Black Is the New White
On March - 13 - 20105 COMMENTS
Product Description
Too Black for Hollywood is the fascinating and fearless memoir of one of the most enduring and brilliant comedic minds of all time…. More >>
Product Description
Too Black for Hollywood is the fascinating and fearless memoir of one of the most enduring and brilliant comedic minds of all time…. More >>
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This book was a biography of Richard Pryor. Mr. Pryor was funny when he acted like a fool. Mr. Pryor took a lot of drugs and was a ladies man. Mr. Pryors’ best friend was Jim Brown, but we don’t get much information about Jim Brown. Mr. Pryor used four letter words, and the unspeakable word, in his nightclub act. Mr. Mooney supplied Richard Pryor with dirty jokes.
Rating: 2 / 5
The only reason I even gave this book two stars is because of the material Mooney has contributed to comedy over the years. Mooney on his own is not even funny. The book contains several long passages from Mooney’s albums. Not even close to funny. I think the guy has to be filtered through someone like Richard P. or Dave Chappelle for his material to be funny.
The book doesn’t quite come out and say that he hates white people. But at one point he does say “I don’t hate white people, I hate their parents for giving birth to them.”
So yes. A good racist book about racism. I don’t actually think Mooney is a racist. But it’s just another book about how persecuted he was all his life because he was black; about how police treat him differently because he’s black.
“Hey Mooney. I believe you. Your rich, so quit whining and get over it already. We’ve all had bad stuff happen to us.” Many have experienced much more horrible stuff than he describes in this book. And some of them were even white!!
Then the last chapter is basically a love affair with Barak Obama. Not for anything he’s done since being in office. No, just because he’s black. I’m glad I read it in the bookstore rather than paying for it.
Rating: 2 / 5
I enjoy this man’s humor and have laughed outright at “Jesus was Black” [...]. There is a section in the early part of the book where Mooney talks about the mind of a black child having no awareness of color until an unfeeling person puts it there. I felt, for that portion of the book, that Mooney let down his force field for a moment and shared this searing pain he felt and how, once the callous and cruel bigoted fool burned into the young brain, created a scar which would never heal. Being white – I can’t know what he felt at that moment but the wound was searing while the net effect motivated him to push back by ’succeeding’ in spite of what others perceived as a ‘handicap’. It certainly shaped him and made his humor what was to become. When I laugh at Paul Mooney’s jokes, I often feel somewhat abashed in my own presence since I KNOW that Mooney hates me (not me personally, but white people) because I’m NOT black. That makes me uneasy. Being a white 54 year old woman likely makes me the antithesis of everything Mooney IS – but I can’t help that. I find him to be funny and a bit pompous at times but I suspect that’s how he managed his life early on. MY quandry is the gay thing: When Pryor was roasted, he called Mooney “Miss Thing” and Mooney laughed robustly. When Earthquake roasted Mooney and made a much milder gay insinuation, Mooney let fly with a string of N-word epithets that was so clearly antagonistic to the other comic that there was NO way it could have been intended as funny. I don’t know or care if Mooney is gay or not – but his vicious response drowned in retaliatory N=word spewn forth in hatred made Mooney look angry, mean spirited and likely in the closet. Shall we drop all the outrage, Paul? As you say, ‘keeping it real’ does mean telling the truth. Surely after ALL these years – it’s not that important if you are or aren’t. Any Paul constantly refers to his ‘prettiness’ and insists that that many people hated him because he was so good looking. I don’t know about you – but a comment like that makes a person LESS attractive in my eyes and it has nothing to do with funny. This book did send me to YouTube to watch old Pryor bits on the Mafia (I had NO idea that Pryor was such a fastastic mimic. He did a Tony Soprano before David Chase had even hatched the idea!) AND the best, the first (Black President). Fabulous and again showing Richard Pryor doing the best political doublespeak EVAH! Like others, I’d never heard of him before Chappelle (what ever happened to Chappelle – such a funny, funny man? His ‘Negrodamus’ is a hilarious character from the show and I’d never heard of Wayne Brady till Mooney’s prognostications.
I don’t know why he hates Howard Stern since he’s a Stern in every sense of the word only with deeper pigment??? I for one cannot discern a difference between their humor only Howard’s a radio guy and Paul is not. And like many of you here, I also felt that the death of his son warranted more than one half page of the book. I was in B&N in Norfolk and paid full price rather than at a discount here and he emerges at the end a survivor, a funny man with many strong opinions and I think his most HONEST line NOT from the book but from his stand (Know your History) as he recalls a fan giving him accolades galore but asking, “Paul, I love your show but MUST it always be about race??” to which Paul glibly nods in assent, “…….Yes, it must…until something better comes along.” But Paul is WRONG about one thing – I LIKED the Natural Fro’ of the the 60s and 70s and it did NOT make me ‘nervous’ Living through the wonderful and horrible times when he came up in the 60s and 70s I think the world seems dull to him now and missing Pryor as we all do – the comedy is rather tame by comparison. Paul Mooney should do commentary on current events seen through his filter of Black anger/wake up moments and the like. THAT’s is where he shines brightest – as the iconoclast who has seen, therefore can discuss the insanity of today’s world.
Rating: 4 / 5
This was a good book to read. I truly enjoyed reading about Paul Mooney. At times, he seemed a bit in love with himself but as always, he was very funny. If you’re a big fan of Paul Mooney, you should also read Richar Pryor: Pryor Convictions. I read both books and both were very entertaining.
Rating: 4 / 5
I am a stand up comic, and I actually thought the book was decent. The stories about writing for SNL, the Richard Pryor show (which launched careers for Sandra Bernhard, Tim Reid, Robin Williams, and John “Pops” Witherspoon), and the strike at the L.A. Comedy Store were entertaining.
Rating: 5 / 5