I posted an item yesterday that included a picture labeled “The late Richard Pryor, a favorite comedian of mine, in a 1986 photo taken by Alan Light. HIs SNL skit ‘White Like Me’ was really funny, but then, it was INTENDED to be funny.”
Responding in a comment, Andrew Hall pointed out, correctly, that “Eddie Murphy did the White Like Me sketch, not Richard Pryor.”
I was puzzled, because, although the sketch I had in mind had probably aired around 1975-1976 — which is to say, about forty years ago — I distinctly recalled that it involved both Richard Pryor and the phrase “White Like Me.” But I was busy last night and busy all day today.
In the meantime, though, an obsessive online critic of mine who calls himself “Everybody Wang Chung” and whose public utterances, so far as I can see, consist largely if not entirely of accusing me of each and every one of the Seven Deadly Sins, lamenting my wickedness, rejoicing in my supposed rejection at the hands of my church and university, and telling fraudulent tales of his encounters with me, has weighed in as follows:
In one of DCP’s more bizarre postings, he has a picture of the late great Richard Pryor and informs his readers that Richard Pryor was one of his favorite comedians.
He then informs his readers that Richard Pryor’s SNL skit “White Like Me” was one of his favorites. The only problem is that Richard Pryor never did the skit “White Like Me.” It was Eddie Murphy: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/ … e-me/n9308
I think this racial boner by DCP can be blamed on the fact he doesn’t know many black people and certainly doesn’t have any in his inner circle. If you decide not to hang around people with different racial backgrounds, you tend to lump them together.
Dan, get out of your comfort zone. Bill Hamblin, Will Schryver and Stephen Smoot are probably fun people to hang around, but if you try a little harder to notice more people as individuals you’ll find your perspective will also expand.
My uncharitable critic’s claim is, as his claims always are, maliciously judgmental nonsense. (By the way, I’ve now looked at the relevant Eddie Murphy “mockumentary” and I’m not really sure that I’ve ever seen it before. It rings no bells; I may have been living in Egypt when it aired.) But “Everybody Wang Chung’s” accusation prompted me to try to figure out how I could have made such a mistake. And, within thirty seconds, I found this:
In another installment of Looks at Books [on Saturday Night Live], Pryor plays Junior Griffin, a black author who wrote a book called White Like Me, a take-off on John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me. Jane Curtain asks how Junior got white:
“Shoe polish.” he says. He also adopted a white walk and white mannerisms.
In researching his book, he discovered the advantages of being white: applying for jobs, he got accepted eight times out of ten. He also had no trouble with credit cards. Griffin plans on following up this book with a book on being a white Jewish American Princess.
That’s the one I remember. Right down to the references to shoe polish, a white walk, and white mannerisms. I can still see it in my mind’s eye.
It’s late right now, and I have other things to do at the moment, so I haven’t yet found an actual video of the “Junior Griffin” sketch, but it seems that “Everybody Wang Chung” will need to modify this particular accusation. That won’t be a real problem for him, I’m sure. If no other option for defaming me as a racist presents itself, he’ll just invent a suitable story. He’s done it many times before.
Posted from San Antonio, Texas
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