Black is the New White Page 19
Fist bump, now. Don’t give me no white man’s handshake. Fist bump!
CHAPTER 36
Harlem is haunted. I ain’t talking about no Harlem Renaissance shit, Langston Hughes and W. E. B. DuBois and all those black-history-month folks. I always tell kids if they ever want to do a real report for black-history month, they should hand in a paper on Jesus. Write about Jesus Christ. He’s black.
But Harlem is haunted because ever since Richard’s death, every place in the world is haunted for me. I know Richard starts his career here in New York City, down in the clubs of the Village. He kicks off his comeback after Berkeley at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. So I am walking the streets, minding my own business, and suddenly a thought of Richard blindsides me. It can happen any time at all.
I’m in a Harlem McDonald’s, subway coming aboveground right here and shaking its rattletrap ass over my head, and I sit listening to a short crazy dude sound off. All I can think of is Richard, hearing this tight little African leprechaun (an Africaun?) rant and rave in a strange, high-pitched nuts-in-a-vise voice. The dude rants to everybody in the Harlem McDonald’s, but he’s not speaking to anybody in particular. He’s talking to thin air.
“I beat you and I hit you,” this little Africaun says. “You think I’m small, but I can do it. Come at me, let me see you bring it. I win, because you know why? I may have small hands, but I got God in my hand, right here. God is in my hands. You don’t know? I used to be a great opera singer.”
I say, laughing, “Oh, little man, I wish my friend Richard were around.”
If Richard were alive now, I’d write him such a great character. I’d give the little Africaun to him and he’d make a million dollars out of doing the character of the little dude with a big-assed rant. I can see it like it is happening right in front of me. I can see Richard doing him. I miss Richard. Mr. Mooney. I miss him calling me that.
Mostly when I think about Richard, I think about keeping it real. I think about never losing my voice, never giving in, never selling out, always keeping black, always sticking to the street. Staying neighborhood and not Hollywood.
I mean, I’ve been doing what I do for a long time. I’ve made millions of dollars at it. I’ve always worked, throughout the course of five decades now. Not many comedians can say that.
Stop a random black person in the street and ask if the name “Paul Mooney” rings a bell. Now stop a random white person. Two different realities. Maybe that’s what we’re talking about.
I’m unheard-of by white people. I’m stealth for white people. I’m silent to white people.
So after a half century doing comedy, I’m some sort of secret? I’m the real unknown comic, not that Canadian who used to appear with a paper bag over his head on The Gong Show. What’s his name? Murray Langston. Somebody put a bag over my reputation. I’m known for being unknown.
Or maybe I’m unknowable.
Or maybe some people just don’t want to know me.
All my life, I witness reactions to my presence that seem to veer crazily from fascination to denial. Love-hate. But Mama bestows upon me the greatest gift: an absolute bedrock belief in myself. I’m the ugly duckling who right from the start always knows he’s a swan. So the people who want me to be a duck just seem silly to me.
“You’re different,” Mama tells me. “You’ve got the light shining from within you.”
So it’s that light, that God-given light, that makes people respond to me in such strange ways.
What I’m wanting to do with this book-joint thing is give you a glimpse behind the curtain. I’m the one operating the special effects and the fireworks and the light show to make the Great and Powerful Oz great and powerful. That’s who I am.
Mama’s supreme gift means I’m untouchable. Her unconditional love makes me bulletproof. “You are better than anyone,” Mama whispers to me. “You don’t have to bow and scrape.”
So I’m not slowed down or changed by any of the bullshit thrown at me. I always have the same reaction: I just think it’s strange.
I’m trying to come up with a comparison. Say there’s a single surviving dragon, the last one in all existence. People are fascinated by it, but they’re terrified, too. You can imagine all the excited chatter.
“There’s only one left?”
“Are you sure?”
“Omigod, I’m glad there’s only one left.”
Then the dragon wakes up and spits out a few fiery words, and the people are shocked and even more fascinated and terrified.
“You mean it can talk?”
I cannot be any other way than how I am. I can’t “tone it down.” I can’t “be less black.” I never worry about whether that person gets me or that person doesn’t. I’ve got the endorsement of the world’s funniest man in my hip pocket. Richard helps me to keep going. Even from the grave, he insists on my keeping it real.
Dr. King says, “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” I am just happy to be of service to the human race, with all my maladjusted creativity in play every day of the week.
The paper for this book is white and the print is black. Are either of those shades even close to the skin colors of white folks and black folks? No. Malcolm has his realization moment, when he looks up white and black in the dictionary and sees that it’s all bullshit. White people take the color white for their own when they ain’t white, they’re shades of pink and red and tan. And they assign black folk the color black, when we ain’t black, we’re brown and tan and high yellow and motherfucking russet.
To paraphrase H. Rap Brown, racism is as American as cherry pie. It’s the country’s original sin—that and the shit the Europeans pull on the Indians, which is part of the same trip. Racism is a thread that runs through history. Everything is stitched with its color.
So let’s play a little word association again, shall we?
Brother.
Sister.
Honky.
Honkytonk.
Afro.
Euro.
African American.
European American.
Obama.
President.
Nigger.
President.
Tar baby.
President.
Jungle bunny, motherfucker!
President.
Pink.
Tan.
Brown.
High yellow.
White.
Black.
That’s right. What’d I say? Black is the new white.
June 2008–April 2009
Harlem
Los Angeles
APPENDIX
PAUL MOONEY: STAND-UP, TV, AND MOVIE CREDITS
STAND-UP
Know Your History: Jesus Was Black … So Was Cleopatra (2006)
Analyzing White America (2004)
Master Piece (1994)
Race (1993)
TV
Chappelle’s Show (2003), writer, actor
In Living Color (1990), writer
Pryor’s Place (1984), writer
The Richard Pryor Show (1977), writer, actor
Saturday Night (1975), writer
Good Times (1974), writer
Sanford and Son (1972), writer
MOVIES
Why We Laugh: Black Comedians on Black Comedy (2009), documentary
The Ketchup King (2002), actor
Call Me Claus (2001), writer
PBS Hollywood Presents, “The Old Settler” (2001), actor
Bamboozled (2000), actor
High Freakquency (1998), actor
In the Army Now (1994), actor
The Legend of Dolemite (1994), documentary
Hollywood Shuffle (1987), actor
Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986), writer
Bustin’ Loose (1981), actor
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1979), actor
The Buddy Holly Story (1978), actor
Which Way Is Up? (1977), actor
&n
bsp; F.T.A. (1972), documentary
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Some of the names in this book have been changed to protect the guilty. Some of the other names that haven’t been changed represent people who have not been charged just yet, have had the benefit of a hung jury or managed to bribe the judge. You all know who you are.
I have to begin by thanking God for a life of unbelievable bounty and love. These gifts were provided to me first and foremost by my grandmother—my beloved Mama—and by my mother and family, especially my children: Daryl, Duane, Lisa, Shane, and Spring. I love you with all my heart. And to absent friends and family, Richard Pryor, Preston Ealy, and Symeon Mooney. You will always be an inspiration in my life.
Thanks go out to Joe Gilbert and Eddie Brown for getting me my first paying comedy job, Dick Stewart for my first taste of fame, Velva Davis and the Miss Bronze Contest, H. B. Barnum, Alan Winkur, Joyce Selznick for The Buddy Holly Story, Hugh Hefner for Playboy After Dark, Fred Williamson for not putting me in his movies, and Don Cornelius for putting me on Soul Train.
A heartfelt thanks to all the people who I have worked with in Hollywood and beyond, among them Natalie Cole, Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis, Carmen McCrae, Chakka Khan, Tina Marie, Tammi Terrell, Marvin Gaye, Jesse Jackson for saving me from Mayor Bradley, Diahann Carroll, Lou Gossett, Calvin Lockhart, Pam Grier, Jane Fonda, Glenn Turman, Lauren Hutton, Rosie Grier, Faye Dunaway, Roseanne Barr, Sandra Bernhard, Johnnie Witherspoon, Flip Wilson, Lily Tomlin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Damon Wayans, Ben Vereen for hiring me to open for him, Connie Stevens, Vicki Carr, Lana Turner, Suzanne Pleshette, Phyllis Diller, Mitzi Shore, Caroline Hearst, Debbie Allen, Arsenio Hall, Don King, George Slaughter, Bert Sheridan, Nina Simone, Grace Jones, Jackie Collins, Moms Mabley, Rudy Ray Moore, Redd Foxx, Nancy Wilson, Lindsay Wagner, Barbi Benton, Janet Pendleton, Barbara Luna, Morgana King, Isaac Hayes, Whoopi Goldberg, Johnny Mathis, James Brown, Little Richard, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Ann-Margaret, Marcia Warfield, and Jim Brown.
And a very special thanks to Keenan Wayans, Robert Townsend, Dave Chappelle, and Eddie Murphy—for all the laughs over the years, yeah, but more than that, for their deep understanding.
I’d like to extend a million thanks to my longtime manager, Helene Shaw, a true friend and the person most responsible for motivating me to do this book. My editor, Tricia Boczkowski at Simon Spotlight Entertainment, has been great to work with. Mary Pelloni and Gil Reavill helped me transform my thoughts and words into a book.
And, always, thanks to the audiences, for giving me the great gift of their laughter.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
HalfTitle Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Foreword
RICHARD
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
MAMA
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
HOLLYWOOD
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
THE STORE
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
THE SHOW
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
FIRE
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
BLACK
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
APPENDIX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS