Laurence Fishburne Drags Justin Bieber Into Race Row: ‘Acts Black-ish’ But ‘Doesn’t Get Shot By The Police’

Laurence Fishburne continues White and Black America’s immature national conversation on race, by citing Justin Bieber to defend the debatable title of his new TV show “Black-ish.”

Because as we all know, Justin Bieber is the only white kid in history to wear baggy pants, have black friends, like R&B music and act like a teenager.

Somehow, these four heinous crimes, combined with the 20-year-old singer’s polarizing appeal and fame, have become a kind of easy shorthand in discussions by both African-Americans and white Americans, in an endless quest to pin each other into rigid slots of racial “do’s” and “don’ts.”

While appearing on “The View” on Monday, co-host Whoopi Goldberg told Fishburne that some people were “freaked out” over the word “Black-ish.”

The 53-year actor replied, “Depending upon on your perspective, for some people [black-ish] means when black folks kind of act white, for some people it means when white folks act black.”

In a nutshell, he referred to the comedy series’ central pitch of an upper-middle class black family residing in a predominantly white, upper-middle-class neighborhood and the father’s struggle to maintain their racial identity.

Delivering his money-shot line, Laurence added, “I think of it this way. Two words: Justin Bieber.”

A video of the moment shows the audience applauding in seeming agreement, while host Rosie Perez visibly gasped.

Fishburne plowed on, stating, “Justin Bieber acts ‘black-ish,’ but he doesn’t get shot by the police. He gets a police escort home.”

Perez interjected that she was “nervous” and erupted in “uncomfortable laughter,” as outlet Gossip Cop put it.

As usual, in an America, where Ferguson, Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till and generations of unlawful Black male killings are still happening, the only thing entertainment outlets across TV, radio and the blogosphere, want to talk about when race comes up, is Bieber.

Laurence later added what may be one of the most simplistic generalizations about racial identity heard for some time.

“If you like rock and roll, if you like rhythm and blues, if you like jazz, if you like hip-hop — you might be black-ish.”

Mr. Fishburne. You were great in the Matrix. But, on race ideology? Stick to acting.

An alternative perspective:

1: America’s race history is bloody, vicious and hundreds of years in the making

The answers to necessary conversations about why Black male, and female, lives in the U.S. are self-evidently valued less than white lives, deserves a more serious focus than Justin Bieber’s drop-crotch pants and delayed teen fronting.

The inequalities in America have nothing to do with Bieber. He doesn’t make the laws. He didn’t create slavery, and he doesn’t maintain the systemic racism that continues.

Put bluntly: If Bieber dressing and acting as he does — like billions of White, Asian, Black and mixed youth around the world — is the only thing Black people can think of to change the paradigm that gave rise to Michael Brown’s death, then Martin Luther King’s civil rights legacy is being catastrophically disrespected.

(Photo: The entertainer striking a pose for Adidas in 2012.)

2: Bieber has never directly said that he wants to be black, or considers himself as black

At the close of 2013, the oft-shirtless one briefly mentioned to The Hollywood Reporter in an interview about a range of subjects, that he was,

“Influenced by black culture,” not to try to be Black, but as a “lifestyle — like a suaveness or a swag, per se.”

Obviously, that was a White, 19-year-old’s no doubt unconscious take on the “black pose,” as discussed in a recent Huffington Post op-ed. It assumed Bieber is “acting black,” and that this is what accounts for his success.

3: In reply, a history lesson

When his manager Scooter Braun discovered Bieber on YouTube at the age of 12, he was already singing R&B covers by the likes of Ne-Yo, Chris Brown, Aretha Franklin and Justin Timberlake, while the rapper Tupac hung on his bedroom wall.

The popification overhaul of Bieber took place when he signed a record deal with Def Jam, which proceeded to sell America an apple pie, swoop-haired moppet ideal.

From his first 2009 hit “One Time,” to 2010’s chart destroyer “Baby” to Bieber’s five No.1 Billboard albums, all of that success took place before the bulk of his run-ins with the law, lawsuits and more R&B stylized version of the singer we see today.

So, it wasn’t an urban image that powered Bieber to teen iconhood. It was talent, goofy charm and the cultivation by his team of “Bieber Fever” through media and social media saturation.

4: Kids are sponges

The idea that a clearly impressionable, Canadian kid, who was developed and drilled by Braun and Usher, in the urban nexus of Atlanta, Georgia, then surrounded by associates such as Big Sean, Sean Kingston and L.A Reid, wouldn’t be influenced by Black culture is ludicrous.

(Video: The “Baby” singer in Atlanta in 2008 with Braun.)

5: But mostly just this:

In 2014, we shouldn’t be telling kids, or anyone, to essentially “stay in their lane” and not to “act” a particular way, based on subjective concepts.

If America spent less time on circular conversations about how races are supposed to act, and elevated those obsessions to dialogues about how human beings can start relating to each other without irrational judgment – perhaps – we would see the kind of real, positive social change most sane people want.

Justin Bieber isn’t the root of historical racism in America. Nor should he be the poster boy for the tired point “Black-ish” is trying to make.

Bieber is a kid who likes R&B, leather drop-crotch pants and has had a wobble for a year and a bit. Lame debates about his whiteness or blackness distract from real race issues, and they are just too deadly to let that happen.

Laurence Fishburne Drags Justin Bieber Into Race Row: ‘Acts Black-ish’ But ‘Doesn’t Get Shot By The Police’ is an article from: The Inquisitr News