Ain't

As I was watching television today, I came across this commercial:



Due to the power of DVR, I was able to rewind a few times. Now I am fully aware of a few things: 1) Stereotypes of every type (racial, male vs. female, gay/straight, etc.) are ubiquitous in America today, 2) Everyone stereotypes and 3) Stereotypes are necessary. While they used to cause outrage for some and the threat of boycotts (or some combination of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who at this point I am quite comfortable with saying they are causing more harm than help), I would argue now that most stereotypical images in our society cause only the slightest blip in the 'racist radar' (that being the radar manned by the average citizen, not the media). Many stereotypical images aren't even noticed by the average person. Either the producers of the media do a great job of blending the stereotypes or we have become desensitized. I tend to side with the latter.
I won't do a bell hooks and analyze the every minutiae of a 20 second commercial. I won't even say that I'm offended by the "ain't", the dancing by the black dude,the sheer "why are these two seemingly magnetic opposite types of people cooking and hanging out together" factor, the black lady cooking while the white couple is apart from everyone talking by themselves while the other white person (complete w/ extra dark tan) is lounging, the over the top differences in dress (prep galore vs. plain clothes) and everything else. In fact, the commercial and the dude's dance is kinda catchy. Which is the whole point of advertising in the first place, right? So if there is a smidgin of stereotyping in the commercials, I guess what I'm saying is, "Get over it. It's funny."

Or maybe I am just desensitized to it all. If pressured, maybe I'll just say,

'Blame it on the me-me-me-me-me-me-me di a'

Pop references

Pop culture references are what they are: popular. Black celebrities, specifically, seem to have created their own personal lexicon lately. It's almost guaranteed you will hear one of these words whenever a black celebrity is being interviewed...
(not necessarily in any order)

#1 Organic ^
#2 Barack #
#3 "It ain’t trickin if you got it" @
#4 Homage !
#5 Twitter %

Legend
^ This could be my favorite one.
# I swear I even heard a baby say this the other day on the train
@ Can count at least 10 songs off-hand with that phrase in it
! Did it not spark a conversation between someone you know about how it's pronounced?
% Black celebrities have really gotten out of control with this (cue Holly Robinson Peete; you know, Ms. 21 Jump Street)


If you don't know the story, link - http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=granderson/090709

I can only wait with bated breath for the next must-have words to incorporate into my daily conversation.

P.S - By the way, this blog post was 100% organic.