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The antics of Dave Chappelle's "The Niggar Family" skit has set Black America back 40 years, along with all other "nigga" jokes told and Black behaviors mimicked by Black comedians, actors, and up and coming comics.

Even though many believe that it is an "inside thang," and it is ok for Blacks to make fun of themselves, (as told by a BET documentary) as long as these innuendos continue, Black America will never shake the negative stereotypes attached to us.

As a throwback to the vaudeville skits and samboism that Hollywood attached to Blacks in early entertainment and when television began, today's entertainers have done nothing more than magnified that image in a self-degrading drive to make money and to feed the insecurities of Blacks who have no positive image of themselves.

Drinking forties, having Barbeques, hoochie fashion on Black women complete with the attitude, thug-style brothers, bad credit jokes, and any other so-called common characteristic of Blacks continue to resurface in Hollywood and onto our screens. Though efforts are put forth to combat this stereotyping by positive Black actors, the negations remain.

White America and others see this portrayal of ourselves, by ourselves, and rest easy, knowing that we continue to carry on and even strengthen the cycle of Jim Crowism and the Willie Lynch Syndrome. They know that as long as they can offer us enough money to carry the images on, there will be some hard-up brother or sister willing to take it.

Where are Black leaders? Where are the hard-core rappers, activist, and politicians who swear to improve or give back to the Black community where it pertains to our national image? Where is Bill Cosby on the self-hating of Hollywood Blacks? Where is the legislation proposed by the hard-working, educated Ivy League Black brains of our time to regulate the FCC?

They are lying up watching and laughing, believing that Blacks will be this way, remain this way because it is our nature. Bull. This is not the nature of Blacks, to behave like drunken sexaholics at a barbeque. This is the behavior adopted by reason of years of economic deprivation and confined ghettoism.

The Black mind and soul is more than what Hollywood portrays, even from the Black actors who play these roles. Laughter is good and makes life easier to live, but when it undermines any positive image Black America has worked hard to build, there is nothing funny about it.

© 2005 by CR Hamilton