I'm going to step off of the Obama/New Yorker fury today and discuss another matter of equal urgency: white male privilege. That's right, I said it. I want to discuss how those ancient cave dwellers from long ago have morphed into the world's top game players and dares anyone to question it. [Oh, is cave too extreme? How about TAVERN? Or Sports Bar?].
Now I'm lucky. My dad never sat me down and explained how a colored boy like myself must always be on the lookout for white male privilege. He never said: Keith, son, those white males rule the world and you must bow and ebb and move out of their way, you know, in case they suddenly get an epiphany to... I don't know... reap havoc on the Third World. No, Pops never offered a slave, I mean, a black man, like myself those comforting words of insubordination. My dad led by example. His demeanor at home did not alter when he was abroad. The same charming albeit no-nonsense black fellow from the notorious West End of Cincinnati didn't vary in tone or style when navigating the white American landscape. Oh, but if you didn't have your coffee one morning, [white men I'm talking 'bout you], and a subtle hint of condescension rolled from your tongue... well, talk about steam from the ears. My dad would check it quickly and usually the fire department was called because he would literally burn the place down. Just ask the counter guy from the Tri-County Kinkos, he remembers my dad quite well.
Now all of this set up is to say this: I was recently hired to write a TV pilot for a couple of Brooklyn-based indie producers. They had this extraordinary, AMAZING, glorious idea for a one-hour dramedy about the life and game of soccer players. And I was so overwhelmed and honored and grateful they chose me, a little black guy from Bucksuck, USA, to write the script and they were paying 50% of scale. [Oh, I quiver in the skin from just thinking about their kindness]. Well, after several weeks of meetings and pitch sessions, I cranked out an outline—a blueprint of the script.
I was tormented for days waiting for their all-knowing approval. I wanted for master [I mean, the producers] to be pleased. Well, they were not. They claimed some of their original ideas were missing from the outline. They didn't understand some of my Ebonics [although I used none at all]. One of them wrote out a scene of dialogue to show me how its done right... in white. When I questioned the dialogue coaching, they condescendingly said they've known the characters for 8 to 50 years and I've known them a few months... be happy they're helping. In a nutshell, I had made the standard black mistake by taking matters into my own hands. I gave my voice to a project they loved. [Which according to the WGA that's what writers do when they're hired to write, but hey... nobody substitutes the glorious genius of a white guy with no TV skills with the rantings of some black DUDE with a M.F.A. and twelve years of dramatic writing under his belt, and a film in development. Nobody!]
So yes... I forfeited the opportunity. And of course, I thought of my notorious dad in all of this. What he would've said to the "8 to 50 years" crazy, what part of their office he would've burned. Because, trust me, I looked for a match. I prayed they could see the steam rising from my ears. But then I thought how mistaken I had been. A young buck like myself actually believing these cool, worldly white guys saw me as an equal. My intelligence, creativity, professionalism... equal. That I could actually breathe life and momentum into their dead-beat, stupid-a** TV project. How wrong I was. How absent-minded and child-like. Because in the end, white boys [not all of course. never all]. But SOME white boys question the worth of everything if it's not white and full of testosterone.
The End.
