The Thing About Fitzgerald Grant and Black Women

After resisting insurmountable peer pressure, I gave in.

I just ordered Season One of the wildly popular television series, Scandal.

My friend Jenn, arguably one of the show's most enthusiastic fans, tipped me over the edge by not only sharing the Diahann Carroll (I adore Diahann Carroll)/Kerry Washington connection, (click here), but also by providing insight as to why a great number of my Facebook sisters are posting and watching Thursday evenings - 10p est (click here.)

I can't say much more about Scandal...yet, but Diahann Carroll's career represents another little know Black history fact.
A legend.
Tony and Golden Globe Winner.
Emmy, Oscar and Grammy Awards Nominee.
In 1968, she became the first Black actress to star in her own television series, Julia.

The most despicable black motherf#%ker in the history of the world

I took my dad to see Django Unchained.

As is the case with the majority of Tarantino's work, I expected to be inundated with foul language and depictions of graphic violence.

However, I was in no way prepared to be blown away...by a single performance.

Samuel L. Jackson's performance, as head house slave, "Stephen" (not Jamie Foxx, not Leonardo DiCaprio) is worth the price of admission.

Before "Stephen" opens his mouth, Jackson's facial expressions and body language express an unctuousness that left an emotional wound on everyone in the audience.

This is the stuff that should garner nominations and awards.

My dad and I represent two generations of Black men.

We agreed that the character was offensive, but we also question why Jackson received so little recognition for such an outstanding performance.

Perhaps Frank Rich is correct in his assessment that Jackson's performance was "so repellent and so politically incorrect" that it frightened people.

"Tarantino has cited a pulpy Hollywood movie of 1975, Mandingo, as a favorite. That film, which improbably cast an aged James Mason as a sadistic plantation owner, was widely dismissed as a racist exploitation movie at the time of its release. Looking at it now, you can see what captivated Tarantino: For all its camp dialogue, racial stereotypes (white and black), and soft-core miscegenation porn, it actually showed the rape and genocide that were usually bowdlerized or kept offscreen by mainstream American movies depicting slavery up until then. (The phenomenally popular ABC mini-series Roots, which in watered-down network fashion tried to remedy that failing, didn’t appear until 1977.) In Django Unchained, some of the most savage incidents in Mandingo are ratcheted up to an excruciating pitch, which may be what it takes to discomfort a contemporary film audience inured to violence. The scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. believes that one scene, which literally puts the blood back into bloodhounds, is among the most “devastatingly effective” to be found “in any representation of the horrors of slavery.” That scene is unwatchable, which is the point.
And the bad guys of Django aren’t only whites. Candie’s head house slave, a demonic Uncle Tom, has been accurately described by Samuel L. Jackson, the actor who plays him, as “the most despicable black motherfucker in the history of the world.” He is so politically incorrect and so repellent that Jackson seems to have frightened away ­Oscar and Golden Globe voters alike from giving his profusely shaded characterization of abject villainy, an Iago refracted through centuries of African-American history, the recognition it deserves. There’s nothing like it in American movies.
To what point does Tarantino rub our noses in this hideous ancient history, you might ask? Slavery is long gone in America, and so are Stepin Fetchit, Jim Crow, and the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan (which makes a cameo prewar appearance in Django even though it didn’t emerge until Reconstruction). We have elected a black president, after all. African-American history is now a staple in every (well, almost every) school. Tarantino gave his own answer recently. “Doing history with a capital H keeps the movie at an arm’s distance, puts it under glass a little,” he said. “The whole idea of doing a movie like this was to take a rock and throw it through the glass.” By using every imaginative strategy he can, he aspires to jolt us into looking with fresh eyes at a past we assume we know. He departs wildly from the facts to make an audience face the harshest truths. It’s gutsy, and arguably arrogant, for a white man to attempt this, and I feel strongly that Tarantino pulled it off. As Lincoln portrays the politics we wish we had, so Django forces you to think about the unfinished business that keeps us from getting there just yet."

To read Rich's full article, click here

His analysis is a powerful Black History statement.

"...the long and fractious history of soft drinks, prohibition laws and race"

A friend shared, "When Jim Crow Drank Coke," a recent Op-Ed piece from the New York Times.

It is a fascinating and enlightening piece that provides a unique and revealing slice of American history.

Click here to read the article.

Editor's Note:

After publishing this post, I received a number of inquiries.

I take no position regarding Grace Elizabeth Hale's historical assertions with regard to Coca-Cola.

As a marketer, I am deeply fascinated by what makes consumers loyal to a specific brand.

Brand loyalty or brand disdain goes well beyond product attributes.

For example,  as with many of my contemporaries, there is a specific gasoline brand and a "fast-casual" restaurant brand that I will not patronize. 

In my opinion, those two brands are tarnished and while they had the ability and opportunity to rehabilitate themselves, they elected not to do so to my satisfaction.

Three individuals whom I consider heroes and role models are associated with the Coca-Cola Company: the late J. Bruce Llewellyn, the indomitable Ingrid Saunders Jones and entrepreneur Larry Thornton. 

These three individuals impact the way I view the power of brands and what they represent to me as both an African-American and a marketer. 

Their actions helped to fortify the Coca-Cola brand and solidify the brand's position.

For those who would like to read more, check out "The Real Pepsi Challenge: The Inspirational Story of Breaking the Color Barrier in American Business," by Stephanie Capparell.