Tuesday, February 09, 2021

Chinese Lives are Funny - Cab Calloway and “Chop Chop Charlie Chan from China”

With all the looting, rioting and moping, you’d get the idea that all over the world Blacks are persecuted, and not given a break because, er, uh, why exactly? The color of their skin? As if red skin or yellow skin or brown skin is so fabulous? Or because blacks have flatter noses? As opposed to, what, Asians who have those weird eyes? And why doesn’t anyone care that Jews have been persecuted all over the world for 2000 years, not just in the Southern-Idiot part of the South where an entire Civil War was fought on behalf of black freedom?

The truth, of course, is that we’re all HUMAN, and most minorities are going to be disliked unless they make themselves useful. Like the Jews being comedians, lawyers and accountants (or all three at the same time). Like Asians doing the laundry and giving great take-out food. Like the Pakistani or Indian driving the cab. Find a way to ingratiate yourself with the majority, and you’re fine. Be lazy and obnoxious, and expect everything on a platter even when you’re offered an education and all kinds of breaks…and no, you’ll have to go further. You might create ISIS and demand that everybody believe in what you believe or they DIE. You get a machine gun and destroy a magazine office, or a disco. You might be one of the Arabs who thinks they get goats to fuck in heaven if they destroy a famous building in New York City. Maybe you put on idiot face-paint or carry an idiot-sign, and then go to the Capital and beat up police and pose with souvenirs like Nancy Pelosi’s property, all because an asshole President told you to, and an elected jerk named Hawley provoked you by strutting into the building waving his fist in the air. Maybe your for or anti-“FA” (I think that’s a brand of soap) and go nuts in hippie-dippie Oregon.

In today’s “cancel culture,” people get banned for saying something or doing something, but it’s quite selective. Another FUN thing, is to thumb through the history book, and get bonkers over what some person did 100 or 200 years ago, back when people still thought angels sat in the clouds and you’d go blind from masturbation. One of the ridiculous things about the various movements and slogans, is that they imply that the minority NEVER did anything bad, was ALWAYS the victim, and if in power, would NEVER abuse it.

Jesus Christ. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Do the “Black Lives Matter” folks ever point in the direction of Nigeria, where Boko Harum, or Procol Haram or whoever they are, rape and kidnap teenagers? Same color, folks. Anyone who sulks about the Civil War want to point out how often one African nation fought their neighbor and spilled blood for land and bullshit? Was Genghis Khan white? Sikhs? Didn’t anyone study history and realize that greed, war, bloodshed and power are obsessions of all races? No, today we hire “professors” who spread ethnic lies and retain their tenure. No “cancel culture” for THEM.

At one time, there were a lot of 78 rpm records that had some laughs over accents. Italian accents. Jewish accents. Dutch and German accents. Black dialect. Most of it was not hateful, just a comical tweak at odd new immigrants. The immigrants may have been a little pissed off at some of it, but they learned...to assimilate. They took the best of their culture, and added it to the melting pot. They kept their ethnic foods. Some kept their ethnic clothing. But they learned to speak in a non-stereotypical way, and were accepted. So was Chico Marx's idiotic Italian accent a bad thing? Or Fred Allen's alley, where you;d hear Southern, Jewish, New England and Irish dialect comedians get laughs?

Well, down below, just for the FUN of it, is a black guy laughing at the Chinese. Call it what it is. A novelty song. A bit of human nature. Cab didn’t mean much by it, he was just singing a song.

But...check out his mock-Chinese nonsense babbling at 2:23. Uh-oh. Will some radical Asian do-gooder declare him A RACIST?? Today, for antics like that, Cab's legacy of ALL his music could be banned from Spotify, and oh, my, that would mean his record label would have to do without his royalty check of $21.94. Oh, it’s all pretty complex and complicated. Some felt that Cab was “too ethnic” with his brand of hide-the-ho (or whatever that catch-phrase was). One generation spurns Fats Waller, and the next puts him on Broadway in “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” Moms Mabley and Mantan Moreland were cheered in the 60’s and scorned in the 70’s. Too often, the real problems in life as ignored because people go on about petty bullshit and scream about somebody who should not be on American currency, like Abraham Lincoln (?). Revisionist history, “fake news,” slanted reporting…”and so it goes.” PS, we’re NOT supposed to like Charlie Chan movies? They’re quite entertaining, and this thing from Cab ain’t so bad either.

Cab Calloway chuckles over CHOP CHOP CHARLIE CHAN FROM CHINA

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