Years ago in Las Vegas, there was a blond white woman named Joyce with whom I tried to bond. To this end, I wanted to share with her Dead Presidents -- the 1995 film directed by the Hughes brothers (Albert and Allen). With apologies to Spike Lee, Dead Presidents is the single greatest movie ever made by a black American; it's an epic on par with Lord of the Rings or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Dead Presidents is the story of a black veteran who -- upon returning to The Bronx after volunteering for two tours in Vietnam -- robs an armored car with his fellow vets since he can't find a living wage job that'll allow him to support a family. The acting, the soundtrack -- everything about this motion picture is perfect, but after she saw it for the first time with me, all Joyce had to say was, "I don't think Anthony [the protagonist] tried hard enough to find a job."

Ain't that a bitch? "I don't think Anthony tried hard enough to find a job." What were the Hughes brothers supposed to do? Tack on a gratuitous, ten minute long sequence showing a series of doors being slammed in Anthony's face in order for Joyce's princess-on-a pedestal-ass to be satiated?! No wonder I'm still single at damn near 40!

But this ain't about my love life (or lack of one), this is about something all too many whites have yet to deal with. This expectation for blacks to be eternally masochistic workaholics like Boxer the horse from George Orwell's Animal Farm; this notion that blacks could succeed in the workplace more often if only we'd cease to be mired in self-pity.

Taking into account all the Hell white supremacy has put the black community through, we have every right to feel sorry for ourselves! Read a history book, for Christ's sake! That having been, fewer black folks than you think are paralyzed by pity alone. For instance, if college was free -- as it is in Cuba or Amsterdam -- then one could legitimately say, "Now all you need is to get grades good enough to be accepted." Except of course no capitalist can ever claim that.

Only when every possible excuse has been eliminated can it be implied that black Americans are lazy and whiny (especially after 300 years of free labor, which made America the richest nation in Human history). As things stand, we the people ain't even close to that point. According to the poverty statistics Haider Rizvi presented on September 1st, 2007 for commondreams.org, "African Americans and non-White Hispanics are still about three times more likely than whites to be poor."

I REPEAT: "African Americans and non-White Hispanics are still about three times more likely than whites to be poor."

Yes, be it success or simple survival, there are overwhelming odds to overcome in life, but the following must be acknowledged: One, the darker you are, the greater the odds against you. Two, in the first Rocky movie, Apollo PICKED ROCKY'S NAME AT RANDOM. In other words, Rocky Balboa could've spent the rest of his life following in the hoofprints of Boxer from Animal Farm and it STILL wouldn't have been enough.

When Oscar-winning documentarian Michael Moore appeared on Phil Donahue's talk show on October 28th, 2002, Moore bestowed the kind of wisdom one would usually have to climb a mountain in Tibet to hear. First ...

"Race is used to manipulate the fears of white people to vote for conservative politicians, to vote for conservative policies. And then white people -- 90 percent of the guns in this country are bought out in the white suburbs where you don't need them because there's virtually no crime. And as the prosecutor says in [Bowling for Columbine], these guns then are stolen from the white communities and end up back in the inner city, creating all this violence ... until we deal with race, we're not going to really get to the core of a lot of our problems."

... and second ...

"You know, if we lived in a society that said our first goal was employment at a livable wage for everyone, if the person living next door to you -- if that person's making $40,000 a year, what's the chance they're going to come in and steal your TV or harm you on the street? Absolutely none."

I've been saying this for years and I'll say it again: We need a Greenpeace version of FDR's New Deal so those in the ghetto, barrio and the trailer parks can get paid to build windmills, install solar power panels and grow industrial hemp (which can make fuel, fabric, paper and plastic). In addition, white America needs to conquer its fear of having descendants who look like Halle Berry or Mariah Carey -- otherwise, the motivation to create a Greenpeace New Deal will be lacking (knowing where the money would be going) ...

That's what enough dead presidents can do -- fund ethical job creation. Seventeen billion is spent every year on America's 10,000 nuclear weapons of mass destruction, which we better not ever use. Cut those spoiled-ass defense contractors off like a drunk in a bar at two a.m. and use that 17 billion to gainfully employ blacks in America. It's either that or The Apocalypse.

NO MANSIONS! NO HOMELESS!

SOURCES:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_John_Edwards#Crime
http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1570672&vid=178269
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/01/3550/
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/articles/index.php?article=trans-donahue-20021028
http://www.truemajority.org/bensbbs/