The Black List

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Elvis Mitchell

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781416594192
• eBook ISBN: 9781439109175
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

In The Black List, twenty-five prominent African-Americans of various professions, disciplines, and backgrounds offer their own stories and insights on the struggles, triumphs, and joys of black life in America and, in the process, redefine "black list" for a new century. As seen in original portraits by renowned photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and in a series of incisive interviews conducted by award-winning journalist, critic, academic, and radio host Elvis Mitchell, this group exemplifies today's most accomplished, determined African-Americans, whose lives and careers form a trail of inspiration and example for people of all races. Spanning the arts, sports, politics, and business, the diverse accomplishments and lives of these remarkable individuals create a kaleidoscope of ideas and experiences, and provide the framework for a singular conver-sation about the influence of African-Americans on this country and on our world. The Black List is: Slash - Toni Morrison - Keenen Ivory Wayans - Vernon Jordan - Faye Wattleton - Marc Morial - Serena Williams - Lou Gossett Jr. - Russell Simmons - Lorna Simpson - Mahlon Duckett - Zane - Al Sharpton - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - William Rice - Thelma Golden - Sean Combs - Susan Rice - Chris Rock - Suzan-Lori Parks - Steve Stoute - Richard Parsons - Dawn Staley - Colin Powell - Bill T. Jones

CHRIS ROCK

COMEDIAN

PRODUCER

DIRECTOR

THE BLACK LIST? Isn’t the Black List people on a list that don’t work anymore? Well, the blacklist essentially is that. When they made this list of people that didn’t work in the fifties, they essentially treated them as if they were black. I mean, that’s pretty much what happened. We’re gonna treat you like every black person not named Sidney Poitier. That’s what happened. You get treated like black people.

Los Angeles, September 12, 2007

There’s progress being made. You know, they have two black women on The View now. That’s amazing when you really think about it. Because normally, if they’re casting a movie, and there’s an ensemble, and let’s just say they cast, you know, Martin Lawrence or Mos Def or something—I pretty much know they’re not gonna hire another black guy. You pretty much know that’s it in the ensemble. It’s kind of Rat Pack rules: Sammy’s in, it’s closed. The way I look at the two black women on The View is, they actually hired who they thought were the best people for the job and didn’t go, “Hey, we already got one black person,” and assume that this one black person would represent, you know, if you get one, you got them all.

Oh, you’re always black; it’s just, what shade of black are you? I don’t mean that in an aesthetic way. And there’s always gonna kind of be an over-reaction one way or the other regarding your presence. I always say there’s nothing quicker than white praise or white scorn; they come in rapid, and they’re boffo reactions. Barack Obama, who’s a great candidate who I actually endorse, says four words at a convention. “He’s the greatest man of all time!” Not really deserved, right? Michael Vick, same thing: The dog thing is bad, but he’s the devil. I actually saw a guy on TV compare Michael Vick to Mike Tyson goin’ to jail. Mike Tyson raped a woman, you know? Hey, I have a dog too. I have daughters too. Guess what? You wanna rape my dog, go right ahead. Just leave my daughters alone, ’cause I’ll kill you. And guess what? I’ve known my dog longer than I’ve known my daughters. You can still rape my dog.

I’ve been very fortunate to have some very nice things said about me. But I don’t think that’s a reflection of the people in the seats. I think I put people in the seats same as Pryor, or Murphy, or whatever, which had nothin’ to do with the critics, for the most part. I’m sure I probably made more money doing my first studio movie than Eddie Murphy. Am I better than Eddie Murphy? And Dave Chappelle got fifty million to do his sketch show. I had a sketch show a few years before that. Very similar. But, you know, whoever’s next is always gonna have an easier go at it. I’ve been able to reap the rewards of not only my work, but Richard Pryor’s work, Bill Cosby’s work, Eddie Murphy’s work.

The black audience is always gonna be skeptical of anything that white people love: “This can’t be that good. White people love it!” In 1996, my first HBO special, there’s no white people in the audience. I would tour year-round and see no white people. Then, HBO, blah, blah, blah. Now it’s fifty percent, it’s forty percent white. Here’s a weird story: I was outside the Comedy Store a couple years ago. And this young black girl—she was probably, you know, twenty-three—comes up to me and goes, “Some friends of mine had to drag me to one of your shows. And I thought it was gonna be corny. And it was the best show I ever saw.” And the thing that jumped out at me was, she automatically thought my show wasn’t gonna be good. She thought it was gonna be corny.

THE BLACK AUDIENCE IS ALWAYS GONNA BE SKEPTICAL OF ANYTHING THAT WHITE PEOPLE LOVE.

All the first twenty black baseball players were superstars. The first one hundred. Those years were skewed. When you let Jackie Robinson in baseball, that doesn’t mean it’s equal. Baseball, statistically, isn’t equal almost until the seventies. And why do I say the seventies? Because that’s when you started to see bad black baseball players. Equality is not in being great. Great black people have always been compensated. Jack Johnson was the heavyweight champion of the world, Louis Armstrong—they were compensated for being great. The true equality is the equality to suck like the white man, you know? That’s the true equality. I watch the Oscars. OK, these are the people that made the good movies. What about the people that made the bad movies? That’s most of the industry. I wanna be like that. Not that I wanna be bad. But I want the license to be bad, and come back and learn. That’s really Martin Luther King’s dream coming true: guys suckin’. There’s, like, three, four black people in my neighborhood in Alpine. It’s Gary Sheffield, Patrick Ewing, Mary J. Blige, and me. Hall of Famer, Hall of Famer, Greatest R & B Singer of Our Time, Decent Comedian. What’s the white man next to me? This dentist. OK? That’s America. That’s what America is. He didn’t invent anything. He’s just a dentist. Didn’t invent veneers, or bonding, or anything. Just a dentist.

My dad used to say this. You can’t beat white people at anything. Never. But you can knock them out. So, like, if you have six, and the white guy has five, he wins. Life is like boxing. And you can’t let it go. If you’re black, you can’t let it go to the judges’ decision, ’cause you’re gonna lose. No matter how bad you beat this man up. Larry Holmes versus Gerry Cooney is the perfect example of life. Larry Holmes beats the shit out of this guy for thirteen rounds. He knocks him out in the thirteenth round. They had to stop the fight. The man is bloody. He’s been beaten the whole fight. They go to the judges’ scorecards, Larry Holmes is losing the fight. If he didn’t knock him out, he would’ve lost the title. And that is essentially the black experience in a nutshell.

MY DAD USED TO SAY THIS. YOU CAN’T BEAT WHITE PEOPLE AT ANYTHING. NEVER. BUT YOU CAN KNOCK THEM OUT.

If my career had stopped in ’96, it’s still such a success story from where I came from. I was so happy to be out of Bed-Stuy. I was so happy to not be a busboy anymore. I was so happy to not be makin’ minimum wage. I was just really happy not being really poor anymore. When I worked at Red Lobster, when I worked at Odd Lots or Alexander’s or the Daily News, I wasn’t working my way through stand-up. That was my life. And I was working with guys that were grown with families, and we were making seven bucks an hour, or something like that.

Bill Cosby paved the way for anybody doin’ somethin’ like Everybody Hates Chris. If there’s no Fat Albert, there’s no Everybody Hates Chris. It’s weird. My daughter Lola actually goes to sleep with a little Bill doll. That’s so cool, man. Like, how much I love Cosby, and it’s like—like, actually, both my daughters sleep with little Bills. So someday somebody’ll be sleepin’ with little Chris. I have a picture in my office of young Cosby with a fedora and a cigar, as cool as they come. And if you actually read the Richard Pryor book Pryor Convictions, every time Cosby shows up in the book, he’s actually the coolest guy in the Richard Pryor book.

I think Eddie Murphy changed American acting too, a little bit. I just remember the way black guys used to act in movies before 48 Hrs. There was a sidekick way of acting that Murphy didn’t incorporate. It’s hard to explain. There’s the Negro Ensemble way of acting. Murph was like one of the first black actors who just—it was kind of Brando, in a sense. It’s very Brando, because he just acted like a normal person. It’s really subtle. Eddie Murphy revolutionized acting for black actors. And no one says that. In Beverly Hills Cop, it was just so effortless. It’s almost not acting. Before that, it’s very earnest: “I’m representing my race!” And Murph kind of just made it, “Hey, I’m Axel. Here’s my badge. What’s goin’ on?”

That’s the other great thing about Murphy. Murphy was probably the first comedian to embrace his age. All the other comedians before Murphy, no matter what age they started at, they tried to be older. So they put on a tux or a suit, and they would try to be forty-three years old. They kind of wanted to be in the Rat Pack or somethin’. Where Murph was like the first guy to just be like, “Hey, I’m really twenty-two. And, you know, I’m gonna be electrifying at twenty-two.” So Murph was almost like the first rap star, in a sense. He’s got leather. It’s very Elvis. Elvis would be the closest thing to that.

I remember I got an offer—and I’m not gonna say from who—but a huge offer to do a show like after Chappelle walked away from his money. Somebody calls me up. “Hey, you wanna get a show like that?” Oh, yeah. They offered me a ton of money—just an insane amount; more money than I have. And so, OK; let me watch the Chappelle show. I put in season two and put it on. And I was like, “There’s no way I will ever do a sketch show again.” It was so funny. The next guy to do a sketch show can’t be me; it’s got to be some young kid that doesn’t know any better. I think Katt Williams is that guy right now. You know how I always know a comedian’s hot? I go to a family function, and no one’s asking about me, they’re asking about the new guy. “You know Katt Williams? Man, that Katt Williams is funny.” It’s hot. Now, what you gonna do with the heat? How many pies you gonna cook? If you work hard, you could get ten pies before this oven’s cold. You could get a lot of pies. But you have got to have them pies ready and shove them in the oven, and soon as they’re ready, you have got to take them out and put some more pies in there.

See, the thing that black culture’s missing, it’s not the comedian thing. Somebody’ll be that guy. The real question is “When are one of these black girls gonna get their Streisand on?” Streisand wrote and directed, man. That’s the real question. When is a black girl gonna get her Streisand on? Stop goin’ to the premieres and gettin’ your picture taken. Really get in there dirty. You’re all smart. You’re all smarter than me. I can’t wait to see the black woman that really gets her Streisand on. That’s gonna be the next level. That’s the next Oprah. That’s the next Will Smith. The black girl that’s like, “I’m really about to set it off. I’m writin’ a movie, I’m directin’ a movie, I’m starrin’ in a movie.” I can’t wait to meet her. I can’t wait to work with her.

SUZAN-LORI PARKS

PULITZER PRIZE–WINNING PLAYWRIGHT

NOVELIST

MACARTHUR FOUNDATION “GENIUS” GRANT WINNER

GOD BLESS YOU, Ntozake Shange. She is one of those warrior women writers who has cleared a lot of brush and paths, laid a lot of roads for a lot of us. Writers, nonwriters, women, men, colored girls, and others. You gotta understand, when I was coming up awhile ago, people like Nikki Giovanni were sisters that I looked to. “When I grow up and become a writer, I want to write with that kind of fire, that kind of brilliance, that kind of unflinching honesty, that kind of bravery. That kind of flair, that kind of music.” Same with Gwendolyn Brooks. It doesn’t worry me so much that black folks don’t go to the theater maybe as much as they used to, only because I just will continue to write and show the things that I write, and, hopefully, encourage the people in the marketing department to be more effective in getting people into the theater.

Los Angeles, October 23, 2007

A lot of the folks who came to see Topdog/Underdog were African-American kids, young folks. Most of them had never really been to a play before. So that was their first experience in the theater. They didn’t know to show up at eight o’clock. They thought, Yo, it’s like a show, I can come at, like, nine, right? And they were coming in with their cell phones on. It was fantastic, because they were learning how to be in the theater. I will continue to create things that will hopefully be o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• SLASH
• TONI MORRISON
• KEENEN IVORY WAYANS
• VERNON JORDAN
• FAYE WATTLETON
• MARC MORIAL
• SERENA WILLIAMS
• LOU GOSSETT JR.
• RUSSELL SIMMONS
• LORNA SIMPSON
• MAHLON DUCKETT
• ZANE
• AL SHARPTON
• KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR
• WILLIAM RICE
• THELMA GOLDEN
• SEAN COMBS
• SUSAN RICE
• CHRIS ROCK
• SUZAN-LORI PARKS
• STEVE STOUTE
• RICHARD PARSONS
• DAWN STALEY
• COLIN POWELL
• BILL T. JONES
• ABOUT THE BLACK LIST
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS