From the back of the bus, Dick Gregory saw the future 54 years ago:
“The NAACP is a wonderful organization. Belong to it myself. But do you realize if tomorrow we had complete integration, all them cats would be outta work?”
In 2016, a lotta cats need segregation – cultural segregation, law-and-order segregation, housing segregation.
Storytellers of color – one color in particular – desperately need segregation. Otherwise, they have no story.
In Portland, Ore., a city that storytellers of color like to call the “whitest city in America,” this has been the summer for “Hands Up,” a series of seven monologues written by seven black playwrights and presented by The New Black Fest. The last performance for the summer was held this month at the Hollywood Theatre, and director Kevin Jones promised that the monologues will continue to be refined and reworked and performed.
Meanwhile, a separate event on Sept. 3 will also focus on “storytellers of color in the whitest city in America,” this time offered by Invisible Spectrum Stories at the SERVICE Studio on Northeast Glisan.
After sitting through 90 minutes of “Hands Up,” followed by an hour-long talkback session, I’m not inclined to spend another evening listening to predictable stories I can hear on NPR.
The monologues in “Hands Up” lean heavily on Ferguson, Missouri, where two years ago black protesters took to the streets after a white police officer, Darren Wilson, shot Michael Brown, a young black man who slugged the cop and tried to take his gun. In “Hands Up” Brown is portrayed as an innocent young black man who did nothing wrong. (This is a lie that even President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice didn’t buy.)
It would later turn out that many of those protesters in Ferguson, Missouri were bussed in from elsewhere, courtesy of white billionaire George Soros. His $33 million went to “social justice” groups, such as the Organization for Black Struggle, which later started the Hands Up Coalition, which helped create the buzz phrase, “Hands up, don’t shoot,” which helped inspire the “Hands Up” theatrical production I saw in Portland.
One lie leads to another.
It has now come to this: Black protesters this summer took to the streets of Milwaukee, Wisconsin when a black officer shot a young black man, who was armed with a gun and pointed it at the cop. Now even a black cop can’t shoot a black suspect armed with a gun.
Yet the black monologists in “Hands Up” showed little awareness of why police officers – of any color – regard black men with special concern.
Instead, the monologists contributed to a familiar whine. In “Superiority Fantasy” by Nathan James, performed by Tim Golden, the character complained that he was driving his Dodge Neon when the police pulled him over and told him they were investigating a stolen car report.
“Who would steal a Dodge Neon?” he asked the audience.
The line drew a laugh, but the truth is thieves will steal anything – even a Dodge Neon.
Later, the character shows how he has learned to reassure police he’s “one of the good ones.” What’s wrong with that? The implication is that he shouldn’t have to. Well, he wouldn’t have to, if blacks were not associated with crime so frequently.
“Every race has sociopaths,” he said.
Absolutely true, but not every race defends them. Black Americans have distinguished themselves by going above and beyond in defending black thugs to such an extent that they are trying to make use of the word “thug” off-limits to non-blacks.
In monologues entitled “They Shootin! or I ain’t neva scared: a reverberation in 3 parts” by Idris Goodwin, and “How I Feel” by Dennis A. Allen II, both were performed by La’Tevin Alexander with the actor wearing a Tupac T-shirt.
It might have been illuminating had one of these two monologues explored why Tupac Shakur’s thug life is respected when it perpetuates the stereotype of blacks as criminals. (Shakur’s criminal history includes the negligent shooting death of a 6-year-old black boy, whose mother was given a six-figure settlement by Shakur – a pittance compared to what city police departments have paid. In other crimes, Shakur was convicted of assault and first-degree sexual abuse. He would eventually be killed in a shootout in Las Vegas. Since it wasn’t cops who did the shooting, no harm, no foul. Just business as usual.)
The audience “talkback” session that followed the performance was muted and as predictable as the monologues.
Director Jones said to leave politics out of the talkback. How can you talk honestly about race without talking about politics — especially when one of our major political parties for decades has succeeded in persuading blacks that only one party can save them.
Not surprisingly most of the comments from the predominantly white audience were full of praise for the performance and apologies for white privilege.
What’s missing in “Hands Up” is the unexpected voice of someone like Milwaukee County Sheriff Dave Clarke, who spoke at the Republican National Convention. How lonely is it to be a black cop?
What’s missing is political wit that opens minds and doesn’t browbeat.
After my evening at “Hands Up,” I picked up Dick Gregory’s 1962 book, “From the Back of the Bus.”
Gregory grew up in a St. Louis slum with a mother who didn’t condone self-pity.
“We’re broke, not poor. There’s a difference,” she told her six kids.
When they showed embarrassment at the sight of the relief truck delivering food, she came back with, “Does everybody get such service?”
Gregory was making $10 a day washing cars when he got his big break at a Playboy Club. He was soon making $5,000 a week telling jokes like:
“Florida happens to be one of the most liberal states in the South. Why I can go anyplace I like – restaurants, nightclubs, theaters – and I only have to do one thing. Change my name to Ricardo.”
“You know why Madison Avenue advertising has never done well in Harlem? We’re the only ones who know what it means to be Brand X.”
“Isn’t this the most fascinating country in the world? Where else would I have to ride on the back of the bus, have a choice of going to the worst schools, eating in the worst restaurants, living in the worst neighborhoods – and average $5,000 a week just talking about it?”
In 2016, there are blacks who still want to make a living talking about this great unfairness. It’s a different time, though. We now have publications like Forbes running Top 10 lists of where black Americans are doing the best economically.
Turns out Dixie is now the promised land.
Segregation isn’t what it used to be.
— Pamela Fitzsimmons
Related:
Were the actors all male? You know black females have a relationship with police very different. Me, my mom, my sister we’ve called police. It’s scary and you don’t want to but you need them. You need them because of black men. My own brother has given me grief;.
Only one of the monologues was performed by a female: “Dead of Night … The Execution of …” written by Nambi E. Kelley and performed by Ashley Williams. I can’t give you a single excerpt from it because I couldn’t find anything in it worth jotting down.
One of the few criticisms provided by audience members, and it was offered gently, was by a woman who said she was disappointed that out of seven stories only one was from a female.
I understand what you’re saying. I worry that police will cease self-initiated stops in black neighborhoods or avoid contact with black males. If so, watch what happens. See what kind of message that sends to black thugs. It won’t be the mothers and sisters of journalists and elected officials who will have to live with the results.
Idris, hmm. My mother was an Edris.
Gregory sorta went pretty gaunt by the end of the 60s and his stand up had done a fade.
I think Richard Pryor’s humor really got me thinking. As a rural white kid I’d start to bristle when he started in on “my” people. But by the time he finished such a bit I was laughing and often silently admitting a truth I’d denied at the outset.
Plus, he went for black people, white rockers, just about anyone. One time on his brief summer show he and his crew dressed up kind of like KISS and called themselves Black Death (it’s been decades) and eventually started tossing pills out to the crowd of adoring white rocker kids. They all slowly started to die from the poison. It was more effective than my retelling.
What to say about Soros and the enthusiastic embrace of the new racism? I mean really. It’s become so irrational that it is pointless to make reply. The continued use of Ferguson as a motherless black pieta tells you what you need to know. The black cop with the black crook pointing a pistol? I mean what is there to say?
You know, Charlie LeDuff out of Detroit is quite good on these matters. Detroit: An American Autopsy is very good.
Here he is w/Monica Conyers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiogXT9xZBQ
Gregory went off the deep end years ago, but his early stuff showed brilliance. He didn’t play political favorites. On the risks of turning down a lunch date during Brotherhood Week, Gregory joked: “Hell hath no fury like a Liberal scorned!”
I don’t know how he ended up becoming a radical conspiracy theorist (e.g., we faked the moon landing). Did he have trouble reconciling his success with his beliefs about white racism? If white people were so racist, how did he end up so popular?
Gregory also played to stereotype by fathering 11 children he didn’t spend much time with (his own father abandoned him). When criticized for his behavior, his ridiculous excuse was that Hitler had a father, and look how he turned out.
Americans can turn anything — or anyone — into a trend. Then we continue on our merry way unchanged. I like to revisit the past to see what we refuse to learn.
Thanks for the Charlie LeDuff recommendation.
http://portlandcrime.blogspot.com/2016/08/no-time-to-learn_33.html A little historical context.
Good reading. It’s fascinating what changes and what doesn’t. It’s hard to imagine a Portland mayor today blithely referring to “a crazy with a gun” without having to follow up with an immediate apology.
And then some things haven’t changed at all, only the acronyms: “Three black men dead at the hands of the police in one month created a big stir in the African- American community. Besides the NAACP and the Urban League a new organization, the Black Justice Committee (BJC) was formed.”
It would seem by now that such groups would question how effective it is to instantly side with all black criminals. No wonder Rickie Johnson’s father couldn’t save him.
Joe Hopkins, though, should have been kept in the Psychiatric Unit. It does appear that the young man suffered brain damage from boxing, and nobody was supervising him. Sounds like the kind of treatment he would receive today.
Hands up, don’t shoot, black lies matter and etc. put me in mind of the Ring Lardner line:
“Shut up,’ he explained.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWHgUE9AD4s
from 7 years ago.
Thanks, Larry. I have lost count of how many times I’ve seen comments at news websites telling other posters to “shut up.” I occasionally receive “shut up” e-mails sent to my gmail account. One was from a New York Times reader who told me I was unfit to comment at The New York Times (this was in response to a comment I posted defending the death penalty).
Here’s a bit of good news. Maybe you heard that the University of Chicago’s president has sent letters to incoming freshmen advising them not to expect trigger warnings and similar forms of political correctness:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/27/us/university-of-chicago-strikes-back-against-campus-political-correctness.html?_r=1
I would be surprised if Barry Glassner enacted the same policy at Lewis & Clark. He moved to Portland for the food, not the intellectual stimulation.
Yes, it is a clip found on a conservative site and it has little attachment to matters under discussion, except perhaps tangentially to the “Shut up” approach to wisdom and discussion. However, it is fun and catches a certain “moment” in our culture.
http://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2016/08/31/every-businesses-respond-confronted-sjw-bullies-like-lyft-driver/
Oh well, more along the “Shut up” line:
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/28952/
As I post this I’m listening to Hilary being interviewed by Lauer.
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
Woodward and Bernstein could not be reached for comment. Actual Washington Post headline: The Hillary Clinton email story is out of control.
I’m so old I can remember when Bob Woodward was a superstar at the post – there was even a movie about him starring Robert Redford! – before he was later demonized by his young would-be successors at the post for treating a democrat president just like a republican.
Yes, I’m enjoying the media’s lament over the excessive coverage of Hillary’s e-mails. Maybe the media will eventually understand how some people feel when journalists use unrelated news stories as an occasion to continually recycle “the tragic death of Michael Brown, the young black man killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.”
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