Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images
While the surprise appearance of Stacey Dash during a bit at the 88th Academy Awards was supposed to be funny, the joke was on all of us. Again.
I’ve never been “outrage guy”.
When it comes to pearl clutching and fainting couches, I’m the last one to flip out when something comes across that feels offensive. But when I saw Stacey Dash take the stage during the 88th Academy Awards out of nowhere as some sort of intended punchline at the end of one of host Chris Rock’s numerous hit and miss jokes, I felt the blood drain from my body.
In case you missed the moment (and lucky you if you did), Rock was doing one of many bits about race and the Oscars, when he introduced what he called the “director of our new minority outreach program.”
Stacey Dash.
Dash, sporting a sickly cackle, befitting every bit of the witch she now seems to enjoy playing, emerged on stage, looking at a half-confused, half-stunned audience, crowing, “I cannot wait to help my people out. Happy Black History Month!” Have a look for yourself:
And the winner for least funny #Oscars bit goes to @FoxNews' @REALStaceyDash: https://t.co/p0FsTAtxPe pic.twitter.com/Qao1iRSKsv
— Matt Wilstein (@TheMattWilstein) February 29, 2016
Happy Black History Month. This from the same Stacey Dash that went on Fox News, declaring that there shouldn’t even be a Black History Month because black people have to make up their minds between “segregation and integration”.
To be sure, this is exactly the reason that Dash was included in the Academy Awards bit, even if the joke completely fell flat in front of an audience which was pretty much oblivious to Dash’s statements in the first place.
That’s the problem, and ultimately why even including her in the joke was such a horrifically tone deaf attempt to address the perception of diversity in Hollywood at an event considered by some to be the “Super Bowl of Movies”.
Now in the wake of the blown joke, some wondered whether or not Rock and producer Reginald Hudlin used the opportunity to make Dash the butt of their joke, but there was no way that could’ve been the case.
In fact, by having her appear to essentially mock the very people of color she believes doesn’t deserve separate recognition to make up for the overall lack of recognition due to a system that’s still uneven in 2016, it shows that everything Chris Rock mentioned in his supposedly groundbreaking monologue meant nothing, because in the end, it’s all just a show.
As for Dash, I wondered why it was I was so angered by her very appearance, and after a bit, I realized it was because she is the living embodiment of a hurtful stereotype from our past: the Zip Coon.
From it’s origins in the 1800’s, the Zip Coon was designed as a mockery of free blacks. The Zip Coon was an arrogant, ostentatious figure, dressed in high style, speaking in with haughty malaprops and puns which only succeeded in undermining any attempts at dignity.
When looking at Dash, preening and posturing in her shimmering gold dress with her cackle and overly proper tone, all I saw was the Zip Coon, a buffoon who thinks she’s better than she is, in the end only making her look worse.
It made me think about how she so willingly coons herself in front of the blond haired, blue-eyed Fox News hosts, raptly hanging on her every word as she delights them with how black folks have to simply stop being so uppity if they really want to be a part of mainstream society.
Forget everything that happened before, and is happening now. Sister Stacey preens her straightened hair and light skin with a message of go along to get along, and if you don’t it’s your fault.
Your fault.
For her part, Dash explained her appearance at the Academy Awards by sharing why she agreed to go.
I’m not one to be told what to do. No matter my skin color, I was going to vote for the best candidate. Since I was blamed, mocked, and ridiculed in the press over supporting a Republican, I’ve spoken out about a LOT of stuff that black people try to stuff down my throat.
But before we go any further, let’s make it clear that it’s OK to think differently, and whether or not you like it, it’s OK for a person of color to have conservative viewpoints. Thinking and believing outside of the perceived norms isn’t what makes one a sellout.
If Dash is to be applauded for anything, its that she stands by her convictions, which is good, but what is so dangerous, so problematic about her is that instead of trying to have honest and constructive conversations about race and ideology, with a goal of stressing why it’s important to have the freedom to think differently, she instead chooses to step on every black man, woman and child in order to show to white people just how different and how special she is and how she should be applauded for her desire to assimilate and if those dirty monkeys want to have their racist BET and Image awards shows, what can the good white people do?
Stacey Dash is a sellout not because she’s a Republican. She’s a filthy disgusting sellout because she would throw each and every person of color over the side of the boat just so she can get closer to what she clearly perceives is the ideal.
She refuses to look at real, palpable problems and instead champs at the bit to carry the banner of right wing selfish ideology in order to be the lovely, docile negress example of how black folks should be in a conservative America.
When bigots point to her as an example of what the rest of us should aspire to, she is doing us all a disservice, and for Chris Rock to trot her out on stage as part of a joke that white folks don’t get and black folks look at as a slap in the face, what does it say about what he and Hudlin were trying to accomplish during a broadcast people, myself included, thought he had no business being at in the first place.
Of course that didn’t keep him from taking a shot at Jada Pinkett, who made her stand, only to be mocked for it. But we’re supposed to be happy about him saying that the Academy resembles “sorority racism”?
The Academy gave him the space to take shots at them. As entertainment, and somehow we should congratulate him speaking truth to power? He was doing nothing of the sort, he was providing edgy entertainment, the type of schtick that after awhile goes away while everything people complained about keeps on keeping’ on.
This is just business as usual, and after the lights go down, all the rich people go to their parties, and yet the problems remain. But I just can’t get that awful image of Stacey Dash out of my head, knowing when she laughed, she was laughing at each and every one of us.
Hashim R. Hathaway (Uncle Shimbo) is the host of the Never Daunted Radio Network, and proud father to NeverDaunted.Net. You can reach him on Twitter @NeverDauntedNet