Ta-Nehisi Coates is a devastating writer and observant.
On Michael Jackson, responding to this criticism,
Commenter: “But the man’s flaws are not the kind you overlook. If anything, they are the kind of thing you hope he burns in hell for.”
I don’t want to relitigate Mike’s case, but I will say a couple things. I’m sure there will be plenty of MJ condemnation, and people are welcome to do it. My own perspective is formed by two factors.
1.) I’ve, at times, heard of the death of awful people and thought “Good riddance.” But upon reflection, that feeling rarely keeps. When Jeffrey Dahmer died, I initially thought it served him right. And then I got to thinking about the internal torture that must have made him who he was, and I lost my righteousness. When the mountain falls on people who’ve spent their lives inflicting pain on others, I am rarely comforted for long.
This is a point of religion, for me. I don’t expect everyone to see it my way. Death is fucked up. I don’t wish it on anyone. I don’t have much use for evaluating who deserves the sword, and when they should get it.
2.) Ray Lewis may well be an accessory to a man’s murder. But when I watch him run up and down field on Sunday, it sparks something in me. Woody Allen wooed his wife’s adopted daughter, and may well be a child molester. But I think Bananas makes me laugh. Mike Tyson is, among other things, a convicted rapist. But I had not lived until I saw him demolish Trevor Berbick. And so on…
I guess I could peel these people out my life. I guess I could stop seperating art from men. Regrettably, I think, I wouldn’t be left with much art worth admiring. Sometimes awful people, do beautiful things. One doesn’t cancel the other. And mourning the loss of human life, does not excuse the sins of that life.
On Richard Pryor-
I think writers should watch more Richard Pryor. I watched part of Live On The Sunset Strip back in college–or rather part of it. I actually didn’t think it was that funny. Looking back on it now, a large part of the problem was that I came up on Eddie Murphy Raw and Def Comedy Jam. In other words, I watched it wanting to laugh from beginning to end.
Yesterday, I rewatched Sunset Strip on a lark, and thought on it, and realized that one-way of watching the film is not to think of Pryor as a stand-up comic, but as a theater dude doing a comedic one man show. Sunset Strip is really funny, don’t get me wrong. But there are moments of great seriousness. It felt like memoir.
Pryor is not so much commenting on the world, as he’s commenting on how the world (God?) keeps inverting his own assumptions. He goes to prison talking black pride, but comes out thinking “Thank God, we got prisons.” He picks up a hitch-hiker in Africa and is offended by his odor, but then finds that the African is so offended by Pryor’s odor that he asks to be let out the car.
All of this is really, really late. People smarter than me, older than me, and wiser than me have likely already said as much. I actually remember them saying it, but I was to young and dumb to get it. But I understand, now. I understand why Cosby, and others, were so incensed by Def Comedy Jam. Don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of those guys–Bernie Mac, D.L. Hughley, Cedric etc. But I’m put in the mind of my reflections on the great Biggie Smalls. I loved Biggie for his technique, not for the stuff about cars, drugs, girls etc. He was just a nasty technician, subject matter be damned.
On criticism of Barrack Obama’s dialogue about Dads walking out on their kids-
There may be great stats out there that show that a father walking out on his blood, has zero impact on a kids life. But with my history, it’s very hard for me to come down on a guy whose own father walked out on him, for saying something as imminently sane as, Be a father to your child.
Allow me to lay my cards on the table. This thing is in my blood, more than I actually have the freedom to say, publicly. But let me offer this: I’m the son of two people who were raised by single mothers, after the fathers essentially walked. It’s something to attend the funeral of a grandfather who wanted nothing to do with you or your mother. I have a very close relative, who at this very moment, is raising a son whose father has, essentially, walked.
I would say that the majority of the kids in my old neighborhood in Baltimore had extremely limited contact with their fathers. I was the only one, out of my crew, with a Dad in the house.
Here’s something else–I’ve heard a chorus of complaints about Obama’s rhetoric on fathers from black male writers. But I’ve yet to hear from one complaint from any single mothers. I’ve yet to hear a peep from a woman who was raised in that situation. I think that that’s telling.
On Steve McNair’s Death
People should read up on Sam Cooke–greatest soul-singer ever, dead in a cheap motel, with no pants, after a prostitute took his clothes.
We should think hard on Steve McNair, shot in his sleep; he fell out on the couch and never woke up. He had no idea what happened.
I keep wondering what he was doing with a 20 year-old girl who worked at Dave and Buster’s. I understand the regular temptations, but the recklessness of it all is amazing.
I don’t want to blame McNair for his own death, but the fact is that men who are reckless, often leave behind families to pick up the pieces. I can’t imagine the personal work his wife will have to do reconcile all of this, and then explain it to their four sons.
This isn’t one of those “men’s rights” riffs, and it’s clear that men will never face the same sort of physical dangers that women face. But I think brothers could give a little more thought to who they take their clothes off in front of, or at least who they go paragliding with. I’ve seen things go wrong for men in so many other ways. Brothers forbidden from seeing kids. Brothers paying insane alimony. Brothers coming outside and finding their car missing. Brothers wondering if a kid is actually theirs.
The temptation is to rail against women. A more introspective approach would begin with, “What the fuck was I thinking?”