#Life 1999 biscuit for free#

For a murderous gangster, Spanky sure is a easy to manipulate. He even convinces Spanky to front some money and a truck to haul the alcohol with. Spanky’s henchmen begin dunking Claude headfirst into water to drown him, but Ray manages to sweet-talk Spanky into giving the both of them some time to pay him back with bootlegging profits. … I’m going to post an image of Rick James saying that. I’m not going to post an image of Dave Chappelle saying that. You’re thinking I’m going to be the next in a long line of imitators who’ve beaten that dead horse so bad, even Chappelle has gotten sick of people referencing it all the damn time. You’re thinking I’m going to post a meme of Dave Chappelle doing his Rick James schtick. Claude is dragged off for not being able to pay his bill and Ray is dragged off to for running numbers on the nightclub owner Spanky’s side of town. Ray bumps into Claude and pickpockets Claude’ wallet, only to find it’s empty when he tries to pay his tab at the club with it. He goes to the bathroom, where a couple toughs clean out his wallet for money he owes them. We also meet Martin Lawrence’s character, Claude Banks, who is celebrating with his girlfriend Daisy (Sanaa Lathan) about his new job at… the bank.Īnyway, she’s pissed because Claude apparently hasn’t popped the question and decided to settle down with her. Our main characters are… played by Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence?Ī metaphor for Eddie Murphy’s post-’90s career. This is where our two main characters are sent to in 1932.

#Life 1999 biscuit for free#

It was little better than the convict leasing system it was supposed to replace, since forcing men to work twelve-hour days for free for a private enterprise somehow doesn’t strike me as that much different from forcing men to work twelve-hour days for free for the state. So, in 1901, the state bought a cotton plantation – because, of fucking course – and converted it into what would become the Mississippi State Penitentiary. As a result, Mississippi couldn’t just lease convicts to private parties anymore. Well, in 1894, the state of Mississippi made convict leasing technically illegal, although it still remained in common practice until at least the 1940s. So, what does all this have to do with Parchman Farm? And for all that talk about what criminals deserve if only pesky things like due process and human rights wouldn’t get in the way, Americans are practically amnesiac about what that would actually be like, considering its dark past where nothing sold out a ropemaker’s stock faster than an allegation a white woman had been raped by. Whereas abolitionist propaganda made a fairly effective case that slaves were victims being exploited, arguing that criminals who, in society’s eyes, deserve brutal punishment are being exploited and victimized is a much harder case to make.ĭon’t believe me? Just ask a random person on the street, “What do you feel should be done with rapists?” Take a wild guess at the general consensus. For another thing, this form of slavery met with less resistance due to the stigma of criminality attached.

Convicts, on the other hand, were leased so cheaply, they could be worked to death in a short amount of time and easily replaced just as cheaply. For one thing, slaves in the pre-Civil War South were usually expensive investments their owners would beat but still wanted to keep alive as long as possible to make their investments worth the expense. In some ways, this system was worse than antebellum slavery. Once the South realized she could simply throw black people back into slavery by saying they had committed crimes, freed slaves and their descendants were being charged by the thousands with crimes as minor as vagrancy or loitering, with the foreknowledge almost all wouldn’t be able to pay their fines, and then leased to plantation owners and mine owners who paid those fines in exchange for years of free labor. The South stubbornly refused, eventually wearing the North down until the military was withdrawn in the 1870s.ĭuring this time, this new system called convict leasing came about due to a loophole in the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery: So, like a toddler put in timeout for misbehaving, the South was put under military occupation until she learned to behave herself and treat black people like actual human beings. He just… got cold feet at a Westerosi wedding.