MICHAEL DAVIS: If it walks like a duck…
In this article I use a variation of the ‘n’ word. If this offends you then stop reading now. The last thing I want is 50 comments from people who are offended by the word. So before you get your panties in a bunch, stop reading. You have been warned.
When did we become a nation of sheep? At what point did we decide that if enough people say something is good then it’s good? If enough people decide it’s bad then it’s bad? If enough people decide it’s hip then it’s hip?
Or in this case: if enough people decide that a man obeying a police officer’s command can be shot for doing what the officer said, then that police officer is not guilty of attempted murder.
Regardless of what you think, do you join the flock?
Last week a police officer named Ivory Webb was acquitted in a San Bernardino County California courtroom for shooting a man for getting up after telling the man to get up. No. I was not in the courtroom. No, I do not know all the facts. No, I was not at the scene. I just watched the videotape. The videotape, which CLEARLY shows Webb telling the man to get up.
CLEARLY TELLING HIM TO GET UP.
When the man goes to get up (AS HE WAS TOLD) he was shot three times. I have no idea what went on in that courtroom that resulted in this police officer getting off. I just know WHAT I SAW.
In my VERY first article for ComicMix I wrote this: Now a days you can get caught on videotape robbing and pistol whipping a little old lady in a wheel chair while she was feeding her kitten and not go to jail. All you have to do is blame it on your Dad who was never home or never told you he loved you.
Well Mr. Webb’s jury blamed it on the man who was shot – one juror saying ‘If he had just shut up and listened then none of this would have happened.”
Well, from what I saw when he was told to get up, he did listen, and he was shot.
OK, as I said I don’t know what went on in the courtroom so let’s assume that the jury was correct in their verdict. I still know what I heard: the cop said “get up” and then shot the guy when he did.
I know what I heard; I know what I saw.
A few years ago I heard a rumor that Donald Duck called Daffy Duck “A doggone stubborn nigga” in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I thought this was simply BS. I had seen the film and did not notice that and simply dismissed it. Fast forward to last week when I noticed that my TiVo had recorded Who Framed Roger Rabbit. While I was watching it this time I clearly heard Donald Duck call Daffy Duck a “A dog gone stubborn nigga.”
I thought I was nuts!
So I played it again and again…and again. Then I turned the TV off, shut my eyes and considered that I must be in the Twilight Zone. I then turned the TV back on and there on my TiVo menu was Who Framed Roger Rabbit. OK, it was still there so I knew I was not in The Twilight Zone but there was still a chance that I was in the Outer Limits so I went back to the scene –16 minutes into the movie – and played it again. Much to my surprise the scene was still there!!!
I have seen too many movies and read to many comic books so I know there was still a chance that I was crazy. I mean how could this be? Donald Duck using the ‘N’ word and NO ONE making a big deal out of this?
Come on!! I must be out of my mind! Now I started to get paranoid. I felt that people were watching me. I mean Donald Duck using the ‘N’ word? This is the bigger than Don Imus, bigger than Michael Richards!
Right about then I was sure that Disney had dispatched their assassins and it was just a matter of time before I was never heard from again. How could I discover this world shaking event and not be taken out?
No. I was being silly. I mean there is no way that Donald Duck could have said that and it stay buried for 20 years! I told myself that this was just my imagination and went to sleep. That night I had a dream. I dreamt that Donald Duck was meeting with Al Sharpton in a televised attempt to explain his comments.
Al: How can you justify saying the ‘N’ word?
Don: It was a joke. That’s what I do. I make people laugh.
Al: There’s nothing funny about the ‘N’ word.
Don: I know that now.
Al: What will you do to make amends?
Don: I’m in rehab and I’m being real nice to all the Black Disney characters.
Al: WHAT Black Disney characters??
Don: Hey. I don’t run the company, I’m a duck!
Al: Stop spitting on me!
This ordeal was getting to me. I went to my computer and Googled the so-called Donald racist remark. There are reams of back and forth on this. I was not crazy. It was true…or was it? I read dozens of accounts of people who were trying to explain the remark away. One popular opinion is that Donald said “Nitwit.”
What?
I have been living with the ‘n’ word my entire life. I have NEVER mistaken nitwit for ‘nigga,’ Now that I think of it-that’s a great way for rappers to get endorsements, or to get away with what their songs have been saying.
Kanye West: I’m not saying she’s a gold digger, but she ain’t messing with no broke NITWIT.
As I have mentioned in this column many times-I grew up in the projects of Rockaway Queens. I have seen many a beat down. Heck, at one particular party I was jumped because someone was mad at my sister. I have seen people shot on more than one occasion. Shot for stupid things, shot for the slightest disrespect. In my entire life I have never seen anyone get even a dirty look for using the word, nitwit.
There is no way I could ever confuse the word nitwit with nigga.
So I know what I heard 16 minutes into Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Donald Duck said "nigga." I know what I heard.
Still…
I needed more confirmation. So I called some friends of mine. I played the tape for three different people. All heavyweights in the entertainment world. They all said the same thing…Donald Duck said “nigga.”
I played the tape repeatedly, and we all came to the same conclusion. Donald Duck said “nigga.” I may be crazy; hey I’ve been called that by quite a few people but know what I heard.
Now let me be very clear. I don’t think that The Walt Disney Company is racist. If anything, they have a problem with the two-parent household. I mean, how many animated movies must they do where one of the parents is dead? What is up with that? As I was saying, I don’t think Disney is a raciest company. In fact they are still the leader in children’s entertainment and I have a great deal of respect for them.
But I know what I heard.
When Who Framed Roger Rabbit was released in 1988 it was a different time in America. The ‘n’ word as bad as it is, simply did not carry the same impact as it does now. In fact I can remember an episode of The Jeffersons when Mr. Jefferson yelled at Mr. Jefferson, “Nigga Please!” And that was the 70s!
Maybe the guys working on the film thought it would be funny. Maybe they were just goofing around. I don’t know why it’s in there, but it is in there. There is no public outcry and as far as I know Disney has never addressed this. Truth be told, I could care less about Donald Duck using the word. Have you seen the Warner Bros. cartoons from the 40s? Those were hard-core in terms of depictions of black people. Donald Duck using the word in this aspect has a bit of a silver lining. If Mr. Duck called Daffy a “nigga” does that not mean that Daffy Duck is black? Assuming that Donald meant the word as a racist statement.
Hey, if Warner Bros. wants to give the Black community an icon like Daffy Duck. I’ll take him. It’s not like we get a lot of icons from the major studios.
My real problem with this is why do some of us deny or become swayed by public opinion when YOU know what you heard or saw. I’m amazed that there are so many people who doubt this. You should see some of the explanations on the net as to what Donald is really saying.
NITWIT? PLEASE!
I don’t know much but here’s what I do know. If you are shot in the head, you are shot in the head. Period.
Why you were shot, how you were shot will not change the fact that you were shot. In this crazy world we now explain away everything. We bring so much information to an issue that the facts become murky at best. So much so that an icon like Donald Duck can say “nigga” and we simply debate it away. We debate everything away; black and white is now a disgusting shade of gray.
I don’t like gray. It’s an ugly color. It’s the color of indecision and no commitment. I have faith in what I see, what I hear, what I believe. Yes I can be wrong but I start from a place where there is a commitment to something. If I am wrong it’s my belief that brought me there, not yours, not the masses who go with the flow. That’s not me. I’m not that guy.
In the case of the police shooting and Donald Duck – I know what I heard, I know what I saw.
There is an old saying. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.
Quack, you silly nitwit.
Michael Davis is a comics creator and the founder of the Guardian Line series of comics as well as being a television producer and writer. He was a co-founder of Milestone Comics and his artwork has appeared in Wasteland, Green Arrow: Shado, Green Hornet and The Question, among others.
Artwork copyright their respective legitimate copyright owners. All Rights Reserved.
Sorry, Michael. It's "Goldurn stubborn little…"Here's the link to Snopes, the best urban legend defuser on the web.As you say, you know what you heard. And the parents that sued Judas Priest know what they (or at least what their son) heard. And Wilson Bryan Key knows what he saw when he looked at the picture of the Clam Plate at Howard Johnson's all those years ago. And don't get me STARTED on the words to "Louie Louie" or "Blinded by the Light" (What the hell is a Doshen and why would want to rack one up,anyway?)This is the second of your articles in a row that I haven't quite seen the point of. Here, you try to compare a controversial court ruling to an urban legend with as much credence as the one about "Top Pop" having a chemical that causes impotence or the KKK owning Snapple. If your goal was to suggest that people will hear what they want to hear in situations, based on their life experiences, predjudices or beliefs, mission acconplished, but, I fear, at your own expense.If you were trying to show that people are willing to believe any old thing if it helps further their personal agenda, again, mission accomplished, but I don't see a clear link between that point and anything positive, like a suggestion that people NOT do that.Now the one about Dark Side of the Moon and the Wizard of Oz, THAT'S completely true, and I don't care what anybody tells me.
I am offended that you used the word nitwit.
Sorry Alan and you are right- I can see the nitwit lawsuits now…
My point is to arrive at a decision without weighing everyone else's opinion. I went to the website you posted BEFORE I wrote the piece. You make my point-just because the close caption says 'nitwit' and a so called 'best urban legend defuser on the net' said it was false should I just agree? I KNOW what I heard. Someone in a movie can say "Kiss my butt" and the close cption can say 'Pizza' do I then forget I heard 'Kiss my Butt?' As far as your examples where parents and others know what they saw as well as heard. You again make my point-I am NOT swayed by what they think nor can I speak for them. I know what I heard.I could care less about anyone else. As far as last weeks piece goes, I'm a simple guy Vinnie. There is no hidden meaning in my rants.That's why I call this Straight no Chaser. Last weeks point was this- vicious rumors with no basis in fact is just stupid and childish. All this aside-I do enjoy your feedback.
I agree that the captioning may be wrong. There was a movie about 4-5 years ago that had subtitles. The subtitle referred to 'Chess', while it was obvious that the game being played was 'Go'. Both are strategic games, but are not the same. So, yes, the captioning may be different than the spoken words.
Before I start in, a bit of back up…I believe that people should use the best arguments possible to support their convictions, and when I see weaknesses in said arguments (whether I support them or not) I just have to point them out, and in some cases get quite vehement in my objections. My Mom (bless her) would want to do things, and when I asked her why, would give the most insane, inexplicable reasons. Reasons so left-fieldian that no matter how much I knew what she meant, and why she wanted to do the thing, I just HAD to call her on it. I wanted to buy a car, and she didn't want to buy that car. When I asked why, she said "It's yellow. It'll attract bees in the summer". Only after several minutes of discussion did she finally relent that it was because it wasn't an American made car, and (since my dad was a GM employee till his death) she preferred to buy an American car. A perfectly reasonable (even if not completely defensible) standpoint, and one I accepted. But the stupidity of her first argument was SO blatant, I couldn't help but to argue it.I'm also inherently skeptical of conspiracy theories. I adore them, and love to hear them, but when I meet people who really believe them, I want to go toe-to-toe with them. The only reason I don't is because I know I'm just beating my head against a wall (and I don't do that unless I've actually done something wrong worthy of such punishment- ask my wife) and wasting my time. I usually just shake my head and walk away. Usually.So I'm not going on about this because I'm coming to the defense of a classic of the animated art, I'm going about it because it was a poor (and easily rebutted) example of your argument, and you believing such a thing lowers your credibility (in my eyes anyway) to the level of the people who buy the aforementioned Top Pop or Snapple stories.Here's how I read your article:"I KNOW I heard the cop say 'get up' on the video. And I KNOW I heard Donald Duck call Daffy a (Negative expletive for the urban community) in Roger Rabbit". Since it patently obvious (to me) that your interpretation of the second video clip is wrong, it puts your interpretation of the first into serious question.>>>"I went to the website you posted BEFORE I wrote the piece."And yet you chose to point out the far LESS reasonable suggestion of "nitwit" rather than the far more intelligible (and more easy to hear when you click on the sample of the scene on the snopes site) "little". Interesting. Often, the evidence that is ignored in an argument is more telling than the evidence that is used. Ask Mike Nifong and Al Gore.True enough, most of the pages Google pulls up about the "controversy" use the "nitwit" line. But a brief read of those pages reveals that they're all practically the same verbiage, as most of the pages (like from About.com and Answers.com) are quoted from (and in some cases, automatically generated from) the Wiki source. Ironically, that connects to comments I made about last weeks article, on how easily one can declare something as "fact" by finding the same statement on three different websites. Snopes, on the other hand, lists three seperate sources of reference, and includes the sound byte so you can decide for yourself. Which you, apparently, have done.But your point is, "I know what I know, and facts and/or evidence to the contrary be damned"? Okay, but as I said, it calls your opinion of the first video clip (which I have not seen so I have no opinion or agenda regarding it) under suspicion.The Vista (2-disc) edition of the Roger Rabbit DVD uses "little" in their subtitles. And while I haven't pulled out my copy of the Laserdisc to check, I'll accept that it said "nitwit". But as anyone who's ever watched closed captioning will tell you, they quite often vary from the script. Sometimes they have to paraphrase long speeches to keep up with the narrative on screen, sometimes they can't make out the lines from the soundtrack, but they don't always match up with what the actors said. My wife has a story about a blatant error in the "Rear Window" subtitling where she actually wrote to (and got an answer from) the man in charge of the restoration of the film and he admitted she was right about the error.Plus, let's jump in with the standard question I ask of any theory like this…WHY? Who would possibly benefit from putting a line like that in a children's film, "different time" or no? And if there was any suggestion of an inkling of the truth of the statement, wouldn't they have done something about it by now? They fixed Jessica's bare crotch in a couple frames later in the film, they were happy to change the lyrics to "Arabian Nights" in Aladdin to appease an Arab group, surely they'd have no problem removing such a term if it were there. This is a company that won't release Song of the South in this country (tho it's widely available all over the rest of the planet) because of what might concievably be said about it.Im not going to belabor this any further, as I'm sadly confident that I will not convince you otherwise, much as I was never able to convince my mother-in-law (an otherwise bright and rational woman) of the lack of veracity of the work of "psychic" John Edward. I'll end with the last line of the Snopes page. "Maybe the real answer is that if you're convinced you're supposed to hear something, you'll hear it."And right now, both of us are nodding our heads, saying "Yes, EXACTLY…"
Vinnie,As wonderfully as you make your argument I stand by my statements. I said in the piece that I don't think there is any grand scheme here just some people trying to pull a fast one. I see no' conspiracy theories'. As far as 'why?' Who the heck knows? Why did Marvel buy a distributor in the 90's? Why did Jessica Alba just say that she is not Latino? Why are we still in Iraq? Why did OJ get off? Why did thousands of people wait in line for the I-phone when there was no shortage of supply? Why did I watch 'Showgirls'? The world is littered with stupid things that people do. Because it makes no sense is no reason to doubt that stupid things happens.Be that as it is-I really love your way of thinking. I don't agree with a lot of it but you make a well thought out point. like you I'm done with this. I did enjoy the debate however.
In my role as Zen carny I suggest that we are not meant to exactly understand what Donald Duck is saying, at least in a Western "either/or" sense. What we believe him to be saying is always true and always mistaken, a randomizing event in the universe, like a three game playoff. But, as language is usage, we must analyze each interpretation as if it were true. As Perry White, I'll send Olsen off to camp on the doorstep of voice artist Tony Anselmo, to ask him what he said, whether it was in the script or an improvisation.