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Thursday, September 6, 2007 | 9:41am
Get this Nigger Out of Here. Comedian Chased by Black Enterprise Founder after Using N-word at Fundraiser
 Perhaps it was a mistake for organizers of an event hosted by Black Enterprise to invite the comedian Eddie Griffin to entertain the audience with a stand-up routine.  Perhaps Griffin should have judged his crowd better and used some discretion. None the less he took the stage and did what he always does… used a [...]
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Perhaps it was a mistake for organizers of an event hosted by Black Enterprise to invite the comedian Eddie Griffin to entertain the audience with a stand-up routine.  Perhaps Griffin should have judged his crowd better and used some discretion. None the less he took the stage and did what he always does… used a healthy dose of N-word in his routine much to the shock the mostly African American crowd, including Captain African-America, Al Sharpton.Â
After a few repeated uses, Griffin’s microphone was cut off and Black Enterprise publisher Earl Graves Sr. stormed onto the stage to address the crowd. “We … will not allow our culture to go backwards,â€Â he was quoted as saying. “We will pay Mr. Griffin all that we owe him but we will not allow him to finish the show if that’s the way he’s going to talk.”  The crowd then gave Graves a standing ovation for his immediate actions according to a New York Daily News report. Afterwards, Griffin characteristically walked onto the stage smoking a cigarette and yelled “F— y’all!” and then departed.Â
That’s Classic. But its important to note. We are once again beginning to see a division between the uppity bourgeoisie black folk and the more cool down to earth cats. It happens from time to time and this time we owe it to Imus. Last time I can remember it was around the 2Live Crew debates. It’s like the house negro/ field negro. I bet most of those people clapping in the audience subscribe the N-word use but they wouldn’t be P.C. among their peers if they didn’t join in to PUBLICALLY denounce the word. It’s all that Jack & Jill, debutant bullsh*t. I’m tired of it.Â
FILED IN Editorials, Humor
thats bullshit, he’s a comedian, its entertainment, i’m waitin’ for them stop this shit from going on in Hollywood. that shit will never happen so leave NIGGAS alone
lol, Black Enterprise though? he should have known better. Thats like cussing at the Nickolodeon awards
they shouldn’t have hired him then
Its the same thing as when Imus’s comments (which I think were wrong) were being excused by TV neocons like Tucker Carlson and Pat Buchanan. “You hear these words in hip-hop etc. etc. so why can’t Imus say them….”
We do not communicate with words any more than we live in bricks and two-by-fours or drive wheels and roof racks. We communicate with MEANING and meaning is very tricky stuff. Despite what the dictionary says, words by themselves do not have meanings. They have “definitions” which are only clues to what a word might mean, but you never know what it does mean until you hear it (or say it), and that depends on context.
Imus meant to shock, and he did, and if that is your intent, sometimes you’ve got to pay the piper.
I agree completely with this post and these comments. Eddie Griffin misjudged the audience and took some heat for it (bad mistake) but at the same time Sharpton, et al, are doing the same thing Tucker Carlson and Pat Buchanan were doing before … riding the argument on the DEFINITION of nigger, not it’s meaning in a particular context.
Well said Greg.
I am personally happy to see it go down like that. Sure, you can hate the boojie boojie crowd, but really, like they say in journalism 101 ” don’t ever forget who your subscriber is.” In this case Enterprise–and Enterprise took a stand against boring, redundant repetitious repetitive replicants who think that N-wording is a replacement for actual humor.
So if you missing your daily dose of not so boojie N-wording, just take the city bus, or the subway–you can get your fill of it there, for free–and go nowhere just as fast. You can get extra doses of the N-word if you sit in the BACK of the bus as well, and maybe even some more humorous things like a five dollar twig, or a popcorn on your seat.
Yo CMF you sound really ignorant. Ignoring the “N” word ( I sound like a 3rd grader) does not make it go away. This is comedy…ART in a sense. Education about why the word is socially unexceptable is more important. Its like teaching kids about sex. Should we ignore it so they contract HIV or become teenage parents?
Earl Graves (Disclosure: a close relative of mine) chose to boot the comic after a few of what he percieved were dirty jokes. He takes the blame, if not him personally then his people. Bottom line is BE is responsible because they chose to hire the comic…right or wrong. Like he said…he’ll still get paid.
“E”, thanks for the shout out.
You can peep my take on this at http://averagebro.blogspot.com/2007/09/eddie-griffin-vs-earl-graves-n-words.html
I had to link to this post even thought I don’t think this is a house negro field negro issue. I think this is a brewing battle between black folks with common sense and those without. Clearly Earl Graves would fall in the category of not having common sense. What the hell were they thinking?
They tried juggling rattle snakes while riding a unicycle and Eddie bit them again and again and again.
Serves them right. Oh I wish I could have been there to see Eddie’s reaction.
According to BE CEO, Butch Graves, by way of Roland Martin of Mirror on America:
“Graves said that Griffin, know for his raunchy stand up, sent a DVD showcasing his clean show befroe he was hired to perform at the even. He said that BE put language in the contract stipulating that Griffin was to perform a clean show.”
This is not a “House negro vs Field negro issue” or any other terminology used to divide my Black family. Eddie Griffin used the bait and switch to get this job. In doing so, he Broke his contract. This is an issue of integrity. If Black Enterprise is guilty of anything, it is trusting Eddie Griffin. Now we all know that Eddie Griffin can not be trusted. What we don’t know is why Griffin did it.