"i couldn't get over the fact..."
here is bill o'reilly's statement that i referred to in an earlier post: (he was dining at sylvia's in harlem)
"i couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in new york city. i mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, with primarily black patronship.
"it was like going into an italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people who were sitting there and they were ordering and having fun. and there wasn't any kind of craziness at all.
"there wasn't one person in sylvia's who was screaming, "m-f-er, i want more ice tea."
with all due respect to clarence page, whose writings i enjoy a lot, mr. o'reilly is not only ignorant, he IS a racist. the above is a racist statement if i ever read one. he "couldn't get over the fact" why couldn't he get over it? was it that big of surprise that blacks were behaving in a civil manner? "even though it was run by blacks" unfuckingbelievable! his words betray his later denials. gee, they used knives and forks did they bill? christ almighty. and this is a man whom millions look to for their news.
if anyone reading this does not think those words were racist, please write me and give me your reasons, maybe i am missing something here. but personally, i can't get over the fact that this man is taken seriously by anyone other than other racists and complete and total morons.
while i have spoken of this before let me reinterate: racism is a cancer eating at our collective soul. like it or not, all men are brothers and, like it or not, we all are in this together. to quote one of the truly great americans, dr. martin luther king, jr., "an injustice to one is an injustice to all."
this is not to say that racism is strictly a white american problem, it is not, there are black racists as well, asian racists, brown racists and so on and so forth but because whites run this country (and i am white) i write more about the white racists than i do of the others.
i have taken other comics to task for what i saw as racist material and will not allow it on any show that i am in. they can go find another headliner before i work with a racist comic in front of me. since i am on this track, let me also say that way too many of the black and brown comics are racist in their material and sometimes it is almost a reverse racism that they are preaching. here is a little piece of logic for you; ALL BLACK PEOPLE DO ..... or ALL WHITE PEOPLE DO..... or ALL BROWN PEOPLE DO... is RACIST. once you put that ALL in there you are putting forth a racist point. don't give me that, "it is just a joke" bullshit either. i would like to hear more comics of color do a set without mentioning color. franklin ajaye, a great comic, mentions he is black one time and one time only in his set; he says "i went to an all black high school; matter of fact, that was the name of it; the all black high school." that's it. other than that, if you listened to him on a c.d. you would not know his color. funny doesn't have a color. my comic hero would have to be richard pryor and he, himself, came to the same conclusion and changed his whole attitude and never used the word, "niggar" again. and guess what? he was still funny. funny doesn't have a color. funny is funny if it is funny to all races. the whore walking into the bar doesn't have a color. the lion fucking the giraffe doesn't have a color. just color them both funny.
i lived in harlem for six months in 1961 and one of the great loves of my life was a black woman. in the army and in prison my two best friends were black and brown. my next door neighbor and good friend, carlos, is hispanic. all of these people, even the guys in prison, are decent human beings. in prison, i was one of the few, if not the only, people who could walk among any of the races and be treated with respect. they all knew i "could hold my mud" as the expression then went. i spent almost two years in the "adjustment center" which was the euphuism for, what is better known as, "the hole." most of the people in there were of color and since we had no one other than each other to talk to i became friends with "red man", the leader of nascent black power movement in the california prison system and "mosca" (i may be spelling that wrong, it is the spanish word for "fly") who was the leader of one of the mexican gangs. these two men and i spent thousands of hours talking about our lives, our friends, our hopes, our dreams and, you know what, the stories were all basically the same. mosca's mother was the only person to visit me while i was in prison; i had taught her son to read english and both she and him wanted me to live with them when i got out. so don't talk racism to me.
and these are my thoughts on this tuesday morning in las vegas. peace be to us all.
"i couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in new york city. i mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, with primarily black patronship.
"it was like going into an italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people who were sitting there and they were ordering and having fun. and there wasn't any kind of craziness at all.
"there wasn't one person in sylvia's who was screaming, "m-f-er, i want more ice tea."
with all due respect to clarence page, whose writings i enjoy a lot, mr. o'reilly is not only ignorant, he IS a racist. the above is a racist statement if i ever read one. he "couldn't get over the fact" why couldn't he get over it? was it that big of surprise that blacks were behaving in a civil manner? "even though it was run by blacks" unfuckingbelievable! his words betray his later denials. gee, they used knives and forks did they bill? christ almighty. and this is a man whom millions look to for their news.
if anyone reading this does not think those words were racist, please write me and give me your reasons, maybe i am missing something here. but personally, i can't get over the fact that this man is taken seriously by anyone other than other racists and complete and total morons.
while i have spoken of this before let me reinterate: racism is a cancer eating at our collective soul. like it or not, all men are brothers and, like it or not, we all are in this together. to quote one of the truly great americans, dr. martin luther king, jr., "an injustice to one is an injustice to all."
this is not to say that racism is strictly a white american problem, it is not, there are black racists as well, asian racists, brown racists and so on and so forth but because whites run this country (and i am white) i write more about the white racists than i do of the others.
i have taken other comics to task for what i saw as racist material and will not allow it on any show that i am in. they can go find another headliner before i work with a racist comic in front of me. since i am on this track, let me also say that way too many of the black and brown comics are racist in their material and sometimes it is almost a reverse racism that they are preaching. here is a little piece of logic for you; ALL BLACK PEOPLE DO ..... or ALL WHITE PEOPLE DO..... or ALL BROWN PEOPLE DO... is RACIST. once you put that ALL in there you are putting forth a racist point. don't give me that, "it is just a joke" bullshit either. i would like to hear more comics of color do a set without mentioning color. franklin ajaye, a great comic, mentions he is black one time and one time only in his set; he says "i went to an all black high school; matter of fact, that was the name of it; the all black high school." that's it. other than that, if you listened to him on a c.d. you would not know his color. funny doesn't have a color. my comic hero would have to be richard pryor and he, himself, came to the same conclusion and changed his whole attitude and never used the word, "niggar" again. and guess what? he was still funny. funny doesn't have a color. funny is funny if it is funny to all races. the whore walking into the bar doesn't have a color. the lion fucking the giraffe doesn't have a color. just color them both funny.
i lived in harlem for six months in 1961 and one of the great loves of my life was a black woman. in the army and in prison my two best friends were black and brown. my next door neighbor and good friend, carlos, is hispanic. all of these people, even the guys in prison, are decent human beings. in prison, i was one of the few, if not the only, people who could walk among any of the races and be treated with respect. they all knew i "could hold my mud" as the expression then went. i spent almost two years in the "adjustment center" which was the euphuism for, what is better known as, "the hole." most of the people in there were of color and since we had no one other than each other to talk to i became friends with "red man", the leader of nascent black power movement in the california prison system and "mosca" (i may be spelling that wrong, it is the spanish word for "fly") who was the leader of one of the mexican gangs. these two men and i spent thousands of hours talking about our lives, our friends, our hopes, our dreams and, you know what, the stories were all basically the same. mosca's mother was the only person to visit me while i was in prison; i had taught her son to read english and both she and him wanted me to live with them when i got out. so don't talk racism to me.
and these are my thoughts on this tuesday morning in las vegas. peace be to us all.
posted by Ron Shock | 8:32 AM
2 Comments:
Letter from Michael Richards to Bill O'Reilly:
Dear Bill,
I performed recently in a comedy club in Harlem and I have to tell you that I, too, was surprised to find it was just like any other comedy club in America- full of stupid, disrespectful, shit-faced jerks!
Sincerely,
Michael
funny!
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