While being approached about doing a series of the “Best of TASTY CLIPS,” I first thought of the many who have become ancestors since the column began running in The Wave in 2015.
Foremost in my mind was this frank 2015 conversation with the legendary humorist/activist/author DICK GREGORY.
“When I grew up there was no such thing as comedy,” he said. “I was just the laugh on the block. The biggest laugh you had in life didn’t come from comics but people you know. It’s the rhythm. So I learned.”
Gregory let it be known that the comedy industry owes a huge debt to Playboy magnate Hugh Hefner who came out to see him working the Black nightclubs.
“One of his comics, Professor Irwin Corey, decided he wasn’t going to work seven days. And so, they called my office. $50 a night! I didn’t know there was that much money in the world. Before that NO Negro comedians could work white nightclubs.
Then after that the whole world exploded. Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, a lot of your people in the movies and now writers. Nobody was writing and producing shows. All that came from one white man.”
He disagreed with the theory that all is fair game in comedy bringing up Cedric the Entertainer in the film “Barbershop.”
“He said [Dr. Martin Luther] King ain’t nothing but a whore and people filled up the movie. If he called Mother Theresa a whore, they would’ve killed him the next night. But he can say that and get around it. There couldn’t be a dog or animal or something filthy on the planet that I think would be lower than him. That’s that thug stuff he brings from St. Louis. And Black folks don’t care. The ones that do care like me wouldn’t go see him.”
“He’ll pay for that,” Gregory added. “I’m not talking about violence. The white folks who probably manage him are a bunch of [N-word] loving crackers. They wrote it for him, and he delivered it: ‘King ain’t nothing but a whore and Rosa Parks didn’t do nothing. She just too tired to move her big fat Black ass.’ And everyone in the world knows she ain’t got a Black ass. That’s the way white folks view a Black woman.”
ON MICHAEL ERIC DYSON’S ARTICLE IN THE NEW REPUBLIC ATTACKING CORNEL WEST: “I haven’t read it, but I have it. I mean that’s just that mentality of some folks. When the meeting was held that the word nigger get changed into the N word, neither one of them were [present]. That [piece] went in a white magazine. That’s like you want to get a message to the ghetto and you take an ad out in the Wall Street Journal. You’re talking to white folks!”
ON ACTIVIST MUMIA ABU-JAMAL’S FAILING HEALTH UNDER INCARCERATION: “Some people you can’t kill. I’m surprised he actually lived this long knowing all the people this country’s killed.”
ON PROFESSIONAL SPORTS: “The fix has always been in. Did you see the Super Bowl [XLIX]? Here’s a Black man [Marshawn Lynch] that can outrun Jesus and yet and still they threw a pass on the one-yard line. And America’s stupid enough not to know that was fixed? If I’m known for making good spaghetti and I go to a food contest and make green peas, you know I didn’t want to win.” – Mr. Dick Gregory (October 12, 1932 – August 19, 2017)
