Send In The Clowns, by Michael Davis
Last week I was in New York for just 24 hours. I flew in to do my Black Panel at the New York Comic Con and meet with Mike Gold about another project I’m doing for ComicMix. The week before I was suffering from a series of migraine headaches and got on the plane with the full knowledge that I could have a relapse. THEN Jet Blue lost the only bag I checked. That bag happened to be what I needed for a meeting with Mike and another meeting I was having. So with all that in mind I was not expecting the best of times. In fact I was thinking the trip was a mistake.
So I was not in the greatest of moods when I got to the con. THEN I had an impromptu
meeting with Mike Richardson, which turned into great news! THEN I meet with Mike Gold and that meeting was great even without the stuff I wanted him to see that was in the bag that Jet Blue lost. THEN I talked to Dwayne McDuffie and got some more good news from him about a project we are planning! THEN, the Black Panel was great fun. THEN I had dinner with ComicMix’s Media Goddess Martha Thomas and she introduced me to TWO great writers that I hope to work with in the future.
THEN, I was sharing some more good news with my best friend Denys Cowan. As head of BET Animation, a division of Black Entertainment Television (BET), he announced production on The Black Panther animated series, which is really cool.
So, I was feeling pretty darn good when I flew back to L.A.
THEN I met this guy…
Back in L.A a few days later I was leaving Target with a 20-pound bag of dog food when I heard a voice behind me. “Hey are you Michael Davis?” I never ever answer that question. Who knows if this is some crazed killer whose sister I used to date? Who knows if the person asking hates my ComicMix column and me because of it?
Who knows if this is an irate comic book fan that thinks I’m an asshole…bingo!
I turned around and there were four guys looking at me. I looked at the guy who asked the question and I knew I’ve seen him somewhere before and I had. “I was at the Black Panel in New York.” He said with the classic angry black guy look. And so he was. I remembered him staring at me with the same angry black guy look from the second row of the conference room at the Javits center. As funny as I was at the Black Panel (and I was funny) this guy just stared at me. I was really not in the mood for what I knew was coming.
“You a clown. You and your boy Denys Cowan are just ignorant n*****r clowns.” As he said this I swear I was thinking, “Well at least he did not call me an asshole.”
“You’re just a asshole.”
I could see my car just twenty feet away, all I had to do was keep walking. “Why do you act so damn ignorant and act a fool when you get around people?” I heard that while I was walking towards my car praying that I would retain some of the good sensation I was feeling before this guy darkened my path. I told myself to just keep walking. “We should kick your ignorant ass.”
I know, I know I should have kept walking. I should have just ignored this guy and his cronies but I stopped.
“Why would you do that?" I asked feeling really stupid because I was carrying a giant bag of Alpo while trying to look tough. Note to dog lovers, yeah, I feed my dogs Alpo or whatever else is on sale. No, I don’t feed my dog’s gourmet dog food. Why? When they start paying rent or learn to say, “Please give us gourmet dog food,” Then they will get gourmet dog food.
“Why would you do that?” I asked. “Because I can’t stand trifling ignorant n*****s like you.” He said as he and his crew enjoyed a laugh. “Your boy Cowan is going to f*** up a great black character created by a great black man because B.E.T is just f**ked up.”
I said, “The Black Panther was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, two white guys.” “A lot you know. The Black Panther was created by Reggie Hudlin.” He retorted with obvious glee in schooling me.
“You mean the same Reggie Hudlin that runs B.E.T that is producing the Black Panther that you will hate because you hate all things B.E.T.? No, he writes the book but he did not create the character.” I said.
They just looked at me.
He said as I decided to just walk away secure in the knowledge that he and his stupid friends were just punked out. THEN he and his friends got in my face and he said “Punk-ass ignorant Negro.”
I dropped the bag and mentioned politely that I was a member of the National Rifle Association (which I am) and I was prepared to show him my membership. They talked a moment among themselves then decided that further confrontation would result in an needless trip to the emergency room or a meeting with Jesus.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I don’t get it.
This guy hates my guts and thinks I’m ignorant because he does not like the way I represent…me.
That boggles my mind. Why is he even thinking about me anyway? As I said his behavior and the mob mentality of his crew cracks me up. To that point, what is with the hatred of B.E.T. by some black people?
Look, my boys run B.E.T. and I have gone on record saying that there are some elements of the network I just don’t like, but to damn an entire network because you don’t like some-no-even if you don’t like mostof it is just crazy. I hate most of what is on MTV, I have said that a million times, but they have this show called Real Life, which is just fantastic. I watch that show and simply don’t watch any others on MTV.
I fully understand that there are some black people who just hate on B.E.T because of the negative images they see there. I get that, I really do. But to hate the largest employer of black people in the entertainment business because of some booty shaking houchie momma’s and gold teeth rappers (which you don’t have to watch) is like rioting and burning down your block. That makes no sense to me. I don’t see white people picketing the networks that show the Jerry Springer show.
It’s amazing that these critics always ignore B.E.T.’s Jazz channel, or Gospel channel or the many, MANYother positive images that far out number the bitches and ho’s you see on the network. And YES, I am fully aware of the images of the black community that project us as thugs and such that have been shown on the network. And YES I hate it also, but rather than bitch about the negative I applaud the positive.
Here’s what I know for sure, B.E.T is the only place on television where I can always see people that look like me, the good the bad and the ugly. The rest of television (TV1 excluded) you can still count the people of color (not just black people) on the air with one hand most times. Case in point, Jet
They STILL do that.
There are so few black people represented on TV that almost SIXTY years later you can still find them onone page in Jet.
I have a simple suggestion to all those people who hate B.E.T.
Or pony up a billion dollars and start your own network.
What’s even more perplexing to me about my Target confrontation is this; why are these guys who are obvious comic book fans so down on the Black Panther series before they see it?
To the guys who wanted to beat my ass I say this, I may be a clown, I may be a trifling n****r and I know sometimes I’m an asshole but I also know it’s pretty damn stupid to state an abhorrence (look it up) of something before you see it. That is the textbook definition of ignorant.
Who’s the clown now, Bozo?
Michael Davis may be a lot of things, even an asshole from time to time (he’s a Hollywood deal-maker), but he is NOT, and never has been in the 20-plus years ComicMix’s E-I-C has known him, a “punk-ass ignorant Negro.” And I’m über-pissed that some clown who watched me work with Michael for almost two hours a week ago today thinks so. I note he lacked the courage to voice his opinions at the panel. So who’s the punk-ass? This is the type of jerk who disses Louis Armstrong.
Nice column, Michael. I wish I had stuck around at the Con on Friday night to catch this panel. Mike Gold nails it when he mentions that the guy could have spoken up at the time and didn't. Even failing that, he could have tried to express his concerns with you at Target in a reasonable way. You're not likely to think much of your critics' opinons if they call you the n-word and challenge you to fight (while standing with a group of three buddies, no less). Legitimate criticism of B.E.T. programming hardly speaks for itself when one is stalking a man and his dog food through a parking lot.
Mark,Thanks Mark. To your point-there are Legitimate reasons to criticize B. E. T. and if he would have stepped to me and simply told me that he had a gripe against me, B.E.T and Denys I would have respected that. But clearly this was an attempt to show his friends how big his penis was. I would have loved for this guy to voice his comments at the panel. Heck there was a young lady in the audience at the panel who asked Denys a pretty hard B.E.T. question and got a pretty hard and straight answer from Denys. Her question added to the panel in a very positive way. I guess he did not step up because his boys were not sitting with him.
Mike, wow. Thanks! Wait a minute… what you mean 'from time to time.?' Yo, man I work hard at that 24/7. BTW I'm sure this guy thinks Louis Armstrong is the name of the guy who owns the company.
Michael: This fellow's ignorance was compounded with interest. He was upset that creative control of a character, created by Reggie Hudlin, was being put in the wrong hands, namely Reggie Hudlin's. OK, so he didn't know who created Black Panther. He didn't know Hudlin (who he respects and admires for creating–he thinks– the Wakandan King) also runs B.E.T., which he despises. I don't see how you are connected with all that. Are you writing any of the Black Panther animation scripts? What's his beef with you? You KNOW people? You were on a panel with… You had dinner and drinks with… You are friends…? I don't get it.Even if this Bozo had his points straight, I still don't think he could connect the dots and see the picture.And nobody can dis Louis Armstrong, not after he won the Tour de France seven times!
Russ,He's just really disgusted with the way I am. He made it clear that he thinks I'm a clown and hates the way I write. There are just some guys out there who think if you don't act like a stone faced thug then you are not a man. Nope- as far as I know I'm not writing any of the Black Panther series. I say as far as I know because it has not been offered to me. But that would be mad cool if I got a call. Or maybe not, I'm developing my answer to The Black Panther-be on the look out for Negro Kitty!! TM. Oh BTW-what is with the stupid comment about Louis Armstrong, winning the Tour de France seven times? DUH-everybody knows Louis Armstrong went to the moon!
You'd think that a public forum, with its built-in opportunities to take part and agree or disagree, would be sufficient. Not so, when an audience includes members who'd prefer to initiate a confrontation outside the arena without so much as a civil prelude.I've encountered much of the same, now and again, in connection with my participation in the development of the Tyler, Texas, Black Film Collection at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The Tyler Collection dates from the 1980s — a warehouse discovery of movies from 'way back when, long presumed lost — but remains relevant on account of its documentation of the very origins of black independent filmmaking as a riposte to Corporate Hollywood. (Next week's installment of my ComicMix column touches on the Tyler Collection, incidentally.)The earlier years of the Collection involved quite a few formal presentations. In times more recent, I've included various titles from the Collection in film-festival and curatorial museum exhibitions. Most members of an audience seem to appreciate the simple fact of long-term preservation as a window opening onto times past. Some others seem to get the impression that our original crew had undertaken to safeguard the films as a means of "perpetuating stereotypes." (Yes, the black-indie sector of the early- to mid-20th century dealt in some of the same images that Warners and MGM, etc., imposed on Willie Best and Ethel Waters.) This assumption might stem from the preservation team's having consisted of white-guy perfesser-types — not that I think of myself in such terms.Anyhow. I've been followed outside this auditorium or that by such personalities, whose idea of discourse has more to do with name-calling and threat-dispensing than with any exchange of ideas. None of which has compromised my belief in the value of the Tyler Collection. And the last time I staged a public screening of one of the Tyler pictures — Spencer Williams' "The Blood of Jesus," from 1941 — the post-discussion confrontation came from some white guy who found it "reprehensible" (quote/unquote) that writer-director Williams had cast himself as a hog-rustling sinner AND WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS DEMEANING PORTRAYAL?!?! Of course, I informed this loud objector, then and there, that I probably should just zip back to 1941 and order that great artist of the Harlem Renaissance period and beyond, Spencer Williams, to scrap the film lest his bad-guy portrayal cause any discomforts sometime in in the next century. The affronted viewer was not amused. No accounting for taste.My recent biography of Mantan Moreland addresses comparable concerns, including the black-on-black disagreements that served to put Moreland out of work in Hollywood during the post-WWII years. Lately, I've been working with the Black Gospel Preservation Project at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, which involves thousands of obscure phonograph records of significance not only to their immediate realm but also to mainstream popular music.Bound to be some disagreements waiting to happen as to whether such artifacts (of less-enlightened times, naturally) bear preserving, and whether any white-guy perfesser-types should be involved at all. Bring 'em on. Preferably without the threats and the name-calling.
If it weren't for people like Butterfly McQueen, Willie Best, Mantan Moreland and Otis Beard, we would have no Bill Cosby, Halle Berry and Spike Lee. Casting those performances to the vaults or worse, the trash heaps is a crime. And don't get me STARTED on "Song of the South"…And can I just point out the irony that it was a well-meaning (a phrase which here means "guilty and with a feeling of obligation") white guy who felt the need to bring up the portrayal? I love the people who bring up things to complain about, not because THEY are offended, of course, but because there may be OTHERS who are offended and cannot speak out.
Oh, yeah, the Popular Culture is a mess of contradictions and ironies — and as such, all the more worth preserving as a map suggesting where to head from here. Its interpretation is a matter of anybody's guess.That one screening I mentioned of the Spencer Williams film, by the way, had attracted an unusually well-integrated audience; it took place at a museum of 20th-century American art. The showing was generally well received as part of an "American Cinema" series, mingling familiar major-studio pictures with low-budget indie rarities. (Williams' series of 10 films for Texas-based Sack Amusements range from mad-doctor horrors to slapstick to crime and religion, capped by a wild knockoff of Somerset Maugham's "Rain.")One of my most reliable news-reporting sources from the late 1960s through '70s was a West Texas chief of the N.A.A.C.P. Dr. Richard W. Jones and I developed a friendship early on, having largely to do with a shared interest in jazz and the blues. He expressed a hostility toward Mantan Moreland at one point (triggered by one of Moreland's late-in-life comedy-tour appearances in Dr. Jones' and my hometown), and from that we found a basis for a recurring argument — in cordial terms.Following Dr. Jones' death (during the late 1970s), I learned that he had willed to me his collection of phonograph records. There, among the Gillespies and Monks (and Louis Armstrongs) and so forth, I found copies of Mantan Moreland's LPs — Bible stories, on the one hand, and bawdy "party records" on the other. A fascinating mystery, ideally in keeping with that view of the Popular Culture as a mess of contradictions and ironies.
I am crackin up over here at work reading your claim to intellectual victory over the target goonies. Backed by Alpo and NRA affiliation… thats just great, so funny (Louis Armstrong on a bike }8? )
BTW-I love the term ‘Target Goonies’ With your permission I would like to make them the super villains in my new book. ‘Parking Lot Homies and the women that avoid them."
whatdousay?
I'm not claiming intellectual victory over anyone Adrienne. The smart thing to have done was to walk away. Staying like I did was pretty stupid and could have been made worst if just one of the 5 people there (me included) would have made a wrong move, resulting in violence. That said-clearly I felt that these guys were capable OF and would HAVE made that wrong move if I would not had dropped that bag and stood my ground. So, no I claim nothing except my right not to be bullied by thugs and yes that could have been stupid. I make light of some of that in the article but when these guys were in my face I assure you it was not funny at all. The last thing I was thinking is rather I was smarter than they were. In hindsight thinking of how it could have turned out I bet the dog's picture on the Alpo bag was smarter than all of us.
"Staying like I did was pretty stupid and could have been made worst if just one of the 5 people there (me included) would have made a wrong move, resulting in violence."Aaron McGruder gave a name to this type of situation in the Boondocks series, which I will not repeat. Suffice to say he makes clear that they can be avoided entirely by about a half-second of rational thought, which obviously, you were the only one able to supply.Damn, I'm sorry we missed meeting up at the NYCC. I don't suppose you'll be strolling through WWPhilly?
This piece bookends nicely with Elayne Riggs' recent essay, "We Become What We Deserve to Be." http://www.comicmix.com/news/2008/04/23/we-become…There she details how just one fan's seemingly random words of thanks and praise rescued Elayne from a Comic Con weekend of existential angst and self-doubt. How the kind word's of one person changed her perspective on her life and career and really made her day.Compare that to Micheal Davis' experience of having a unexpectedly wonderful time at Comic Con, only to be met by Mr. Parking-Lot Buzz-Kill and his cronies.By the way, "Mr. Parking-Lot Buzz-Kill" is a name I'm now claiming copyrights too. I'm hoping this new super-villain will get a chance to fight Luke Cage and the Thing outside a Target in an upcoming Giant-Sized Annual Marvel Two-in-One!
I take this as a good sign. I mean, think about it. Comics are so much a part of life these days that you can give a talk at a comic convention in New York and then have people who attended the talk "interact" with you at a Target in LA. There was a time when this would have been amazing. On the other hand – I’m glad you came through with your sense of humor intact!
Your ability to bring levity to that situation amuses me. (I know I and most others would call upon the help of some Depends in that situation…)
The ignorance about the origin of the Black Panther character almost completely voids all the complaints of the goon. Is the goon going to start hating the character when he finds out it was created by 2 white Jews in the mid-1960s? What about Black Lightning? Black Lightning was created by a short Italian guy from the Cleveland area.
The whole BET debate seems to have quite an effect on folks. I'm not sure that the employment argument makes a huge difference. I mean, all the folks creating and perpetuating stereotypes on the network are employed…but that doesn't outweigh the damage they're doing. Just magnifies it by the fact that they're making a buck from the damage they're doing.I think people that try to get involved in the debate when they don't have either the mental acuity or the dedication to get the facts are just hurting whichever side they believe they favor. These ignorant fools that approached you just managed to give "anecdotal evidence" that BET haters are ignorant fools. Doesn't help that they're every bit as damaging to the image as they seem to believe BET is. FWIW, I think you did a great job running the panel at NYCC. Well, 'cept for the few times you stepped on poor Cheryl Lynn trying to get a word out. ;) She does have a great energy, though, doesn't she? But seriously, it was a great panel and, as no huge fan of BET, I have to say that Denys always makes me hopeful that things are slowly improving over there. All it takes is more hirings like him and less hirings like the ones that built an empire out of airing T&A videos and things can't help but improve.
MichaelOne of the things you alluded to and that scares me was the "potential for violence" in that encounter. Part of me has a deep down conviction that, sooner or later, someone is going to show up at a Con and shoot a creator and then possibly go to shoot others, as has happened at so many schools. The clown you wrote about, with his ignorance and his anger AND his need for confrontation, is not that far away from the profile of some of the shooters we've seen go on killing sprees. At a con, costumes could provide cover. I'm hoping I'm just being paranoid and it could never happen — but what was unthinkable increasingly appears to be coming commonplace, isn't it?Sorry. Talk about buzz kill!– John
I don't think you're being overly paranoid, John. I'm almost surprised we haven't seen it yet. I'll tell you this: if the Siegel lawsuits eventually lead to DC losing Superman completely, I'd recommend that no one in their group show up as a convention. I've seen such a level of irrational hatred thrown at them for taking advantage of their legal rights that I'd think they'd be greatly at risk.
I agree with you John! The actual security of conventions is rather lax. While there is always someone demanding to see your badge no one demands to see whats in all those backpacks. I have to go through a basic search of my purse and person and wave of a metal detecting wand to go to MSG or Shea but at the Javitz (or any of the cons) people attending are literally masked and carrying weapons. Not only could the killing of a creator and/or con-goers be easy, but I doubt the security teams the conventions hire would even know how to handle a violent situation.
Well, now I know why I haven't received a call back from you. You've been up to your eyeballs in conventions, meetings, Alpo, and "Target Goonies".Seriously glad to read that you are all right. Though, it wopuld be nice to receive that call back. Don't you love me anymore Mike?
If you call me back, I will also promise to learn to slow down while typing as to avoid typos, and missed commas, and/or bad punctuation.