Shirley Q. Liquor is a fat black woman played for laughs by Charles Knipp, a gay white man. He performs his one-man show mainly in gay bars throughout the American South. He is also on radio and the Internet.
Shirley Q. Liquor has has 19 children, speaks bad English, drinks malt liquor, drives a Cadillac and lives off government benefits. She has daughters with names like Chlamydia and Kmartina.
It is all a stereotype about black women: the welfare queen. It pictures black women as having little intelligence, money or willingness to work hard.
Knipp is doing what is known as blackface. Since the early 1800s whites have been painting their faces black and playing black people for laughs. I thought this stuff died out in the 1960s along with Jim Crow. Apparently not.
Protesters were able to shut down some performances in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere, but as of 2008 Shirley Q. Liquor is still alive and well in the gay bars of the South. Knipp has been doing the Liquor character for about ten years.
Jasmyne Cannick, Bev Smith and others are sickened by what Knipp is doing. Cannick is trying to shut him down for good. She has an online petition to sign.
Cannick says that Knipp puts down black women.
But Knipp says he honours them, that black people are “more than intelligent enough to discern the nuance,” that many of them like his show.
One of them is RuPaul, a gay black man. He says this:
Critics who think that Shirley Q. Liquor is offensive are idiots. Listen, I’ve been discriminated against by everybody in the world: gay people, black people, whatever. I know discrimination, I know racism, I know it very intimately. She’s not racist, and if she were, she wouldn’t be on my new CD.
I am one of those idiots who missed the subtle nuance. I did not see anything to laugh at. Knipp is tasteless and mean-spirited.
Yet I loved Madea, a big black woman played by Tyler Perry. He is a straight black man.
So is that it? Are those who do not laugh at Liquor the true racists?
No. Imagine if Tyler Perry played Shirley Q. Liquor the way Knipp has. We would still be asked to laugh at black women as having little education or money, as speaking bad English and not working hard.
Most black women are not like that. For them it is a put down – one of many, so it is not a matter of “lightening up”. And for those black women who do have little money or education, it is just plain mean to make them a laughingstock because of it.
That is bad enough. But knowing that Knipp is white makes it that much worse. The humour is no longer just mean but racist too.
He would have never done this to his own mother. Or the Jews.
See also:
Amen. Mr. Knipp doesn’t get it. Blackface performance is still racist, esp. when he performs them in a hateful, demeaning way. Mr. Knipp insults Black women that is far worse than Imus. But, then again, academia, media pundits, Hollywood executives and producers, and politicians gain milege on producing hateful, degrading stereotypes of Black women. Clarence Thomas and his honchos degrade Black women, esp. during the 1991 Thomas/Hill saga, Bill Clinton puts down Sister Souljah during his 1992 campaign for the White House. Jeb Bush told mainly Black women who were on welfare to find husbands. Senator Robert Bennett of Utah suggest that a Black woman with an out of wedlock child would ruin the Bush presidency back in 1999. Mr. Knipp is no different from these people above.
I’m glad people are seeing who Shirley Q. Liquor really is and are protesting that degraded stereotype of Black women.
Shirley Q. Liquor needs to go!
Stephanie B.
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Stephanie, thanks for pointing Shirley Q Liquor out to me. I had no idea that this sort of thing still went on. I thought I was born too late in history.
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So, is it illegal to tell the truth in this country? This guy is so dead-on in his portrayal and nuance that I thought this was an older black lady for the longest time. I grew up around these folks, and I bet any of them with an ounce of sense of humor would find it funny.
Is it racist when Eddie Murphy does his Jewish or Italian impersonations? No, it’s funny. Is it racist when countless people make fun of rednecks, the only demographic group in the USA without a special-interest lobby?
Stereotypes exist for a reason, and that’s because there is at least some truth in them.
You folks that are “offended” need to get a life.
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Shirley is awesome. Very funny stuff.
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I remeber seeing it on youtube and think what the hell? Ru Pual I like him but he is silly for saying that so becasue the both of them are friends he can’t possibly be racist? I kiss my teeth to that. Maybe he does not see it as racist becasue it does not harm him personally becasue he is making fun of Black women and not Black men or gay Black men.
How is is it nuance? I know a minstrel show when I see one. This why I get vexed when people bring up the whole gay is the new Black bull, like gay people are incapable of being racist. Here in the UK gay Asians are experiencing a lot of racism for gay Whites verbal and physical violence.People think that just becasue someone is discriminated for one thing they will understand but that is not always the case.
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WTF. Seriously? What a shame.
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I agree with Aiyo as well. I’m getting tired of gays pulling on the fact that they are gay as an excuse to disrespect other groups. Also being gay and being black(or non-white) are NOT one in the same. LET ME REPEAT:BEING GAY IS NOT THE SAME AS BEING BLACK! Gays can chose whether they want to reveal their sexual orientation, however, I can’t ‘hide’ the fact that I’m black.
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Amen.
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Y says,
I agree with Aiyo as well. I’m getting tired of gays pulling on the fact that they are gay as an excuse to disrespect other groups. Also being gay and being black(or non-white) are NOT one in the same. LET ME REPEAT:BEING GAY IS NOT THE SAME AS BEING BLACK! Gays can chose whether they want to reveal their sexual orientation, however, I can’t ‘hide’ the fact that I’m black.
laromana says,
Y, I totally agree with you. It REALLY ANGERS me when I hear PC talk that IMPLIES that, in America, BEING GAY is the SAME as BEING BLACK.
I have LONG TIME, NON-BLACK gay friends and when I compare the discrimination I’ve faced ALL MY LIFE as a BW in America vs. what they’ve faced for being gay, the difference is like NIGHT and DAY.
ANTI-BLACK RACISM has NEGATIVELY affected/INTERFERED with EVERY AREA of my life.
This HAS NOT been the case for my NON-BLACK gay friends since MOST people won’t AUTOMATICALLY DISCRIMINATE against them for being gay (unless they REVEAL this aspect of their identity) while MANY ANTI-BLACK RACISTS people will DISCRIMATE against me because they can SEE I’m a BW .
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I see this is an old post, but what a disgusting act! Knipp appears to be still going strong. Where is the outrage?
On a smaller scale, however, I have perceived racism as a major problem in the drag community for a long time. I’m a white woman actively involved in LGBTQI issues. I hate to see being LGBT treated the same as being a POC. Being gay does not give one a free pass to promote racism.
Anyway, I mostly just wanted to thank you for your blog. I’ve been lurking for a while. I find it very enlightening.
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hysterical. daughters named Chlamydia and Kmartina…classic. i love stereotypical humor…and guess what…so do you, you bunch of hypocrits.
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@lucius: If you enjoy unoriginal attacks on groups of people, why don’t you just own that instead of having to pretend others like it, too?
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liza, i don’t pretend..i know. lots of people like racial humor, myself included. i don’t catagorize humor. if it is funny, i laugh, if it isn’t, i don’t. guess what…so do you. so go boo-hoo somewhere else.
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lucius,
why don’t you go and enjoy your racist humor somewhere else.
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Aiyo, i do enjoy racial humor somewhere else…that would be YOUTUBE, TV, DVD’s, Cinena, etc. Knipp is doing racial satire…you fail to understand that. In fact, I wonder if you have a sense of humor at all, seeing that you want to dictate who can say what about whom, in what context, in what setting, and in what medium. If it offends your tender sensibilities, then it must be racist and shut down. Shame on you. That is the mentality of the book burners.
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” Yet I loved Madea, a big black woman played by Tyler Perry. He is a straight black man ”
Really, I found her to be annoying more than anything. Madea came off as a modern day Mammie. I mean, come on, she looks like a light skinned version of Mammy Two-Shoes off of Tom & Jerry. Agabond, how do feel about it when black comics( Katt Willams, Eddie Murphy) makes jokes about gays and openply says its wrong?
One of my best friends is a non-black transgender person and I tell you from experience that she was harrassed on a daily basis. Her boss would make horrible remarks about to the point that she wanted to kill herself. She was also harassed by blacks and threat with her life. there are countries were people can killed for being gay or bi. As a black women, yes, there is alot of basis out there, but it’s the worst thing in the world. i don’t understand when anybody other than bp talk what they go though, they pull the “We have it worse” thing. I don’t know. i don’t get. Everyone has different experiences with racism.
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Edit : As a black women, yes, there is alot of racism and hatred towards us out there, but it’s not the worst thing in the world. I don’t understand when anybody other than bp talk what they go though, they pull the “We have it worse” thing. I don’t know. I don’t get. Everyone has different experiences with racism.
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I had to come back to this. I find this so ironic. Another marginalized person lampooning another marginalized person. And the doing a minstrel show and it’s very racist. All kinds of negative stereotypes about black people. I find this character very offensive. It’s not funny at all.
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*And then doing a minstrel show with offensive stereotypes.
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Racist stereotypes about Black women.
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Reblogged this on Steph's Blog and commented:
Mr. Knipp doesn’t get it. Blackface performance is still racist, esp. when he performs them in a hateful, demeaning way. Mr. Knipp insults Black women that is far worse than Imus, barring Trump. But, then again, academia, media pundits, Hollywood executives and producers, and politicians gain mileage on producing hateful, degrading stereotypes of Black women. Clarence Thomas and his honchos degrade Black women, esp. during the 1991 Thomas/Hill saga, Bill Clinton puts down Sister Souljah during his 1992 campaign for the White House. Jeb Bush told mainly Black women who were on welfare to find husbands. The late suspected white supremacist Senator Robert Bennett of Utah suggest that a Black woman with an out of wedlock child would ruin the Bush presidency back in 1999. Mr. Knipp is no different from these people above.
I’m glad people are seeing who Shirley Q. Liquor really is and are protesting that degraded stereotype of Black women.
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@ reynagirl14 aka Stephanie B.
Knipp does “get it”. Bigots like him and his audiences (including RuPaul) know exactly what they are doing. Being White and gay (or even Black and gay) still means you enjoy male privilege.
Putting down White women is a no-no in this culture, but it is always open season on Black women.
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