#398: Topher Florence, "Some of My Best Friends are Black" (2010)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUc0vbSlanM

I warned y'all up front that I, unlike a real rock critic, will periodically declare -- not just declare, defend -- the greatness I perceive in some goofy novelty song or other. I haven't done that to you until now, but we might as well dive in at the deep end. "Some of My Best Friends are Black" is a hip-hop song by nobody I've ever heard of; or as portrayed, a hip-hop song by an argumentative computer refuting the nobody-I've-ever-heard-of's offhand dismissal of a TV show. The computer briefly describes, in rhyme, each of the two dozen black characters to have a speaking part in the 10-season run of the sitcom Friends. For extra topicality, the song came out six years after Friends was canceled.

I will talk about the lyrics -- and, it turns out, about the entire culture of gender- and race-based criticism, the nature of human memory, and two of my favorite non-sitcom TV shows, whee! -- but the beginning of my case is simple. I think "Some of My Best Friends are Black" is ridiculously catchy.

Cast off like the dorky sweater her mother made her wear: on the Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris

(Originally written summer 2006 for a now-defunct website. I'd've written it a bit differently now, as a divorced father of two sons. But I think it holds up well, and my parenting experience strengthens, not weakens, my belief in the book's premises.)

" 3. The advantage of twins is…

a. Having a spare in case one blows out.

b. Having both a control and experimental group to test out your theories on nature versus nurturing, love versus neglect and human parents versus wolf pack.

c. Fooling your neighbors into thinking you’ve mastered the science of teleporting children across the room.”


- from ‘Parental Standardized Aptitude Test’, by Francesco Marciuliano

**********
Judith Rich Harris’s the Nurture Assumption – a book about why people end up with the personalities they end up with – may well be, in my opinion, the single most brilliant work of scientific argument I’ve ever read. I mean brilliant in the sense of “original”, of “superbly constructed”, of “fun to read”, and, especially, of “persuasive”.