At least a half dozen people have written in to say that I may have been a little too hard on Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder in my post the other day. His strip’s “Jacob the Jeweler” reference, which I took to be a thinly veiled Jewish-interloper gag, actualditily refers to a real-life Jeweler to the Hip-Hop Stars. Apparently the guy was mentioned by a lot of mc’s this past year. The gist, as my Trusty Correspondents see it, is that McGruder is mocking not the intrusion of Jewishness into an African-American tradition, but the ominpresence of over-the-top materialism in said tradition. In that sense it’s of a piece with the rim shop and liquor ads McGruder lampoons as well. My bad for not catching the reference–I don’t get any music channels on TV, and I stay about as far away from the bling-bling rappers as physics allows.
About the argument itself: I buy it. A little bit. But here’s the thing: If you look at the wording of the cartoon, Jacob the Jeweler is referred to, clearly with sarcastic intent, as “a proud African-American tradition.” In other words, it’s ethnicity being contrasted, not excess versus genuine holiday spirit or whatever else.
Clearly he’s targeting the meaningless glorification of status symbols, which is admirable, but to me, at least, it appears that he’s targeting more than that.
(I promise I won’t be courting controversy by picking at political cartoonists all the time. I’ll be talking about manga and Brian Bendis again in no time, I swear.)