''I'm not a cultural translator."
Added 2019-12-11 18:16:24 +0000 UTCDespite such ostracism, McGruder describes his work as ''telling jokes about black people to black people,'' stressing that he is not another African-American come to explain black folkways to a wider, whiter audience. ''I'm not a cultural translator,'' he insists. '
'White folks can run along and catch up. If they get it, that's fine. This strip shows them how much they don't know about black people, but it doesn't teach them about black people.''
SOURCE: https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/24/magazine/the-equal-opportunity-offender.html
With everything going on regarding the artist NoName, I figure this would be an interesting quote to put out there, in terms of dealing with white shadows. It sounds rough, but black people, as a collective, need to be a lot less fixated on the white people watching.
This is another excerpt that I think people would be interested in reading:
McGruder offers some sympathy to his black critics—but not much. "The criticism from blacks, I take very seriously, no matter how off-the-wall it is," McGruder says. "It's not that I don't believe stereotypes are out there...[but] I believe that a healthy black person, a truly healthy black person, has a complete and total disregard for what white people think—and that's when you've achieved equality....It is not my job to break down [the white community's] stereotypes."
