The timing was spectacular.
The same time the story hit that the “N-word” will be removed from a new edition of Mark Twain’s “Huck Finn” — a well-intended-but-wrong-headed desecration of both American literature and history — Turner Movie Classics presented 24 hours of Hal Roach’s “Our Gang/Little Rascals” shorts, filmed during the 1920s and 1930s.
Those shorts years ago disappeared from commercial TV, having been condemned as racist. And certainly they include many race-ugly, stereotypical portrayals of American blacks, including Stepin Fetchit cooks, “Mammy” maids and eyes-a-poppin’ kids.
But lost, too, to this political correctness was that the lead characters of the “Little Rascals” often were black kids.
In the beloved, still-quoted character Stymie, played by Matthew Beard, Jr. from 1930-35, we found more than a leader; we found an adventurer, a wit and a side-street philosopher.
Stymie’s “I don’t know where we’re goin’ but we’re on our way” remains suitable for stitching onto throw pillows, class mottos, U.S. presidencies and headstones.
And that Stymie’s best pals were white kids, and that he sat front and center among white kids in a classroom make for recurring, can’t-miss scenes, now more than 75 years old.
Much of the most race-based moments attached to Stymie seemed designed to boost him as a sympathetic character and, at other times, to present him as a symbol of integration.
In one episode, his best pal, Dickie, the local rich kid in this bit, is smothered by his over-protective and bejeweled mother. When Dickie protests her plans for him that day, claiming he’d wanted to play with his best friend, Stymie, Dickie’s mom is horrified: “Do you mean that little colored boy!?”
Who looked bad in 1935 after that exchange? Not Stymie, not Dickie.
Then there are Stymie’s laments that seem no less familiar to African-American “culture” in the 1930s as they do in 2011. In one episode he says, “My pappy must be in jail; he didn’t come home last night.” I don’t know how that played in 1935, but in 2011 it’s heartbreaking.
The recent Twain decision is so easy to bash that there’s no sport in it, like shooting carp in a pail.
Yes, the N-word has been re-introduced, wholesale (but especially retail) by black gangsta rappers who exploit and cash in on every self-enslaving habit of black-urban life.
Of course, such “artistry” is excused, explained or ignored as keepin’-it-real story-telling.
Me? I’m Jewish, so I say let’s eliminate the works of Charles Dickens from our libraries until the anti-Semitic portrayal of Fagin in “Oliver Twist” is edited.
Instead of Fagin running a pickpocket school for kids, I want him revised and rewritten to be a pediatric surgeon.
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The news media continue to present excessive gambling as romantic as opposed to a vice that ruins gamblers and those who love them.
On Jan. 4, the day of the $330 million Mega Millions Lottery drawing, news-radio WINS presented a mirthful feature on folks lining up to buy tickets.
One fellow, last name Marquez, was interviewed in NJ, after buying his tickets. He said that he let the computer select numbers for him, but that he also played “my usual numbers.”
Asked if he’s a lucky guy, he said he is, having once hit for “a couple of hundred thousand dollars.” He added that he quickly squandered that money, every cent of it — but that doesn’t keep him from buying more tickets! Funny stuff.
