Black Folks

BILL COSBY'S Wednesday visit to Baltimore did nothing for me but bring back a bad memory, one only a week old. None of this was Cosby's fault, mind you. My experience occurred in Cambridge, Mass., during my three days at a liberal re-education camp. You know it better as the college formerly called Harvard University. OK, so I'm kidding. A little. I spent three days in Cambridge, where members of the Trotter Group, an organization of black columnists, held their annual meeting. There were several symposiums held with liberal cognoscenti in the Charles Hotel and at several places on the Harvard campus.

Rand Paul did just fine at Howard University, thank you very much. Or at least, that's how he remembers it. Mr. Paul, GOP senator from Kentucky, told the Christian Science Monitor on Wednesday that his recent visit to Howard didn't go so bad at all. He said any perception to the contrary was created by -- all together now -- the "left-wing media. " Knowing what we do about the political right's capacity for self-deception, we may trust that he's telling it like it is -- or at least, telling it like he believes it to be. But reality-based Americans know it wasn't left-wing media that insulted students at the historically black school by acting as if a visit to their campus was like a visit with headhunters.

WASHINGTON - I like hypocrites. You would, too, if you had this job. A hypocrite is the next best thing to a day off. Some pious moralizer contradicts his words with his deeds and the column all but writes itself. It's different with Bill Cosby. I don't know if he did what a Canadian woman has alleged: drugged her and fondled her. Mr. Cosby denies the accusation, and the fact that prosecutors have declined to prosecute obviously supports him. Still, his ambiguous remarks in last week's National Enquirer interview ("Looking back on it, I realize that words and actions can be misinterpreted")

It never ceases to amaze me what I witness written in The Sun every morning when it's delivered to my front door. But the latest editorial ("Henson grabs the spotlight," May 2) shows the continued subtle racist views of a paper famous for its slanted and self-aggrandizing opinions since the days when Charles H. Grasty owned the newspaper in the early 1900s. The facts as you present them are only half-true, as Julius Henson and Rhonda Russell may have suggested a "counterintuitive strategy" on how to turn out the Republican base, and even to persuade African-American voters not to come out. Yet, it was, in fact, the campaign's call to have the authority line displaced from the robocall.

WHILE WATCHING the evening news the weekend after Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown was killed in a plane crash, my nephew Joey asked me if I thought Brown's untimely end came about as a result of a conspiracy."

City officials in Vidor, Texas, screamed foul when news broke that their town was once one of America's notorious "sundown towns" for blacks. In the segregation era, that was the town fathers' not-so-discreet way of warning black people that they would be jailed, assaulted or worse if they were caught in town after dark. Vidor officials vehemently insisted that they have long since disavowed that naked, in-your-face racism. They contend that the press latched onto the town's woeful past to grab cheap, sensationalist headlines.

JAWANZA KUNJUFU, author, lecturer, educational consultant and inveterate truth-teller, stood at a podium Thursday night and told several truths. "You know," Kunjufu told several hundred people gathered in one of several theaters of the Murphy Fine Arts Building on the campus of Morgan State University, "black folks love blaming the white man for everything. But if racism ended tonight, would [African-American] SAT scores increase? Would the [African-American] dropout rate decrease?" Seeing that none of the assembled was reaching for either tar or feathers, Kunjufu continued with some more truth.

So here's how my day with The Cos went. I awoke extra early so I could take my insulin and then eat. (And Lord knows I hope it was in that order.) As I figured out the best way to get to Rosemont Elementary/Middle School in the 2700 block of Presstman St. (I didn't even know there was a 2700 block of Presstman St.), I tried to remember the last time I saw Bill Cosby in the flesh. It was also the first time I saw him, in the early months of 1967. Cosby made an appearance at what was then the Baltimore Civic Center.

Dear Don Imus: So how's that suspension working for ya, buddy? You know, Don, you really ought to, as the current slang expression goes, "holla at a brother" sometimes. And I don't necessarily mean me. Any brother would do. You need to stay in the loop when it comes to black folks. If you'd bothered to holla at a brother, Don, you wouldn't be in the fix you're in now. Suspended from your job. The Revvum Jesse Jackson calling for your head. Having to go on the Revvum Al Sharpton's radio show and eat crow.

"Finally, Hollywood is realizing that gangs are not the only African-American story."That quote is attributed to Chris Hewitt of the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press. He was commenting about the movie "Love Jones," which was released in mid-March and actually made the top-10 movie list for at least one week."Love Jones" is a love story that stars Larenz Tate, he of "Menace II Society" and "Dead Presidents" fame. In "Menace," Tate played the terrifyingly homicidal O-Dog who, in the opening scene, murders two Korean merchants.

Does ignorance about race make you a racist? That boiling question bubbles at the heart of the controversy that Fox News star Bill O'Reilly kicked up with his poorly received compliments of black diners in a New York restaurant. My answer is: No, ignorance about race does not always make you a racist, but it can make you sound like one. That's Mr. O'Reilly's problem. He has been vilified recently by the liberal Web site Media Matters for America for insinuating how surprised he was to discover how civilized black folks behaved while dining in Sylvia's, one of Harlem's best-known restaurants.

It took the firing of Don Imus to focus mainstream media's attention on the poisonous misogynistic lyrics and glorification of all things obscene and stupid riddling commercial hip-hop. But for more than a decade, progressive black folks (including yours truly) have been discussing and writing about the issue. A depressingly long chain of rappers has called sistas everywhere much worse than "nappy-headed hos," the infamous reference Imus made to the Rutgers female basketball team. In all the controversy, I kept reminding a few unenlightened friends and colleagues that the "hip-hop" in constant rotation on mainstream radio and TV channels such as BET and MTV largely represents the flattest, most unimaginative segment of the genre.

Dear Don Imus: So how's that suspension working for ya, buddy? You know, Don, you really ought to, as the current slang expression goes, "holla at a brother" sometimes. And I don't necessarily mean me. Any brother would do. You need to stay in the loop when it comes to black folks. If you'd bothered to holla at a brother, Don, you wouldn't be in the fix you're in now. Suspended from your job. The Revvum Jesse Jackson calling for your head. Having to go on the Revvum Al Sharpton's radio show and eat crow.

It looks like Larry Young may have been right, and the rest of us were probably wrong. Today, Young is a successful talk-show host on WOLB radio. Nine years ago, he was state Sen. Larry Young of Baltimore, expelled from the General Assembly after his colleagues voted him out for alleged ethics violations. Young cried foul. Actually, he did more than that. Young contended that he was targeted because he was black. Some scoffed at the notion and accused him of playing the race card. Full disclosure requires me to say that I was one of them.

WASHINGTON -- This time he's not kidding. "As many of you know, over the last few months I have been thinking hard about my plans for 2008," Sen. Barack Obama said Tuesday in his announcement of his presidential intentions on his Web site. In those initial moments, the Illinois Democrat reminded me of the gag video he recorded with a very similar beginning for ABC's Monday Night Football. But this time, Mr. Obama was not pulling our collective leg. He's beginning the process of a presidential run. And unlike every other candidate of known African descent who has come before him, Mr. Obama actually has a chance to be nominated and, perhaps, even win the grand prize.

City officials in Vidor, Texas, screamed foul when news broke that their town was once one of America's notorious "sundown towns" for blacks. In the segregation era, that was the town fathers' not-so-discreet way of warning black people that they would be jailed, assaulted or worse if they were caught in town after dark. Vidor officials vehemently insisted that they have long since disavowed that naked, in-your-face racism. They contend that the press latched onto the town's woeful past to grab cheap, sensationalist headlines.

Come hear author Tina McElroy Ansa read from her third novel, "The Hand I Fan With."Ansa combines rich spirituality and vivid eroticism in her tale of Lena McPherson, a middle-aged black woman who is financially successful and socially prominent but finds true fulfillment in her love affair with a ghost.In her first book, "Baby of the Family," Ansa introduced the psychic Lena and the fictional town of Mulberry, Ga., near Ansa's real-life birthplace, Macon.After graduating from Spelman College, Ansa became the first black woman to work at the Atlanta Constitution before embarking on her career as one of the most prominent writers of contemporary African-American fiction.

HOLLYWOOD -- Ever since UPN showed clips of Everybody Hates Chris to advertisers and the media in May, the television industry has been abuzz with one question: How involved will comedian Chris Rock really be? The comedy, inspired by Rock's experiences growing up in the 1980s in Brooklyn, is the critical favorite of the entire fall lineup, but the tide could turn quickly if Rock, who narrates each episode with his own special touch, flies the coop to, say, star in a movie. The pilot first belonged to Fox Broadcasting Corp.

So here's how my day with The Cos went. I awoke extra early so I could take my insulin and then eat. (And Lord knows I hope it was in that order.) As I figured out the best way to get to Rosemont Elementary/Middle School in the 2700 block of Presstman St. (I didn't even know there was a 2700 block of Presstman St.), I tried to remember the last time I saw Bill Cosby in the flesh. It was also the first time I saw him, in the early months of 1967. Cosby made an appearance at what was then the Baltimore Civic Center.

I guess compared with Jerrod Hamlett, Bryant C. Jones, Jennifer Lynne Morelock and Jason David Woycio, I got off lucky. Last June, a 13-year-old boy hurled a bottle at Hamlett and then fatally shot him in the dispute that followed. The boy had turned 14 when he was committed to an out-of-state juvenile facility. Jones was holding a "Sweet 16" birthday party for his daughter last month. When he tried to eject an unruly 16-year-old boy, the kid allegedly pulled a gun and fatally shot Jones.