One of the Seven Dirty Words?

YOU DEMANDED IT, I COMPLY! STAY TUNED FOR INTERVIEW WITH WASHINGTON POST REPORTERS KEVEIN MERIDA & MICHAEL FLETCHER ON THEIR CUTTING EDGE BIOGRAPHY OF NONE OTHER THAN CLARENCE THOMAS!!!


But first...


In the early 1970s cool hippy comedian now curmudgeon George Carlin outlined the so-called "seven dirty words" you couldn't say on TV and the radio. The list has contracted a bit, but there's still one that's utterly verboten. In England, it's bad word but also means schlub or jerk or turdhead. In the US, people use it a lot more than you think. But among African Americans it's not. But when it is hurled at a woman it's 30 megaton airburst and be prepared for the post-nuke wasteland!

In this photo Carlin is using the term on Nazi nympho Ann Coulter. The term: C-*-N-T. Um...obscene, inappropriate, mean? That's like saying someone's being cruel to Lucifer. Well, here's what this beeyotch had to say yesterday about Obama. It's one of many prongs of attack in the usual orchestrated talking points circulated like drums in the old Tarzan movies. I call it the "Douchebag Pipeline." Just check the blogs, the reports on Fox News, Rush, Glenn Beck and the other clowns. Notice how the stories and opinions are identical?

Check this out--

A recent Newsweek poll showing Democrat Barack Obama leading top Republican presidential hopefuls could have been made up and might help al-Qaida, conservative commentator Ann Coulter said in her latest verbal broadside.
Coulter, a best-selling author known for outrageous and often controversial statements, was asked Sunday on Fox News' "At Large" what she thought about the survey results.
"I think this is Newsweek doing more push polling for al-Qaida," she said, referring to campaign-season telephone calls to voters masquerading as neutral surveys but designed to build opposition to targeted candidates.
Asked by host Geraldo Rivera whether she thought Newsweek would make up the results, Coulter said, "Yes, I do," adding, "In polls where people are actually allowed to vote, Republicans do a lot better."
Coulter did not explain how the poll might help the terrorist group. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, some Republicans have argued that their party would do a better job of protecting the U.S. against terrorism than Democrats.
Coulter's remark drew a response from Evans Witt, chief executive officer of Princeton Survey Research Associates International, which conducted the Newsweek survey.
"As the 2008 election campaign continues to heat up, I am sure that there will be informed and incisive criticisms of polls from many observers," he said. Coulter's comments "do not fit into this category," he added.
Newsweek spokeswoman Jan Angilella said the magazine would have no comment.
In March, Coulter used a gay slur about Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.

Now, we all know this chick isn't kidding. It's no act, no O'Reilley-esque gimmick or Imus cluelessness. This is for real. They tried the similar tactic on Fat Rev Al re: the Mormons when everyone who was there in his debate with Christopher "Douchebag of the Left Wing" Hitchens knew what really happened. Folks of conscience and intelligence need to start speak up and but this heifer in check. Obama's Mr. Nice Guy thing is wearing thin with me. He has a brain fart and misquotes the number of deaths due to this tornado? The President makes even dumber gaffs every 15 minutes. But yes, I expect more from Barack. he doesn't have the luxury of being off his game, but he also doesn't have the luxury of smiling. Call Ann Coulter out. Dare to compare the loving kindness showed Kansas--which will be destroyed again--to the utter contempt shown New Orleans (remember when all the Red Staters called in to CNN saying New Orleans will flood again so just move the niggers out?). Well, why rebuild any town in Kansas or Oklahoma? Ahhhh...that's different. No. That's Coulterism. Barack if you can't at least grow some fangs and some hanging balls, hire someone who does. Someone who knows there is a time when you have to call it like it is...even when it's a c*nt. How about George Carlin? ;-)

Brief Look: Colin Channer

Me bredrin t'ought he'd sneak dis by me one, eh? Bard of Jamaica, national bestseller Colin Channer gifts us his new novella, The Girl with the Golden Shoes, published by Akashic; Akashic now seems to be the indie publisher unconcerned with the dross, the silly, the pandering, having also published Bronx Biannual.

Colin is one of best writers in the Americas, and his Calabash Literary Festival on our Island in de sun draws international acclaim and coverage.

Good things come in small packages, and The Girl with the Golden Shoes is a bite-sized treat. It is sweet and bittersweet: World War Two in the Carribean is the setting. Channelling Faulker and Edward P. Jones, Channer reprises his imaginary island, "San Carlos," and on it we see Estrella Thompson, a 14-year-old who's exiled from the isolated fishing village where she's lived all her life...

Check Colin out at the University of Maryland this Thursday May 10 at Vertigo Books in College Park.

Coming soon: Clarence Thomas...

What's more exiciting than the DC Madame?

In the D.C. area on Thursday May 10th? Come see and hear author Colin Channer at Vertigo Books in College Park, 630pm discussing his newest work, The Girl with the Golden Shoes (more to come on this Monday). Or stay home and check this blog to see my interview of Washington Post reporters Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher, authors of Supreme Discomfort: the Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas.

The Jamaican bard and non-fiction is all boring, y'all say? Nah. and they are more exciting than what I just saw on ABC. ABC, like American Idol, like Heroes, like Spider Man 3, truly "jumped the shark" when it aired this ridiculous "DC Madame" story. When "Missy Ann" pimps, it's big news. When it's someone named "Bishop Magic Don Juan" or "Mister Whitefolks," and the hookers are of color, no biggie.

Yet this was the huge scandal that wasn't. First, "jumping the shark" refers to a TV term of art, minted by online media critics when "Fonzie" on Happy Days jumped his motorcycle over a shark tank. It literally marks a moment when a show has lost its steam, gotten stupid, etc. etc. Like James on Good Times dying. Or any point on Desperate Houswives. Grey's Anatomy's momentl ikely came and went, however, as we are pre-programmed to accept any insipid soap opera these days. The publishing industry, when it comes to black books and authors, indeed added MORE sharks to the damn tank. Nuff said...
Well, after all of this fanfare, ABC only dwelled on two idiots who were "newsworthy." First of course was Mr. Tobias, Condi Rice's undersecretary at USAID who was also the Bush Administration's mouthpiece on world HIV prevention (preaching abstinence of course) and keeping money from any group that even mentioned abortion in family planning. Good enough for a call girl at the Hay-Adams. The next was the Navy's big shot who authored the whole "Shock and Awe" strategy that so wowed the Red State dullards at the beginning of the Iraq War and now means absolutely nothing. Clearly this dude had some d*ck issues. I guess he also came up with the strategy of using our soldiers as bait to draw in terrorists who were never there in the first place, turning Iraq into a new school Verdun, complete with that WWI battle's ruinous irony? (look up Verdun on wikipedia, you dummies!)

The rest of tricks were supposedly people only recognizable inside the Beltway, so ABC, having already sucked you in with this nonense, just dumped the phone records. Now fanboys and girls I am sure there are a lot of partners in big DC law firms, certain lobbyists, fat pig real estate developers and bankers (who aren't otherwise pedophiles), parking lot czars, heads of foundations, local university presidents etc. on this list. I'll publish it on this blog when I get ahold of it...and I will get ahold of it. The U.S. Attorney's already jumped his own shark and says he won't use the list at trial. Is that not newsworthy? Why not? Screw you, ABC--is your DC bureau chief on that list?

What bothers me is (1) it's always the tricks who are seen as victims. They are part of the crime. The GIRLS are victims. Indeed one, a professor at the University of Mayland who neededextra cash to keep her home and feed her kids (Lord, I just joined up with UM!!! Better check my W-2), killed herself two weeks ago when Pimp Palfrey went public. And (2) these men on the list are usually the same people who tell you you are deficient, you are late with your payments, you are fired, you are downsized, your grant application is denied, your son is going to Iraq, you're gulity, you're liable, you're lying on the stand, you don't have as much money as them so you'll loose...and on and on. Bloody hypocrits. Time they suffered for a change, and they are humbled. Yeah, some of their wives will forgive them, for the same reason the FDA forgives the Red Chinese for poisoning us and our pets. Greed, self interest. But oh, maybe someone will learn from this, and change from hypocrisy to humility...

Lori Bryant-Woolridge: An Interview

Lori Bryant-Woolridge is the author of Weapons of Mass Seduction, her latest novel and folks are eating it up as more copies hit the bookstores starting last week. Lori spoke to me from her girl-palace in one of New Jersey's posh 'burbs. First, welcome and congratulations on the spread in Essence, and as a man I dare say the photos were "tastefully provocative!" How does your public persona match the real you? In other words, do you practice what you (and your protagonist, "Pia Jamison") preach?

Thank you. And the term "tastefully provocative" is exactly what a true Weapon of Mass Seduction strives to be, so I appreciate the compliment.

Most things about my public persona match the real me. I am a woman who strives to be honest and authentic so I don't really switch on one personality in public and switch it off in private. You can tell by reading my blog and website that I'm straight up and open. I've always been a "what you see is what you get" kind of girl and dare I say, without sounding totally full of myself, that it's the key to my charming personality!

I definitely practice what Pia preaches...come on, I'm the wizard behind the curtain calling the shots!. I enjoy life, am grateful for the amazing journey I am on and I love being a woman and all the perks that come with it! That includes, but is certainly not limited to, beautiful lingerie, sexy scents, jewelry, and high heels! And like Pia, I'm also interested in love, politics, motherhood, learning and growing as an individual, and knowing and appreciating good men.

Now, regardless of your publisher's plans, there are bookstores and websites who market you with authors like Kayla Perrin, Eric Jerome Dickey, etc. who are well-known for certain "relationship" themes. So do you bristle at the term "chick lit" or better still "black chick lit," or do welcome it?

I bristle at all labels placed on me, whether personal or literary. While I'm thrilled to be thought of in same company of many wonderful A-A and genre specific writers, my works is so much more inclusive and broad than the narrow scope they try to force me and so many other wonderful writers into. It's embarrassing sometimes when I walk into the store and over to 'our' section. Based on what they chose to spotlight, there appears to be no balance to the writing being offered our readers. Every book prominently displayed under "African American Literature" is sexually driven, often sexually explicit, work that make us look like the ho's and heifers the Don Imuses of the world think us to be. And looking at the bulk of our literary/artistic offerings, why would they think differently? And this is so not to say that great work doesn't exist out there. Just that there is no balance and won't be until publishers stop picking books based on trends and more on merit.

And speaking of chick lit, tell a little about the future of the Femme Fatale tours on military bases. Any poignant or interesting stories from our sistas in uniform during the past tour? I had a blast as an honorary male author at Ft. Belvoir, by the way--you adopting any brothas for similar events?

Brotha, we may be killer writers and killer women who stand for literary justice for all, but we are not fatal! It's the Femme Fantastik Tour! Nina Foxx, Carmen Green and I have invited four other guest authors, ReShonda Tate Billingsley, Trisha Thomas, Wendy Coakley-Thompson and Berta Platas, for a little Latina flair, to join us this year. We're really excited because it's a fabulous and dynamic group. And though we loved having you as our guest Homme--you were amazing in that G-string--we've decided to do away with the male authors and concentrate on entertaining and empowering women through good literature--not good looking men!

The responses from the bases and the military families has been phenomenal. At every installation they have made us feel welcomed and supported and they are so appreciative that we haven't forgotten them during this ridiculous war and that we are helping to expand the offerings they get from their PX book section.

We will be officially kicking off the tour September 15 in San Antonio, Texas and will tour ten bases before we're done in March 2008. The word is getting out and we're steadily being booked at different events across the country. This summer we've been booked as the featured authors at the Salute to African American Writers in Austin, Texas on June 15 and we've been booked for an event in Las Vegas on August 11. You can follow our travels at http://www.femmefantastik.blogspot.com/

Well I was happy to dust off the ole "banana and coconuts hammock" and dance you ladies! But getting back to Weapons...this new novel..what do think seems to resonate for real women, real-life readers, regarding someone like Pia Jamison, or other characters like Florence and Becca?

What resonates for them is the feelings of being stuck (voluntarily or not) living a life of details and knowing that the vibrant, sexy woman you once were is suffocating under all the hats. Women have not been taught to embrace and understand their sensuality and sexuality in any real and healthy way eventually they become confused by who and what they are supposed to be. As teenagers and young women, we're taught to be good girls and given a list of all the things good girls DON'T do and then we get out in the world and see that a) men want something different and b) as we grow and mature into ourselves WE want something different. But we're so disconnected and confused by then we don't know which way to turn. Weapons of Mass Seduction gives women a direction, a plan and an understanding that being yourself can never be wrong and that's ultimately the sexiest thing they can do (being themselves) to get and keep the men they want.

Do you think you'll become a full-fledged lecturer on flirting, on getting one's "sexy" back and self-esteem? Any related non-fiction projects down the pike?

It's beginning to shape up that way. I am now getting requests to come speak at various venues--College campuses, cruise ships, etc. I just did an XM radio interview on how women can take their flirt game international! As you know I just did a workshop for moms trying to get their sexy back. I love the workshops and the interaction with my readers that comes from doing them. And I have always believed that fiction is a huge self-help vehicle for women. This is a topic that the book and lectures seem to go hand in hand.

I've also begun a blog http://www.weapons-of-mass-seduction.blogspot.com/ to continue this important discussion. Women want to be sexy. They want to be flirtatious and charming but many don't know where to start and the book, the blog and the workshops are all designed to help.

I'm considering a nonfiction book for married women on how to get their flirt on with their spouses to keep the marriage alive. I've also got a few other projects in the works that I'll tell you about as they come to fruition.

Was writing Weapons of Mass Seduction more difficult than writing Hitts & Mrs?

Yes, in a couple of ways. I had to write WMS very fast, five months, which is a record for me. And because I wanted to make it a true flirt-manual within a novel it took time to craft it in a way that was informative like a nonfiction book but still had the pacing and story/character elements of a good novel. It was a challenge but I enjoyed it. I had fun with my male focus group, who really opened up and were very honest about what attracts them to a woman and once they all got past the "great breasts and a slamming ass" they were all in agreement that it was a woman's confidence, energy and friendliness that universally caught their eye.

Hitts & Mrs. was slightly more controversial because I was talking about emotional infidelity without making it a bad thing. Instead I wanted readers to think about how they loved and why they felt love had such strict boundaries. To recognize that love comes in all kinds of forms, fashions and regaedless of whether a person is married, because love comes in many forms from many different people in our lives.

Both are thought-provoking and my goal is always not for readers to necessarily agree with me, but to look at their own ideas on the subject matter and decided for themselves based on their own individual truths and not 'truths' handed down to them from some moral authority.

By the way, Hitts & Mrs. is now available in mass paperback from Avon.

On another note: I love your blog! It's witty and informed and a true WMS is sexy and smart and appreciates a man who is the same!

Thanks for the love!

No, thank you Lori. You're a marriage of craft and commerce, sex and brains--so I suppose yes, you practice what you preach. Bravo and we expect big things over the next few months. And fans should check your website for details of the Flirting Seminar at Sea/Cruise to Jamaica and the Caymans.

Dexter St. Jock

As we wait for Lori, chew on this reflection by the "The Little Lady Who Started This Mess" (as Abe Lincoln clowned Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin) and let me know what you think:

“I just think there are some people who try too hard. They just think every sentence has to be perfect. I’m the sort of writer who thinks your first draft is your most honest. You know, get the story out any way you can. You don’t have to think about it. Just write it. Experience it. Don’t worry how pretty it sounds, how lilting it is, and the imagery, and the metaphor, all that. Most readers don’t care. It’s the people in your book that matter. It’s the human element. The emotional response that matters. That’s what I’ve learned.”-Terry McMillan, published in January's Poets & Writers Magazine (borrowed from the blog of author Mat Johnson)
The most amusing observation was by my brother: "She deserved everything that the gay "Dexter St. Jock" did to her. Karma for turning black lit into the WB sitcoms and cheesy melodrama hell..." Day-um!

Clarence Thomas, open...

If you're in the DC area, here's a reminder to check out Washington Post writers Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher tonight--Tuesday, May 1, 2007 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Karibu Bookstore15624 Emerald Way Bowie, MD 20716, before they roll out again on tour (Atlanta area). They'll be discussing an amazing and hornet-stirring biography of who my late mother called, "a handkerchief head and spook-a-demus of the worst kind," Clarence Thomas. Supreme Discomfort: the Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas is a must read, even for your up-coming beach trips, believe it or not. Click here for the authors' website and excerpts; you can purchase the book on amazon through my website's "What I'm reading" page.

Was Mom right? Hell Yes and Hell No, according to the authors, who have painstakingly opened the life of a very complex, closed individual, from birth to present day, and track the seminal events that shaped and continue to shape his views, his rather insidious and often insincere sponsors/backers/handlers, his jurisprudence and the public's perception. This is a man who very well may party with hogs like Rush Limbaugh--whose wedding he officiated--then goes home and cries in his sleep for doing so. Torture, hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance run that deep.

I hope to have an interview with the authors very soon; later this month they'll be discussing the book in the DC area--Silver Spring and Politics & Prose bookstore--and then Baltimore. In the meantime be sure to check out another fantastic non-fiction choice: Ghetto Nation by Cora Daniels.

FYI, facist sluts Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter have been attempting to evade debate on Supreme Discomfort on the barking head circuit lest they give it too much piggyback PR. Keith Olbermann and Charlie Rose need to headline this book, and hell yes so does Tavis, along with Ghetto Nation. Feed your brains, folks. Your teeth will rot from too much candy-ass street lit and soap opera novels (you know of whom I speak...)

Any comments on Mr. Justice Thomas, especially if you've read the book?

Monday Funnies? I Report, You Decide (smile)

"Fair and Balanced" funnies. OK, this is filler for Monday, but before you call me sick, check out anything on 106th & Park on my favorite network (which ran "The Mack" recently--now I actually saw that. Pretty Tony should run for President), or VH-1 (Da Brat and "Screech" from Saved By the Bell sparring on Celebrity Fit Club; any damn thing on Flavor of Love Charm School?) or MTV. Or "Rush Limbaugh's "Barack De Magic Negro." (click on the fat scumbag's name and see what Arianna Huffington has to say). Enjoy your Mondays and discuss all of this stuff this at your lunch break.

The Devil's Mambo book lauch at Bar Sepia in Brooklyn was, as expected, too cool for for this planet; will get an update on Lori Bryant -Woolridge's events, and congratz/humungous ups to author Naomi Hirahara, one of our The Darker Mask folks, on her Edgar Award (Mystery Writers of America). More to come...

Book Parties: end of April

The Lord rested on Sunday but that doesn't mean you should. Check out two launch parties by my colleagues, Essence Bestseller Lori Bryant Woolridge and Senor Rogue Taino--Jerry Rodriguez--in the NY-NJ area.

Jerry: Sunday, April 29th @ 7:00pm-? Bar Sepia. Open bar (wine & beer) from 8:00-9:00234 Underhill Avenue (@ Eastern Parkway)(2,3 or 4 train to the Brooklyn Museum stop) call 718-399-6680 for info. Launch for The Devil's Mambo. If you can't make it, buy it on this blog along with Mike Gonzales' story in Bronx Biannual...
Click here to see trailers featuring the likes of Lauren (Oz, NY Undercover, I Like it Like That etc ) Velez and Paul (Pulp Fiction, Law & Order, The King of New York, Kss of Death etc) Calderone.

Lori: Sunday, April 29th @2:00pm Weapons of Mass Seduction Workshop/Launch Party Hosted by: Mothers Extraordinaire. Cafe Eclectic, 444 Bloomfield Ave, Montclair, NJ 07042 call 973-509-9179 for info (space may be limited!) Buy it here on this blog, or run, fly, swim or brave the Garden State Pkwy (what exit?!) and get a signed one from Lori herself before she gets so big she has staff to ghostwrite her stuff...

RIP David & Juanita

David Halberstam, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Best and the Brightest, as well as twelve other books, has left us. Best and Brightest was the first political monograph I ever read as a student, and it's lessons bear review today. So now we're stuck with Tim Russert and Ann Coulter? Makes even a fiction writer like myself consider early retirement. And so went the Honorable Juanita Millender-MacDonald. The model of a public servant, e.g., someone who actually knew what that term means. She took over the term of a sadly corrupt, self-aggrandizing black politician in Compton; she's been re-elected for successive terms overwhelmingly ever since. Here was someone who showed fellow Californian Maxine Waters how one can be a House member, a role model and a strong black woman without being a harpy and a hypocrite. RIP folks.

Bamboozled?

No, I'm not talking about the Bush Adminstration and the cadre of bizarre GOP knuckleheads who want to pee all over Earth Day and global warming/climate change/Al "I'm getting as fat as Ted Kennedy" Gore. I'll let Sheryl Crow, Tom McGraw & Faith Hill carry that fight. Rather, though I don't usually promote scholarly monographs and papers, journal articles or items such as law reviews on this blog (unless it's my own stuff, fanboys & girls) I invite you to buy Dr. Gerald Powell's A Rhetoric of Symbolic Identity, an Analysis of Spike Lee's X and Bamboozled. Click on the title for a link to amazon.com, or go to barnesandnoble.com. While X was seen as Spike's opus, "Bamboozled" was a very nuanced work even though the images slapped you in the face. Recall, a black TV executive, under pressure to produce a black "hit" and, having his more cerebral work shot down for something resembling a "Madea" sitcom (see how this presages the present issue?) comes up with an idea to revive old-time minstrel show/black face/ tap-dancing comedy (complete with Savion Glover!). The show even has a house band dressed in chain-gang, 1920s vintage attire! Among whites AND blacks, the sponsors--the show becomes a runaway hit! Complications follow...

Dr. Powell is a Ph.D in Philosophy (Howard University, my spouse's alma mater) and resides here in the nation's capital. He taught at St. Joseph's University in Indiana and is now with Coppin State University in Baltimore. He argues for a new rhetorical analysis of African American culture, and uses the study of the good, bad and ugly of Spike Lee's vision as the test case. Traditional tools of rhetoric are being molded to fit this new ethos, and it's about time. What's good for white geese isn't seen as good for black ganders, and it would have been cool to see academics like Dr. Powell on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc. when the Imus thing broke, rather than the right wing turds like Hannity or Glenn Beck versus Snoop Dogg. Better still, Oprah should have had Dr. Powell on the panel with folks like Russell Simmons regarding contemporary Hip Hop's sickeningly bling/prison/gangsta/sex/bitch/ho/stripper ethos rather than "Mr. Toad" Stanley Crouch. hahaha

Whether you understand the arcane language of philosophy, arts & communications or not, this is a must read, for it will definitely help you build a framework for understanding the equally complex issues of race and culture in this country.

Resign...leave...get the f**k out!!!

When I worked for Janet Reno, right-wing clowns were constantly declaring her an enemy, a traitor, incompetent. They never backed it up because it was utterly ridiculous. Now we have an A-G who is unequivocably an incompetent fool at best, a lying hack at worst. Even Gonzales' own party wants him gone. This

is the office once occupied by Bobby Kennedy, by Nicholas Katzenbach, John Sherman. But Gonzales--as much a Hispanic as Clarence Thomas is black--is filling the shoes of scum like John Mitchell and Edwin Meese quite well. Oh and I chose that photo very carefully. That's Karl Rove there, folks. You didn't think the President was involved in any of this, did you? ;-)

The Dirty Secret about what it means to be human...

I don't care what you say, folks. Two things make us human. One side is the Va. Tech professor who survived a German death camp as a little boy, sacrificing his life to save his students. Kids he really didn't know personally. The side other is Cho.

And that's why the world is the way it is. Think about it. 32 people killed in Blacksburg? Well, 32 people were killed in Baghdad in one evening out of scores of evenings just like it. A thousand women the age of the girls shot at Va. Tech were raped or sold into sexual slavery in one month. A whole generation of children was scattered to the wind in Southern Sudan and Darfur. Someone bumps someone in line to see a film in St. Louis, the other person's in some dumbass rival crew; two young men suddenly lay dead and people who know what happened don't want to "snitch."

The folks who do all of these things, or fail to act to prevent them, thought they were utterly justified. Just like Cho Sueng-Hui thought he was utterly justified in murdering 31 people. Hey, we're only human...

RIP Roscoe Lee Browne

I first saw him when I was barely in first grade and my uncle took me to see Alfred Hitchcock's spy flick Topaz (the equalivalent of me taking my little nephew to an "R" rated film). His bearing, his voice...amazing. So much so that anytime anyone needed a black actor who DIDN'T sound like they just got out of prison or off the farm, they got him. His voice was more patrician than James Earl Jones's, more mellifluous than Ossie Davis's. He was in Oscar-winning films, he was in cartoons, on Broadway, on TV. Now we're stuck with Tyrese...

From CNN: Actor Roscoe Lee Browne, whose rich voice and dignified bearing brought him an Emmy Award and a Tony nomination, has died. He was 81. Browne died early Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after a long battle with cancer, said Alan Nierob, a spokesman for the family. Browne's career ranged from classic theater to TV cartoons. He also was a poet and a former world-class athlete. His deep, cultured voice was heard narrating the 1995 hit movie "Babe." On screen, his character often was smart, cynical and well-educated, whether a congressman, a judge or a butler.
Born to a Baptist minister in Woodbury, New Jersey, Browne graduated from historically black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he later returned to teach comparative literature and French. He also was a track star, winning the 880-yard run in the 1952 Millrose Games.
Browne was selling wine for an import company when he decided to become a full-time actor in 1956 and had roles that year in the inaugural season of the New York Shakespeare Festival in a production of "Julius Caesar."
In 1961, he starred in an English-language version of Jean Genet's play "The Blacks."
Two years later, he was The Narrator in a Broadway production of "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe," a play by Edward Albee from a novella by Carson McCullers. In a front page article on the advances made by blacks in the theater, the New York Times noted that Browne's understudy was white.
He won an Obie Award in 1965 for his role as a rebellious slave in the off-Broadway "Benito Cereno."
In movies, he was a spy in the 1969 Alfred Hitchcock feature "Topaz" and a camp cook in 1972's "The Cowboys," which starred John Wayne.
"Some critics complained that I spoke too well to be believable" in the cook's role, Browne told The Washington Post in 1972. "When a critic makes that remark, I think, if I had said, 'Yassuh, boss' to John Wayne, then the critic would have taken a shine to me."
On television, he had several memorable guest roles. He was a snobbish black lawyer trapped in an elevator with bigot Archie Bunker in an episode of the 1970s TV comedy "All in the Family" and the butler Saunders in the comedy "Soap." He won an Emmy in 1986 for a guest role as Professor Foster on "The Cosby Show."
In 1992, Browne returned to Broadway in "Two Trains Running," one of August Wilson's acclaimed series of plays on the black experience. It won the Tony for best play and brought Browne a Tony nomination for best featured (supporting) actor.
The New York Times said he portrayed "the wry perspective of one who believes that human folly knows few bounds and certainly no racial bounds. The performance is wise and slyly life-affirming."
Browne also wrote poetry and included some of it along with works by masters such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti and William Butler Yeats in "Behind the Broken Words," a poetry anthology stage piece that he and Anthony Zerbe performed annually for three decades.

"Where have you gone, Jackie Robinson?"

"Whitefolks are-a marketing you to-day/Hey hey hey/Hey hey hey..."

(sorry for the Simon & Garfunkle parody all you young folks, but Young Jeezy and Ciara don't have baseball songs to bite on...)
This man was subject to murder threats, he was spit on by white ball players (who often slid into second, metal cleats high), and yet told not to fight back. Hard for a dude with a hair-trigger temper like Jackie's not to fight back, to bear it all with "dignity." They love it when we bear things with dignity or have to "understand the way things work," don't they? Well, the not-so-distant ancestors of same clowns who infest Fox News and talk radio/blogs attacked him daily. "Middle America" despised the man; had he manifested 10% of the vices and anti-social behavior of some of Major League Baseball's (MLB) iconic white players, Jackie would have been expelled from the game. And of course the Senator Joseph McCarthy's minions tried to shellack him as a communist, to which Jackie responded with the classic, "If the comunists are using treatment of Negro to their advantage, then who can blame them? Think about this: Jim Crow has been around longer than communism, and might be around long after communism's gone unless somebody does something!"

These are the same folks, corporations, manipulators of MLB who, this week in 2007, this week of Imus and Duke Lacrosse imbroglios, are turning this 60th anniversity of his joining the Brooklyn Dodgers as a feel-good marketing event.

I'll be even more blunt about MLB history, and feel free to call me a loon. If Negro League players had been in the majors from, say, 1919-on, no one would have heard of Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle. Ty Cobb would've prospered, though, using his hatred of blacks as fuel. Would have been fun to see him sliding spikes-first toward Josh Gibson, and Josh knocking some of Ty's teeth out with his elbow at the baseline. Ty would've cursed, called him an infernal nigger, and come right back at him the next at-bat. Now that's some baseball! But alas, it didn't happen. You never would've known this history judging from the feel-good Disneyfication going on. We have to stop kidding ourselves when we try to bemoan an "obsession" with race. Race--like lawyers--was a defining element in the founding and development of this nation. Period. No debate. So can't we just be honest about what happened 60 years ago?

Note many black folks still use a phrase coined back in '47 whenever we face obtuse comments about affirmative action. It's called "the Jackie Robinson thing." You have to be three times better than them to be considered half as good. Think about it...

The Last Word on Imus...

...from the Big Man himself, Jason Whitlock. Basically, we as black folks have to take responsibility for the ghetto/prison/stripper culture crap we allow our own people to put out there, unchallenged. Think I'm crazy? Check any Fox News show (Hannity, O'Reilley, etc.) or right wing blog or any conservative blowhard like Glenn Beck or my favorite dope fiend, Rush Limbaugh, and do you see the paeons to capitalism that you should see? E.g., GM, Procter & Gamble, Amex (g'head Ken!) got Imus off MSNBC, not Jesse, Al et al. Nope. You see these smarmy preppies (I've been dealing with boys like this my whole life) down at Duke, and endless references to folk like Snoop, Young Jeezy, even Diddy and Jay-Z, plus the crazy chick who accused the lacrosse players in the first place. Nevermind that the Rutgers young ladies are NOT Ron Artest, "Pacman" or Tank Johnson. Might as well be, as these are the type of athletes we laud. Check Jason's column and either rave or rage. One thing, if this matter got Al Roker back his black card (you should have seen the hate email he got from white people who thought they had him pegged as jolly and safe), then you know this was serious...

For lighter fare, be sure to pick up a copy of Jerry Rodriguez's new novel (see April 10 Post) and check out the trailer he filmed featuring actor Paul Calderon as Nick Esperanza. I'll be following up with views and reviews of new stuff by LA Banks, Trisha Thomas, Lori Byrant Woolridge and the new book trailer by Jonathan Luckett. Plus some ticklers on Nat Turner's own projects.

Check back after Tax Time, fanboys and girls...