (Donna Brazile, Robert Michael Franklin, Dick Gregory, Na’im Akbar et. al.) at the 2008 State of the Black Union hosted by Archbishop Tavis Smiley, but, did I really hear Tina Fey of “Saturday Night Live” stardom and “30 Rock” fame say what she did at the end of a spiel that was clearly an endorsement of Hillary Clinton?
I guess, I was already pissed that she was allowed such leeway in a show that I was never bowled over by her acting skills, to speak so candidly about her political position. I understand that one’s political choice as a Democrat is their choice for whatever reason, but to openly suggest that the feminist movement had liberated women so much that they were free to listen to Oprah for their choice of president. Well, that was a good joke–I give props where props are due. I really had a problem with the suggestion that women should only vote for Hillary because she is a woman and that it insinuated that there was only a certain level of liberation that was needed. Where I come from, if one engages in liberation philosophy (or even liberation theology) then one needs to be quite certain that the ultimate goal of liberation politics and philosophies is that nothing is bound and everything is free. Is Tina Fey aware of the consciousness shaping thoughts that she is disseminating from her mouth?
Despite what my friend said, I’m convinced that all the aforementioned is penultimate to her final comment. She edged up saying that Hillary Clinton’s biggest critique was that she “comes off as a bitch”. Well, I still cringe when I hear that word on network television, but you’re only allowed to say “nigger” once during primetime television, and not at all during daytime television (but that’s another blog for another day). Well, I was okay with the liberalness of “bitch” especially from the likes of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler on Saturday Night Live, but after Fey in a rousing conclusion said that it was “okay to be a bitch, because bitches get things done” she ultimately finished by saying that “Bitch is the new Black!”
Pause…..
Pause…..
Allow this time for composure of the thoughts to continue with the blog reading.
Now, my friend told me that this was said in the context of when Jay-Z says “30 is the new 20” and not making a reference to Black people. Well, to be quite honest, this particular Uppity Negro is NOT persuaded that this was the ultimate meaning.
I’m going to tell you what I saw when I saw this part of Weekend Update on the show:
When she made the comment about women looking at Oprah, there was a inframe picture of Obama and Oprah standing next to one another. I don’t believe that I am blowing out of proportion that it is DEFINITELY possible that Tina Fey was suggesting that perhaps, just perhaps, that white women need not listen to Oprah Winfrey and thereby deny their inherent right to white womanism. I mean let’s be realistic: professional jealousy exists. Tina Fey, as a white woman in this country would be operating well within her ideals of white privilege by trying to figure out how did an Oprah Winfrey born in rural Kosciusko, Mississippi get to be this media mogul and she doesn’t see anyone else who looks like her in the same position as Oprah.
So, in lieu of the stunning commentary that I heard from Rev. Jesse Jackson, Michael Eric Dyson, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Mayor C. Ray Nagin from the first panel of the State of the Black Union and DICK GREGORY (he will require a post unto himself), Rev. Al Sharpton, Nicole Lee and Donna Brazile, it was VERY hard for me to swallow what Tina Feyallowed to pass the barrier of her pencil thin lips. I refuse for Blackness to be synonymous with some passe fashion motif or even as merely an age milestone ultimately to be surpassed. Especially as defined by a white woman!
Personally, I hope she has to offer a pubic recant of that statement and explain what the hell she meant by that statement because I’m quite sure that as for me and the other millions of others who watched that, concerning this political race where race and gender is bubbling under the surface of the debates and speeches, Tina Fey needs some explaining to do.
But I guess, I can’t fault her if her melanin deficiency results in her suffering from WWS (White Woman Syndrome).
Keep it uppity, JLL
Joshua Lawrence Lazard 
I saw that too and cringed. I realize that it was within the confines of a comedy sketch but it seemed to be implying that being discriminated against as a woman is bigger, or at least on par with being discriminated as a black person.
I’ve heard this come up a few times on political talk shows. The worst of which was a white female pundit who tried to argue that white women were somehow more disenfranchised because they got the right to vote several years after black men could. Never mind that no one enforced that right for decades and that voter intimidation and pole taxes ran rampant throughout the south. Every time I hear this argument I always find myself yelling back at the screen, “I didn’t know they hung white women!”
It is historically ignorant to try to compare the issues of race and gender in America. They share similar themes (discrimination and subordination) but you seriously don’t want to get in a tragedy pissing contest with black Americans. Which would you rather hear about? The rape of our motherland, Middle Passage, being three-fifths of a person, slavery, the one-drop-rule, rape, Jim Crow, racial massacres and riots, the Civil War, lynching, the KKK? Come, Tina Fey. I can do this all day long.
It just seems ridiculous. I know it was supposed to be funny, but I still don’t find our history and the racism we still deal with now as funny.
“Bitch is the new black” except when it isn’t.
I guess it was even tougher pill to swallow given that I had already watched Fred Armisen dress up as Obama in clearly some form of blackface and perhaps, it was a super-tacky joke and bordered on racist, but was definitely offensive to me as a black male in this society. And for the record I would have been just as pissed even if there was not a black male candidate running–the fact that we have an Obama running merely was adding insult to the injury.
Well, I didn’t catch the show (although I’m sure I can go watch it on YouTube if I really want…I don’t), but it does seem completely out of line to compare women to compare womanhood to blackness. Certainly both have faced discrimination in varying forms, but I agree with The Black Snob above that they cannot be compared in scope.
Frankly, this entire race is starting to get to me. It’s become to a great extent a woman vs. black battle, with issues somewhere on the side. While I refuse to vote for Hilary simply because she is a woman who looks like me (as I also suffer from WWS), I also refuse to vote for Obama because he is black. And, as much as critics will point to women voting for Hilary, lets be honest enough to admit that there are hoards of African Americans who turned up to vote for Obama because of the color of his skin.
This white woman is waiting for Obama to get beyond rhetoric and lay out the plans for change that he purports to have before she totally gets on the bandwagon. Would it be exciting to see the first black president in my lifetime? Absolutely!!!! But it would be equally as tragic to see a black president in office that failed because there was nothing concrete behind the campaign propaganda.
Free white women will not be swayed by Tina Fey’s lame skit appealing to Hillary Clinton’s ‘bitchiness’ over Barack Obama’s blackness. I did look at the youtube 2-23-08 snl clip ‘bitch is the new black.’ I do agree that WWS (the bastard offspring of the antebellum ‘peculiar institution’ including ‘Mammy’ devotion) may play too important a role in demanding more of a nonwhite candidate than that of a white one (male or female).
Uppity Negro parents’ instructions to black children invariably included the adage–‘You must work twice as hard and be twice as good to get half as far as whites.
In my opinion, because Tina Fey’s fake journalist persona endorsed Hillary as a ‘bitch’ and dismissed a black woman, Oprah Winfrey, in her support of Barack Obama, a black man, seems only to perpetuate the mind-set that only a white ‘bitch’ or, by inference, a white ‘bastard’ is capable of being president of the U.S.
Did the Tina Fey satire contain a veiled warning to whites to keep the white house white? Why should white women vote for a white woman and black people not vote for a black candidate? It is rather wearing. Lord, help us all to heal our land….
Keep it uppity!
Thank you. Tina Fey’s spiel was ignorant and, unless she’s just an idiot who didn’t realize that “black” could refer to the race when contrasting a white and a black person, racist. Unfortunately many other (white) females I know think it’s “awesome,” which has disgusted and upset me.
Tina Fey as the first female head writer of SNL made women look unfunny and dull with one of the worst eras of SNL in history.
Too bad for Fey this white woman is going to vote tomorrow and caucus March 4th for Barack Obama in the Texas primary.