"Defining Moments in Black History"

(Reading Between the Lies)
-by dick gregory
2017
Dick gregory is that one friend you have who's probably more brilliant than you, and definitely more crazy. And in his craziness, he occasionally finds his way to a truth more unvarnished and REAL than any you've known.
He's able to see sideways, which even the brightest often fail to do - for example, he sees our domesticated animals/pets as the slaves they are.
Does the manganese in malt liquor make (black) people more prone to violence? Does tap water?? Did "the man" kill michael jackson, and take down tiger woods? Those last two seem hard to give credence, because the power structure worships one thing above all - money. So what percentage would there be in eliminating two of their biggest cash cows? And if tiger was taken down to protect nicklaus's supremacy, why was hank aaron allowed to dethrone babe ruth, in a more racist time, in the preeminent american sport?
But forget the conspiracy stuff (well, no, DON'T). Forget the religious/everything-happens-for-a-reason nonsense. Forget the anti-humyn sexual puritanism. Gregory's take on history is scathing, and far more real than any school textbook. And his honesty can be searing. He understands how slavery's legacy has damaged black people - he doesn't flinch in talking about not being able to see his own wife as beautiful, and how black wimyn are trapped in skin/hair self-loathing, and how the "inferiority" of black men has been made a self-fulfilling prophecy.
His take on john brown might make even a pacifist take up arms.
What was the real reason malcolm, king, and hampton were killed?
His dismissal of lincoln might exasperate you, especially as frederick douglass, who was never afraid to criticize the great emancipator, called him "emphatically the black man's president" (a willingness to send freed slaves back to Africa doesn't sound inherently anti-black to me, either). But you'll be exasperated because you know that even when gregory's wrong, he's right. Forgive the sloppiness of that sentiment - just read the book.