A friend in New York identifies the Deli of Discrimination where, according to an NYT column by Ta-Nehisi Coates ("The Good, Racist People"), white racism caused actor Forrest Whitaker to be suspected of shoplifting:
Oferrcrissakes.
Coates never mentions the name of the place. I had to find that out somewhere else.
It's the Milano Market. Too pricey for me. Everyone who works there is either Hispanic, or Muslim - or perhaps, African. But that's true of ALL the small markets in all of Manhattan, not just the UWS. There are no white deli help, cashiers, stockers, etc.*
If he was stopped, it was not by a white person.
But of course, it's all whitey's fault.
The comments are sickening. Sometimes the Times actually has perceptive or dissenting comments, but apparently not this time.
The kid at the checkout counter (and back then there were white kids working in grocery stores in Manhattan) looked up at him and said, "Hey, you're ... you're ..."
Holder looked down magnanimously and replied in his vastly deep and perfectly modulated voice, "Why, yes, you are right. I am James Earl Jones. But, don't tell anyone. You see, I'm traveling incogneeeeeeeto!" And then he let out a laugh like a gas main erupting and walked off chuckling.
Google Maps street view shows what looks like a Mexican working the till:
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/a8aa2zd
It reminds me of the time Obama, when first running for the presidency, was asked if he could relate to the average Black American, and he replied that he could whenever a cab doesn't stop for him. Can't remember the time I saw a white cab driver...
ReplyDeleteOne political party feels it can dominate a class- and race-riven society better than the other one. Unfortunately both parties are controlled by small aristocratic elites, who are in a competition for power and importance.
ReplyDeleteOne party says a society or a civilization is judged by how well it treats its most vulnerable members, which it uses as an excuse to ignore the interests of the majority, all the while reaping enormous economic benefits not only for itself but even for its counterparts in the other party.
That other party meanwhile at least claims to represent the interests of the majority, though in fact it sacrifices them repeatedly to its own.
Both parties are prepared to trade our republic for empire, each for the sake of its own political and economic flourishing. Everybody else is a pawn in their game.
Doesn't matter, those Mexicans and Pakistanis were perfectly non-racist blank slates until they came here and got corrupted by whitey.
ReplyDeleteSo funny. I read Coates' column earlier this morning and wondered if you'd have anything to add. I was right.
ReplyDeleteThe article never said that it was a white person who made the accusation of shoplifting. Seems like your friend has fallen victim to the "Who? Whom?" you like to bang on about and assumed it's only racial profiling if it's white people doing it.
ReplyDeleteOur friends north of the border are having their own whiteness crisis, a collective case of the vapors over a southern BBQ restaurant displaying the Confederate flag.
ReplyDeleteThat may be the most unbalanced and unfair article I have ever read by any "journalist" in America. The comments are just as bad.
ReplyDeleteAnd as Mr. Sailer points out, whites don't even work at this place.
Huh, I thought 7-up dreamed up the "uncola" thing in the 90's. I had no idea they were reviving an advertising slogan that existed before I was born.
ReplyDeleteCoates: "I am trying to imagine a white president forced to show his papers at a national news conference, and coming up blank. I am trying to a imagine a prominent white Harvard professor arrested for breaking into his own home, and coming up with nothing. I am trying to see Sean Penn or Nicolas Cage being frisked at an upscale deli, and I find myself laughing in the dark."
ReplyDeleteFudgepacker. Maybe that's because there haven't been any white presidents who filled out statements claiming to have been born in Kenya. Maybe that's because white Harvard professors aren't breaking into any houses. Maybe that's because Sean Penn or Nicholas Cage haven't DONE anything at a NY deli that made a worker suspect them of stealing. The reality is that when Sean Penn did commit a crime, he did get arrested for it. Or, more to the point, people who look like them aren't committing crimes left and right all around NY to make people suspicious when a black man walks into a place.
I am trying to imagine a black man (and coming up blank) who is blamed for all the woes of the world as innocent white men are by those Harvard professors, despite that black men are causing far more crime and violence and contributing far less. I am trying to imagine a group of people so generous and who has contributed so much as the white man to humanity and gotten so little back from others, but am drawing a blank. I am trying to imagine a case where a non-celebrity white was brutally murdered by non-celebrity blacks where the media and police didn't try to cover it up and keep it local. I am trying to imagine a case where a white killed a black where it didn't go national and demand soul searching and atonement by all whites.
Titus said: "Google Maps street view shows what looks like a Mexican working the till"
ReplyDeleteThat's just the flower guy, he doesn't work inside the deli/bodega.
Last night, I asked my Bangladeshi cab driver what he thought about black people. He said that three percent of them are very nice people.
ReplyDeleteBTW, as a former Chicago cabbie, neither black nor white cabbies wanted to pick up black males.
There was one black guy who wore a suit and tie and kept his gun in his briefcase so that he could rob taxis.
Also BTW, experienced cabbies avoided medical conventions. Doctors are the cheapest tippers, librarians, the best.
That Holder/Earle-Jones story was funny. Holder was obviously born to be an actor, with such a magnificent voice.
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong with actors nowadays? Most of them have completely undistinguished, uninteresting voices. Actors of Yore - like Geoffrey Holder, James Earle-Jones, James Mason, Kirk Douglas, Jack Hawkins, George C. Scott, Charleton Heston, Alec Guiness - had voices that made you think: "I don't care what that man is saying - I want to listen to him". I suppose that since movies nowadays are nothing but stale cliches, fireballs, and crappy CGI, dialogue - and how it is delivered - is unimportant.
"What's wrong with actors nowadays? Most of them have completely undistinguished, uninteresting voices."
ReplyDeleteLawrence Fishburne, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen all have distinguished voices. So does Avery Brooks, who has been scarce recently, but was a professor of acting at Rutgers before leaving to play Benjamin Sisko on Deep Space Nine.
Winona Ryder got nabbed for shoplifting. So was Giugliani's daughter, Jennifer Capriati, Bess Myerson and Farrah Fawcett (before Charlie's Angels, to be fair). Why not this Whitaker?
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to imagine Bob Dylan walking around Long Island and getting picked up by the cops. But the very idea is so absurd, I find myself laughing. I try to imagine a white president being impeached for a minor romantic indiscretion, but incredulity overwhelms me, and I laugh in the dark. These these things, they can only happen to black men. For justice is a one way street in the directionhog white privilege. Thus I, TaNeshi Coates, affirm it to be, and thus it is.
ReplyDeleteThe James Bond movie you're thinking of is Live and Let Die (1973), the first one that starred Roger Moore.
ReplyDeleteGeoffrey Holder has got to be Jay-Z's real dad.
ReplyDeletehttps://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/2821041920/h0DACCA12/
Reading about Holder here (and in Wiki) and reflecting upon his grace and dignity (and morals - apparently only one wife, for instance) I'm a little ashamed to admit that I thought of a line from Scott Turrow's Presumed Innocent: "They should all be like this." I also thought about how this sort of class tends to be lacking nowadays in much of African-American popular culture (there are exceptions of course, like Denzel Washington); indeed, am I wrong to think that this sort of intelligence was much more pervasive in the black entertainment community during the 60s and 70s?
ReplyDeleteThere's an old bloggingheads video of Coates and a Brian Buehler?? where they talk about Brian getting shot by a black perp in DC.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty obvious it was a racially motivated shooting, initiation maybe or a more extreme version of what happened to Matt Yglesies.
Coates and Brian ignored any black racist motivation and then got around to Coates' concerns about his hypothetically victimization by White racists if he happened to venture down South.
Amazing example of denial followed by irrational fantasy.
This by America's newest black truth teller on RACE.
Come on, people. Someone get the confirmation about who this employee is. At this point, I'd say it's 50/50: either Italian or Hispanic. If the latter, oh I can't wait to start posting that info on every single Facebook share of that stupid Coates' article.
ReplyDeleteNOBODY could chuckle like Geoffrey Holder.
ReplyDeleteI throw Alan Rickman into the mix. As someone once said about him, I'd pay to hear him read the phone book.
...looked up at him and said, "Hey, you're ... you're ..."
ReplyDeleteHolder looked down magnanimously and replied in his vastly deep and perfectly modulated voice, "Why, yes, you are right. I am James Earl Jones. But, don't tell anyone. You see, I'm traveling incogneeeeeeeto!" And then he let out a laugh like a gas main erupting and walked off chuckling.
In response I would have said to Holder - "Ah...no. Not him. I was thinking Adolph Caesar."
In '75 I went to see the Supremes at the Venetian Room in San Francisco. Holder's off-stage voice was part of their act.
ReplyDelete"So does Avery Brooks, who has been scarce recently, but was a professor of acting at Rutgers before leaving to play Benjamin Sisko on Deep Space Nine."
ReplyDeleteProfessor of acting but yet he couldn't act?
Brooks was terrible, especially compared to the likes of, say, the brilliant Patrick Stewart in The Next Generation.
@TitusI humbly submit you're incorrect, I thinkit's the Deli at 2892 Broadway, Manhattan, NY (Btwn 112th & 113th St just south of Columbia) with the same name but I don't think they're affiliated. In my experience it's always been a non-cracker staffing situation.
ReplyDeleteCoates is still upset that Sean Penn wrecked Whittaker's Trans-Am and blamed it on Lincoln High.
ReplyDelete@Gnosis Sisong, we know that neither the clerk nor the owner of the 'Deli of Discrimination' was white. How do we know? Because Coates would have prominently mentioned their race if they were.
ReplyDeleteI knew they were non-white the minute I saw that Coates didn't mention their race.