This is me, sighing.

Maybe this is another case of me being “hypersensitive“, but so be it. If you’re a white person or a particularly assimilated person of color, then you’ll probably think this is a rather harmless video.

You may think it’s funny. Hilarious, even.

If you’re a person of color with even an iota of militancy, or hell, if you’re me then this commercial probably makes you cringe, or just plain annoys you.

But perhaps you’re not entirely sure why. So I’ll tell you why it irritates me, and maybe my explanation will make something click for you.

First of all, it’s cultural appropriation.  Which means that an element of a given culture is taken and used outside of its intended context – worse yet, in blatant opposition to the intended context.

From Wikipedia:

Cultural appropriation is the adoption of some specific elements of one culture by a different cultural group. It describes acculturation or assimilation, but can imply a negative view towards acculturation from a minority culture by a dominant culture. It can include the introduction of forms of dress or personal adornment, music and art, religion, language, or social behavior. These elements, once removed from their indigenous cultural contexts, may take on meanings that are significantly divergent from, or merely less nuanced than, those they originally held.

Hip-hop, and rap in particular, by no measure of historical revisionism or denial of their contributions, is undoubtedly an African-American cultural product.

This, however, does not mean that it belongs exclusively to African-Americans, or that no one else can use it.  The rule, though, is that it should be used in the spirit in which it was intended.  That is, as an expression of positivity, uplift, counter-establishment, or justified anger towards historic and lasting inequality and/or injustice.

People around the world have used hip-hop brilliantly and properly – from the Palestinians speaking out against Apartheid conditions in Israel, to the righteous anger from the socially marginalized of the Parisian banlieues, to Somalian rapper K’naan speaking about abject poverty.  And let’s not forget M.I.A., who in spite of generating mainstream appeal, has managed to keep her message authentic and political.

There are countless examples of where hip-hop and rap are used incorrectly – just look at the majority of mainstream rap today.  By African-American artists, no less.  But remember that bit I told you about appropriation?  Well, as much as I despise commercial mainstream garbage rap, the fact of the matter is that, as an African-American cultural product, rap is free for African-Americans to do with as they please.

If you own a television, it is your right to use it as a surfboard, even if it means you are rushing headlong down a slippery slope towards self-annihilation.  That was not merely an analogy, but a metaphor.

If someone else were to come in and use your television as a surfboard, well…you’d be pretty justified in wanting to smash said TV over their heads.  The smash-impulse I speak of is neither an analogy, nor a metaphor.  Which brings me back to the Toyota commercial.

Here we have a fictional white family, with all of the privilege, normativeness, and inherent “rightness” their mere existence implies, members of the “dominant” culture, appropriating the music, language, and projected mannerisms of African-American culture (“minority” culture) and using it in a way that completely contradicts the intended spirit.

Hip-hop, should I need to remind you, was originally all about countering the establishment – an establishment built-in with various mechanisms and controls to ensure that African-Americans would never stand on equal footing with white people.  An establishment that would deny the average black family access to the so-called “American Dream”, which the white family in this commercial exemplifies to a truly laughable extreme.  I mean, they even seemed to choose the blondest babies imaginable to ram the point home.

Contrary to this “wholesome” symbol of white normalcy, hip-hop and rap for the most part – in spite of their mainstream commercial appeal – are regarded as less than ideal, unworthy, “not music”, “ghetto”, “stupid”, “irresponsible”, promoting all the wrong values.  That last bit – about values – is interesting, because of course hip-hop would never promote “white values” – white being “right” – where African-Americans were not given access to the same livelihoods and cultural environment within which such “values” would flourish.

This is not to say that such values – personal responsibility, emphasis on the family, etc. – are foreign or unimportant to African-Americans.  They are equally, if not more important, in an environment that regularly creates obstacles to achieving the ideal.  Hip-hop and rap, though, were the response to that environment.

So this video, in its promotion of white normalcy and wholesomeness, not-so-subtly implies a black/white dichotomy wherein the white family champions family values and the American Dream, in stark contrast to the mainstream rap music of today, which places a premium on materialism, excess, selfishness, and often violence.

“Where are the kids?” seems particularly meaningful when we consider the stigma against black families as being “broken” – having absentee parents, teen parents, or otherwise not “doing right” by their children.  No worries about the white family, though – their two little Aryans are close at hand.

The white family drives the station wagon, with the car seats in the back, while rappers show off their financially unwise and unsustainable Escalades or even fancier cars, symbols of their excess and irresponsibility.

The whole commercial screams – or maybe whispers for most of you – this paternalistic message of: “Here, let us show you what you’re supposed to be doing.”

It is important to note here that when hip-hop and rap were definitively anti-establishment, flew arms-swinging into the face of white normativeness, there were no attempts to appropriate them.  They were swiftly and decisively demonized, devalued, dismissed as invalid and inappropriate.  The average white person would have sooner taken a shit on a rap album as purchased one.  Their children who embraced the music or the culture were regarded cautiously at best- parents hoping it to be just as a fad (as it could only ever be) – or punished at worst.  They were ridiculed by their peers and regarded as niggers-by-association, the word of choice being “wigger”.

But then something happened.  White businessmen, as they had with Jazz, Blues, Soul, Rock, and other forms of black music before, saw the money-making potential of rap music.  They may not have wanted it for their own children, but they recognized it as perfect for consumption by other white children who could use it as the ultimate symbol of rebellion against everything their parents stood for – that is, everything white.  That the sizeable minority of African-Americans would also buy the albums in large quantities was an added bonus.

And so was rap music corporatized – warped and perverted into a commercial product far-removed from its original purpose; something achieved by the silver tongues of businessmen appealing to the sensibilities of those with very little, with promises of what they never had – and, for the most part, still wouldn’t have even after the deals were signed.

When deciding which of the wide variety of rap music to push into the mainstream market, the businessmen chose those who emphasized the black/white dichotomy in the most extreme way – the “gangsta” rappers – the music which further reinforced just how far black people were from the white ideal of family values and personal responsibility.  It was the portion of rap that the kids of white suburbia would most embrace, thereby generating the highest profit.

The rappers themselves, beneath a superficial layer of anger and violence, often had important messages to relay – but these messages were lost on a market that had neither any frame of reference within which to process them, nor any real interest in hearing them.  The music that stayed completely true to hip-hop’s original spirit, what we today call “conscious rap”, was kept in the margins.  Not only because it continued to speak against white businesses’ appropriation of hip-hop, but because their message, more readily accessible without the superficial layer of violence, was not marketable to white suburbia, nor was it something that the establishment wanted people to hear.

So make no mistake.  While much of mainstream rap music today disgraces the spirit of hip-hop, its popularity and mass-marketing is the direct result of cultural appropriation.  What little wealth or acclaim it grants a handful of African-American artists – often short-lived – is a mere consolation prize for the wholesale theft of a cultural product.

The Swagger Wagon Toyota commercial, in implicitly pointing an accusatory finger at mainstream rap music, and African-Americans by proxy, again aims to make a profit by promoting a black/white dichotomy that reinforces white righteousness.  And anything that validates the current social pecking order is ripe for consumption by those at the top.

As an added bonus, the commercial even elicits a few hearty chuckles.  Hee mother fucking hee.

While I have zero doubts about what this commercial is saying, implicit though it may be, I cannot say with any conviction whether or not this loaded message was intentional.  White privilege, white normativeness, white standards, white values, and the black/white dichotomy – these things are all built into the foundation of American society.  This video may truly have been an innocuous attempt at humor, but one that echoed from that foundation.

I’ll ignore, lest I get carried away with my analysis, the fact that the commercial itself is in black and white.

The people who made it, having already embraced the dichotomy, may not even have been aware of all of the implications – just enough in the abstract to recognize how it would speak well to the sensibilities of other white people.  Such is the essence of good marketing, which as any self-aware capitalist will tell you, is often mutually exclusive from any ethical or moral good.

1. Why should we only pay special attention to our significant others on a certain day?
2. The holiday is just part of a consumerist scheme to support the “industrial complex”

Blah blah blah.  Whatever.  It’s all true, of course, but I wasn’t going to post anything about it until I came across this promotional offer from XBox Live.  It offers some free Microsoft Points if only you’ll watch one of the offered movies with your loved one on Valentine’s Day.  Sounds like a good deal, except for the wording of the advertisement.

It annoyed me right away on a subliminal level, although it took me a bit of time to rationalize why exactly I took issue with it.  At first it was the dichotomy between those who have “someones” and those who do not.  I must either a sentimental sap who likes frilly pink hearts simply for having a girlfriend, or I’m some chest-pounding “manly-man” type who “don’t need no stinkin’ girlfriend! Guys rule!”  Is that it?

I couldn’t possibly be a guy who is between relationships, or a guy who for the sake of career, livelihood, or personal choice, just doesn’t have a significant other?  I couldn’t be a girl who is single for any of the same reasons?  Or a girl who doesn’t like frilly pink hearts?  I couldn’t be a gay man or woman in a relationship where such cave-painted gender roles aren’t so clearly established?  I couldn’t be a person of any gender and sexual orientation who appreciates a romance movie, even watched in solitude?  Maybe I’m some basement-dweller with the social skills of an empty pizza box and movies are my escape from harsh reality, in which case, thanks for reminding me of that.

Then there’s the matter of which movies are offered to either side.  If I’m the romantic type, I must want to watch some trite garbage like The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past or the insufferably pointless and overrated Paranormal Activity.  But if I’m not – if I’m the skull-crunching manly-man type, or the lonely lurker type – then I must want something involving drunken stupidity like The Hangover, the pulp sensationalism of Inglorious Basterds, gangsters in Public Enemies, explosions like G.I. Joe, or a healthy dose of racism like we find in The Goods - you know, because the target market probably isn’t Asian or anyone else who might be offended by Asian stereotypes.

Because all real chest-pounding manly men enjoy that kind of stuff.

As a guy in a successful heterosexual relationship, his ad was tailor made for me, right?  Except that I hate most romance movies no matter who I’m watching them with, because of their hackneyed storylines and characters who are either unrealistically beautiful or exaggeratedly hideous only to – by way of magic or hard work – become unrealistically beautiful.  Except that I don’t buy into the idea that ideals like love or tenderness or sensitivity or – you know, generally not being some chest pounding machismo asshole – are mutually exclusive from my identity as a man.

Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a mole hill, but the shit just annoyed me.  Maybe me and my girlfriend, instead of exchanging frilly pink hearts, like to share a cocktail inside of a flaming skull right before we headbutt each other.  With love.   You don’t know.  It’s just more evidence of how the consumer culture is so oblivious or indifferent to the many different types of ways that people can choose to interact with one another – and not just on Valentine’s Day.

Jigga-who? Jigga-what?

I was in Home Depot for some wood when I stumbled across this delightful product.

If the reference is lost on you, then you might want to check the dictionary.

jig⋅a⋅boo

–noun, plural -boos. Slang: Disparaging and Offensive.
a black person.
Origin: 1905–10, Americanism

Word Origin & History
Insulting name for “a black person,” 1909, perhaps from jig, which had been applied insultingly to persons since the late 18th century, and ending from bugaboo.

After that, you might want to Google it, and find some delightful images and websites.  Like this one.

I could conjecture so much further about the creators’ inspirations and intent. Perhaps the implication is that jig-a-loo is “greasy” – as in dirty, or “slippery”, as in criminal? Even I’ll admit that’s reaching, but you still have to wonder what goes through the minds of companies’ PR representatives when these kinds of things are approved. Do they run some sort of cost-benefit analysis and determine, perhaps, that most of the people who would take offense to this aren’t “likely” homeowners? I could go on forever.

Anyway, I don’t take this too seriously, because this kind of insensitivity is part and parcel of mainstream American society – especially the corporate sector.  It’s just one of those things to make you frown, then make you shrug.

White people on the other hand, just laugh at the funny name, until they realize that jig-a-loo is one hell of a lubricant!

I ordered Qwest internet service on Monday, 1/11.  I was told at that time that it would take 3 business days for the order to be completed.  3 days in itself is too long to wait for new service.  I have had the internet regularly for the past 10 years and never have I had to wait so long for new service.  Cox Communications, Verizon, Comcast, AllTel, and Cavalier Telecom all were able to set up service the next day.  As anyone who uses the internet on the verge of excess will tell you, 3 days is a LONG time to wait.

But fine.  The tech was scheduled to arrive between 8am and 12pm. He called around 8:30 to let us know that he would arrive between 10 and 12.  Come 12:15 we haven’t heard anything, so we call him back and he tells us that the work was already done and that he forgot to call us back to inform us.  Minor mistake, it seemed.

Except that we had no modem.  And the internet does not work without a modem.  We call Qwest again and are told that the order for the modem was supposed to have gone through but due to some computer error, it was not.  They said they would mail us out a modem and it would arrive the next day.  So, that means waiting again, beyond the 3 business days.  We didn’t want to wait, so we went to a Qwest kiosk in a nearby mall and picked up the modem ourselves.

We bring the modem home, follow the installation guide, and the internet is still not working.  So, we call Qwest again. At this point we have already spent at least two hours on the phone with one representative or another, using up our cell phone minutes for something that should’ve been straightforward.  During this call, a tech support rep runs diagnostics, troubleshoots, the works, and is still unable to get our internet working.  He says that there must be something wrong inside the apartment – perhaps some faulty wires or some other problem.  So he tells us that he’ll schedule a tech for an internal installation, between 8am and 11am on Friday 1/15.

So, 11am rolls around on Friday morning and guess what?  No tech.  We call Qwest again and they tell us that they can see no record of a tech being schedule for Friday morning.  Well that’s just wonderful.  They also tell us that another tech will take 3 more business days, but also because of the MLK holiday that it would take until at least Tuesday 1/19.  The representative tells us that the tech would not have to come into the apartment, that he’d only have to “flick a switch” somewhere on the outside, something that should only take 10-15 minutes.

My question then was, what did the tech who came (if he came) on 1/14 do?  Didn’t he already “flip the switch”?  What we needed – as discussed with tech support already – was a look on the inside to diagnose the problem.  Had I not caught her mistake, conceivably a tech wold have come out to see that the switch was already flipped, wasting our time and his, and requiring us to call Quest again once the internet – inevitably – continued to not work.  After another hour and 10 minutes of talking  and mostly waiting on hold, we are put in contact with someone else in tech support.

This  tech told us that he could schedule a tech within a broader window for Saturday 1/16, between 8am and 5pm.  I even got a confirmation email to that effect.  But of course I remained skeptical.  So, enter the little bird…

Within minutes of tweeting about the problem, I received a response from Qwest, telling me to e-mail them about the problem.  I explained how I felt that at this point it seemed like antagonism as much as a mere string of blunders from everyone involved.  I mean, what does it say about a company if on every level of the organization – from the field techs to the customer service reps, to the tech support reps, keep making mistakes and providing terrible customer service?

About two hours later I received an email from the management team, apologizing for all of the mishaps and confirming my appointment for Saturday.  He also narrowed the 8am to 5pm window to 10am to 2pm, offered me a credit for the modem (which, strangely, you have to purchase for Qwest), and a free month of service.

Sure enough, the tech did show up on Saturday within the scheduled time window and got the internet up and running.  Best of all, after so much of a hassle, it turns out that Qwest’s internet (I have the 20 MB download/5 MB upload plan) is the fastest I’ve ever experienced at home.  According to the tech, our connection is dedicated, meaning that we don’t share it with everyone else in the general area.  When you actually download a song in seconds and movies in minutes, as advertised, well…it’s kind of a big deal.  So while I certainly am not fully on board the Qwest bandwagon due to the installation nightmare, I am at least willing to give them a second – or is it third or fourth now? – chance at providing me with good service.

And once again I have the little bird to thank for getting the right people’s attention…

On Christmas my girlfriend gave me an iPhone – my first – and imagine my excitement. Until two days later when I dropped it on the carpet in an art gallery and the screen cracked. I was pissed, naturally, but not devastated, because the phone had been purchased with Best Buy’s Black Tie Protection Plan.

It was the second iPhone my girlfriend purchased in a month, and like she did the first time, she expressed an interest in the protection plan, because she had enrolled in it for multiple items in the past (such as the two flat screens we bought from BB in August). The BB representative gave her all of the documentation and went through the “recommendation” checklist, also writing down that she would be getting the Black Tie protection. At no time was it mentioned that there were different levels of coverage – particularly that accidental damage – the one we’d be most interested in since the standard warranty covers most other things – wasn’t included in the standard plan.

This is only where the problem began. The employee bumbled a number of things, starting with charging us $30 for a new SIM card which was supposed to come with the iPhone – we knew this because she had just purchased one a month earlier. But the bigger blunder came when he failed to even ring her up for the Black Tie plan, after she mentioned it several times. Of course it would be just our luck that the phone would fall and the screen would crack a few days later. Only upon bringing the phone back to Best Buy to take advantage of the protection plan do we realize his mistake.

After talking with the manager, she said there was nothing she could do, even after being shown clear evidence that there was every intention on my girlfriend’s part to purchase the plan. She did, however, refund us for the SIM card that we weren’t supposed to be charged for in the first place.

I called Best Buy national and explained the situation, at which time I was informed that the Black Tie protection plan – at least the standard version – does not even cover accidental damage. Yet I know for a fact that when sales associates are pushing for the plan, they emphasize how it covers products well outside the standard warranty, up to and including accidental damage. Why else would anyone bother, anyway, given BB’s own return policy, and Apple’s year long warranty? So the associate on the phone’s “consolation” was that even if the employee had done his job correctly, I still would not have been covered for accidental damage. She then proceeded to read me all of the fine print from the agreement, on how accidental damage is not covered.

I was left with an iPhone with a cracked screen, and no way of fixing it short of purchasing a new screen from Apple for $200, or trying to fix it myself with spare parts and voiding my warranty. While I understand how on a strictly technical level Best Buy is not liable for the damage to my phone, as a measure of good faith and good customer service, I thought that they would do more to help me. Had I bought the proper plan – that is, had the employee done his job correctly and explained the different levels of service, then actually rang my girlfriend up for that service, then whatever losses Best Buy received for repairing/replacing the phone would have been incurred at that time. So I was not at all certain why some compromise couldn’t be made.

Enter the little bird.

On December 30th, I tweeted about my discontent with Best Buy, to warn others who may have considered purchasing the Black Tie Protection Plan. Within 15 minutes, I received a reply from a Best Buy employee, and after a series of backs and forths, I was advised to email the company’s “Twelpforce” with my situation, to see what they could do for me.

I did so, and today – only 5 days later – I received a reply from the “community connector” department of Best Buy corporate, who contacted the manager at the Best Buy where I made my purchase. Within an hour or so, she told me that the manager agreed to replace my iPhone.

Ordinarily, when you have a phone replaced through Best Buy’s protection plan, they use what they call the “Rapid Exchange”, having a new unit shipped to their store, and providing you with a loaner phone in the meantime. The loaner phone is never the same as the phone you’re replacing – and you have to put down a $150 deposit, which is refunded to you after the loaner phone is returned in tact. So in my case, I’d be temporarily out $150 to use an inferior phone.

And that’s what makes this story all the more incredible, because upon returning the phone to the store tonight, it was replaced with a new iPhone on the spot.  One short transaction later, involving a call to AT&T for a hardware swap, and switching my SIM card to the new phone, and I’m back in business.

All because I made a fuss through Twitter and the right people took notice.  While I cannot say that Best Buy will again be my first choice for electronics purchases, I am very grateful for those employees who went beyond the call and provided awesome customer service.  I find it terribly frustrating that only those consumers who are willing to – and have to know how – to raise a fuss, or to resist corporate “handling” are able to receive such a level of service, but it has also shown me just how powerful the internet can be – and how useful Twitter can be.

So keep on tweeting, everyone.  Because as it turns out, people really are listening…