Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

In the late-1940s, after Nat King Cole moved into an all-white suburban California neighborhood, he received a letter from a neighbor advising him that "undesirables" were not wanted in the area. In his response, Cole noted that he did not want "undesirables" living in the area either, "…and if I see anybody undesirable coming in here, I’ll be the first to complain."

Cole used humor to defuse a potentially tense situation; however, liberal social scientists insist that such tensions are still palpable in predominately white suburbs throughout the United States, as Caucasian residents become uneasy once a certain number of African-Americans purchase property in a particular area. Progressive experts coined the phrase "tipping point" to describe the phenomenon of whites moving out of a suburban neighborhood once a certain percentage of blacks move in.

The common left-wing conclusion is that naked racism is the reason for white departure from an increasingly nonwhite neighborhood. However, isn’t this really just another example of whites reacting not to racial differences, but to perceived cultural differences?

Naked racism would be a suitable explanation for the "tipping point" phenomenon if blacks who were perceived to have educational and professional backgrounds similar to their new white neighbors moved in in significant numbers. In such a case, the white reaction would be based solely on color, not on culture, and thus would be a lamentable example of pervasive prejudice in America.

However, the "tipping point" phenomenon tends not to be based on a reaction to color per se, but on a belief that "disadvantaged" and/or "dysfunctional" blacks are moving in. If class differences are "in play"–i.e., if blacks who are perceived to be not as well-educated and not as "mainstream" in their values as their new white neighbors move in–then the white reaction is just another example of what conservative social scientist Dinesh D’Souza defined a decade ago as "rational discrimination."

Fair or not, whites who feel that their new black neighbors are not "middle-class" in their values and comportment will conclude that the increase in black residents will be followed in short order by an increase in crime, illegitimacy, unkempt appearance of property, etc. Once this perception takes hold, whites will, of course, move out en masse.

Contrary to the paranoid, pessimistic proclamations of modern-day civil rights figures, most white Americans are not surreptitious segregationists, and many would have no problem living next door to someone who, even if of a different color, was "mainstream" in their values and behavior. However, most white Americans are not willing to live next door to a person of a different race who is perceived to be someone who embraces "urban" or "street" values. This concern about cultural differences explains the "tipping point" phenomenon.

How does one bring about an end to such a phenomenon? The easiest answer, some libertarians would argue, would be to repeal "fair housing" laws, thus guaranteeing that certain neighborhoods would never have to deal with circumstances that might lead to a "tipping point." I cannot agree with this conclusion, as the purpose of "fair housing" laws is to protect the law-abiding, civil, "mainstream" person of color who wishes to live in a non-blighted region of a given state. While it is not wrong to be concerned about creating circumstances that are ripe for the "tipping point" phenomenon to take hold, a measure that would effectively punish law-abiding blacks is not the way to go.

Ultimately, the best way to bring about the end of the "tipping point" phenomenon is to seek the destruction of the behaviors that trigger such a reaction–i.e., the antisocial behaviors of young urban America that Bill Cosby so forcefully condemned two years ago. If more and more young people of color embraced the "mainstream" instead of the "extreme," there would be no legitimate justification for suburban whites to think, "There goes the neighborhood!" when significant numbers of blacks move in.

Is almost every politician in Boston a deadbeat?

It seems that there are quite a few African-Americans who don’t understand what the big deal is with playwright/screenwriter/director Tyler Perry.

Yesterday, I lamented the fact that Perry’s new film Madea’s Family Reunion debuted at #1 with a $30 million haul despite Perry’s decision to create a character (played by Blair Underwood) based on the old stereotype of the partner-abusing black man. Apparently, that’s not the only stereotype to be found in Perry’s work.

A few days ago, Jeffrey Wells of the popular film website Hollywood-Elsewhere.com received an e-mail from an African-American California resident outraged by Perry’s success. The writer asserted that

There are literally millions of African-Americans who as just as put off and outright offended by Tyler Perry as there are African-Americans who are fans of his…The black audience of America is by no means a monolith, despite what the industry thinks. Perry is selling nothing but warmed over Stepin Fetchit to [a] segment of my people that I don’t find very intelligent or very bright…I’m pissed. I’m pissed that both of his movies were made, and I’m equally pissed that there was an audience for them. African-Americans are going to be split on this. More educated, more affluent African-Americans — like me, my friends and my family — are going to stay away in droves, for the most part. The more working-class, less educated segments of the African-American community will be a different story. As much as I despise Tyler Perry, he is not the problem here. He’s just a symptom…It’s Hollywood that I have a real problem with. I hate to say it, but I see racism in the decision to promote this fool. Hollywood is supposed to be a business with its only eye on the bottom line, yet it willfully and consistently ignores a segment of the audience. Why? It’s not like there’s no money to be made. Yet is it only the material that shows the worst of African-American culture that gets served first. What about the rest of us? We get plenty of comedies (on TV and in the Movies) with African-American casts. We still get John Singleton’s (to me, equally offensive) gangsta/pimp movies from time to time. But the serious dramas, with African-American casts and directors, like Antwone Fisher, come few and far between. Why? Denzel [Washington], an established movie star with two Academy Awards in his pocket and bankability on his side, had to wait ten years to make Antwone Fisher. This guy Perry comes along and they’re throwing money at [him]. If that’s not racism…"

The writer is clearly suggesting that Perry’s work is geared to a "ghetto" audience, as opposed to the middle-class audience Washington targeted with Fisher. I’m not that familiar with Perry’s work, so I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this claim; however, if the writer’s assertion is correct, then there are significant cultural issues that need to be addressed.

The writer is absolutely correct when he asserts that most Hollywood product featuring blacks is geared to "ghetto" tastes (White Chicks, Soul Plane, Cradle 2 the Grave, Four Brothers, etc.) Movies geared to middle-class black tastes (Fisher, Ali, Ray, Men of Honor, etc.) are few and far between, and when they do appear, they tend not to perform as well as the more lowbrow black-themed material.

If it’s true that Perry’s highly successful plays and films are also geared to lowbrow/"ghetto" tastes (again, I cannot speak to that from first-hand experience), then his success will naturally encourage young black playwrights and screenwriters to "dumb down" their content in order to achieve similar prosperity. Why try to imitate August Wilson, when Wilson never had even one of his award-winning plays turned into a movie?

This is the source of the California writer’s frustration: in Perry, he sees a man who has embraced the low, the crass, the vulgar and the degrading to make money. Perry, in his view, gets away with it because a) his content is Christian-themed and b) he has a compelling life story (although, let’s face it, Perry’s ascension from homeless to hotshot is not unique, as Sidney Poitier and Hilary Swank were both homeless at one point).

One can dispute the writer’s assertion that Perry’s Hollywood success is a testament to racism. However, it’s hard to dispute the fact that there is a dearth of intelligent product geared to black audiences. While Malcolm X and Ali did underperform at the box office relative to expectations, the success of Ray should have, at least in theory, led Hollywood to consider producing similar biopics. For example, a well-made movie about Nat King Cole’s turbulent life would enthrall quality-thirsty audiences–but what are the odds of such a film being produced today, even after Ray’s success? (Of course, it must be noted that Ray, though released by Universal, was privately financed, as numerous studio execs felt a Ray Charles biopic would tank.)

If Perry’s work does indeed represent the triumph of trash over class, then one has to wonder: will someone manage to beat him at his own game, producing material that (while supposedly religiously rooted) is even more lowbrow and even more geared to "ghetto" tastes? And if that is the case, do blacks who desire class simply throw up their hands and write off the modern entertainment industry?

Massachusetts Republican gubernatorial candidate Kerry Healey comes out in favor of embryonic stem cell research.

Dennis Weaver (Duel) passes away at 83.

Left-wing Bay State gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick tells black churchgoers: I’ll give you all the goodies you want if I’m elected, so just ignore the fact that I’m for gay marriage.

UPDATE: Pro-Patrick blogs weigh in.

Madea’s Family Reunion debuts at #1 with an estimated $30 million take—despite the fact that one of the film’s subplots involves Blair Underwood as a physically abusive boyfriend. Am I the only one who thinks this is more than a little distasteful? I normally don’t have a problem with actors playing against type (a la Denzel Washington in Training Day), but isn’t there something manifestly wrong with an actor of Underwood’s talent essentially perpetuating the stereotype of the black-man-as-partner-abusing-lout? You’d figure that two decades after the makers of The Color Purple caught tremendous heat for depicting Danny Glover’s character as an abusive brute, Underwood and Reunion writer/director/producer/co-star Tyler Perry would have thought twice about depicting Underwood’s character in this fashion. I can’t imagine why Underwood and Perry would want to dredge up such a hateful stereotype (unless, of course, they figured that such a stereotype would appeal to the movie’s black female target audience).

The increasingly obnoxious Jamie Foxx, celebrating a win at the NAACP Image Awards, tells the audience "It’s good to be surrounded by black folks." Could you imagine what would happen if a white entertainer, at an awards ceremony with a predominately Caucasian audience, said that it was "good to be surrounded by white folks?"

Darren McGavin (A Christmas Story) passes away at 83.

Don Knotts (The Andy Griffith Show) passes away at 81.

Will the Massachusetts media give up its love affair with Deval Patrick for at least five minutes and focus on another accomplished candidate who stands a strong likelihood of victory in November?

His name is Bob Parks, a veteran political commentator and creator of the successful blog Black and Right. Parks is running as a Republican for state representative in the 2nd Franklin District, determined to help restore some desperately needed balance to the deep-blue Massachusetts Legislature.

Peruse his website and you will find his proposals for common-sense remedies to the state’s housing and employment woes. Google his name and you will find outstanding political insight from a man whose ideas will invigorate the hack-weakened General Court.

Granted, the thought of a Republican winning a seat in the Democratic-dominated Bay State legislature is enough to make lefty political reporters move up their next visit to the shrink, but could they overcome their bias long enough to give this man his due?

This is a man who won’t be ignored by the voters in November. So don’t ignore him now.

Today is the second anniversary of the release of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, one of the most controversial, misunderstood, lambasted, graphic, and thought-provoking films of all-time.

As you know, the film was beset by rumors of extreme violence and anti-Semitic context in the months before it opened: as a result of the controversy, the film grossed $125 million in its first five days of release. I was one of the millions who saw the movie the first week it came out; I was struck by the film’s artistry, its intelligence, its technical virtuosity, and its strong performances, particularly James Caviezel as the tortured Jesus.

Yes, the film was tremendously violent, but the violence had a theological point: to demonstrate the extent to which Jesus suffered to redeem the sins of mankind. The film could not exist without such violence. The attacks on the film’s violence were, quite frankly, pointless (Black Hawk Down was far more bloody).

As for the film’s alleged anti-Semitism? While I recognized that the scene in which Satan walked amongst the Jews calling for Christ’s crucifixion was open to misinterpretation, to say the least, I did not find the film to be either intentionally or unintentionally anti-Semitic. It was humanity as a whole, not Jews in particular, who were responsible for Christ’s temporary death—a point Gibson emphasized in his film.

As you also know, the film was attacked in such newspapers as the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, the New York Times, the New York Daily News, and the Washington Post. (However, USA Today and the Chicago Sun-Times’ Roger Ebert did give the film affirmative reviews.) I can’t help wondering if the serious financial problems many of these newspapers are now experiencing have something to do with those who supported Passion (to the tune of $370 million domestic!) refusing to buy publications whose critics went so far over the edge in condemning Gibson’s tribute as trash.

Despite the vituperative assaults by PC critics, the attacks on Gibson’s character by the same, and the film’s failure to receive significant recognition by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2005, the Passion is already a classic. It’s a textbook example of the power of cinema to galvanize, to change hearts and minds, to spark a national conversation. It’s fitting that a motion picture about a man whom even death could not conquer is, in its own way, immortal.

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal on the Passion phenomenon.

Not to put too fine of a point on it, but Massachusetts is one uniquely evil state.

Only in this state can a senator become an icon after killing a young woman. Only in this state can unelected judges get away with reclassifying the institution of marriage by fiat. Only in this state can legislators steadfastly refuse to enact the death penalty to eliminate even the most venal murderers from our midst.

And only in this state could two thugs–one a master of physical brutality, the other a master of political brutality–dominate power structures for decades.

The two thugs in question are the central figures of Boston Herald columnist and popular talk-radio host Howie Carr’s book The Brothers Bulger: How They Terrorized and Corrupted Boston for a Quarter Century. With exhausting detail and scathing sarcasm, Carr chronicles the frightening rise and precipitous fall of two sons of South Boston–James "Whitey" Bulger, a bisexual hustler and bank robber who ultimately seized control of organized crime in the Greater Boston area in the 1970s and 1980s, and his younger sibling, William "The Corrupt Midget" Bulger, a Boston College grad who became what can only be described as a de facto dictator during his tenure as President of the Massachusetts State Senate from 1978 to 1996.

Bulger-era Boston was a grotesque excuse for a city, beset by unrelenting racial tension, endemic political corruption, and immeasurably high rates of criminality and drug use and abuse. Together and separately, both Bulgers managed to exploit and worsen the problems of the era. Along with his partner Stevie Flemmi, Whitey (who had the assistance and approval of on-the-take FBI agents) eliminated numerous rivals to emerge as a cocaine kingpin and underworld powerbroker worth at least $50 million. Carr asserts that one of the corrupt FBI agents, John Connolly–who grew up with the Bulgers in "Southie"–was specifically asked by William Bulger (who apparently played a role in getting Connolly the FBI gig in the late-1960s) to make sure his older brother stayed out of legal trouble. Connolly was more than willing to comply with the request, making sure that Whitey became an FBI informant against Boston’s Italian Mafia (despite the fact that Whitey provided little information of practical use; in fact, most of the "good stuff" was provided by Flemmi) and letting both men know of potential law enforcement action against them. (Connolly also made sure that Bulger and Flemmi were omitted from numerous indictments that would have ended their criminal enterprise, and thus ended the free flow of cash and gifts he received from Bulger.)

While Whitey and Flemmi consolidated their power, William Bulger took advantage of political upheaval on Beacon Hill to become the state’s most powerful politician. Like all dictators official and unofficial, he used his position to secure high-paying public sector jobs for unqualified relatives, coatholders, and other assorted "hacks," while punishing legislators who crossed him–and, Carr asserts, state and local law enforcement officials who posed a threat to his drug-peddling, rival-and-girlfriend-murdering sibling. A judge who refused to help secure a job for a high-school dropout who was the son of Billy’s political mentor suddenly had his salary cut dramatically. A state trooper who interfered with Whitey Bulger’s 1987 attempt to fly out of Logan Airport with $100,000 cash had his career subsequently sabotaged: "His overtime dried up, it became clear he would never be promoted, and he plunged into a deep depression that didn’t lift even after he finally quit the job. In 1998, [the trooper] finally committed suicide." Bulger’s power was so absolute, Carr claims, that he was even able to influence the 1988 Presidential election: "After the Democratic convention in July 1988, [then-Massachusetts Governor Michael] Dukakis (whom Bulger detested for his pro-forced busing stand in the 1970s) had opened a seventeen-point lead in the national polls, and [George H. W. Bush's] prospects looked grim. But at Billy’s suggestion, Bush flew into Boston, and toured Boston Harbor in a boat, stressing not only the massive pollution problems, but also the fact that it was costing billions to clean it up, and that Dukakis and his state government had been so lax in addressing the issue that a federal judge had been forced to take over the entire project…After Bush’s visit to Boston Harbor, Dukakis’ poll numbers began falling, and by Labor Day, the Duke found himself behind by double digits" before his eventual November loss.

The dual dominion of the Bulgers finally started to collapse in the early-1990s, as several of Bulger’s drug peddlers–almost all of whom, strangely enough, had public-sector jobs–were busted in a DEA sting operation, thus beginning a series of events that led to Whitey Bulger’s mysterious departure from Boston (and later, the United States) and the arrest, prosecution, and conviction of Flemmi and Connolly for their role in protecting and preserving Whitey’s power. Meanwhile, William Bulger, severely damaged by his role in an extortion scandal involving a real-estate developer, and having failed to get an acolyte elected mayor of Boston, left the Senate for an unreasonably lucrative job as President of the University of Massachusetts system, where he presided for seven corrupt years ("The UMass payrolls had been larded beyond belief. There was layer upon layer of bureaucracy–entire new levels of Bulgerite hackocracy had been created…There were new provosts, chancellors, and deans by the dozen, all making more than $100,000") before he resigned in the wake of an embarrassing performance in front of a Congressional committee on government ethics, in which he stretched the truth to the absolute breaking point in an effort to disavow any role in protecting his felonious brother.

Carr’s book is deep in detail–and non-Massachusetts residents will be deeply disgusted by the profoundly immoral actions of both subjects, one of whom "felt no compunction to assist the authorities in capturing a serial killer and cocaine dealer" (i.e., Whitey). The book embeds itself in the reader’s mind: it will jar one’s conscience to come to grips with the breadth and depth of Whitey’s murderous venality, as well as the extent to which William was able to get away with his political thuggery due to his legions of "admirers" in politics, academia and the press. The Bulgers’ twin empires were as vast as they were fundamentally perverse. Such perversion could only take place in Massachusetts.

Carr has been repeatedly profiled by the PC police during his years as the Herald’s top columnist, and his liberal critics will undoubtedly attack the book for its occasional profanity and its frequent barbs at Democrats who were members of William Bulger’s admiration society in decades past. However, the inevitable attacks on the book will not affect its historical status. The Brothers Bulger is a landmark, an All The President’s Men for the modern era. It’s a very good book about very evil men.

The South Dakota legislature passes a bill banning abortion for purposes of birth control and in the cases of rape or incest. The apparent intent is to force the US Supreme Court to reconsider the "wisdom," such as it is, of the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling striking down state restrictions on abortion.

If a pro-life Justice replaces the senile John Paul Stevens in intervening years, by the time a challenge to this bill gets to the High Court only Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and a fourth Justice to be named later (if he or she is a strong pro-lifer) will rule that this law is constitutional. John Roberts probably takes a dim view of birth-control abortions, but it’s hard to envision him upholding a law that bans abortion even in cases of rape or incest. While Republicans such as Alan Keyes oppose abortion in all cases except for preserving the life of the mother, Keyes’ view is to the right of most American pro-lifers, who tend to allow for abortion in the case of rape or incest.

While I admire the South Dakota legislature’s desire to finally reverse the ludicrous Roe decision, this bill is unlikely to be upheld by the High Court. Roe, unfortunately, will not be overturned by the Supreme Court until after there is a national consensus that birth-control abortions are manifestly wrong. And sadly, we are just not there yet.

Bay State Democratic gubernatorial contender Deval Patrick–already under fire for his ties to the controversial Ameriquest Mortgage Company–received a gift in the form of Rolling Stones tickets from the company last year. I thought you can’t always get what you want…

UPDATE: Patrick runs off at the mouth about…something.

SECOND UPDATE: Oh, damn. Patrick gets compared to moonbat Howard Dean.