Rent-A-Negro

They're both pretty ballsy. Also quite clever and very funny. My question is, is rent-a-negro an art piece, a political statement, or is it a for real business?

Why not all three?

Why not indeed?

double post

Ha ha! I knew about www.blackpeopleloveus.com, and in fact posted it here some time ago. The new link is great....I am forwarding it immediately...thanks for the site! It is art....personally, I don't really care about race, and actually feel that politically incorrect humour/art is the only way to open up true dialogue these days. Good on her, loved the site.

Appears to me to be a series of racial stereotypes. We've not come as far in the area of human understanding as I once thought.

Not funny.

My sense of humor must be out of whack, but
these are totally tasteless garbage. Whatever
gave that one woman the idea that I would ever
require ANY information about her hair, her nails,
her skin or any other thing about a total stranger
just because she is black?? She's nuts!
I'm not all that intent upon proving my "aware
ness" to others. I have zero investment in an
individual who is arrogant enough to think that
her information interests me, or anyone else,
more than anyone else's.

babs comments kind of prove the artist's point. To most intelligent folk, the entire concept of these sites is ridiculous. However, this sort of relationship between whites and blacks does indeed exist, in a serious way. White kids want to be rappers, white adults want to cultivate friendships with blacks to appear liberal and understanding (I'm not racist, some of my best friends are black)...it is stupid, but it is a cultural phenomenon that begs exploring.

One of the best ways to fight prejudice is to deal with it head on, and show it up for the idiocy that it is. Bravo Damali Ayo!

$200-300/hour for the info?

Would anyone like to know about me for $250/hour? If so, step right and present your credit card. I'll go get my clock!

ain't that the point?

For that price she better be a damn good hooker.

Misconceptions between races is not exclusive to white on black. I'm not stating anything profound here,but the history of the two races in America is in a constant cut-scab-heal-cut-scab-heal process. I agree that this site is a great learning tool, whether someone gets something positive from it or gets angry about it.
Damali Ayo says that the site is a conceptual piece: streaming audio@blackhumor

She has had approximately 160 serious inquires so far, with people asking her to go golfing and to take her to office parties.

For the white kid who's only contact with black people is through media bombardment and is into rap, dressing and talking all gansta', this would be a valuable information source. As well as the white adult who's connection to black people is the idolized black athlete

My earliest contacts with blacks came from my grandfather's chaufeur, and his wife, their maid . . . later, when riding the railroad for free, with a pass because of my other grandfather was a life-long railroad employee, the black porters always made much of me, and brought me pillows, sandwiches, comic books . . . i thought they were great people. Much later in life, i learned that my grandfather (the telegrapher and station master) had always treated blacks just exactly as he did everyone else--with courtesy and respect, unless and until he had good cause to behave differently. I learned that the special treatment accorded to me arose from that source--those railroad porters knew they would be treated as men ought to be, when they stopped at that railroad station, and in the world of the 1950's, that meant something to them. Later on, as a child, i heard the nasty racial stereotypes, and slurs, and quickly learned that to repeat them at home risked the ire of my grandmother, no small disaster. When, much later in life, i experienced the general hostility of young black men to whites, this in the 1960's and -70's, i wasn't fooled. I had already learned that such racism was an individual choice; i had already learned that blacks are diverse individuals, just as are all others. On a few occassion, when i was the target of racist hostility by blacks, friends of mine who also happened to be black, were the first and the quickest to stand up for me. I'm not perfect, and i've done and said things of which i am not proud. But i learned very early on that you needn't ape the behavior of others, nor alter your own personality, in order to treat others decently and be their friends. If this is expected of you, then those folks aren't really your friends. I am often saddened to see urban white kids who want to be like the "gansta" blacks who are so foolishly emulated in the current youth culture--not learning standard English, and refusing to make the effort to dress and behave according to a socially acceptable standard to get and retain employment hurts young black men and women, and the whites who emulate them, as well. I don't think this means they should alter themselves fundatmentally, and it would not be reasonable to expect this. But when i need employment from "the man," i know i have to meet certain expectations, and that a command of standard english will give me an advantage over anyone else who does not display that skill. Would that young, urban blacks and whites would take such a lesson to heart. You can be hip hop at home and in the neighborhood, and you can put on a suit and tie to go work, and speak standard english while at work, without betraying your essential nature. Just as those who are truly your friends will not expect you to change yourself to suit their desires, so those who are truly your friends will understand the not unreasonalbe concessions one makes to make a decent living.

Setanta, more than one black person has told the wife and I in conversation: "There are Blacks, and there are niggers." My wife's family is West Indian, and holy mackeral....down there they are more racist against each other than any average white boy could be....her family is from Trinidad, and they basically flat out blame Jamaicans for causing all the gang trouble in North America, and for messing up Caribana every year, and the list goes on....

A good friend of mine from a job i once held, Chester Siafa, is from Liberia. He speaks with what is to me an hilarious accent, since he learned English from the Brothers and Sisters of Charity, an Irish missionary order. We worked in the stores in neighborhoods with the highest concentration of blacks in Columbus, Ohio. Chester would vault the counter, and run like Carl Lewis to catch shop lifters, because he already had a major grudge against American blacks. They treated him like crap, they laughed at how he spoke, they called him "Uncle Tom" and "Oreo." And i've seen it with other native Africans in this country. What insanity. Chester now sells insurance, and does quite well. He took the job on condition that he not be automatically assigned to a black neighborhood. He gets along much better with, and understands white Americans much more easily. To him, the entire black, urban culture was a mystery, and one which his hostile reception did not endear to him.

Set, gotta agree...the "real" African-Americans, i.e. from Africa, are wonderful hard working people, from my experience, and there really is a totally unnecessary rivalry between them and "urban" black Americans. I know a guy from Africa who came to Tarana and started up a cab business and he told me, "these black people born here, they don't have a clue how much they have. They don't want to work, they don't get educated....let them go see where I came from, then maybe they would know."

Yes Setanta and more to the point of what Damali Ayo is trying to say.

A few years back my friend Brian and I were invited to a party given by a group of Japanese living in America. After a bit of settling in and enjoyment, somebody put Sly and the Family Stone on the stereo, it was a great jam, don't remember exactly what the song was, but everyone was looking our way. I didn't think nothing of it until someone came over and asked Brian, who is African American, to dance. They didn't ask me, the caucasian persuasion, they wanted Brian to perform for them. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Brian just laughed it off and said he wasn't a dancer. No one seemed to grasp the minstrel-esqe nature of the request and the Family Stone continued sans the dancing.

If they had been singing Dance to the Music, i'd have gotten up to dance . . . Paddies like to dance (as well as to wear bright colors, sing, and lay around in the warm sunshine -- we're a lazly and shiftless people . . . )

I'm gonna add so guitar
To make it easy to move your feet . . .

I'm gonna add some bottom
So that the dancers just won't hide . . .

You might like to hear my organ,
I said: "Ride Sally, Ride . . . "

Dance to the Music, Dance to the Music . . .