I don’t watch reality teevee and I have never heard of bounty hunter Duane “Dog” Chapman. The fact that Chapman is a racist mildly fits my preconceptions about the typical bounty hunter…we all have our biases. Dog Chapman was upset that his son was dating a black women, and he gave his son an ultimatum:
Duane “Dog” Chapman: I’m not taking the chance on some motherf**ker. I don’t care if she’s a Mexican, a whore, whatever…it’s not because she’s black. It’s because we use he word n***er sometimes here.
I’m not going to take a chance ever in life for losing everything I’ve worked for for 30 years because some f**king n**er heard us say n***er and turned us into the Enquirer magazine. Our career is over. I’m not taking that chance at all, never in life. Never. Never.
If Lyssa [his daughter] was dating a n***er we would all say F*ck You. . .and you know that. If Lyssa brought a black guy home ya da da…it’s not that they’re black, it’s none of that. It’s that we use the word n***er. We don’t mean you fucking scum n***er without a soul. We don’t mean that shit. But America would think we mean that. And we’re not taking a chance on losing everything we got over a racial slur because our son goes with a girl like that. I can’t do that Tucker. You can’t expect Gary, Bonnie, Cecily, all them young kids to [garbled] because ‘I’m in love for 7 months’ – fuck that! So, I’ll help you get another job but you can not work here unless you break up with her and she’s out of your life. I can’t handle that shit. I got ’em in the parking lot trying to record us. I got that girl saying she’s gonna wear a recorder…
Tucker Chapman: I don’t even know what to say.
Ironically, his son taped the conversation and gave a copy to the National Enquirer. So, what do you think Dog Chapman did in response?
Dog has asked esteemed Reverend Al Sharpton to help him, and has retained the African American pastor that performed his last marriage to speak on his behalf.
Of course, A&E has suspended production of Dog’s reality show until they can assess the fallout. But I’m more concerned with this role that Al Sharpton plays every time someone gets caught making a racist statement. In this case, it seems that Sharpton has a close relationship with the family, having officiated at Chapman’s wedding. But what is he going to say? So Chapman has gone to black churches “to help inner-city kids”. Does that mean he isn’t a world-class jerk?
Pam has some interesting observations about the greater meaning of Chapman’s diatribe, but I find it hard to draw too much from it. Here’s what I found most intriguing:
Stripping away the crudeness of his remarks, you can see the underlying emotion being articulated — Chapman’s disappointment at his son for even contemplating, let alone actually dating, someone outside his race. It’s pretty obvious that Tucker Chapman grew up in a home where the word “nigger” and other racial slurs were used casually. Through the profane bluster on the audio, there is disbelief directed at his son in that moment; he’s reallly saying “Didn’t you get the message when I used that word in our home for all those years? Did I have to spell it out for you? Stay with your own kind.”
I think it’s safe to say that many parents who feel the same way about interracial relationships and their children are equally reluctant to spell that sentiment out directly to them. What has spun out of control for parents uncomfortable with the idea of their son or daughter dating outside their race is the ability for subtle (or in Dog’s case, not-so-subtle) messages about what is “appropriate” to get through to their kids, because it’s hard to project and foster tolerance in public, and then justify the opposite in private. In interpersonal relationships it’s quite difficult for people who hold opposing public and private views on race they have to interact with a real person, not a stereotype, and that bores into long-held assumptions and beliefs. It. Does. Not. Compute. They only way to hold on to the security blanket of private racism is to isolate oneself from people in that group that challenge those beliefs, because the conflict is too messy to deal with.
The whole affair reminds me of Plato’s dialogue of Euthyfro where Socrates makes a fool of a young man for having the gall to turn his own father in for murdering one of his slaves. Socrates could be such an a-hole. Maybe Al Sharpton could have rehabilitated him.
On a wildly dissimilar subject, yet sort of similar….this reminds me of that wanker Smerconish and his happiness that FINALLY, someone has come up with a name for the vagina that doesn’t cause him so much anguish to say. Link
If people who are uncomfortable saying vagina can say vajayjay instead, maybe there’s a chance we can come up with a word that bigots can use that sounds cuter than the “N -word”. Problem solved! Dog gets to use words he’s comfortable with instead of maybe learning to not be a racist prick.
I like his line about ‘whatever you call it, many feminists don’t want you attracted to it.’
He’s poster-boy for foolishness.
Well, as man-haters, of course we don’t want men attracted to our vaginas.
we love you for your witty insights, not your vajayjays…but you knew that.
I think Al Sharpton should stay not touch this controversy with a 10 foot pole. Let “Dog” wallow in his own morass of racism. Anyone, Like Dog, using the N word casually and at home & work and to have “black” friends in my opinion would be “token” friends.
In this case, it seems that Sharpton has a close relationship with the family, having officiated at Chapman’s wedding.
Are you sure that’s what that sentence means? I could have sworn that I’d read that “Dog” was getting help from his own pastor AND Al Sharpton – as in, they’re two different people.
Ah – here’s one:
As for why everyone runs to Sharpton – well, he’s become the Father Confessor for this kind of thing, hasn’t he? He’s loud, he’s public, and if he says “you’re forgiven” then a lot of people are going to hear about it. He’s also well-respected by a lot of black folks and highly-disrespected by a lot of white folks – meaning that when he says something that whites who disrepect him agree with they put more weight on it (the “even Al Sharpton says…” effect).
So if Dog gets the all clear from Sharpton, A&E gets a level of cover for putting his show back on the air. Because when the complaints roll in they get to say “well, even Al Sharpton says Dog has repented, so how could WE hold it against him if even Al Sharpton doesn’t?” You don’t get that same pull from using “even his pastor who happens to be black says he’s repented.”
i don’t know, but I have a question. Isn’t it odd to seek spiritual advice from a man whose race you would not let date your daughter?
Yeah. I’m not sure what’s up with that. There’s some weird cognitive dissonance going on there.
Plus, I don’t think Sharpton married Dog and his current wife. I think it was Pastor Storey. Get a load of his website: http://storeystyle.com/. Apparently, he ministers to all the hasbeens, including Liza Minnelli. He calls himself the Comeback Coach to the Stars.
Getting back to Sharpton. As I said to the sistas on my black women’s listserve, I’m frankly getting tired of brothers stepping up to cover the tracks of and fronting for racists. From Clarence Thomas on down. These f–kheads think that now they can get away with any kind of behavior, knowing that Bush, if not the beleaguered, gutted-of-civil-rights-attorneys Justice Department, won’t do a goddamn thing on our behalf.
Usually these encounters end up with some money being passed to Sharpton for himself and his many enterprises. Dog thinks he’s clever doing a Michael Richards–that is, heading folks off at the pass–but it may not work as effectively as it did earlier with Richards. Like one wag said at another website, s/he wants to know whether Dog’s going to rehab. This is a patently ridiculous ploy and folks will not be fooled by this posturing, and neither will A&E.
I just wish A&E would stop with the white trash programming. They started off with good, cultured shows and now they and others like the History Channel is full of this flying saucers meet Egyptian mummies riding a chopper stuff.
It’s almost amusing, almost to try and listen to any racist prick try to justify using the ‘n’ word. You inevitably get all kinds of excuses the biggest one being but but but I didn’t mean it and some of my best friends are nig…rs I mean black ya know. Or maybe he could try for a more esoteric excuse and say all those massive amounts of steroids he took affected his brain and made him say those mean things….
I like how he had to get Mexican and whore in there also. I’ll just bet conversations around that house are littered with a miasma of racist bullshit…use the ‘n’ word sometimes around the house..ha I think he’s being too kind on himself. Sometimes, my ass.
But hey I heard Hannity say this guy is one of the good guys and he really really must be sorry for having inadvertently said something like this…ok is that the kiss of death or what.
His little tirade-to his son no less- gave a real glimpse, well more than a glimpse into his twisted little mind that’s for sure.
I hope A&E hangs tough and why did they ever have a show like his on anyway?