It's good to remember in our attempt to simplify that, as Q points out, no race, political or religious persuasion is monolithic. That's why Azizi never claims to speak for blacks, or African Americans. You can use works like, "some," "alot," "many," or "most" for any group of people but never a blanket statement. Unless you're talking about a blanket, of course. I find it much more helpful to try to understand why people think and feel about issues as they do, without slipping in to generalities. I know some blacks who got a big kick out of Amos and Andy, and some who liked Brer' Rabbit and Song Of The South. That doesn't prove anything, either.... I can understand why blacks would find the black image presented in movies and music and literature for so many years grossly offensive. I find it offensive, and I'm not black. But, I'm human and I find demeaning images of other humans offensive.. whether it's blacks, Jews or native Americans.
I regret that the Brer' Rabbit stories were put in the framework of a fictional character that makes the stories less accessible to people who find Uncle Remus an offensive stereotype.
And Azizi: being a puny little white kid who suffered from endless ridicule and getting beaten up, I loved the character of Uncle Remus. I didn't think about whether he was an accurate representation of black males in the years immediately after slavery. I loved him because he was a wise, positive, loving man. His being black wasn't an issue for me.
You want to get offended, look at the words to Stay In Your Own Back Yard. My Mother sang that song to me, my sisters and all her grandchildren and greatgrandchildren and we heard it as a compassionate, loving bit of advice that we all could relate to. The fact that it used racial terms would make the song so offensive now that no one could sing it. But, the song was so loving (I thought) that as much as anything, it led me to feel an empathy and a brotherhood with blacks. I knew what it felt like to be ridiculed and devalued. I didn't know what it was like to be black, and still don't, but I knew how much it hurt to feel rejected and worthless.
A black minister asked me a few years ago how I ended up in a black church and was so comfortable there. I said that I felt right at home, and I immediately thought of my Mother singing Stay In Your Own Back Yard to me.
Sometimes, the meaning of a word is in how it is used. I've joked with Ministers that you can say "Jesus Christ" followed by every obscenity known to man, and a lot of people aren't offended by it. Say "I love Jesus Christ," and some people start attacking you, saying that you're proselytizing.