In Retrospect: 1
Timeline: Roaming south along route 321 after performances in Columbia, SC
Subject: Mocking symbols.
Tony Soprano, Mr. Pink (Reservoir Dogs), and/or any other number of gangster types in any number of movies will denigrate any number of ethnicities. This is not exclusive to those of African descent although the example I will use later is. Nikki (Joe Pesci) used Sam Rothstein’s (Deniro) religion like a damning curse of damnation in the movie Casino “You Jew motherfucker!” not to mention calling the Middle Eastern fences he sent stolen diamonds to “Sand niggers”. Spike Lee’s characters have used every racial slur ever conceived in his patented montages in several of his movies although to me it’s not quite the same but deserves a mention before I get to the next dude. Tarentino. He uses the word nigger in his movies more times than Dave Chappell and that’s hard to do. These movies all have a couple things in common. One is that they unapologetically use racial slurs, that is what it is, and two they are usually loved by the ethnicities that are slurred in them. How many black people love Goodfella’s even though Ray Liota jokes “you know who goes to jail? Nigger stick up men. You know why they go to jail. Cause they fall to sleep in the getaway car” I can only speak for me and those I know but a lot of black men love these and most mafia type movies despite the fact that the “heros” of these movies consider them less than human. LOL but I’m not going to go into tirade mode on this I just wanted to outline how common place and in many ways accepted the use of slurs and stereotypes are in our modern media. Nothing new mocking symbols have been employed in other mediums throughout history. Which only serves to illustrate why something like the below picture is/was acceptable enough to display out in plain all day everyday open sight. As I headed south along Route 321 this was one of the features that rose from the side of the road to greet me.(see pic)
Timeline: Roaming south along route 321 after performances in Columbia, SC
Subject: Mocking symbols.
Tony Soprano, Mr. Pink (Reservoir Dogs), and/or any other number of gangster types in any number of movies will denigrate any number of ethnicities. This is not exclusive to those of African descent although the example I will use later is. Nikki (Joe Pesci) used Sam Rothstein’s (Deniro) religion like a damning curse of damnation in the movie Casino “You Jew motherfucker!” not to mention calling the Middle Eastern fences he sent stolen diamonds to “Sand niggers”. Spike Lee’s characters have used every racial slur ever conceived in his patented montages in several of his movies although to me it’s not quite the same but deserves a mention before I get to the next dude. Tarentino. He uses the word nigger in his movies more times than Dave Chappell and that’s hard to do. These movies all have a couple things in common. One is that they unapologetically use racial slurs, that is what it is, and two they are usually loved by the ethnicities that are slurred in them. How many black people love Goodfella’s even though Ray Liota jokes “you know who goes to jail? Nigger stick up men. You know why they go to jail. Cause they fall to sleep in the getaway car” I can only speak for me and those I know but a lot of black men love these and most mafia type movies despite the fact that the “heros” of these movies consider them less than human. LOL but I’m not going to go into tirade mode on this I just wanted to outline how common place and in many ways accepted the use of slurs and stereotypes are in our modern media. Nothing new mocking symbols have been employed in other mediums throughout history. Which only serves to illustrate why something like the below picture is/was acceptable enough to display out in plain all day everyday open sight. As I headed south along Route 321 this was one of the features that rose from the side of the road to greet me.(see pic)
cant see what I mean? Here’s a closer view.
See him in the red shirt and blue pants across from the gray clad confederate soldier? That ladies and gentlemen is a Lawn Jockey. I’ve never been called it and didn’t really know how the slur connected to Black people but now I do. I would actually like to think that maybe the lawn jockey was a mistake or oversight on the part of the owner/dealer. But there was some evidence that it wasnt such as the lawn jockey’s little cousins for sale less than 20 feet away and the conversation that I had with the proprietor concerning her wares. She was a heavy set white woman with a deep southern accent who walked out of the screen door onto the porch as I snapped these photos. She wanted to know why I was taking pictures. I told her that I was writing a book and that her collection was very interesting. She stared blankly at me after having me repeat myself several times. My attempts at talking more about the statues in order to work my way up to the significance of senor lawn jockey weren’t met with resistance or malevolence. They were met with silence. The woman walked back inside her home as I was asking questions but since she made me repeat myself earlier she might have been hard of hearing. Or even simpler she knew I wasn’t buying and so paid me no further attention. Either way I didn’t force the issue or try to guess at her feelings on lawn jockey significance. I took the pictures and decided to let those who view them to formulate their own opinions. So…when you see these pics what do you think?
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