The Day the Laughter Died

While it’s not a huge shock, I was indeed saddened by the death of Richard Pryor. As a child of the 70’s and 80’s, most kids in my neighborhood had parents who owned at least one Richard Pryor album. And since we were too young to listen we would wait until our parents weren’t home and would listen to the records clandestinely, or put a tape recorder to the stereo speaker and record the album, playing it at the bus stop or in the woods later, laughing uncontrollably. Even as a young child I had experienced bigotry and I knew a little something about the civil rights movement and all that led up to it. Richard Pryor made it bearable to be black in America, made it cool and hip. And this was before hip hop invaded suburbia.

When I was 10 or 12, my dad took me to see the movie “Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip” after I begged him for weeks. We watched it together in the theater, and replayed all the funny bits in the car on the way home. It was then that I knew with absolute unwavering certainty exactly what “funny” was. It was Richard Pryor. Live, raw, real, true. He forced us to confront the ugly side of ourselves and not only examine it, but laugh at its ludicrousness. Race, sex, police brutality, drugs, alcohol. All the things we thought we were too good to deal with, Richard forced us to deal with, if we were to be honest.

Richard Pryor was the funniest man who ever lived. Bar none. He will be greatly missed.

The Death of Common Sense

Can someone, ANYONE, please explain to me how asking for identification before being allowed to vote is discrimanatory? Anyone?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/14/AR2005111401365.html

Crabs in a Barrel

I'm a firm believer that the one thing that can unite our citizenry is our firm and undying hatred for individual success. We love winners, just don't win "too much." It's like the idiots I hear at the start of every football season or baseball season or basketball season: "The Patriots/Yankees/Lakers always win; give somebody else a chance." Excuse me? Everybody has the same chance at the beginning of every season. Everyone's record is the same: 0-0. What you do with it from there depends on your coaching and your talent. And, some would argue like it's a bad thing, your payroll.

The same holds true for individuals. In his article, David Ignatius skewers the President for appointing Ivy League educated men and women to important posts. What's wrong with that, exactly? Shouldn't the most talented and qualified people get jobs? Sure the President has put some crony hacks in important positions (Michael Brown, Harriet Miers, etc.), but many of his important positions are filled with people who succeded at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. So what? Perhaps a graduate of DeVry should head NASA. Would that make folks feel better?

Like it or not, get pissed at me if you will, but we are by and large a stupid country. If you listen to Sean Hannity's man on the street interviews every Thursday or watch the "Jay Walking" segment of the Tonight Show, you would think that most people can't recite the Pledge of Allegiance, don't know who the Secretary of Defense is, don't know why we celebrate Independence Day, and don't know who their own Senators and Congresspeople are. Ask someone at work to name all nine Supreme Court justices. They can't. But ask them who Brad Pitt is divorcing AND who he's dating right now and they can answer that with glee.

And the Poor Get...Colder

But hey, Alaska has a brand new bridge!!!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051027/ap_on_go_co/heating_aid;_ylt=Ar8JIQBFNyJN5tgTLIlxqk0DW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

I'm Turning in My Negro Card

An acquaintance of mine is divorcing her husband, a soldier going to Iraq in January. I told a black friend about it and her very first response was, "Tell her not to get divorced because if he gets killed, she can get his benefits."

I shit you not.

I don't think I want to be Black anymore.

Ain't He Purdy?!

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1020051delay1.html

What is the Black Litmus Test?

I'm taking a moment away from the political blogging to rant, if you don't mind. Last night TNT aired another insufferable movie awards show, the Black Movie Awards (http://www.tnt.tv/title/0,,612806,00.html). Interesting enough, I thought, until I saw the list of nominees. Sorry, but if "Are We There Yet" gets nominated for Best Picture and Cedric the Entertainer gets nominated for Best Actor for "The Honeymooners," that tells me that the person in charge of quality control was asleep at the frickin' wheel. So, I decided against watching it. It was a taped show and the award recipients were announced last week anyway. Fortunately, the winners reflected real quality (Terrence Howard, "Crash", etc.).

When I came to work this morning, a coworker (who's Black) asked if I watched it, knowing in advance that the answer was no. She proceeds to pat herself on the back for "supporting Black causes" by watching last night. "One day," she says, "you'll get a little more black." I asked her what "cause" she was supporting by watching the show and she said "helping the show get good ratings." Now I don't know for sure, but I don't think basic cable ratings matter a whole helluva lot. But somehow, in her mind, her blackness is in direct proportion to the amount of black films and television shows she watches. Now, I'm all for supporting the Brothers and Sisters who are out there trying to make it. However, I'm a little quirky in that A) I watch what I want to watch, not what a group prescribes that I watch, and B) I try to avoid absolute shit whenever I possibly can. The Black Movie Awards, as far as I'm concerned, is a non-event. "The Honeymooners", "Are We There Yet", "G", "Coach Carter", it all looks like shit to me and I'm not going to waste my own time and money watching them. Neither, however, did Ms. Thang. She saw none of these "films" because, well, she just doesn't have the time. Her blackness is not called into question, however. She will likley buy them when they come out on DVD....maybe...or maybe not.

But all of this brings up an age old question: what makes a person Black, or "Black enough"? I'm half Black, a quarter Irish, and a quarter German. I identify myself as Black on forms unless "biracial" or "multiracial" is an option. At the end of the day, the world views me as Black. I attended the Million Man March in 1995, was a part of the Black Student Union on my majority White college campus, listen to (among other things) Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Kanye West, Aretha Franklin, The O'Jays, Earth, Wind, & Fire, Public Enemy, Kirk Franklin, and B.B. King. I read James Baldwin, Richard Wright, E. Lynn Harris, Terry McMillan, Eric Jerome Dickey, and Bebe Moore Campbell. Two of my heroes are Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, whose autobiography changed the way I viewed race in America. I love Richard Pryor, Steve Harvey, Bernie Mac, Bruce Bruce, Earthquake, and Rickey Smiley. Ernie Barnes and Romare Bearden are two of my favorite artists. I've seen Patti LaBelle, Eddie Murphy, Prince, and Luther Vandross in concert, in some cases multiple times. And yet somehow, my blackness is called into question on a regular basis amongst the Negroes I work with. Is it because I don't see very many Black movies (at least not the first weekend; I'd like to be able to hear the film, thank you very much), don't watch UPN and the WB, or listen to and regurgitate the Tom Joyner Morning Show daily? Is it because I also listen to Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, and George Strait, and I watch NASCAR? Is it because of my biracial heritage? Or maybe it's my White wife. That kills black women everytime. Of course, they're the same black women who would likely tell me I'm too lightskinned to date them but, ironically, see no problem with black women dating white men because of the "lack of good black men out there" (a rant for another time).

I'm not sure what the problem is, and to say I don't care would be lying because I wouldn't have wasted the past 20 minutes writing this if I didn't. But at what point do we put aside the petty differences of skin color and see each other as human beings? Why hate each other because of skin color when, if we come together as people and get to know one another, we can find so many other reasons to hate each other? :)

Is Cheney the New Agnew?

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/27082/

I'm not sure of the veracity of this post, but should Tricky Dick Cheney be indicted and frog-marched out of the White House or OEOB, who should replace him? This memo suggests John McCain or Lindsey Graham.

Arrest Warrant for the Hammer

Well I'll be damned.

Compassionate Conservatism, Huh?

Just when I think this administration can't get any dirtier, any more underhanded, they prove me wrong. No tax cut is too much for this President. At a time when our deficits are skyrocketing, when spending is out of control and there's not a veto in sight (oops, sorry, I forgot; the President said he would veto the defense spending bill if it contained anti-torture language in it!), this congress wants to finally do something about spending, but do it to the least fortunate among us.

There are over 3,000 verses in George W. Bush's Holy Bible imploring us to help the poor. I wonder when he'll get around to reading those...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/19/AR2005101902014.html

How do you spell "American Idol"?

Well, Fantasia Barrino, the latest, and perhaps best, American Idol has announced that she's a functional illiterate. Bravo, gurl! It takes a lot of guts to do that. However, maybe, just maybe, the wiser thing to do would be to keep that under your hat for oh, say, a year and learn to read at an acceptable level. Even though you are now an indentured servant to the American Idol machine, you should have the resources available to you to do that. THEN come out and say "Hey, up until a year ago, I was illiterate. I learned to read and write, and so can you. Don't be ashamed." Alas, in a culture of confession (without repentance, mind you) such as ours, the more fitting thing to do is simply put your business out there and hope people feel bad for you. Gregory Kane on blackamericaweb.com has a scathing piece about this. http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/sayitloud/kane1013

Sadly, the commentaries attached to this article are overwhelmingly critical, not of Fantasia or even the school system as much as of Mr. Kane. Why? He said what we all think. And when Black folk do that, aren't they usually praised? Kanye West, a hip hop artist and producer that I admire, went off script during a hurricane relief telethon to announce that "George Bush doesn't care about Black people." Nobody Black said shit. Except, "Well, he speakin' da troof." Maybe, maybe not, but I'm not sure that he chose the proper forum. Mr. Kane levels blame at Fantasia, her mom (who supposedly is illiterate), and the school system for not doing their jobs. Black folk are outraged. It reminds me of one of my favorite authors/speakers/activists/evangelists, Tony Campolo, who usually begins his speeches to churches by saying, "Last night 30,000 children died of starvation and hunger related diseases. And none of you here give a shit. In fact, you're more outraged that I said 'shit' than you are at 30,000 kids dying needlessly." Black folk are more outraged at Greg Kane's criticism of Fantasia than we are about illiteracy rates in our own community.

I say all of this in the wake of the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March, an event I participated in in 1995, mostly because it seemed like the cultural and historical thing to do. Yesterday, Minister Louis Farrakhan led a commemoration on the mall, the attendance for which paled in comparison to the original event (especially given that it was on a weekend and not during the work week as the original had been), but garnered far more support than I anticipated. The rhetoric was the same, from the bits and pieces I could stomach on C-Span; the government sucks, racism is to blame for much of our problems, we need to unite (which, by the way, will NEVER happen), blah blah yadda yadda blah. At no point must we be critical of ourselves, and certainly not in public where White folk can hear it!! Until we as a people realize that A) we're never going to unite because we're too pluralistic as a race and 2) we must not only be critical of each other but help each other "learn to fish", so to speak, we will be forever mired in racial angst and animosity, crabs in a barrel pulling down anyone with the temerity to want to rise above our situation or, God forbid, suggest that it's partly our fault we're in the barrel in the first place. Fantasia, congratulations on letting everyone know you can't read or write. Now go learn and check back with us in a year.

Is racism a virtue??

Bill Bennett has apparently lost his damned mind. On a recent edition of his "Morning in America" show, the former Education Secretary posited that if you abort all black babies crime would be reduced.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/30/D8CUL5O80.html

Now, aside from the racism that is inherent in that statement, not to mention the genocidal leanings it represents, and not withstanding Bennett's qualification that to do such a thing would be morally reprehensible, the idea that anyone thinks that killing all black babies would lower the crime rate (whether it's today's crime rate - which would make you an idiot - or crime in the next generation) is disturbing to say the least. Bennett uses only race as a factor in determining who will be criminals. I know some black people myself and some came from middle class families, some came from the lower socioeconomic rungs of the ladder, some came from two parent households, some came from single parents. None of them, by virtue of their blackness alone, are criminals. None are criminals, period! Even those that came from backgrounds where one or more parents were criminals still came out okay. The gentleman who co-wrote the book that Bennett and his caller were referring to, Freakanomics, defended his pal Bill on his own website.

http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/09/bill-bennett-and-freakonomics.html

So, using this logic, if we kill all the white babies today, there'd be no more war (since white folks have started almost all the wars this country's been in), no more corporate scandals (I didn't see many if any black folk indicted from Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Global Crossing, etc., etc.), and no more serial killings (since most, but not all, serial killers are white). Ridiculous.

Impeachment Proceedings in Order?

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46019

The president has been completely absent on the subject of immigration and border control. Perhaps it is time to get his attention.

The Downing Street Memo

Ever actually read this? It will stun you. Clinton got impeached over perjury. Nixon resigned before being impeached over a break in. Wouldn't impeachment proceedings be in order here?

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/memos.html

Pat Robertson

The Reverend Robertson has continued to be an embarrassment to those of us who call ourselves Christians. He should be fired from that ridiculous show of his and put out to pasture.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/23/politics/23cnd-robertson.html?ei=5065&en=9c28c403240188b3&ex=1125460800&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

Good luck Michael Graham!

I worked with Michael during my brief stint as a talk show host on 630 WMAL. He's a good guy whose mouth can sometimes get the best of him, but overall he is a decent human being. I wish him all the best in La La Land.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/joelmowbray/printjm20050823.shtml

My Private Idaho

I normally don't agree with Maureen Dowd, but I have to admit I like this piece in today's NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/24/opinion/24dowd.html

Best line:

What twisted logic: with no W.M.D., no link to 9/11 and no democracy, now we have to keep killing people and have our kids killed because so many of our kids have been killed already? Talk about a vicious circle: the killing keeps justifying itself.

Here, here.

http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2005/08/what_might_have.html

Bush Won in 2000 Any Way You Cut It.

This is why it's so tough for me to believe anything from Krugman or the New York Times. I'm no longer a supporter of this president, but can we please let this old argument just die?

http://realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-8_21_05_RB.html

Will the audacity and lies never end?!?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/02/08_gassing.html

Apparently, Hussein, no angel, may not have "gassed his own people" as we have heard time and time and time again. And since the major reason for going to war, WMD, has proven to be a lie, the administration has propped up this little ditty. And we now see that it, like the WMD, is a lie.

There are brutal dictators all over the globe. Why Iraq? Oil? Empire? Some neo-con fantasy about recreating the Middle East? How many young men and women have to die for a lie?

There's got to be a different way....right? I mean, Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Liberal, there's got to be more to it than this.

A word about me. I began my political thought life as a liberal Democrat. I grew up in an African American home of liberal Democrats and, so, took up the torch upon my 18th birthday and voted for the very first time in the 1988 presidential election. I voted Dukakis/Bentsen, of course because that's what good liberals did. Then, in 1992, I thought I'd found a ticket I could really get behind. Clinton/Gore seemed like everything I'd dreamed about in a President and Vice President. Young, energetic, full of great new ideas. Then the scandals broke. What bothered me at least as much as the President's indiscretions was the lack of outrage from my fellow liberals. Nobody seemed to care, except that he had been set up, all because of a BJ. By 2000 I was disillusioned enough to leave the Democrat party and vote Republican...but not for George W. Bush. After 9/11, I rallied around my President in a time of national tragedy. I was even an apologist during the run up to the war in Iraq. But all that has changed. I think that this is an immoral and unjust war, started for the worst of reasons... money, oil, and empire.

But more than that, I'm against labels like "Republican" or "liberal." My views no longer plant me firmly in one camp or another. I'm an evangelical Christian, but my faith doesn't begin or end with abortion or gay rights. I'm pro-life, but I don't think that abortion should be criminalized. Abortions should be reduced and adoption should be easier and less expensive. I'm also against the death penalty BECAUSE I'm pro-life. I think that marriage should be defined as one man and one woman, but committed gay couples should be afforded the same legal rights and protections as my wife and I. I think that we should enforce the gun control laws we have on the books and not create new ones.

So, my purpose in starting this blog was to have a place where like minded people could share views, share news, and chat. Idealogues are welcome, but please be open to different ideas and debating those ideas. No personal attacks!

As a first start, here's a book I'm reading that has changed my views on many things. I would recommend it to anyone interested in investigating the real intersection between faith and politics.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060558288/qid=1124671173/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1921410-2967960?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Until next time, keep the faith.

-Tony

Tony Penny