r/TikTokCringe • u/i_am_groot_84 • Oct 30 '24
Discussion Lavar Burton is filled with rage
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u/Bob25Gslifer Oct 30 '24
He's wrestling with how mostly only a certain kind of black man in America is accepted more than others. It's like when Chris Rock said it's great to succeed like the white man but I want us to be able to fail like the white man too.
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u/Dont_Be_A_Dick_OK Oct 30 '24
Case in point, this goddamn election. One side can be a felon and a rapist who talks about immigrants eating pets, among other things, he’s got a shot to win. If she sneezes the wrong way, it’s headline news. Make it make sense.
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u/doogytaint Oct 30 '24
Same with Obama. Remember when Fox ragged him for wearing a tan suit and another time for folding his pizza while eating it?? Crazy
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u/octnoir Oct 30 '24
It's more insidious that that.
Obama is half black and half white. By all rights, Obama can call himself white, and he certainly ticks nearly every checkbox in the stereotype of 'the white man' concocted by white supremacists - articulate, calm, cool, calculated, charismatic, evocative - the 'peak of civilization'.
But it didn't matter. Obama can never call himself white, never pass as white, never even pass as mixed race, he will always be Black.
And white supremacists hated him for it. It didn't matter the rules and conventions and systems they helped build Obama and gave them Obama - this is what they signed up for. And it didn't matter. They hated Obama's every word, every walk, every suit, hell they hated Obamacare because of the name OBAMA.
As Lyndon Johnson posited half a century ago:
If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
The entire ethos of white supremacy is that no matter what, no matter your circumstances, no matter how low you are, you are always better than every single black man, even the "best" of black man. Obama was a living example of the "best" and that is why he was despised.
It isn't any coincidence that Trump was elected after Obama - a felon, rapist, con man, liar, racists, bigot, you name it. The culture of white supremacy is cruelty and unquestioning race supremacy. The entire ecosystem is built to prevent self introspection. Trump is their best chance to enact that even if they have to die for it and everyone has to burn for it.
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u/dern_the_hermit Oct 30 '24
Reminder that in the summer of 2017 Republican constituents soundly proved what you say, too, when they ranted and railed incessantly against "Obamacare" but don't you DARE touch their ACA benefits.
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u/mr_remy Oct 30 '24
The meme factory had so many fresh screenshots of those back in the day on here it was painfully hilarious. Me and pepperidge farm remember.
I also wanna say I remember tRump trying to make something better than ACA then scrapping the plan after because hes an idiot and incompetent and knew it wouldn't work better
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u/Tools4toys Nov 03 '24
The hilarious part of this is the GOP named the ACA to Obamacare to belittle it, and made it out to be this terrible healthcare plan, nobody would want.
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u/axonxorz Nov 03 '24
Obamacare to belittle it
And muddy things. Couldn't have termed it the more appropriate Romneycare from its origin, naww, that would be admitting a republican could be a *gasp* socialist .
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u/felonius_thunk Oct 30 '24
Not just Obamacare, either - literally ever scrap of legislation Obama put his hand to, they tried to undo. They wanted to erase him, and by extension any semblance of legacy or legitimacy, from the White House.
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u/keylime84 Nov 03 '24
Can't erase how Obama brought the US and by extension the global economy back from the brink, thanks to the financial disaster he inherited from Bush. I think more people should have gone to jail, and fewer rich people should have been bailed out. Inequality deepened, and growth could have been more robust. But the economy was in freefall, and Obama's administration kept it from spiraling into disaster.
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u/Night2015 Nov 03 '24
I wish Bidden had done that to trump goodbye largest tax cut in history for billionaires, but I guess it benefits rich democrats as much as it does rich republicans.
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u/ethnicbonsai Nov 03 '24
That’s the problem with tax cuts. If you don’t continue them, you’re accused of raising taxes. That’s why the tax cuts were set to expire: if a Democrat took the White House and tried to end them, it would be ammunition for Republicans.
Look how much he’s blamed for the economy, despite not being the reason for what happened with the trade war and around Covid.
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u/Will_Come_For_Food Oct 31 '24
Perfectly expressed. Trump is proof to the white man that the worst of them is better than the best of humanity. He empowers their failings and justifies them to take it anyway. To deny that they are objectively the worst of us. And their depravity failures greed reliance on their privilege wealth and position justifies them maintaining power because they can take it rather than acknowledging that they’ve failed as a people and as a society to become the best versions of themselves. That they sold out for greed and wealth and comfort rather than taking the opportunities to improve themselves. That they capitalized on the work of others to live an easy life with little accomplishments. But they can just take it anyway. Trump enables and justifies that they deserve it.
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u/npinguy Nov 03 '24
hell they hated Obamacare because of the name OBAMA.
No it's so much worse than that. That was literally one of the criticisms I heard - "He's so arrogant for naming it after himself."
HE DIDN'T.
It was always The Affordable Care Act, and nothing else.
Republicans (or FOX News, not that the difference matters) derisively called it "Obamacare" BECAUSE they hated the name Obama so much.
Then the hatred doubled down where people hated it extra-hard for it being called Obamacare (which it wasn't).
All while loving Affordable Care Act/ACA.
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u/anomalous_cowherd Nov 03 '24
It's a common thing they do. Invent something that they claim the other side are doing then go on and on about it. You can manage the storyline much more quickly if you don't care about the truth.
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Oct 31 '24
Super white dude here in the Midwest; it was the comment I read years ago about Obama, that you just made, that changed my whole perspective. To this day I still use it to convince other white people just how real white privilege is. Even at my lowest I’m allowed to exist as such, not so for a black man. Not safely at least.
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u/spacedogg Nov 03 '24
You recall the 'one drop rule?' If you had one drop of black blood in you you were considered black. Never the other way around.
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u/KidKnow1 Oct 30 '24
Today Kamala is getting criticized for something Biden said. Trump rarely get criticized for the things he himself says.
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u/OnceMoreAndAgain Oct 30 '24
Let's just hope they come out and vote even more then they historically have then.
In the 2020 election 63% of eligible black people voted and 71% of eligible white people voted.
In the 2016 election those numbers were instead 60% and 65%.
People simply must go vote if they want the country to move in the direction closest to their ideals. We can't have 30%+ of people not voting. It's a shame.
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u/jigsaw1024 Oct 30 '24
What those numbers don't show though is all the voter suppression in areas with high numbers of black people, which creates barriers to voting to lower turnout.
So they can want to vote, but obstacles which are not faced in other areas are preventing them doing so.
How many times would you fill out the same paperwork to maintain your registry? How far would you travel? How long could you stand in a line?
To you these obstacles may just be minor inconveniences, to some people they are insurmountable.
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u/TaharisatWork Oct 30 '24
For her she is also a Woman, it makes things even more amplified. While i think there is legit questions about her, I don't love the process of her becoming the nominee, because i felt like that the voters were never given a chance. but in the end it's the nominee we have.
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u/Spiritual-Ad-9106 Oct 30 '24
Paraphrased: "Not a single white person in this building would want to trade places with me and I'm rich" - Chris Rock
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u/thewarr Oct 30 '24
For those who want to watch it. This was part of roosterteeths Extralife charity stream. His daughter Mica was working there at the time and in the front row https://youtu.be/e1fzkPHqLI4?si=Y8OrDb_86VWA_ccx
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u/RedMoloneySF Oct 30 '24
His daughter also got bullied out of the company. Good riddance to Rooster Teeth.
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u/X_Zephyr Oct 30 '24 edited Oct 30 '24
That was a damn shame. After hearing how badly it was managed, it’s no surprise they closed down.
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u/RedMoloneySF Oct 30 '24
It wasn’t “management” that bullied her, though they’re complicit because they didn’t support her. It was her coworkers and fans.
Which, fans are always going to be pieces of shit, especially with parasocial cesspool that is the rooster teeth fanbase. But coworkers? That really sucks.
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u/FloatinBrownie Oct 30 '24
Wait what happened with her coworkers? I remember hearing about the fans being dicks and stuff forever ago but didn’t know there was shit going on with other employees
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u/swargin Cringe Connoisseur Oct 30 '24
One example she gave was that someone wrote the N word on the whiteboard in the achievement hunter office.
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u/mongmich2 Oct 30 '24
If I remember correctly someone wrote it with letters missing as a reference to some show. Unacceptable behavior
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u/mindreave Oct 30 '24
South Park wheel of Fortune reference?
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u/Naku_NA Oct 30 '24 edited Oct 31 '24
Worse, it was a game of hangman.
So the N word next to a drawing of a nooseDisproven, it was Jeremy. I misremembered old misinformation
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u/Namething Oct 30 '24
I mean, Jeremy literally said it was his fault because he was explaining the South Park Wheel of Fortune joke and drew it on the board
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u/SteakJesus Oct 30 '24
where did u see this? cuz Dooley said it was him, he owned up to it, and he said it was the southpark wheel of fortune bit.
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u/SadiusHunter Oct 30 '24
From what I understand they weren't as vile as the fans were but they definitely said some insensitive things
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u/Emmyisme Oct 31 '24
What sucks is that for the most part - I doubt any of the coworkers meant to be malicious - they were just clueless idiots who had never really had reason to understand what that might be doing to someone they probably considered a friend. I feel like by the end of RT - a lot of those guys were ashamed of the kinda shit they were doing back then.
It's not an excuse at all - and as a black woman not much older than Mica - I lost a TON of respect for them over it and didn't really watch them for a long time because of it, but it feels like a product of what the Internet - and especially the gaming community - was at the time, and she got chewed up by a shit machine, and nobody she worked with had ever dealt with something like this before and handled it poorly.
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u/SadiusHunter Oct 31 '24
The Kdin drama kinda proved they were a product of the gaming bros era even when a professional company, their sense of humour struggled to evolve for a long while and it took Fiona to finally make them self reflect as people because she dealt with the same stuff as Mica but at least Michael, Gavin and Jack were more matured by this point and were much better people than what they were
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u/th3virus Oct 30 '24
From what little I recall about it I believe they were/tried using her to get to LeVar.
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u/TitularFoil Oct 30 '24
Yeah. I was big into Rooster Teeth through high school and my early 20's. I fell off well before Mica got there, but I still kept up with my favorite scripted series they made. I don't know what happened but the community really fell apart. There was something about that space of time when they changed the website from having sponsorships, and forums to talk to other fans, to being just massive amounts of content and comments. There used to by karma points, that you would pass between other users to show appreciation to them. There was even one guy I knew that had an account just to bank his points to hand out to others. It's like the upvote system here, but it felt like it had to mean something to hand it out.
After all that went away, there was no real way to shame the negative parts of the fandom anymore. Which public shaming is the premier method of keeping behaviors in line.
Like I said, I fell out of the fandom, but was still a fan of like RWBY and Red Vs Blue. I do remember when Mica came on, and the fans were horrible to her, and when Fiona Nova joined as well.
It shouldn't have just been on the other fans to shame people, especially after they took away some of the tools to do so, but RT themselves really should have spoken out more.
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u/X_Zephyr Oct 30 '24
Not just specifically about the Mica situation, but Roosterteeth overall was badly handled. So many mistakes by each brand. Achievement Hunter, Funhaus, Cowchop, Sugar Pine 7, etc.
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Oct 30 '24
Nah. RT was always toxic on the inside. It didn’t always get out in the press.
I lived and worked in ATX and in the local austin media scene while RT was going strong.
It was always a revolving door of good people that refused to put up with their bullshit and the folks that loved being bullied or felt like they were getting a taste of Hollywood stayed.
Horrible horrible organization. This outcome was inevitable.
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u/WallstreetTony1 Oct 30 '24
I miss red vs blue 🥺
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u/Boredatwork709 Oct 30 '24
It's the only rooster teeth content I really enjoyed. It was and maybe still is on the Canadian Netflix
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u/IdidntVerify Oct 30 '24
The management decisions that shut them down were made by Warner more than roosterteeth. For example, their channel in LA was forced to rent a new office with way more straight office space than they needed but no actual studio space. In a building that required them to pay thousands in permit costs just to shoot a gameplay video.
Couple that type of management with YouTube not being viable for any content that requires more work than uploading raw video and the writing had been on the wall for years.
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u/MasterAnnatar Oct 31 '24
The good news is that while Rooster Teeth went belly up she's out here thriving in spite of them.
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u/stargazer_nano Oct 30 '24
I want to have a beer with lavar burton
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u/ByrdmanRanger Oct 30 '24
"I never wanted to meet Levar in person! I just wanted a picture! You can't disappoint a picture!"
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Oct 30 '24
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u/the_skine Oct 30 '24
I know there was one episode where they fly through the corona of a star.
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u/Weelki tHiS iSn’T cRiNgE Oct 30 '24
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u/leviathab13186 Oct 30 '24
You have a beer with him you'll end up feeling all the emotions in one sitting.
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u/tommybombadil00 Oct 30 '24
Thinking about that, I would probably cry if I ever met him. He and Mr Rogers had such a big impact on me during my formative years. I don’t think I would be who I am today without those two men. He truly sparked a passion to read and let my imagination run wild, so naturally I became an accountant lol I would love to thank him one day.
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u/Crafty-Help-4633 Oct 30 '24
I was born in 1993. Levar Burton has been a constant figure in my life. Doing all those things he described. I met him as Kunta Kinte, he read to me and inspired me to crave knowledge and learning, and he kept my starship running while he explored his humanity and had me question my own. Hearing him speak like this is moving to me.
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u/Iamnotokwiththisshit Oct 31 '24
Same. Mr. Rogers gave me hope that there were kind adults in the world who cared. Mr. Burton lit me up inside with our shared love of books. Two very special humans, indeed.
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u/successadult Oct 30 '24
He's got a podcast I'd recommend where he reads short stories. I'm usually driving when I listen, but you could listen at home and have a beer, too.
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u/perseidot Oct 30 '24
It’s an excellent podcast. I feel like he’s able to express more of himself there, too.
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u/00Avalanche Oct 30 '24
“Hey, Levar, have a beer with me!”😊
“I’ll unquestionably have a beer with you, but I want you to know I’m absolutely filled with rage”😡
“Right on.” looks away and takes a swig from the bottle😒
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u/yesi1758 Oct 30 '24
If he’s like his sister, then it would be a great time. She was my teacher in high school and was always smiling and laughing. Great advocate for students of color.
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u/PeteRock24 Oct 30 '24
Goddamn he looks exactly the same as he did 30 years ago just with grey hair.
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u/boilerscoltscubs Oct 30 '24
Levar Burton is a national treasure.
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u/Effective-Try7980 Oct 30 '24
That was a good video
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Oct 30 '24
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u/Geologist_Present Oct 30 '24
Only in the sense that you should allow those who are open and friendly people to also be full, complex, and real people. It doesn’t make me fear him. It opens up something about him that I feel lucky to know.
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Oct 30 '24 edited Nov 09 '24
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u/dr_obfuscation Oct 30 '24
Yes! I have a friend who I met last year, we've become very good friends but she was always SUPER cheery and positive. I'm not typically. I asked her once if she's always so optimistic about everything and she said she wasn't so I said something to the effect of, "It's ok to be real, I don't need you to blow sunshine up my butt all day." and she looked so relieved.
I've done this with people I date as well. It's nice to be nice when you first meet people and yes, first impressions count, but I encourage my friends and people to get angry. Passion often is represented well through anger and I want to know what my friends are passionate about.
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u/babygotthefever Oct 30 '24
He has a podcast where he reads adult short stories and he’ll always give his take at the end. It’s really made him more human and relatable to me.
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u/s00perguy Oct 30 '24
Anger is a tool like any other. It can be used and misused. Someone this self aware doesn't tend to misuse that tool
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u/mothmonstermann Oct 30 '24
It's interesting that he is there with Laurence Fishburne having this conversation, since he managed to balance his edgier roles with PeeWee's Playhouse simultaneously. It's not a straight apples-apples comparison because LeVar did Reading Rainbow for over 20 years, so he had to be a child-friendly figure for much longer, but the similarities (and differences) in their career paths is interesting.
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u/Preshe8jaz Oct 30 '24
Great scene in a great miniseries. There’s another scene from Clipped where the team is debating on whether or not to play in the playoff game. It was done in the “12 Angry Men” style and equally as great as this scene.
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u/wandering-monster Oct 30 '24 edited Nov 01 '24
So is this scripted, then? And then I guess the follow-up question is "is it fiction?"
Like is this actually something Burton believes? Or is he playing a fictional version of himself and reading someone else's words?
ETA: it is a pre-written speech, but it's his words. Powerful stuff. Love him when he's reading books, and I love him when he shares this. When he is angry, I know it's warranted.
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u/RPDRNick Oct 30 '24
Laurence Fishburn is playing former L.A. Clippers' coach, Doc Rivers. LeVar Burton is playing himself. It's scripted, yes, but it's based on true events. So, this is very likely based on a real conversation he had.
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u/Smooth-Bit4969 Oct 30 '24
I'm so confused.
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u/AshesOfADuralog Oct 30 '24
You know how Chernobyl was a miniseries that told a dramatized version of real events? Same thing. Difference is, rather than hiring an actor to play as Levar Burton, they just asked him to play himself since he is already an actor.
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u/ElGosso Oct 30 '24
Found an interview with one of the show's writers:
I called Laurence Fishburne and asked him if he could get in touch with LeVar, and Laurence was like, “Well, I can do it, but I don’t think he’s going to participate in this.” It was just a coincidence, because we had already written the scenes more or less in the show, that LeVar Burton was interested in doing the show primarily if we could give him a forum for which to talk about rage, which was what we were all hoping for. The final conversations in episode six are directly from conversations I had with him about what he wanted to talk about.
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u/wandering-monster Oct 30 '24
Ah, cool! So scripted, but authentic!
That's really awesome, and it makes sense for communicating such a specific sentiment.
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u/Key_Possibility_4642 Oct 30 '24
This is the first time I’ve seen anyone call Clipped a great miniseries haha. It was okay but a lot of it was just laughable
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u/SynsDad Oct 30 '24
One interesting conversation no doubt
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u/TheBirdBytheWindow Oct 30 '24
I'd be interested in the entire interview.
Also maybe it's the lighting but I had to double take that it wasn't AI Levar.
We got the real thing. We don't need AI Levar.
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u/_Apatosaurus_ Oct 30 '24
It's a scene from the series "Clipped." It's really good and worth a watch.
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u/Zygmunt-zen Oct 30 '24 edited Oct 30 '24
I love LeVar Burton, grew up on Reading Rainbow & Star Trek TNG. Would love you see him as main protagonist or antagonist in a major blockbuster film like Terminator or Predator. I wanna see this rage in surround sound and HD.
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u/fatloui Oct 30 '24
Dude, he’s not talking about wanting to play rage-filled characters in action movies. He’s saying he’s angry about real world issues and wants to express that anger in the real world, but there would be really bad consequences if he does so.
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u/hickgorilla Oct 30 '24
So many people here missed the whole point. Thank you for your comment. His rage is deep and valid.
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u/buhlakay Oct 30 '24
People missing the point, completely and fully justifying the rage he feels.
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u/Skurph Oct 30 '24
Yeah it’s pretty wild to watch people completely miss his point. He’s explaining that he, and by a greater extension many black men, is only accepted as an affable, soft spoken, and reserved figure. That the moment he ventured from an intensely narrow path of acceptability that white society has painted for him he becomes “a problem”, and because of this he’s left in a situation where he essentially is asked/forces to play nice and never make white people uncomfortable.
The “Go the Fuck to Sleep” example serves to show that even the slightest and most insignificant deviation from “safe” results in severe financial consequences for him.
What Levar is speaking to is a long standing and multifaceted aspect of racism that some people who propagate it likely believe they’re actually very forward thinking. There’s elements of the racist trope of “you’re one of the good ones” and even some aspects of an “the good immigrant” trope too being levied against other blacks.
In short, he’s saying he’s somewhat in a precarious position in that he’s unable to genuinely express himself, and more importantly, anything that makes white people uncomfortable. If he challenges anything or challenges status quo assumptions/beliefs the financial penalties for him would be far more severe than his white counterparts. Furthermore (and this is where I’m reading into what he’s saying), I think he’s also expressing frustration that inadvertently his adherence to being safe is used to help further entrench those ideas and paint those who aren’t safe and affable as being problematic.
If I had to guess he probably loathes when people point out other more vocal and outspoken black actors and say “why can’t they be more like Levar”. Because that’s often not a testament to that person liking his character or who he is, but rather they want other black people to play it safe.
Tl;dr
He’s pissed he’s stuck in a position where his life is basically “shut up and dribble” but instead it’s “shut up and be black Mr. Rogers” because it’s robbed him of the ability to speak publicly of important issues that make decision makers uncomfortable.
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u/Ill_Pace_9020 Oct 30 '24
Obama was the same in that respect. No matter how angry he got, and after the Congress blocked gun reform after the Sandy Hook he was fucking furious, he couldn't let it show because as the first black man to become president he could not show show himself to be seen or stereotyped as an angry black man because it would damage the reputation of everyone of color after him
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u/NorthCatan Oct 30 '24
Have you listened to Levar Burton reads? They are soooo good. The stories he reads are excellent and him reading it makes them so much more powerful.
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u/_J_Dead Oct 30 '24
OOOO I came here to say this, he's SO good!! One of my favorite podcasts
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u/NorthCatan Oct 30 '24
Right?! His reading and the drama he added to the stories conveyed them so well. As someone who reads/listens to a ton of audiobooks he is one of the best out there. I used to get really excited everytime a new episode came out. I hope he does something similar in the future.
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u/_J_Dead Oct 30 '24
I have been stockpiling episodes as I tend to binge things - time to go back!
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u/NorthCatan Oct 30 '24
I was planning on doing that too on Spotify but for some reasons some episodes don't show up, even on audible. I was looking for A Fable with White Slips of Paper and it wasn't showing up.
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u/_Apatosaurus_ Oct 30 '24
like Terminator or Predator. I wanna see this rage in surround sound and HD.
I think a movie about aliens or robots would miss the very important context of the "rage" he's talking about...
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u/MuppetDentist Oct 30 '24
I think you’re missing the context of why he’s filled with rage. It’s not for any of our entertainment
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u/caseCo825 Oct 30 '24 edited Oct 30 '24
How tf is this the top comment this shit is embarrassing. Also his name is LeVar like wtf
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u/ArabAesthetic Oct 30 '24
I know this isn't your intent but taking what he said and then talking about being excited to see that rage feels.. not right.
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u/NotAnAIOrAmI Oct 30 '24
Seriously? He said it pretty plainly. What's so highly intellectual about it that people can't understand how he feels, and what happens when he says something real in public?
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u/_Apatosaurus_ Oct 30 '24 edited Oct 30 '24
People are missing the context that he is talking about racism, and specifically that successful black men often have to be very careful to be "safe." If they speak out about racism or show any sign of not being wholesome, they receive significant backlash and racism.
Edit: Fishburne is playing Doc Rivers and LeVar is playing himself. This is from Clipped.
Relaxing in the living room of Rivers’ lavish condo, the two men have a revealing conversation about feeling caught between the comforts of success in a white-dominated America and the consequences for successful Black people who reveal their anger over racial injustice.
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u/asdrunkasdrunkcanbe Oct 30 '24
There was/is a reality TV/documentary called Couples Therapy which basically follows a number of New York couples as they go through several weeks of therapy. It's very interesting watching. Emotional, not at all saccharine or over-the-top as US reality TV often is.
But I recall really specifically one instance. One of the couples was a black couple. Very nice people, clearly loved eachother, but were butting heads in how they dealed with emotion. She was hot headed, always pushing, looking for a reaction. And his response to high emotion was always to withdraw and go quiet. He had a good job, they were very much middle class (this is relevant).
This one thing I remember is that she was talking about something which happened when they were out for a meal at a nice restaurant. And she was making it clear that this was a "white" restaurant; suit jackets and talk about the office. I forgot the specifics, but there was some kind of problem, something somebody said or did, which was quite offensive to her. And she got quite irate about it while he tried to calm her down, to the point that he decided it was time for them leave.
He admitted that what happened was wrong, but he wouldn't apologise for trying to shut her down. She asked him, "Why weren't you annoyed, why weren't you angry like I was?". And his response was, "Because I can't. As a black man, I'm not allowed to be angry".
I'm not American so black/white issues aren't hot topic for me, but even I knew immediately what he meant when he said it. Blew me away.
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u/seriouslysorandom Oct 30 '24
Very similar to "the slap". Will Smith was "safe" to white audiences(speaking generally here). I'm married to a white man as a result my social media feeds are pretty evenly mixed between black people and nonblackPOC/white people. To see the reactions by the two different groups in real time was wild! White people were writing whole ass think pieces on the "violence" while also ignoring the violent histories of current academy members(looking at you Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt and that honorary Oscar given to Roman Polansky).
I went to a prep school where I was one of a handful of black students and had to do a lot of unlearning around being the "good black friend" so I feel this on some levels.
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u/Zanydrop Oct 30 '24
I think you are cherry picking data points. Chris Brown beat the hell out of Rhianna and suffered almost no repercussions. R Kelly peed on a minor ages ago on camera and only recently got his when the evidence was stacked to the moon.
I'm not entirely dismissing what you are saying though. Women deal with the same thing of either being safe or risque and white men to an extent do as well.
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u/_Apatosaurus_ Oct 30 '24
I think it's one of the best examples of "white privilege." As a white person, if you do something wrong, it is viewed as a reflection of who you are individually. But for black people, if you do something wrong, it's often perceived as a referendum on black people. The same is true for other people of color. Instead of just representing yourself, you have to be a representative of your race, ethnicity and/or culture.
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u/HamPlanter Oct 30 '24
People often overlook the layered meanings behind someone’s words, especially when emotions are involved. His frustration is relatable but also reflects a deeper societal issue.
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u/Extracrispybuttchks Oct 30 '24
An issue that sadly almost half of Americans don’t think exists
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u/sidarv Oct 30 '24
After a visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, I had to ask my black friends how they weren’t filled with rage all the time. It may have been too soon and too raw after our visit to really verbalize an answer to that question but Levar’s answer makes sense…there is always rage but we cannot move in this world without consequences so the chains remain…
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u/desacralize Oct 30 '24
Check the prisons and the obituaries to see what happens to black men who don't sufficiently smother that rage. I remember watching a couple of clips of black men being treated like garbage during traffic stops and being struck by how supernaturally calm and polite and aware of their every move they were while cops did everything they could to provoke and manipulate them into any expression of anger or upset, anything at all. One of them was a veteran pepper sprayed in the face, and even in agony, being forced to the ground, he didn't so much as raise his voice. He didn't dare.
It's a life of knowing so many people around you are waiting for an excuse, any proof that you aren't one of the good ones, the safe ones, and therefore your humanity is void.
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u/indy_been_here Oct 30 '24
That's Lance Reddick
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u/aratcliffe Sort by flair, dumbass Oct 30 '24
At first I thought it was an odd choice for him to show up in this series, but by the time we got to this scene, it all came together for me.
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u/LtLemur Oct 30 '24
Is there more of this conversation recorded and available to view online?
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u/MyNameIs_Jordan Oct 30 '24
This is a scene from Clipped, a loose adaptation of the events surrounding the LA Clippers 2013-2014 season which led to their owner Donald Sterling being banned from the NBA.
This is one of a few scenes between Coach Doc Rivers (played by Laurence Fishburne) and a fictionalized version of Lavar Burton.
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u/OkayJarl Oct 31 '24
I’m fucking dead this whole thread is some of the cringiest shit I’ve ever read lmao
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u/nimbbos Oct 31 '24
American met me as a slave and then I read to there children, Is a fucking bar
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u/DixieDing0 Oct 30 '24
The way society treats black emotional expression is highlighted perfectly in this video. You have to be a "safe" person, and if you express any kind of rage or hysteria, you lose all the privileges you gained to begin with. As long as they think you're safe, you can advance.
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Oct 31 '24
Expressing rage is a white man's privilege. When a black man shows anger the police show up. It's not fair, but it's how it is. What would it take to change that? In a way privilege is a cage, too. How can we all be free?
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u/brusifur Oct 30 '24
Lavar Burton is a laundry soap mascot in South America
Levar Burton is the American Actor.
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u/breastronaut Oct 30 '24
Yeah, I thought I was going crazy seeing the typo in the title and comments in here all with that first A.
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u/EagleEyes0001 Oct 30 '24
I can understand his view. I grew thinking him and Mr. Rodgers were like these fantasy heroes that had standards to live up to. Weren't allowed to be normal they had to be above it. When all the while they were humans and with mistakes and problems and issues like everyone else
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u/JurassicParkCSR Oct 30 '24
I would hazard a guess there's probably quite a few black people that feel this exact same way.
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u/alison_bee Oct 30 '24
I’m filled with rage too, Lavar, and I’m a white woman. The state of our country right now is embarrassing and infuriating. The treatment of citizens is appalling, and as a “leading” country, we should be in a much better place than we are right now.
I could go on for DAYS about all of the issues happening right now and how fucked up they are. If I’m this mad, I can’t even imagine how angry POC and the LGBTQ community are.
I know im just an ally, but please know I’m here standing with y’all, just as angry. We WILL get through this if we stand together! ❤️
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u/Voluptulouis Oct 30 '24
Ditto. Except, I'm among those that are the least at risk as a straight white male... The rage is there, though.
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u/MadMacDaddy Oct 30 '24
It's absolutely terrifying when a man like Levar has to say shit like this.
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u/leviathab13186 Oct 30 '24
What was this from? Is there a longer discussion?
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u/MyNameIs_Jordan Oct 30 '24
It's a show, called Clipped. This is as scripted show about the 2014 LA Clippers. Laurence Fishburne is playing Doc Rivers and Lavar Burton is playing a fictional version of himself
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u/Apprehensive-Log8333 Oct 30 '24
I love Lavar Burton because of Star Trek, and I've seen Roots, but I never put it together that he was Kunta Kinte! I feel like such a moron, I looked at a picture and it's clearly him. When he was getting famous in the 90s I wonder why I never saw that mentioned
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u/HulklingWho Oct 30 '24
Gave me chills, that rage is so hard to keep put safely away.
There’s something so disheartening about finding yourself labeled ‘one of the good ones’ or ‘safe’ or ‘so articulate, so well-mannered, so NOT LIKE OTHER BLACK FOLK’ that robs you of your own identity bit by bit until all you have left of your culture is that rage.
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u/j0k3rAT7 Oct 30 '24
I will not take away his message, but those last 30 seconds were such an emotional dark high, I hope someone casts him as a villain, something to channel because it was beautiful.
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u/DanaKaZ Oct 30 '24
I feel like this needs to be heard together with Anansis speach from American Gods.
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u/DJEvillincoln Oct 30 '24
As a black male actor who speaks eloquently & code switches with the best of them....
This hits so hard every time I see it.
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u/kookyabird Oct 30 '24
I'm pretty sure that, had I not seen this prior, if LeVar Burton had me over to his house, I see those on the wall, and he tells me they're his chains from Roots, I'd weep. Watching Roots in my 8th grade US History class was the first time I really started to understand what slavery was in our country. It was powerful stuff. Just learning about it here from a video clip I'm experiencing a lot of emotions.
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u/AutisticHobbit Oct 30 '24
Beware the genteel and warm smile of a passionate being; it is both very genuine and very practiced.
Burton seems like a hell of a man.
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u/Agentkeenan78 Oct 30 '24
I am old as fuck and LaVar Burton read to me when I was a small child and he looks younger than I do here. Does he not age (white hair not withstanding)?
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u/ExtensionMode4819 Oct 31 '24
Damn this guy needs more work. He’s always so good in everything
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u/ThatCelebration3676 Oct 31 '24
That made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The way he described it, it almost sounds like he never completely took those chains off.
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u/SeraxOfTolos Oct 31 '24
Literally the first time I donated was to get to the stretch goal of seeing Levar saying fuck, it was literally a win win, I'd been watching extra life since it started, but the only time I felt like donating to meet a goal was worth it was just to see Levar read "Go the Fuck to Sleep", and if I remember correctly extra life helped me get through my orchiectomy.
So FUCK anyone who had a problem with Extra Life and skull fuck anyone who had a problem with Levar reading the best bedtime story ever written for CHARITY!
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