A film company once asked me to look at an urban novel and see if I could create a TV series from it. I won't reveal the title or author [some may say plagiarist] but I will say the word "Ghetto" was printed across the cover page. Now I was a snob when it came to literature. If it wasn't Morrison, Marquez, Joyce, or Dumas [and I mean Henry, not Alexandre] you couldn't offer me a kidney to read that garbage.
Well, opportunity knocked. And suddenly my snobby-self was reading nook and cranny of a certain premiere urban writer. Some would call me a hypocrite. You know, one minute turning up my nose, and then the next, my nose all in it. But I would call it trying to maintain a solid checking account. Anyway, I was given about two weeks to read, decipher and decide. It took me a week. And although at times the story was difficult to filter with all the b*tches, n*gg*s and other whatnot, it wasn't that bad of story. It was actually good. No, I'm lying. It was horrible. However, I was able to crank out an outline to a pilot episode, add some flavor to the characters and some necessary heat to the plot. Next thing I knew I received a call from the film company that the urban writer wanted to meet me. I was told, she really liked it.
So the day had arrived for us to meet. The film company's creative exec, the urban queen and myself were to lunch it at one of Beverly Hill's finest. A brother was cool with a nice little Tapas spot over in Los Feliz, where the vibe was chill and somewhat Bohemian, but Beverly Hills, I was told, was the choice of the urban scribe. So I didn't argue 'cause bruh wasn't footing the bill.
I walked in five minutes late. And as I approached the table I saw one smiling face and another perplexed one. Curious, congenial, sexy even, but definitely perplexed.
I sat down, ordered a plate of something seared and something fresh with mint and jumped right in. Studios, scheduling and possible actors—Mos Def, Cuba Gooding's brother [Omar], Terence Howard even. I nodded and smiled because I hadn't signed a contract at that point, or received one dime. But the ghetto bard assured me: "This sh*t was gonna make bank!"
Then the creative director excused herself to the bathroom [too much of something fresh with mint] and that's when the trip TRIPPED out.
"I thought you were a white man." She said this loud. And she wasn't trying to be funny either. She meant it. Now according to my DNA I'm about 25 percent Euro, but there's nothing about me that looks white. I'm brown and I've always been brown.
So I asked: "Why would you think that?
And she said in all seriousness, "All those big words. All fancy and well-written. I thought they had hired a white man to develop this sh*t." And then she laughed. Not because the joke was on me, but because the joke was on her. She was expecting a white man to come walking through the door and order his plate of something seared and discuss urban lit on TV. Oh, I may have forgotten to mention: this ghetto scribe was African-American.
The meeting ended well, according to her. I was told she was going to contact Mos Def herself. That she was going to make sure I was PAID. That she believed in taking people to the top, that I'll be driving an Escalade.
After she pulled off in her rented Bentley, I never heard from her again.
I wasn't upset. One door closes, the other opens. And I certainly was humbled by having to possibly depend on something I abhorred to help make ends meet. But what was interesting, of course, was her assumption anything written well or done with confidence and conviction lacks black. I certainly laughed about her comment with friends. We joked about how ridiculous and funny. But when I lay in my bed that night, I felt a bit of sadness, maybe even anger.
It's no secret most humans are dodging or defending stereotypes on a daily. Sometimes I think we're so hyper-aware of the outlandish depictions we look for them when there not even there. In screen and film, if a overweight woman is cast people call her a "mammy", if a lighter-skinned person is cast, they're accused of being the witch or the savior, if a large man grins next to a Brazilian model, he looks like Kong. If a writer writes with authority, he couldn't be black at all.
It's funny and crazy.
