Coming attraction: ‘Mr. Untouchable’

In a few weeks, all eyes will be on “American Gangster” and Denzel Washington’s portrayal of former Harlem drug dealer Frank Lucas.

But a documentary opening October 26 tells the tale of Leroy “Nicky” Barnes, the true heroin kingpin of 1970s Harlem.

It’s called “Mr. Untouchable,” and it features Nicky Barnes himself... talking from the shadows, because he’s now in the Witness Protection Program. And how that came to pass is best discovered by watching the movie.

“Mr. Untouchable” is a fascinating social history of the black underworld, told mainly by ex-players. For example, members of the Nicky Barnes organization recall Frank Lucas’s crew disdainfully as “the country boys” because of how they dressed and spoke. The Barnes crew prided itself on “sophistication.”

I’ll be writing more about “Mr. Untouchable” in the coming weeks. For now, you can watch the trailer:

Bernie Worrell on UBM-TV

A day without Bernie is like a day without orange juice. So check out my Video Bar for clips of Mr. Worrell live onstage. Courtesy of YouTube poster “Funkamedic.”

(You’ll have to double-click the ones where Bernie backs up George Clinton; they are non-embeddable.)

A conversation with Cornel West, 1993 (pt. 1)

[I wrote about Prof. Cornel West for the Washington Post in 1993, upon his emergence as a public intellectual, a 40-year-old “prophetic” voice of the left. What follows is drawn from my original article.]

His bony fingers are holding a pencil-thin British cigar. A watch chain glints against his three-piece suit, the kind of suit that tightly wraps his lean body whenever you see him.

Chunky ornaments hold together his wide white shirt cuffs. His Afro belongs in a memory. His beard is Malcolm’s. It all seems part of a proudly cultivated personal style: Cornel West, the Sporty Intellectual.

But this isn’t really seeing him, here in this cramped office on the Princeton University campus. You have to see Prof. West on his feet, working a crowd.

Like inside Vertigo Books in downtown Washington. There he stood on a Sunday afternoon, the place packed with women, men, black, white, all mature and serious-looking, some sitting on folded legs. All looking to the man in the three-piece suit.

He told them someone had complained recently that he was distracting from the “black freedom struggle” by taking up gender issues.

Cornel West put on a puzzled face and pondered aloud: “Well, black women have been as black as black men” – there were scattered chuckles. A second later, he cocked his head and smiled, his voice sharper: “Of course, on a more basic level, he’s talkin’ about my mama!”

West said he’s also been criticized for condemning homophobia in the black community. He was dead serious here, his forehead scrunched, his words finely enunciated. “Can you imagine black culture without a James Baldwin? Unimaginable! At least to me. Without Audre Lorde? My Gawd!”

Then he offered a sly half-smile and a stage whisper: “Without a whole lot of brothers playing the organ in churches?”

They drank him in. West talked about redistributing America’s goodies, talked about how 90 percent of us are scratching and scrambling over 14 percent of the wealth. “Those are huge crumbs, but they’re crumbs!” He bemoaned the “weakness,” the “marginality” of the American left.

But then West started talking about the spirit... about love, about affectionate touching. “We need to write books about the decline of gentleness, kindness,” he said. “When I was growing up in the black community, I got touched all the time. I liked it!”

Invoking within the space of minutes the names of Marcus Garvey and Marvin Gaye, Fannie Lou Hamer and Mahalia Jackson, Toni Morrison and George Clinton, West is a whirling synthesis. Old-school radical and old-school preacher. Ivy League heavyweight and brother from around the way.

Behind his desk at Princeton, Prof. West listens attentively as I relate a picture of modern black collegiate life:

It was a celebration of Malcolm X’s birthday on the campus of Howard University. There was a lot of “revolutionary poetry” and pan-Africanist posturing in traditional garb. Lots of trendy greetings (“Hotep”), self-satisfied ritual, and guys chewing on licorice sticks. It was state-of-the-moment cultural Afrocentrism.

And when one of the hosts, a student leader from the University of the District of Columbia, told a rambling story about a Korean dry cleaner ripping off a black customer, he slid into a rant – “A Korean! A nasty, stinking, slant-eyed, parasitic Korean!” – and nobody objected.

It was a scene custom-made for Cornel West’s critique of Afrocentrism.

“What you saw there was a very narrow, truncated, myopic – and sounds also quite xenophobic – version of black nationalist tradition,” says West, hand on chin. “We’re living in a moment in which groups feel as if they have to close ranks. In which there’s an inward-looking disposition rather than an outward-looking one. So it’s very, very difficult to build bridges.

“And those of us like myself who are intent on building bridges,” he continues, “we have to acknowledge that there are reasons why people are becoming more and more narrow-minded. ...

“We’ve got levels of social misery, we’ve got death, disease and destruction ravaging black America. And most of the white elites... they haven’t really given a damn,” West says.

“As long as there is profound pessimism in the black community about the capacity of white persons to respond humanely, there’s going to be black nationalism around.”

At Princeton, this place of old stone, quiet grass and overwhelming whiteness, the Afrocentric movement has little appeal to students, according to West. In large part that’s because the Afro-American studies program, which he runs, presents “a much broader and cosmopolitan and international view of what it means to be African in the New World.”

He mentions one member of his faculty, the acclaimed novelist Toni Morrison, who – along with Alice Walker and such scholars as bell hooks and Patricia Williams – represents what West calls “a very strong black womanist movement, a crucial alternative for black intellectuals, both men and women.”

And then, “you do have a democratic-left alternative that’s also there,” as exemplified by Cornel West himself. “It’s just not as visible” among black activists nationally.

That’s because Afrocentric scholars, by sheer virtue of their Afrocentrism, are looked upon as warrior-heroes by many young black people. So while the mainstream media may hype him as “the hot black intellectual of the moment,” Prof. West knows he hasn’t won the hearts and minds of African-American students.

“The young folks certainly read me,” he says. “Partly because I’m in direct debate with a number of these [Afrocentric] figures. I’ve debated Leonard Jeffries many times, I’ve debated Molefi Asante many times. So I’m in on the conversation.

“[But] I represent a strand of the black freedom struggle that, these days, is very much cutting against the grain. You talk about an all-embracing moral vision, you talk about an analysis that highlights class and gender as well as race, and sexual orientation and ecology. To try to be synthetic and synoptic in that way is very much cutting against the grain.

“But that’s also true if you’re in the white community,” West says. “To talk about patriarchy and homophobia and to talk about white supremacy – cutting against the grain.

“In fact, most white Americans have probably forgotten about their own anti-racist tradition, going back to John Brown, Elijah Lovejoy. So that shows you how this notion of closing ranks, and not accenting the best of one’s tradition, is at work not just in the black community.”

[TO BE CONTINUED]

A free Bernie Worrell download

Yeaaah baby. The mailman delivered that new DVD I’ve been waiting for... “Stranger: Bernie Worrell on Earth.” (In stores now!)

So if you’re a P-Funk fan, you know what time it is. If you’re not into Bernie, maybe you just haven’t heard enough of his keyboardial wizardry.

Let me point you to a FREE MP3.

Bernie Worrell rolls with a barnstorming quartet called Colonel Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains (C2B3 for short) – alongside progressive rockers Les Claypool, Buckethead and Brian “Brain” Mantia.

On the C2B3 website, there’s a free downloadable track from the band’s Sept. 29, 2004, gig in Boston. Happened to be Les Claypool’s birthday, so you’ll hear Bernie jam a little bit of “Happy Birthday to You.”

To get that MP3, follow this link to the band’s homepage, look on the left-hand side, and click where it says “FREE DOWNLOAD: Les’ Birthday Show.”

To hear that track (“Scott Taylor”) streaming on my Vox site, click here. It will give you a sense of Bernie’s wigged-out virtuosity and nutty sense of humor.

Wednesday 45 Flashback: ‘You’ve Made Me So Very Happy’

Not the classic Blood, Sweat & Tears version, but the Motown original. It came out 40 years ago, sung by the sweet Brenda Holloway. She also co-wrote it.

It was a minor hit for Ms. Holloway. Now it’s part of the American songbook.

“You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” has been recorded by some of the greatest singing stars of all time... Sammy Davis, Jr., Mel Torme, Rosemary Clooney, Lou Rawls, Cher, Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross.

Cheers to YouTube’s 45 king, The Artist Formerly Known as Spoonfedcornbread, for uploading this:

White savagery

It’s been a couple of months since I wrote about the far-right blogger Lawrence Auster. And, like a girl missing her period, that’s cause for concern.

Fortunately, Mr. Auster posted something yesterday – titled “Black savagery, cont.” – which I feel compelled to respond to.

Auster quoted a black writer, Carol Swain, whose brother was killed by a group of black teenagers. “According to a neighbor who witnessed the attack,” Swain wrote, “five teens knocked my brother to the ground, kicking and stomping him until the neighbor intervened. Kevin staggered home, collapsed into a coma and was declared brain-dead within hours of the attack.”

This moved Lawrence Auster to write:

“Do people of other races behave in this way? No. This sort of murderous pack savagery is characteristic of blacks and blacks only. Yet it is never identified as a black phenomenon.

“This doesn’t mean that all blacks, or a majority of blacks, or a large minority of blacks, are savages,” Auster continued. “It means that this specific type of behavior is recurrent among blacks and among no other race.”

“Black savagery” is a recurring phrase in Auster’s racial commentaries. And yet, due to his ideation of himself as a rational thinker and a non-bigot, Auster insists that his declaration is not “reductionist” (i.e., illogically simplistic).

Well... for starters, there’s the factual matter of his claim. If Larry Auster thinks “no other race” engages in deadly group beatdowns, he hasn’t heard about the ways aluminum ball bats are deployed on the Navajo reservation. According to an eye-opening article I read in Harper’s a decade ago, the homicide rate in Navajoland is four times the national average.

But the bigger flaw in Auster’s racialization of styles of violence is best illustrated by another type of murder. The type where a victim – most often a woman – is mutilated for sick thrills. The sadistic sexual homicide.

I’m talking about white savagery.

I’ve wanted to share this for a while... been waiting for the right time. There’s a 1995 book called “Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit,” written by ex-profiler John Douglas.

He tells of a case where a white woman – a 26-year-old teacher of handicapped children – was murdered in the Bronx in 1979.

This case, according to Douglas, was taught at the FBI training academy for years thereafter, being “a good model of just how we came up with a profile and how the police used it to push forward a baffling and long-unsolved murder.”

I must alert you, the following details are disturbing.

The young woman’s naked body was found on a roof landing of the apartment building where she and her parents lived. Her jaw, nose and cheeks were broken from blunt-force trauma. She had been strangled to death with her own purse strap, then bound with her belt and stockings.

“Her nipples had been cut off after death and placed on her chest,” Douglas writes, and “bite marks were on her thighs and knees.” The killer left an umbrella and a pen inserted in the woman’s vagina.

With that pen, he had written on her body “Fuck you” and “You can’t stop me.” There were also traces of semen.

“The only tangible piece of forensic evidence was a single negroid hair found on the body during the autopsy,” Douglas writes.

The body had been discovered after a 15-year-old black boy who also lived in the building found the woman’s wallet in a stairwell.

The police put together a task force of 26 detectives. They questioned more than 2,000 potential witnesses and suspects, but made no progress. Then two of the detectives consulted the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit.

John Douglas came up with a profile.

“I suggested that the police seek an average-looking white male between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five, ... who would be disheveled in appearance, unemployed, and mainly nocturnal, live within a half mile of the building with his parents or older female relative, be single and have no relationships with women and no close friends, ... and who would have a large collection of bondage and S&M pornography.”

Douglas ruled out the 15-year-old black kid as a suspect... because he was black.

“Even though the examination of the body had turned up the negroid hair, I was convinced we were dealing with a white killer,” Douglas writes. “Very rarely did we see this type of crime cross racial lines... and I had seldom, if ever, seen this kind of mutilation from a black subject.”

To put it bluntly, then... there was something distinctively white about this crime because of its sadistic savagery. That’s not me saying it; that’s a founding father of criminal profiling.

Now, this doesn’t mean that all whites, or a majority of whites, or a large minority of whites, are savages. It means that this specific type of behavior... well, you get the point.

If I were to be reductive about it, like a Lawrence Auster, I would wonder aloud: What is it about the nature of white people that causes them to kill so savagely?

As for this particular murder investigation, the police used John Douglas’s profile and zeroed in on a 30-year-old unemployed actor, a white guy, who lived with his widowed father in the same building as the victim. He not only fit the profile (including the bondage-porn collection), but his teeth matched the bite marks on the woman’s body.

He was convicted of murder.

And what about that “negroid hair” found on the victim’s body during the autopsy? Turns out it came from a body bag that hadn’t been properly cleaned between uses.

George Carlin in L.A. (10/05/07)

The last time I saw George Carlin live, it was in Las Vegas around the turn of the century; he was working his “You Are All Diseased” material.

It was a weird show. I felt he was showing contempt towards the audience. For one thing, he kept looking at his watch. You got someplace to be, George? We paid Vegas prices to come watch your ass.

His last HBO special a couple of years ago was an unbearably misanthropic riff on death, suicide and the worthlessness of human beings. I was like, “Damn... is this what happens when you get sober?”

But Carlin is a living legend of American humor. When I saw he was coming to the Gibson Amphitheatre last Friday night, I was curious. By the time I pulled the trigger on buying a ticket, it was Thursday morning. I was hoping I could still get a seat. Figured I might be up in the rafters. Still wanted to see him.

Turns out I got – literally – the best seat in the house. Front row center. In a 6,000-seat theater. I was crotch-sniffing distance from the guy. Three young fellows sitting right next to me had copped their tickets that day. Just walked up to the box office.

I overheard from a couple of good-time Charlies also seated in the “pit” that the promoter was hustling to fill up the venue. A lot of radio-giveaway tickets, et cetera. Guy behind me said he bought his ticket three months ago, through a broker, for $250... more than four times face value.

I mention all this for a reason.

Mr. Carlin, now 70 years old – (“I’m a little bit like herpes. I keep coming back”) – walked onstage with a red folder. Inside were typewritten pages. Those pages had red-ink markings on them. (Front row center rocks!)

Before he got rolling, Carlin explained that he was polishing the new material for his next HBO special... to be broadcast next March. Carlin told us not to be upset if he consulted his notes; he writes very precisely, he explained, and by him checking his notes, we would be hearing the material “as it was intended.”

Okay. But still, to pay $70 for a comedy concert (let alone $250) and basically watch the guy rehearse... I mean, he did about half the show holding a piece of paper. I was a little put off by that.

Carlin was pretty funny, though. How could he not be? He is serious about jokes, and he knows how to write ’em.

But he’s shooting at the same targets as with “You Are All Diseased.” The self-esteem culture, the “worship of children,” the worship of God. He’s not into the whole God thing. At. All.

I didn’t take notes so I can’t share any jokes. But come March, when George Carlin returns to HBO, don’t expect anything you haven’t heard before. And if he visits your town between now and then, be forewarned about those typewritten notes.

Now, let’s go back 35 years – half a life ago for Carlin – to one of his routines called “Black Consciousness,” from his 1972 album “Occupation: Foole.” Click here to hear it on my Vox blog. It’s still relevant. (I have a kid-memory of Carlin doing this routine on “The Flip Wilson Show.”)

You can purchase “Black Consciousness” for download, or other bits from “Occupation: Foole,” by following this link to Amazon.com.

A pissing contest at BlackProf.com

Last week I linked to a post at BlackProf.com concerning infant mortality rates. The great thing about BlackProf – in addition to its steady supply of intellectually engaging posts – is a rollicking comments section where all kinds of points of view do battle.

Often, the battles get flamey (within the parameters of the blog administrators’ enforced rules of civility).

I got caught up in a hot back-and-forth over that infant mortality post. My antagonist was a regular BlackProf commenter, Craig Nulan, who is also part of a group blog called The Assault on Black Folk’s Sanity. (Shockingly, according to his LinkedIn profile, Nulan is an MIT alumnus.)

“Cnulan” callbacked to an earlier exchange we’d had regarding the black homicide rate. Which he seems to think is nothing to be worried about.

I present below our latest exchange. It includes a comment from Michael Fisher, Nulan’s colleague at Assault on Sanity, which blames me, David Mills – me, personally and directly – for the high incidence of black-on-black murder, because of my newspaper article about Professor Griff 18 years ago. You gotta check that out.

CNULAN: So, the basic question confronting researchers has been whether racial discrimination and racism is stressful, and to what extent might this stress impact pregnant women?

Search “Ostracism: The Cruel Power of Silence” to find a good article about the degree of neurological stress incurred as a baseline by the victims of racist ostracism and racist social scorn. Links to continuing research in this area should be available with the article – it’s rather old, but it’s findings have been subsequently borne out and extensively elaborated upon, so there’s no question of the neurological implications and effects.

(of course – as might be expected – the article doesn’t deal with racism as a form of ostracism – though it’s clearly by far the worst)

Note also the reciprocal effect on the bullies who anonymously practice this “personal responsibility”, “low-class”, “ghetto” scorn against the victims of ostracism? Consider the extent to which they’ve been dehumanized and have become relatively low-functioning as contrasted with human beings yet capable of empathy or understanding.

One of the things that delights me so much about inflicting rhetorical scorn on racist and conservative bullies is the way they shriek and tattle just like the psychological and spiritual infants they are – at the very first hint of even the least psychic discomfort.

What loathsome, spineless scum these sorry excuses for men have proven themselves to be......,

KEN: “What loathsome, spineless scum these sorry excuses for men have proven themselves to be.....,”

my, my....

It seems all so artificial from a man who wasn’t at all concerned about the homicide rate. And you know what they both hover at around 8000 deaths.

Here’s a city who is effecting their infant mortality rates, along with while adressing their other problems.

www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/pr2006/pr088-06.shtml

They are still trying to do better, and at the bottom of the article you can see what their programs are.

CNULAN: liar...,

I wasn’t ready to accept your ever-eager efforts along with the disappointing so-called undercover black man to racialize the homicide rate. Cast in global socio-economic context – it’s comparatively modest. What’s immodest and unique is the disparate rates of incarceration, colonial policing, and disparate penalties.

so no rev..., nothing artificial going on here. It’s genuine. I sincerely believe that the “personal responsibility” touting, racism denying conservative (your ilk) is a loathsome, spineless scum and a sorry excuse for a man...,

just like back in the day, when your ideological progenitors touted “states rights” as a code word for “Jim Crow” – so also the moralizing conservative pharisee – with no personal skin in the game – sits back in judgement but proposes and does nothing of consequence himself.

and heaven forbid he man-up and adopt the moral high-ground of anti-racist policy and praxis....,

KEN: Do you really think your cute little post of projections and insults makes me think you are concerned about this subject? You are just race baiting here. He is your quote from the abortion thread from prof Jefferies:

“I fully support abortion up to and including infanticide and accept that as a strictly maternal prerogative. ...”

... Do you understand why I think you might lack a little sincerity here? According to your beliefs these babies aren’t even human yet. And if you have no care for the homicides, how much less for these diapered blobs.

CNULAN: ... Your first mistake is imagining I give a rip what *you* think. For the record, what I’ve stated is that women have an inalienable prerogative concerning carrying and bearing children. Superstition-induced interference with that prerogative by those of your ilk is profoundly offensive.

If you and all other like-minded fundamentalists were raptured off the planet tomorrow, satisfying your fondest delusional desires, and, ridding the earth of essentially useless biomass, that would be a total win/win situation. ...

The women described in the article anchoring this thread are attempting to exercise their inalienable prerogative. They’re finding their affirmative exercise impaired by the toxic emanations of the culture and society in which they’re embedded.

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: You know what else might contribute to the stress of pregnancy... aside from fast-food restaurants, worries about understaffed schools, and crime? How about being UNMARRIED?

Sounds stressful to me... knocked up outside the security and stability of marriage.

Might the massive racial disparity in out-of-wedlock births contribute to the infant-mortality problem?

I mean, shoot... 23 percent of white women’s babies are born out of wedlock... compared with 68 percent of black women’s babies.

How easy (and useless) it is to blame the system, blame racism, blame whitey, blame America... rather than even consider the choices and behaviors of the women getting pregnant.

Values matter. Personal responsibility matters.

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: cnulan wrote: “I wasn’t ready to accept your ever-eager efforts along with the disappointing so-called undercover black man to racialize the homicide rate. Cast in global socio-economic context - it’s comparatively modest.”

Glad to hear you’re not losing any sleep over the 20 young black men murdered today by other black folks... and the 20 who will be murdered tomorrow... and the 20 more the day after that...

Murder (which we should all agree is preventable) is the No. 1 cause of death for black men between the ages of 15 and 34.

There isn’t a damn thing “modest” about that. And your bitching about the “toxic emanations of [American] culture and society” will do nothing to change it. Not that you seem to think it needs changing.

CNULAN: ... 20 young drug dealers murdered by 20 other young drug dealers is the predictable collateral cost of doing that business. Extremely modest when compared with the homicidal excesses of the retail drug trade in other, non-U.S. markets.

There isn’t a damn thing “modest” about that. And your bitching about the “toxic emanations of [American] culture and society” will do nothing to change it. Not that you seem to think it needs changing.

It’s a necessary counterpoint to your impotent whining about what you perceive as the moral depravity of poor Black folks rather than the moral depravity of America embodied in some Americans.

It’s you and reverend Ken who insist on racializing crime and immorality. Guess you’ve internalized enough anti-Black animus to be an incognegro indeed....,

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: ... My main focus, in the short term, is simply to broaden the public discussion... and to oppose those leftists and racialists who try to shut down certain subjects by name-calling and other anti-intellectual bullying tactics. Those people aren’t going to make the world better for anybody.

It breaks my heart that cnulan seems proud to conduct himself this way in a public conversation.

CNULAN: ... It will never cease to amaze me how closely identified folks become with the thought extrusions of their anonymous online avatars. A cynical man might be led to conclude that these wannabe gonnabe pranksters take it so “personally” because they have $omething at $take.

Clearly, an honest, good faith, promoter of our collective well-being has nothing to fear in sharing his/her truths with the rest of the world and proudly taking ownership of the same?

Only liars, criminals, terrorists, and the abnormal seek recourse to anonymity in their personal and political conduct....,

such persons have no rights I’m obliged to acknowledge.

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: Cnulan: Anonymity? Moi? Get hip, baby... everybody knows that UBM is the nom de plume of David Mills, Emmy-winning television writer and former staff writer for the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Read Wikipedia for more details of my brilliant career.

You are so self-unaware, it’s comical. You slag me and others for “racializing crime and every other statistic you happen to come across”... in a comment thread launched by a post titled “Racism and Infant Mortality.”

Is Prof. Bracey likewise guilty of racializing the statistics on infant mortality?

The days of your style of chest-pounding rhetoric are drawing to a close. No one is intimidated by you.

CNULAN: incognegro, you may be all that in your own imagination, but you’re a less than an undercover nullity to me...,

Prof. Bracey posited a series of questions. If you have some answers, contribute them, otherwise stop pretending that what you have to say is deeper than your hurty feewings at being upbraided for your own tiresome and sold-out contributions to the negro conservative chorus of irrelevance and anti-Black propagandism.

Don’t you think that the supply side of the happy negro market is fairly saturated right now? Or do you bring something special to it? Are you the “hip” happy negro?

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: Cnulan... how’s the weather on your side of the Bell Curve?

You wrote: “Prof. Bracey posited a series of questions. If you have some answers, contribute them...”

No, he racialized the issue of infant mortality.

And I say, if you’re gonna go around pointing out racial disproportions... nothing beats the fact that black people commit more than 50 percent of the murders in this country. It is the crisis of our time.

Oh, and I did contribute an answer to Prof. Bracey’s question, but obviously it skated off your Teflon brain. So here it is again:

ILLEGITMACY.

Out-of-wedlock births appear to be a correlating factor to infant mortality. If we urge young women not to get pregnant until they’re married, no doubt that would reduce some of that life-threatening “stress,” don’t you agree?

By the way, Prof. Bracey’s got a book coming out soon on the rise of black conservatism. It seems that 30 percent of the U.S. black population identifies as “conservative.” That percentage has grown much in recent years.

Your brand of anti-intellectual black racialism is destined to become a relic of the past... like blowout kits and the Hustle. (And a “hustle” is what it is.)

MICHAEL FISHER: David Mills is a low life. F-Word that N-Word. And I sincerely mean it.

He misused Prof. Griff’s trust to get ahead and deliver the first major blow to Public Enemy when they were at the height of their influence. The S1Ws (not Griff) told me the background story on that one. He is a piece of s-word who tries to get ahead by snitching to white supremacists on black progressives and black nationalists. Thus the moniker “undercover black man”.

His attack on PE enabled low lifes such as Jerry Heller to finally convince the Jewish folks who run the music industry to inaugurate THE radical change in their signing and marketing strategy. After that interview the instructions came from the top to cease signing black conscious hip hop groups and to finally concentrate on Gangsta as Jerry Heller had been advocating out in LA.

Mills is single-handedly responsible for the demise of conscious black Hip Hop and the rise of the likes of NWA and 50 cent as well as the resulting and accompanying black murder rate among black youth and the concomitant rise of disrespectful lyrics and behavior towards black women.

He was the black snitch they used to set the whole sh*t up.

Hypocrite

CNULAN: Your brand of anti-intellectual black racialism is destined to become a relic of the past... like blowout kits and the Hustle. (And a “hustle” is what it is.)

Evidently you know a great deal about a “hustle” or is that a sell-out David “incognegro” Mills. Is the happy negro conservative schtick your current modus operandi? Or is it your pathetic and hardly recognizable attempt at atonement for the unpardonable dirt you’ve done? Was the 32 pieces of silver you received for your perfidy worth it in retrospect?

CNULAN: By the way, Prof. Bracey’s got a book coming out soon on the rise of black conservatism. It seems that 30 percent of the U.S. black population identifies as “conservative.” ...

I would’ve pegged the percentage as much higher than that. Doesn’t mean we’ll be joining your anti-Black negro conservative bandwagon anytime soon though.

Frankly, given your rather profound personal failings David, I don’t think you’re going to realize very much success in your own efforts to make negritude “hip”. ...

I mean, shoot... 23 percent of white women’s babies are born out of wedlock... compared with 68 percent of black women’s babies.

well gosh darn incognegro.., 5% of white women live in semi-permanent poverty while somewhere between 21-25% of Black women live in semi-permanent poverty. I wonder whether the number of unwed white mothers would rise precipitously if the white poverty number ran in the 21-25% range?

I wonder if racist custom practiced as both de facto and de jure facts of life in America throughout the better part of the 20th century, (though now rendered unfashionable) had any bearing on those relative poverty percentages?

hmm..., if poverty skews the “illegitimacy” data, I wonder what it does to the participation in the retail drug trade numbers with associated homicide statistics, as well?

UNDERCOVER BLACK MAN: Cnulan, here’s where you just argue yourself in circles. If poverty is the cause of the high infant mortality and the homicide rate... and poverty is the government’s/white people’s fault... then there’s nothing black people can do to elevate the black community except ask/beg/demand that the government/white people fix it.

That is the ultimate position of weakness. Even though it masquerades as a kind of strength. (“Speak truth to power, brah!”)

You should read what W.E.B. Du Bois wrote about black crime more than 100 years ago. That long ago, he was arguing that it was up to black people to rise by means of the values of education, law-abidingness and work.

MBP of the Week: VH1.com

You might’ve noticed... no Misidentified Black People lately. Hey, I’m as stunned as anyone.

Has the corporate media finally gotten itself together? No more confusing Serena Williams with Beyonce? Have we entered an Enlightened Age?

Then I got an email from Comb & Razor. Thank you, Comb & Razor.

The folks at VH1, as part of their “Hip Hop Honors” hype, wrote a little blurb about RZA (from the Wu-Tang Clan) at VH1.com. Only they didn’t put a picture of RZA with it. They put a picture of DJ Quik.

Oopsies! Wrong black man.

This is the RZA:

Kid Creole & the Coconuts on UBM-TV

Yeah, I’m still gettin’ my Kid on...

Cheers to YouTube poster andyr12345 in Ireland.

Fun with Manipulated Audio: Clarence Thomas

With a bow to the brilliant comedy writer Robert Smigel and his “Fun with Real Audio” segments for “Saturday Night Live,” I decided to brew up some homemade satire using Mac’s GarageBand editing software... and the audio version of Clarence Thomas’s new memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son.”

I have nothing against Justice Thomas. But heck... comedy is comedy. As the saying goes: “Hard times make monkey eat cayenne pepper!” So click here and listen to Clarence Thomas in his own (remixed) words.

Kid Creole & the Coconuts in L.A. (10/03/07)

I’m happy to report that Thomas August Darnell Browder, a.k.a. August Darnell, a.k.a. Kid Creole, made a triumphant return to Hollywood Wednesday night.

The Kid rocked Sunset Blvd. with three fresh, firm Coconuts from overseas... and a freelance band from Long Beach. The Key Club was full of friendly faces giving him nothing but love. By the end, they were dancing in the aisles... conga lines, the whole shit.

I’m really curious as to what this gig was about. A showcase of some kind? There seemed to be a lot of badge-wearing “V.I.P.s.” Is Kid Creole trying to kick-start his recording career in the States, after years of living in London?

I does not know. But he also played a gig last night in San Juan Capistrano. I tell you, a few more shows like the one Wednesday night, and people are gonna start buzzing.

After 16 years without a major-label deal, Kid Creole probably can’t maintain a regular touring band, I figured. The surprise came when one of Wednesday night’s opening acts – local jam band Delta Nove – stuck around as the Kid’s rhythm section.

Not a problem, because Delta Nove smoked during its own set... a pastiche of heavily percussive white-boy funk with elements of reggae, D.C. go-go and New Orleans gumbo.

For the Kid Creole set, the band came out spankin’ the familiar hits like “The Sex of It,” “I’m a Wonderful Thing, Baby” and “Endicott.”

And what about the Kid? Oh, the Kid was sharp. From his gaucho hat to his two-tone shoes. Not to mention the purple zoot suit in between. He can still move, he can still sing. He can still command a stage.

The Coconuts were new, but their stage choreography I remember from two decades ago. Hey, if it works, it works.

Kid Creole’s longtime sidekick Bongo Eddie was up there doing his thing. As a hype man, Eddie is no “Sugar Coated” Andy Hernandez, but he certainly helped Kid Creole feel at home onstage.

The 90-minute set (including encore) featured “Stool Pigeon,” “Don’t Take My Coconuts,” “No More Casual Sex” and “My Male Curiosity.” Plus an oldie I wasn’t familiar with – “Gina, Gina” from 1981.

Let me leave you with the studio version of “Gina, Gina,” streaming on my Vox site. Click here to hear it.

I’ll let y’all know the next time Kid Creole & the Coconuts perform stateside.

Take a bite out of... oh, never mind.

Remember that game we played one time... Guess the Criminal’s Race? Well, I saw a Drudge Report headline this morning, and my mind decided to play.

The headline: “Dramatic Dashcam: Screaming 15-Year-Old Girl Pepper Sprayed After Biting Officer; Violated City’s Curfew Law...”

My mind said: Gots to be a white chick.

I don’t know why. Guess I just figured a black girl, even at age 15, would have more sense than to bite a cop.

I was wrong. (Hat-tip: Breitbart.tv.)

Friday Concert: Ani DiFranco

Since there are at least a few Ani DiFranco fans here, I’ll dip once more into the Dutch digital database called Fabchannel.com.

Fabchannel is streaming a 2004 acoustic concert by Ms. DiFranco, recorded at the Milkweg in Amsterdam. She’s a real interesting performer... a strong personality. And she can play the hell out of a guitar. Ani can even kick a little funk. The whole show is embedded below. Enjoy.

Just blame racism.

If you want to know what turns me off about soft-headed liberalism, read this post by law professor Christopher Bracey at BlackProf.com. The title: “Racism and Infant Mortality.”

On the matter of children dying during infancy, “the death rate for black babies is more than double the rate for white babies,” Prof. Bracey writes.

Between 1995 and 2002, the infant mortality rate for African Americans was nearly 14 deaths per 1,000 live births. For whites, the rate was about 6 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

“For years researchers remained puzzled as to the root cause of this disparity,” Bracey writes. “One of the leading causes of infant mortality among African-Americans is preterm birth. Neonatologists also agree that stress is an important risk factor because it initiates the release of stress hormones leading to preterm birth...”

So then, if “stress” contributes to the high black infant mortality rate, what’s causing all the stress?

Must be the “Big R.” Naturally.

According to Prof. Bracey: “A new series of studies from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies’ Health Policy Institute, along with a small but growing number of neonatalogists nationwide, suggests that the stressful effects of racism play a role in creating this infant mortality disparity.”

Stressful effects of racism like what?

Bracey cites a UCLA researcher who says “the disproportionately higher number of fast-food restaurants and liquor stores, lower number of grocery stores and the higher cost of fresh produce in many urban, predominately black communities caused poorer pregnant black women to make stressful choices about what to eat and where to live.”

(Stressful choices about what to eat?...)

Then there’s “the higher crime rates in these communities and worries about sending children to poorly equipped, understaffed schools,” Bracey writes. Is all this “part of a trend of racial inequality that’s stressful to some poorer black expectant mothers”?

The professor concludes with this stark question: “If racial inequality is literally making us sick if not killing us outright, what can and should be done?”

All right now, let’s back it up. Let us assume, for argument’s sake, that “stress” is indeed a contributing factor to the disproportionate number of black babies dying. What’s missing from Prof. Bracey’s list of possible stressors?

There’s Mickey D’s, poorly equipped schools, crime... what else? What else might add to the stress of pregnancy?

How about being UNWED? Sounds pretty stressful to me... knocked up outside the security and stability of a marriage.

Everybody knows about the huge racial disparity in illegitimacy rates. In 2002, 23 percent of white women’s babies were born out of wedlock, compared with 68 percent of black women’s babies.

Could illegitimacy be a contributing factor to infant mortality?

Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute cited an interesting set of statistics from 1960. It compared infant mortality rates for “legitimate and illegitimate births.”

For whites in 1960, the infant mortality rate for out-of-wedlock births was 33 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared with about 22 deaths per 1,000 for marital births.

Similarly, for “non-whites” in 1960, the infant mortality rate for out-of-wedlock births was about 51 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared with about 38 deaths per 1,000 for marital births.

I’m no expert on neonatology, and I’m not drawing any conclusions about anything. I just want to know why Chris Bracey, the Harvard-educated law professor and avowed liberal, didn’t even mention marriage or single motherhood in his blog post about racial disparities in infant mortality?

My guess is that the default position of leftists is to blame social forces, blame racism, blame the white man, blame America for any problems facing the black community. Leftists do not like to bring “personal responsibility” into the discussion.

If more black babies than white ones are being born prematurely and dying in infancy, that cannot be due to any choices or behaviors by black females themselves. No no no, they are helpless victims of the “stress” of living under a system of “racial inequality.”

That’s the kind of bullshit excuse-making that prevents black people from having an honest conversation about anything... especially the high murder rate.

Another ‘SNL’ history lesson

In honor of tonight’s “30 Rock” season premiere – (congrats again for that Emmy, Tina Fey!) – I’m streaming another track off of “Classic Moments from The Second City Stage,” a bonus CD that comes with this “SCTV” DVD set.

Ten years ago, Tina was doing improv in Chicago with The Second City. This sketch features Tina and her ace boon coon, Rachel Dratch. You will recognize Dratch’s character here; she later used it for the “Boston Teens” sketches on “Saturday Night Live.”

Click here to hear “Wicked” on my Vox audio stash.

Bill O’Reilly, meet Ziggy Marley. (Ziggy... Bill.)

Bill O’Reilly needs to spend more time in Harlem. That way, he’d likely discover that Ziggy Marley – eldest son of Bob Marley – is an actual person who exists. And he’s an international music star.

Judging by his TV show last night, Mr. O’Reilly does not know this.

Here’s what happened: Bill is still bent outta shape about the worthless controversy ginned up by MediaMatters.org, the self-deputized language police of America’s airwaves... the leftist hall monitors from hell.

You know, the whole business about O’Reilly sharing a soul-food meal with Al Sharpton in Harlem, and O’Rcilly’s awkward, condescending radio remarks about how Sylvia’s is just like any other restaurant in New York City... remarks which inexplicably became national news... Yeah, Media Matters started that fire.

As if anyone should give a shit what Bill O’Reilly says during every minute of his radio show. Black people have got bigger problems than Bill’s expectations of how folks might dress for an Anita Baker concert.

Okay, so last night on Fox News, O’Reilly does a segment on “the Smearing of America... Can we legally fight back?” There are two “legal analysts” – Megyn Kelly and Lis Wiehl – and Bill susses them out on libel law.

To Bill’s dismay, Ms. Kelly and Ms. Wiehl agree that he, Bill O’Reilly, being a public figure, would have to prove “actual malice” – a huge burden of proof – in order to win a libel suit. In effect, people can say or write pretty much anything they want to about O’Reilly... because he’s famous.

So O’Reilly started to ask: “Say my name is Ziggy Marley and I’m not famous...”

O’Reilly clearly thought he was pulling nonsense syllables out of the air. But Megyn Kelly got a puzzled look on her face and said, “He is famous, isn’t he?”

The conversation proceeded on its merry way, while I giggled and shook my head. After a week of getting pounded over an insensitive racial remark, for Bill O’Reilly to display his ignorance about black pop culture just seemed so... poetic. Out of all the names he could’ve thrown out there to make a point – “Joe Blow” being the safest choice – O’Reilly had to say “Ziggy Marley.”

Now, if I were to do a Media-Matters-style spin job with this little nugget, I might write something like this:

“O’Reilly Pisses On Grave of Bob Marley. Acts As If ‘Ziggy Marley’ Is a Made-Up Name.”

This is what Media Matters does, as a matter of ideology and tactics. Media Matters apparently monitors every word uttered in public by O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, etc., hoping they’ll say something that can be spun into a career-damaging shitstorm.

I hope O’Reilly will be cool enough to acknowledge tonight – after no doubt receiving some emails – that Ziggy Marley is a real guy. (But I don’t expect it.) He just better not say that he has never heard of Ziggy Marley.

Because here was Bill O’Reilly’s “Most Ridiculous Item of the Day” for July 11, 2002:

“... Janet Reno is holding a dance party at the Level Nightclub on Miami Beach, to raise money for her gubernatorial run against Jeb Bush. Expected to attend are Damon and Marlon Wayans and Ziggy Marley. Wow. No word on whether Ms. Reno will do the lambada, the forbidden dance of love. ...”

Wednesday 45 Flashback: ‘I’m Doin’ Fine Now’

Aw shucks, y’all... Guess who’s back on YouTube, kickin’ up dust?

The Artist Formerly Known As Spoonfedcornbread. Yesss!

He has a new name, but the game is the same. I don’t want to jinx him by mentioning his new nickname here. Besides which, he will always be Spoonfedcornbread to me.

And he’s still rocking the hippest oldies you can imagine. Such as this 1973 hit by New York City, produced by Philly-soul kingpin Thom Bell. This is smooth ’70s pop-soul at its finest.

So... the weekly 45 Flashbacks are back. As long as TAFKAS can keep ’em coming.

Playtex bras on UBM-TV

A few weeks ago, the marketing geniuses at Hanesbrands Inc. established a beachhead on YouTube for their Playtex brand bras.

You might wonder: Who the hell wants to watch commercials on YouTube?

Well, when those commercials feature curvy, half-naked womens cavorting and joking and talking ’bout their tits, the answer is: Plenty of people.

Exactly how many people is the question. There are eight videos on YouTube as part of Playtex’s multimillion-dollar “Girl Talk” campaign. Most of those videos have viewership numbers in the thousands or tens of thousands.

But one so-called “bloopers” video has allegedly been viewed 4 million times.

Yeah, right. Four million in about one month. Four million views and only 174 comments.

I’m sorry, but that’s a figure with no visible means of support. There must be some kind of shenanigans afoot. Can anyone hip me to the tricks of how YouTube viewership numbers get pumped up or inflated?

Four million views would constitute a cultural phenomenon. When “Chocolate Rain” racked up 4 million views, Tay Zonday got on “The Jimmy Kimmel Show” and CNN.

In any case, this campaign is a clever way to commercialize YouTube without pissing anybody off. Because women are like, “Hey, I wear bras too!” And dudes are like, “More breasteses please.”

It’s win-win.

Taking the cleverness a step further, Playtex is inviting real women to video themselves... and become unpaid spokesmodels in the “Girl Talk” campaign. Here’s what it says on Playtex’s YouTube channel:

“Do you have a funny Playtex bra moment or story you want to share? Upload your video to our Brastory ‘group’, and then vote on your favorites here – just click on the link below and you’re on your way! (limit videos to :30 max each, please? thanks)”

Hey... I’ve got a funny Playtex bra moment to share. But I don’t think they wanna hear about me getting caught jerking off at JC Penney’s.

P.S. My favorite Playtex “Girl Talk” girl is the Lauren-Ambrose-looking redheaded one (pictured above). You might be interested to know that she has nicknamed her breasts “Lacey” and “Casey”... because it “kinda rhymes and they’re kinda, you know, my friends.”

Coming attraction: ‘Stranger: Bernie Worrell on Earth’

If God were to draw up a list of the world’s most talented rock-’n’-soul musicians, Bernie Worrell would be in the Top 5.

Bernie was, first and foremost, a chief architect of the music of Parliament and Funkadelic. On monster jams like “Flashlight” and “Aquaboogie,” he revolutionized the use of synthesizers. On trippier album cuts like “Tales of Kidd Funkadelic” and “Atmosphere,” Bernard flexed classical chops in a radically post-modern context and blew a generation of minds.

(Click here for a 5-minute segment of “Tales,” streaming on my Vox site.)

Next week comes a DVD that will begin to give Bernie Worrell his due as a force in popular music. It’s called “Stranger: Bernie Worrell on Earth.” If I were you, I’d pre-order it right now, just to make sure I don’t forget.

I saw this documentary in 2005 at a festival screening in D.C., and can’t wait to watch it again. Brooklyn-based filmmaker Philip Di Fiore interviewed the likes of Bootsy Collins, David Bryne, Les Claypool and Mos Def... all singing the praises of Mr. Worrell.

(Among those testifiers are two good friends of mine: Larry Alexander and Thomas Stanley. Longtime readers might recall our epic roundtable discussion of the N-word.)

Since the decline of George Clinton’s P-Funk empire, Bernie Worrell has spreaded his sonic magic far and wide... especially at the behest of progressive white cats.

When Talking Heads wanted to get serious about their funk, they hired Bernie.

Bill Laswell pulled Bernie into the studio constantly throughout the ’90s, under such project names as Praxis and Axiom Funk.

Jack Bruce (of Cream) did a duo album with him.

More recently, Les Claypool (of Primus) recruited Bernie Worrell for a touring unit called Col. Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains. And guitar hero Warren Haynes speed-dialed Bernie for some Gov’t Mule recording sessions.

As for Mos Def, he assembled Bernie Worrell, Dr. Know, Doug Wimbish and Will Calhoun for his black-rock supergroup, Black Jack Johnson.

Now, I don’t wanna hit y’all with too much at once. I’ll post more about Bernie over the next week or so. But I will mention his new CD, “Impovisczario.” (Downloadable from iTunes, eMusic and Amazon.com.)

Interestingly, this album was produced by Phil Di Fiore, the documentary filmmaker, and released on Di Fiore’s boutique label, Godforsaken Music. (Bernie is also showcased on Godforsaken’s Baby Elephant project, along with legendary beat maestro Prince Paul.)

I must say, I’m not really feeling the “Improvisczario” CD. It seems like a bunch of loosely constructed jams built on thin ideas. But I do dig one cut – “Killer Mosquito,” with Bernie rocking the Hammond B-3 organ as only he can. It features Warren Haynes on guitar. Will Calhoun’s on the drum kit. Click here to stream it on my Vox blog.

Finally, here’s the trailer for the Bernie Worrell documentary: