Note: [Any time you find yourself between these punctuation brackets in this piece, imagine yourself to be in your own private theatre. Like now. It’s dark, and all you can see is the screen. Images come to you as you read.]
Is Paul Mooney racist? I was asked to answer this question by the hard-working, idea-pondering, thought-provoking editorial staff at RH. I was like, I don’t even need to know who Paul Mooney is to answer that dumbass question. I don’t need to know he supports Kanye for his Taylor Swift outburst.
[Kanye appears on your video screen. This is “Welcome to Heartbreak” Kanye, and he’s just sittin’ on his couch. He’s holding the teddy bear head he wore on the cover of College Dropout and shaking his head. He looks a little regretful. He looks up at you. “I mean truthfully, is it hard to argue that you should not win Best Female Video if you are a female and you win absolute Best Video, like you’re going to win best video in the whole motherf**kin’ world, cause, honestly, that video is like the best ever. You should win Best Female Video too, right?”]
Seems like you should, and Beyonce didn’t. At that point, Kanye didn’t know she’d later win overall best video, so he might even have been thinking that the best video in the world (this is not debatable. MTV said it was the best video) didn’t win. It is kinda messed up, just logically speaking, that she won best video but not best female video. When Madonna or Sinead O’Connor won Best Video, they got Best Female Video, because they have vaginas. Beyonce didn’t, and I’m pretty sure Beyonce has a vagina.
[See Beyonce in a room just like in her video “Single Ladies.” Beyonce is smiling and waving you to come closer. You’re moving towards Beyonce. She stands tall, pulls at the crotch of her bootylicious leotard and shows you that she indeed has a vagina] It was stupid and offensive what Kanye did, but it was honest. It was all kind of messed up.
Back to Mooney: is he a human being that’s been born on to this very planet, you know, earth and not Marsgallactica or some s**t, in the last 400 years? Has he then grown up in a human society? Yes, you say. Then yes he’s racist. He’s a racist bastard. That guy’s got f**king issues that he needs to deal with, and he’s always gonna be a racist bastard. The last 400 years have been so dominated by racism, I mean like tied-up dominated, gagged and bound.
[See a web page on the blank screen of a computer in front of you. This isn’t happening at any particular time or any particular person, but it’s happening to you right now. The web page says “New Sexy Hot Vid: Racism gags and dominates Last 400 Years.” In the video preview, which is now centered on the screen, there’s a picture of a Hershey-chocolate skinned, full bodied lady who’s been fashioned for the camera to look as ghetto as possible, and she has a tattoo on her shoulder that reads “Last 400 Years.” That’s her name. She’s obviously on her knees and looking upward. It looks like she’s trying not to cry, and that is probably because she has a huge white cock stuck down her throat. Attached to the cock is a hairy white thigh with the tattoo, “Racism.” That is the thigh’s name, and therefore the cock’s as well. You look at the name of the website, and it reads, “Ghettogaggers.com.” You can’t believe this website exists, but it does. Oh it does.]
So, anyone who’s grown up in this racist world is bound to be racist. [Remember that web site. I’m sorry to bring it up again. Well it started playing without you clicking it. You hear the sound of gagging. It’s an instinctive sound. You recognize it immediately. It’s weird and horrible, but it’s singular. You know what it is. It’s a universal reflex, a universal noise. Last 400 Years is trying to get Racism out of her but she can’t. You close your computer quickly, or maybe you don’t. Maybe you watch. Maybe you get off on it. You choose, but one thing is for sure, that website is racist, and that’s ok cause everyone is, but maybe Ghettogaggers.com should get pressure from people to cease existing. But that’s up to you.] I’m racist, your racist, every mother f**ker I know is racist. That’s what racism does to us. That’s how it works. IT MAKES US RACIST BASTARDS.
That being said, I agreed to function as author for this piece, “Is Paul Mooney Racist?” Who am I? I’m your camera lens for the article. You see through me as you read this. You can trust me to take you to strange and wonderful places, to make you feel, to make you think. You can call me by name, Kamaara Lens. Pronounce that s**t right, too. KA-MAW-Rrrrrrrrrrrrr(roll that s**t a little)-A. Don’t ever walk up to me and call me “Camera.” That sounds gay. Just kidding. Wouldn’t it be funny if I weren’t kidding, though? I’m serious about the pronunciation thing, but kidding about the gay thing. I’m not racist toward gay people. I am racist though. I can’t help it. I’m human. I apologize.
Also, I used to be Peace2, columnist for RH a while back, but Peace2 died in the space between my last column and this one. I’m now Kamaara Lens, trying to bring film to literature for you rather than literature to film. Identities die all the time, and they re-grow anew. So this is what I see. You got some s**t to say to me about it? Say it. But right now, let’s finish this Paul Mooney thing by talking a little about Peace2.
Peace2 took his name from the combination of two quotes relevant to Paul Mooney. The first quote is ordinary, “My peace and blessings to you.” The second comes from 2Pac’s “I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto” [see a blank white wall that you know to be in your teenage bedroom. There’s one piece of paper on the wall, and in big, black letters, it’s titled THE BEST ANTI-RACIST SONGS OF ALL TIME.]
The first song on that list is 2Pac’s (that’s right, 2pac’s), “I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto”, where Shakur captures a certain experience of the L.A. riots. You remember those and Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along” Rodney King as opposed to the more popular “Can’t we all just get along” Martin Lawrence? Yeah? Rodney King and L.A. burning, well, only the non-white areas, not Laguna Beach with all those pretty white girls on MTV (this is a racist and anti-racist statement), but yeah, just think if someone hadn’t been standing there with a video camera. No one would have ever known who Rodney King was.
I bet Paul Mooney would love that song, because like it, he’s anti-racist. He’s a brilliant comedian who navigates and blurs racial lines well enough to attack institutional racism. He may say some shocking and controversial things, but it’s clear from his career, his work, and his way of thinking that though his words are racist sometimes (Of course they are. He’s human.), he viciously supports an anti-racist world, a world without racism [Think about that for a second. See blank screen.], and he wants America to atone for its transgressions. He wants black America to stop being racist and to get it’s 40 acres and a mule. What happened to that acres s**t? What’s fair is fair, right? We can’t have peace till n***ers get a piece, too, right? [Just hear an inrush of air and a voice, “That’s racist.”] Oh sorry. Did I just show you that out of context? Let me relate that.
That’s the 2Pac quote from the song that made Peace2. “We can’t have peace till the nigg(ers/ahs) get a piece, too.” [Follow me now through a series of rooms connected by a long blank hallway that has carpet with the name on it “Analysis of 2pac that will establish the tenants of anti-racism.” The rooms are only on the right side of the hallway. In each room there is a thought. We enter the first room. “As long as institutional racism exists, there will not be peace on this earth.” This cannot be argued. We’re in the second room now. “We have the right to take arms (pieces) in order to (a) protect ourselves and (b) ensure equality (get a piece too).” Getting a little controversial, but we move to the third room. “Therefore, though we may sound racist and say racist things (of course we do, we’re human), we’re going to attack the institutional racism as honestly as we can wherever it arises. We want equality, and we want peace for everyone. We want people of different races to know that they’re all fine and equal in our eyes.”] Have I brainwashed you yet. No. Well, anyway, if you listen to Paul Mooney, almost everything he says is motivated or comes from the three rooms we just entered. He uses race comedy to point to the unfairness and pain of a racist world. All of his statements are based in truth and aimed at showing how sinisterly racism works. They’re also funny and cool to the touch like the black shiny book jacket that covers his book, Black is the New White. The cover will tell you, “Most comedians tell jokes. Paul Mooney tells the truth.” It’s the truth.
I’ll let you take the thoughts and images we’ve explored together as you watch Paul Mooney’s latest controversial interview, which you can do below. You decide. Is Paul Mooney racist or anti-racist? But didn’t you already say he was racist at the beginning? Is it like a sliding scale or something? Can it be both?