racism

Cop Claims “A Black Guy Shot Me”; Makes Case for Better Hair

We’ve talked here before about how important it is to wash, rinse and repeat the ethnicity out of one’s hair with a relaxer. But

Relaxed hair is not just easier to go into the pool with; it's your safety net!

now, thanks to a friend in Philly, we can see why in shocking detail.

The short story is, this cop was ticked off about his new beat. So, instead of filing a complaint or updating his resume on Monster, he did was made the most logical sense…he shot himself in the shoulder, then told his buddies that a black guy did it.

A cop had been shot; a manhunt was on. The block was cordoned off with yellow tape. Cops and SWAT teams fanned the streets. K-9 units scoured through brush. Some businesses were forced to close for five hours.

“The cops were questioning everybody,” Potts, 57, recalled.

Sgt. Robert Ralston, a 21-year veteran and father of five, said he’d been shot on patrol by a black man with “cornrows” and a “mark or tattoo under his left eye.”

Yesterday, the Overbrook neighbors were outraged to learn that it was all a lie.

This is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Don’t like what you just did? Tell friends and neighbors that some black dude was responsible and soon the police tape goes up, few questions asked and you can get off pretty much scott free. Soon, your conscience will catch up to you and/or the lack of evidence will become clear, but not before you’ve enjoyed a few more minutes of freedom.

What makes this case a perfect reminder for proper hair care is that the cop told his friends that a guy with cornrows was his attacker. Cornrows are an obvious ethnic style worn by both men and women. And so, innocents with tightly braided hair were being stopped and questioned. But, any Oreos on the scene would have been left alone. With long, flowing locks of hair flapping in the breeze, from a distance, with a turtleneck and long sleeves on, Oreos might actually just look like curvy brunettes.

So keep that salve simmering on your scalp, kiddies. It will make the ride home much, much easier.

Oh, and for creating the stir that lost businesses money, kept people from their homes and scared the shit out of some innocents, you’ll be happy to know that Sgt. Ralston will not be criminally charged.

For more examples of how you can blame RBP for things you did…check out this list, courtesy of NewsOne.

Healthy Reminders

One of the motivators that helps me stay on track is the fact that according to society things featuring non-colors are just things while things featuring of colors are…different.

Example

White brides are just “brides.” Black brides are not just brides.

Black people do not enjoy Jurassic Park or Mortal Kombat. (btw, I was all about the icy spit thing when I was a young Oreo!)

What do you call it when you separate people or things by race? That’s right…inspiration!!

What I’m Doing With My Summer Vacay: Hanging out in the AZ!!

Why? Because they’re as freaked out by ethnicity as I am.

Not only are they enacting the law that allows legal Arizonians to be stopped and questioned for being too brown the safety of the state, they also passed a bill that will outlaw ethnic studies in school.

Proponents of the bill say that teaching students about their own culture is something that should not be done at school…unless, you’re part of the culture that is being discussed at school.

Also, according to the Wall Street Journal, (legal, veteran) teachers with accents will be asked to vacate their posts.

So congrats, Arizona. We’re always happen to welcome more Oreos and Coconuts to the fold!

Let’s hear it for homogeneity. With your help, Az, I bet we can get there.

What do you think? Do accents really thwart someone’s chances at success as much as being named LaKwashawndalier does?

Oreo Confessions: I Laughed at This….Maybe Too Much

One of the risks you always run as an Oreo is someone giving you an overly ethnic gift that is hard to justify turning down. Such was the case with the CD with which I was gifted before my flight: W. Kamau Bell’s Face Full of Flour.

At first, I was excited, thinking that maybe this was related to The Bell Curve–a book that is essential reading for an Oreo thanks to its assertions about race and intelligence. **

But ’twas not my fortune. Turns out it was a comedy CD by a black guy. Obviously, I proceeded with caution. The last thing I needed anyone in the airport to hear bleeding from my earbuds was a Chris Rock-esque rant. The airport security scanner may not have gone off when my bag went by on the belt, but my Oreo scanner sure did!

Oreo Approved!

I would have kept it in its place in the bag, except that the inflight movies were all things I had seen a million times. Neverwas, Sound of Music, Match Point. I wanted something new to keep me company.

And so I listened.

And laughed. A lot.

Yikes.

Scary moment, my friends. And one that I highly recommend. I mean, how could I stop listening when I heard what he had to say about Tyler Perry, what his wife looks like and his justification for looser gun control??

You can find Face Full of Flour on itunes and Amazon. Get it and listen. Not only because it’s super hilarious funny, but also because if enough non-colors check it out, it definitely won’t be seen as an of color collectable and I can continue to enjoy it unafraid.

**W. gets points actually for having created a show called “The W. Kamau Bell Curve” that you should also check out if you can!

Check out Bell below. Clip is not totally SFW for language.

Oreo Advice – Turn Slave Labor into a Sexy Pasttime

Picking cotton was a tedious and painful job endured by millions of slaves in the US for profit they never got to see.

What better then to say that you enjoy as an Oreo! Few things will throw people off your ethnic scent like appreciating a task that scarred the hands and lives of your ancestors!

Thanks, then to Cotton USA for making that conversation piece more possible.

(And thanks to friends at Sociological Images for the tip and link!)

A good romp through a prickly, spiky cotton field with basket in hand has the potential to remind an of color of a terrible institution and possibly illicit a sense of allegiance to one’s race.

But not for a well-trained Oreo. Instead, that same romp will bring feelings of relaxation and ease as you help make others more comfortable with a country’s sketchy past.

Bonus points if you include in your discussion that with the advent of technology like the cotton gin, picking and separating cotton wasn’t all that difficult in the end.

Who doesn't like to work outdoors?

Want more Oreo Advice? Check out: More Good Oreo Conversation Starters, Great Moments in Advertising, and When Being Black Can Actually Help You Out

Give This Kid a Creamy!

For new readers, no, a Creamy is not a terribly veiled innuendo. It’s something so much better than that.

A Creamy is an honorary award given out to those who embody the true Oreo spirit. Creamies may be acquired for impressive acts of deflection, mis-direction and public self-loathing.

Today’s Creamy should be super-sized because I don’t think I’m going too far when I say the recipient is a genius!!!

So, you may remember the Compton Cookout party that was brilliantly advertised on facebook and organized by college students in San Diego. Well, shortly after that, a noose appeared hanging in the University of San Diego library. The community was all a-tizzy and in very un-Oreo fashion, many RBP students confirmed assumptions and protested these events.

Well, imagine my pride when I learned that whoever put up said noose must have been a TOE reader.

While confidentiality is keeping the prankster’s true identity a secret, an apology printed on the front page of the UCSD student newspaper included this:

“As a minority student who sympathizes with the students that have been affected by the recent issues on campus, I am distraught to know that I have unintentionally added to their pain,” the student wrote. She was suspended Friday and remains under investigation for a possible hate crime.

What a brilliant move!!! Like those guys in DC with the rifles and the serial killing, no one saw this coming from an of color. A black student being under investigation for a potential hate crime…against black students!! Check and Mate!

The woman wrote that she and friends had been playing with the rope early last week, making a lasso and then a noose.

She said that she took it to the library Tuesday, strung it above a desk and forgot about it.

Well orchestrated from the go! This student could have made any number of things with that rope…cat’s cradle, tea cozy, formal bridle. But the choice was a noose! This shows great planning (do you know how to tie a proper noose on short notice?) and wonderful commitment to the cause. I’m all for knowing the punchlines of some of color of color jokes, but creating a physical representation of specific and gruesome crimes…and then “forgetting” that you left it behind…Fan.Tas.Tic.

Congratulations you, whoever you are. If you’re in Los Angeles, look me up. I’ve got all this freshly pressed ivory colored linen and a sewing project that I think might be right up your alley.

Studios Continue to “Help” Us Out

So, this week, a man of color helmed the passing of one of the most influential pieces of legislation in our lifetimes.

But don’t worry, that doesn’t mean that your average of colors are able to do much on their own. And remembering that fact is crucial to sticking to the Oreo lifestyle.

The Oreo Experience is therefore very excited to see casting news for “The Help.” The Help is based on the book of the same name by author Kathryn Stockett. In this book, a white woman comes home from college to find that her beloved maid is gone. She decides to look into the matter and after losing her precious possession, she figures out that racism is a bummer and then gives some RBP (other maids) the ability to break their chains.

Even better is who’s attached!!!

Author Kathryn Stockett: White.

Writer/Director Tate Taylor: Probably has freckles.

Likely starring (and discussed long before the two major RBP actresses who, despite TOE’s suggestion, must be in the film) Emma Stone: Totally sunburns.

Producer Christopher Columbus: I know, it’s too good to be true.

Who better to tell the story of some black women suffering from the oppression of a firmly entrenched class and race system? Just like Spielberg’s MLK flick, a core production team of this shade removes any hint of uncomfy verisimillitude from the whole process. Because movies should be fun, not awkward!

Making a movie about the lives of oppressed black women? Meet your dream team!!!

Novelist Kathryn Stockett

Lead Actress Emma Stone

Writer/Director Tate Taylor - dreamy...and creamy!

Producer Chris Columbus

Can’t wait to see what they’ll tackle next! Harriet Tubman biopic, anyone??

Don’t Read This Book Late at Night

I was as freaked out by this as I was at Paranormal Activity and when my Arabian jumped a 5-foot square oxer for the first time.

Author Damili Ayo brings us her book, “Obamistan! Land Without Racism.”

A peek inside, shows us gems like this:

…if you are a drug dealer of color and are ready to move on to other work opportunities, you should check out the MBA program at your local university. Having already proven your entrepreneurial skills, you will be given a full scholarship. You will probably drop out before you complete your degree, but as in the tradition of Harvard Business School, that will be because you have been offered a fantastic position at a successful firm. This will leave lots of job openings in your former field for white drug dealers to get their start. However, if you are a white drug dealer, you will need to take more serious precautions against arrest. Before, you could just hide behind a copy of the New York Times and watch as the cops cuffed and booked the brown-skinned man across the street. But your skin no longer serves as your get-out-of-jail-free card. You won’t get less time or lighter sentences either. Basically, the free ride on your white horse is over.

At first blush, such a world may seem like a good thing. But for us Oreos, it most certainly is not.

Without double and difficult standards, how do we know what we’re working toward? If my natural nappy roots were suddenly the norm the nation over, how do I explain to my lungs, the years of having them slowly eroded from breathing sodium hydroxide fumes. What happens when my White People to the Rescue loses relevance because we no longer need them to save us? I have loathed so many things about me for so long…would I even be able to learn to love? The standards create the yardstick and scales I used to measure and record my BMI: Black Meting Index. With nothing to be better than, I would be nothing more than an RBP.

Thankfully, Ayo’s story is just that, a story.

Has anyone else read it? And did you have the same night terrors? Let us know what you thought.

Black (RBP) Dolls Worth Less

Even with the exact same facial features and training in ballet, of color Barbie (nee, Teresa) is well…clearly not as valuable as regular Barbie. According to their price tags, Regular Barbie is 97.6% better than her off model sister.

Just in case you were thinking that maybe the mark down is the result of Wal-Mart incentivizing the purchase of RBP Barbie, they weren’t. Store management said the dolls were marked down because they weren’t selling as well. This is actually good news, because though many of the black dolls were being not-sold to white customers, there is a chance that many were being not-sold to black customers–which means there’s more Oreos in the making!!!

Last year, following the inauguration of the country’s first black president, “Good Morning America” revisited the experiment —[the famous 1939 experiment that showed most black children preferred to play with white dolls]. This time, at least some of the results were markedly different: of the 19 black children surveyed, 42 percent said they’d rather play with a black doll compared with 32 percent for the white doll. But when asked which doll was prettier, nearly half of the girls in the group chose the white doll.

See! The youth of America are learning some valuable truths.

Sure, there are some issues of capitalism, supply and demand and all that come into play. And it’s good that Wal-Mart didn’t pay attention to those factors as evidenced by their ordering more supply than met the demand. That way, instead of skirting a potentially uncomfy issue, they reinforced the images that keep this Oreo’s hope alive.

And, they put themselves in position to make even more than they would have had they not taken a loss on the dolls. This bodes well for the ‘Mart because though sales of black dolls may be down, per the quote above, the store can most certainly count on increases in sales of flat irons, no lye relaxer and self-help books.

Australian Of Colors Should Be Thankful

Much to do is being made over World Champion and Russian Olympic competitors Oksana Domnina and Maksim Shabalin. The pair is coming under fire for wearing costumes inspired by and potentially offensive to Aborignal heritage. The costumes feature loin clothes, stirking white body paint, randomly festooned Eucalyptus leaves and a bit of brown face.

Russian skaters dressed up like Aborigines

While they may look like the most terrifiying kids birthday party performers ever, Domnina and Shabalin are doing the folks down under a favor.

I mean, when was the last time any talked about the Aborigines? Pre-Olympics, no one was saying anything about them. Now, they’re making front page news!

I suppose that somewhere over scones, someone is maybe discussing how like Native Americans, the Aborigines were the original inhabitants of a lovely place and soon had their culture replaced and all but eradicated. Mayhaps someone is discussing how like minorities in the US, Aborigines experience much higher levels of poverty, disease, imprisonment and unemployment than the rest of the continent’s inhabitants. Or perhance how if explorer Robert Burke had just listened to the instruction of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the land he was setting out to be the “first” person to cross, he might not have died from starvation.

BORING!

And like differential equations or L’Eclisse, those things are difficult to digest and hard to get your head around. Much more satisfying and helpful to the Oreo cause to remark how this 60,000-year-old culture is oversensitive and continue to learn about them through interpretive ice dancing. That way you learn so much more–like about the didgeridoo and how to get along in mixed company.

Too bad they didn't dress up like this one instead.