Here are a few excerpts from Paul Mooney’s latest book: Black Is the New White
Richard loves the whole scene. I mean, he really loves the glamorous life of Hollywood. More than the money, I think, more than the pussy even, more than everything but the drugs, Richard Pryor loves him some Hollywood star power. He could give a lot of it up and just be satisfied alone in a room with a base pipe, but he’d miss that Hollywood connection too much.
Yet giving it up is what he’s always filling my ear about back then. In the middle of the Candy Store, which in Richard Pryor’s eyes is a slice of heaven, he’s talking about giving it up. How he hates it. Sullivan and Griffin and The Tonight Show. The Las Vegas clubs and the top billing.
“It ain’t me, Paul,” he says. “I can’t even say the motherfucking word bullshit! I can’t say ass!”
I want to respond, “Look, I see the way your face lights up when Steve McQueen recognizes you.” But I don’t. I know that these people, the ones we are sitting among at the Candy Store, are the same ones who think they can tell Richard Pryor what to say, how to behave, who to be. To tell him he can’t say “ass” or “bullshit.”
He is a man all torn apart. Hollywood is telling him, You can have everything you want, but we have to put you through our deflavorizer first.
What Richard wants is what I want, what everyone in the What Richard wants is what I want, what everyone in the world wants. To be accepted, to be loved for who we are, not for some playacting version of ourselves.
That’s what he and I set out to do over the next few years: conquer Hollywood on our own terms. Our first step is to turn our backs on it entirely and make our Motown drive north in a blue Buick convertible, heading for the wilds of Berkeley.
The stretch in Berkeley is Richard’s time in the wilderness. He’s like Jesus, going out into the desert and meeting the devil. For Richard, the devil takes the form of a white powder from Bolivia. And unlike Jesus, Richard doesn’t conquer his devil. He makes friends with it. (pg. 101 – 103)
I know that producers who pass me by are leaving millions of dollars on the table. They say the profit motive is sacred, but it’s not true. Racism trumps capitalism. Hollywood prefers to pass up a program that I know I can make a hit, rather than work with a proud black man like me. I make them too nervous. I freak them out. It reminds me of my guerilla newspaper in high school, or my alternative talent show. You don’t want to work with me? Fine. I’ll do it myself. (pg. 140)
After all this time, I’ve learned that people’s reactions to me often have nothing to do with me. Any of the hundreds of executives who I’ve run up against in Hollywood: It’s their trip, it’s not mine.
It’s about color. That’s what’s up. It’s not complicated. It’s not some paradox. It’s simple, it’s basic, it’s racial. Because that’s their problem. Their problem is with the black male. It’s true all over the world. Because we’re the shit, okay? The American Black male is the shit.
I am not intending any disrespect to Africans. I know what the game is. But the American Black man is a unique kind of Black person. All over the world, people copy us. Our music, the way we talk, the way we walk, they are all influenced by us. We are the most imitated people on earth.
So how does that work out to disrespecting us? Because human beings always have a love-hate relationship with those in power. The Black American male has so much power because he is the world’s coolest icon. People love us for it, and they hate us for it, too. Everybody wants to be a nigger, but nobody wants to be a nigger. It’s complicated that way.
{ 0 comments }
