OLD AUSTIN

My hormones have been running pretty high these last couple of years. My tolerance for bullshit is low. Call a bitch a bitch—that's my motto now, let the chips fall where they fucking may. It just hurts so bad because this town was, at one time, so cool. Good herb, fine pussy, low rents and all, or comparatively low compared to now that everyone has moved here. The growth is mind-boggling even if the selection of women has improved from very good to excellent. Even on what may otherwise be a bad day in River City you can see some really fine hos. 

        Swimming at Barton Springs, drinking at Scholz’s, sitting on the Capitol lawn in the twilight of a spring evening, doobie in my hand, that was the old Austin to me. State troopers were too intimidated to say anything, they didn't want to seem like hicks. Today you try that shit on the Capitol grounds and you may end up dead. 

        For me personally the memory of a time is actually mostly audio. The de rigueur L.P. for my early years in the World Capital of Live Music was Rumours, you just couldn’t get Fleetwood Mac out of your head, even today "Rhiannon" or "Landslide" playing somewhere can still make me stop and just listen. Some of my memories of the old town are visual but most of those came after getting high and technically don't count because tripping is not real. Just call me Old School. Those were still some of the best times of my life. 

Saw only four live acts, during almost exactly 50 years, unless you also count the house band at the Chili Parlour, this should give you an idea of what the music was like: Dough Sahm playing “96 Tears” on the Drag, at The Hole in the Wall, relatively recently which to me now means, like, in the last quarter-century, you know?

Springsteen with Clarence Clemons, and the Beach Boys, both at the Super Drum on campus, back in the prior day, like mid-80s. Junior Walker maybe five years before that, singing "Shotgun" at Antone’s, a long long time ago in a different town. Later, in Africa on my pilgrimage to see the motherland, just for the record the music was "Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty. The last few years? Also British, it’s Simply Red, "Holding Back the Years." Looking back now at whatever this is, memoir or confession, that was the “old Austin,” back in the day. The town just isn't the same anymore. Let me ask you a question, this may seem incongruous: 

        You ever ride the Number 1? 

If you want to get a quick and dirty view of what River City has become you just need to take the Number 1 Bus. The route starts somewhere far south in, like, almost San Antonio? Comes up Congress Avenue past new and trendy shops, restaurants, saloons. Crosses the river, past the Texas Capitol, past the Governor’s Mansion, past the Travis County Courthouse, past the campus, then past the State Hospital—and rolls by the headquarters of the Texas Rangers. Look for a building with antennae like a crawling and repugnant bug. 

The #1 covers many of the social services stops in town, then and now, if you're unemployed or “at risk” or just out of your fucking mind which has always been a significant demographic in ATX. The head-jobs and druggies used to mostly come out at night but my most formative experience in Austin, in almost a half-century living here, actually took place during the day and south of the river where there’s usually less chance of mischief. 

It was a Saturday, late morning, coming back on foot from Big Stacy Pool on the edge of Travis Heights? So, like, you walk up the hill from the pool to Congress Avenue and there’s this little park on the corner, across from what was a X-rated theater, now a tech start-up, remember what it was like back in the day? 

On the opposite side of the street from that nursing home, you know the location, you could almost smell the pee from inside when you walked by out on the sidewalk? So, like, homeless have always used the park as a place to hang out during the day, especially when it’s hot, which is like most of the year. Cops are usually not too far away waiting for a chance to bust some balls or break some heads. If memory serves me this was like right around where that Biblebelt East Texas white boy State Senator, Nixon was his name, same party but no relation to the former president, got busted as a John back in the day. 

        Now you remember? 

He picked up what he thought was a working girl but she was actually carrying a badge in her panties. That may have been before your time if, like so many, you’re new to River City. 

So, like, a lot of hookers work or worked the South Congress area after the Eastside became just another part of Hipsterland. That was kind of the way things were beginning to roll even in Old Austin, back in the day. So, like, this was the turn of the century, turn of the millennium, 2000, or just before, and on the bus my preference is always to sit up front, like, to watch the road?

 Sometimes chat with the driver, like, if he’s got anything to say? 

Some of the drivers just sit there, it’s all they can do to handle downtown traffic, dodging all the new construction, but others got a decent rap. You have to talk to the motherfucker to find out if he’s got game, there's no other way. That was part of small town Austin life, while it would never have occurred to me to talk to the driver on a bus, for example, on a visit to in Houston. Austin bus drivers can get a rap going if they want to, this is a pretty high-brow town. Anyway sitting up front with me behind the driver that day was this couple, looked like small town folks, Ma and Pa Peckerwood from Giddings or Milam or some East Texas shithole like Bastrop County before Elon Musk arrived and the City of Bastrop got fern bars and French restaurants, to replace the feed stores and Western wear shops. Not to sound all ignorant or bigoted or anything.

So, like, there were a couple of black guys in the small park on South Congress Avenue, up the hill from Big Stacy Pool, two niggers just chillin', minding their own black business which the U.S. Constitution says a man has a right to do? Maybe getting high too which is cool, each to his own herb, indulge or not, that's supposed to be the mantra of this town. At least if you white. So, like, the bus was stopped at that corner next to the park, waiting for a green light. 

The old guy from Bastrop looks out the window at the two brothers in the park and he says to his old lady, straight up like they're still in Bumfuck, East Texas, or wherever, not like he’s in the New Trendyville, on the Third Coast where he actually is. 

“There’s two kinds of coon," he says. His wife looks at him expectantly. "Them that walk on four legs and”— Bubba crooks a finger toward the window, indicating the two brothers chilling in the park—“them that walk on two.”

 His wife chuckles. He slaps his thigh. Has a good laugh and smiles big. With both teeth. And then he looks over at me just sitting down on the other side of the bus aisle but pretty close and he realizes that he spoke loud enough for one of the ones that walk on two legs to hear. And he stops smiling. So, like, if this was Chicago or even L.A. the motherfucker would have been dead right there, boom boom boom, at least two in the chest, nine mil or magnum, no explanation needed. But this was happening in the old Austin where we always tried to be civilized, where we tried to be understanding even of rednecks—our challenged brothers and sisters from Bastrop and beyond. 

And what he said didn’t really bother me, you know? 

        Because he was up front about it. You knew what you were dealing with until relatively recently, because you knew what prejudice looked like, like Billy Bob, like this motherfucker here sitting at the front of the bus with his old lady. He looked like white trash, or just plain trash irrespective of color. Nowadays, the dentition is better but the sentiments can be the same. Hipsters have replaced hillbillies. That was actually one of the last times that this changing River City felt “real” to me, to tell the truth, that day on the bus with Ma and Pa from Milam County. It wasn’t the last day or anything, wasn’t the beginning of the end like Winston Churchill talked about but it was the end of the beginning like the great man said too. 

For me in the beginning, which meant arriving when the Democrats had just moved out of the Texas Governor’s Mansion for the first time in over a century and a kind of gloom was hanging over this allegedly liberal town. The D's were dead men walking in Texas but didn't know it yet. To set the scene.

        My first crib in Austin was on the third floor of the Alamo Hotel between the not-yet-extant Elephant Room, which would one day officially become my bar, and the original location of Whole Foods, which hadn’t yet been built. Not because the two sites, Whole Foods and the Elephant Room are related somehow but because they were my primary reference points downtown for years, basically the years when W was in office. The Elephant Room would become my personal bar like the Cedar Door was my professional bar back in the day, as my principal place to sit down for serious drinking. Long before the origins of Whole Foods, actually, as a funky little organic grocery store, just down the street. Back in the day only hippies and nature freaks and the wealthy shopped at W.F., which only had a selection the size of a convenience store and had not yet become a nationwide symbol of conspicuous consumption. To set the scene geographically every significant location in my life was within a 30-minute walk from the State Capitol. 

        The Alamo was a residence hotel full of pensioners and transient musicians and people who couldn’t put together first and last month’s rent for a real apartment—people like me. The Alamo had a barbershop and restaurant on the first floor but you probably didn’t want to get your hair cut there and you definitely didn’t want to eat the food.

        My room had a four-poster bed, half-bathroom, hot plate and windows that opened out over Guadalupe at Sixth Street. Who could ask for anything more? The Alamo Hotel was a few blocks from the back door of the Governor's Mansion, too, which was about to be occupied by a family of Republicans from Dallas named Clements, who was an oil guy and ex-Reagan Administration defense guy. Anyway for a year the Alamo was my home and the hotel still has a special place in my heart, not to sound overly sentimental, because my first and most enduring drug addiction was nurtured there, in that tiny little room on the 3rd floor. The hotel’s most famous guest, living downstairs from me, was Sam Houston Johnson, former President Johnson’s little brother, btw. No lie—it was super-cool living that close to Texas Royalty! Sam Houston Johnson had lived at The Alamo for years if not decades before my arrival upstairs. We met once in the hotel elevator and he looked just like any other old scary white man to my innocent eyes.

        This particular member of the Johnson family was already in his sixties at the time, some ancient age like that, like me now btw, and was alleged to be involved in a wide variety of improprieties and even illegal shit and was not a favorite with the rest of the Dead President’s family, hence his chosen location, the Alamo Hotel. A kind of exile, sure, but still on the LBJ Ranch so to speak. The city then, lo those many years ago, was what people moving here think they will find today, accessible in every sense of the word. My life and work almost never took me south of the Colorado River, no farther west than Deep Eddy Pool or east of Montopolis Dam and only then to score a baggie. On the north side of this capital city my effective range was the university or an occasional chat with a minor drug dealer or disgruntled graduate student, often one in the same, cooking crystal in the alphabet avenues beyond campus. Today people would call the area inscribed by these borders "downtown" but back in the day it was the whole town to me and you ran into important people all day on the streets downtown which were the few blocks between the south face of the Capitol and the Colorado River, not because you were important or somehow “in the know” but because you lived in a small town.

        So, like, he dies one day—Sam Houston Johnson we’re talking about because the great Lyndon Baines Johnson had already gone to the last round-up, like, five years before my arrival in River City. To set the scene chronologically. Hearing one day of Sam Houston’s demise my first instinct was to run home and check out his room and see if he left behind anything interesting. But the door was locked and the room had probably already been cleaned out by the U.S. Secret Service or whoever takes care of those matters.

        Generally-speaking my first impression was that Austin was fucked up but it was a largely holistic experience. My metrics: Weed was cheap. As an adult, no longer just smoking other people's shit, bought my very first bag, a full oz, for $35 dollars in 1979. It was called “Bastrop Special,” which was marginally better than homegrown although it most likely came from Mexico like every other smoke you bought locally. This weed had a lot of stems and seeds that you had to remove first, not to sound underprivileged compared to today's pothead. And pussy in ATX was free or reasonably-priced. 

Just like a bag of weed, $35 for a “half and half,” a vice cop told me, that is a suck and a fuck, in East Austin, along 11th Street, but at that time maybe not yet on South Congress Avenue where Senator Nixon got busted later. Overall, a black man in River City, if he had the right rap, could still run his game with enough intimidation and white guilt to get away with shit seven times out of ten. Any of the other three-out-of-ten chances a cop might shoot you but call me an optimist, seven out of ten was good enough. That was the old Austin too, it was kind of beautiful back in the day, but RIP, motherfucker, because that way of life is dead and buried now. 

If you asked me to put a date on when the world started changing for the worse that would be kind of hard to say but it was an era—a political era, a "social climate” you might call it, that coincided with a new family moving into town. Basically when the Bushes were living in the Governor's Mansion, yeah. 

        At first it was still go-with-the-flow even after they hit town. The family was kind of cool, especially the twins, even if they were Republicans. Weekends you could walk by and see the parties on the grounds of the Mansion, the back fencing didn't include barbed wire yet, and machine guns, you didn't feel like you do now that snipers are tracking your movements, waiting for a step too close. When the prior resident Ann Richards lived in that house before the Bushes moved in and you passed by on the back sidewalk at night you could swear that you heard women's laughter and you probably did. 

At Governor Bush’s parties, though, during those late summer afternoons, the women wearing sun hats and holding icy drinks—even if W himself was on the wagon, which he was, born again and all that. It turned out he only drank blood. 

Sometimes, also in the late afternoon, if you visited Central Library down the street from the Mansion which was a place to hang out if you were on foot, and needed to cool down, you might see the Bush twins allegedly studying upstairs on the third floor. The Bush girls were old Austin, too, first LBJ’s daughters and then Jenna and Barbara, they were all somehow cool but their fathers were not. 

Anyway if it was a weekday just before the millennium you could stand on Congress Avenue and look up at the front of the State Capitol and if it was anytime, say, after 10 a.m. but before four in the afternoon there was a silver Continental parked out front like the owner was home, W's car. He was in. If he was already running for president, or so it is said, but not having seen this myself? Are you interested in a little political gossip that is a sure thing?

You would see W walking south on Congress Avenue, towards the river, headed in the direction of the Elephant Room actually, but not for the booze. But because his campaign headquarters for president was in the building next door to the club. Next door to the club that was my bar, actually, not that there’s anything wrong with that, the old Austin was a small town in every since of the word.

If it was early in the campaign before the Secret Service was all over him he might be walking alone, or so it seemed, because there was almost certainly a plainclothes guy in a car and on foot. If you watched the future President of the United States go into his campaign office and you kept watching the door, or so it is said? This is a great anecdote even if it's not true—but it is true. A few minutes later you might have seen a less familiar figure follow W into the building. Michael Dell. 

        Yeah, that Michael Dell, the computer guy. 

He was an early backer of W’s, a principal money guy, so they say or said and that's true too. Today all you'd need to do is look at the police surveillance tape to know about political hookups downtown, with the Colorado River as a backdrop. There are more cameras covering the Capitol District than in all of Hollywood. That is another change this black man is not entirely comfortable with, the New Austin, but it’s progress, no? Point is that you knew shit, even important shit, without having to work at it, back in the day. The lazy man’s way to be informed: You just had to be in ATX. At the time you were still seeing people downtown or you knew people who were seeing people downtown. 

My boss came into the office one day during those years, the Bush years as governor, and said, like, he just saw former Governor White at a wine store on West 6th Street, a few blocks away from our office. Which blew my boss’s mind. 

“Mark White buys bad wine just like me!” or words to that effect. That's what my boss said. A small town, yeah. Whole Foods, a few blocks down from the wine store, was pretty much the center of my social existence at the time—no longer hanging out at my dealer’s apartment up near the Drag, which had been Ground Zero for me back in the day, not the Central Library anymore either, management didn't like too many Negroes at the main location. Suddenly my principal hang-out was W.F. 

        To set the scene.

Not the current Whole Foods, not the present mothership but the prior mothership, next to Book People, just across Sixth Street from the main locale. So, like, Whole Foods had these awesome muffins, outrageously over-priced like everything else on the aisles, and like only one good deal, one reasonably-priced item in the whole fucking store. Water. You could buy cold mineral water allegedly from Italy in a big green glass bottle for like one dollar and carry it around in your backpack and survive in downtown River City during summer when even an African-American warrior whose ancestors ran barefoot on the savannah, hunting alongside Simba the lion—and whose ancestors also worked in East Texas cotton fields, hoeing a tough row—starts to sweat. 

        You feel me? Personally, it was never my plan to shoplift at Whole Foods, back in the day. Even in the Old Austin where racist privilege still existed, and was so very hurtful to the Black Man. Not that the thought didn't occur to me to rip off the store, as a kind of revolutionary justice, you know? Except W.F. always seemed like a risky environment for a Negro, not worth it, not for a fucking aubergine or organic beet. 

        Done a lot of grazing thru the years, sure. 

At the old Whole Foods in the old Austin one used to be able to eat one’s way from one end of the store to the other but that’s just human nature, right, not a crime? Grazing makes up for the high prices on days you actually make a purchase at W.F., because it’s all such an outrageous rip-off? Stop me if you've heard that rationalization before. 

       So, like, the state trooper working the Whole Foods front door one afternoon, his instincts about me back in the day were right on but his luck was bad because there was a receipt in my pocket. Maybe not my receipt but a receipt nonetheless and it’s not like he was going to go item by item through my bag to be sure. At least the state troopers are usually polite even if they are profiling which this one was, he was a Hispanic dude which gave him points in my view actually, like, me sharing his pain as member of a minority group. Suffice it to say he got me on a good day. My medication was working. 

        He didn't really stop me but he was about to, so my preemptive move was to approach him first, save the pig the trouble. He didn’t draw his gun or pull out the cuffs or anything if that’s what you’re wondering. That’s not where this is going, that's not my memory of the old Austin in this case. 

        This Latino cop was cooler about his suspicions which the state pigs usually are, they're really polite, you know? But before the pig signals me to stop, which he didn’t really do, he’s looking at my bag of goodies—but doing it in a discreet way because this was an expensive store where wealthy/powerful white people came to shop and security didn’t want to make a big scene or put a liberal off enjoying his or her foie gras or Perrier by clubbing a nigger to the ground during store hours. Not while customers are still enjoying the shopping experience. 

So, like, you know, after his professional curiosity had been satisfied we got to talking and somehow the conversation turned to W who by then was President Bush and it turned out this state police porker wasn’t an ordinary trooper, not Highway Patrol, or a mere driver’s license examiner. He was Capitol Police, working store security as an extra gig. We got to chatting, yeah. Austin was still a small town and people were not too busy to talk, not like now with all these greedhead techdogs who never have time for human bonding. 

        Or small town gossip.

This Latino guy said that on Election Day 2000 he was actually on duty at the Governor’s Mansion and W was home. Yeah, that's what he said. And that's where it got interesting. So, like, W came out out of the house early that morning, onto the front lawn, in his robe and slippers or whatever, to collect his morning newspaper, trying to act like an ordinary guy in Austin, Texas, in case the media was watching which they were. 

There were news vans and reporters already camped out, on West 11th Street, as close as they could get to the Mansion. So, like, my question to this state trooper working the W.F. front door was, like, stop right there. Stop right there. 

        Stop! 

This is completely professional curiosity on my part: what newspaper? What newspaper did W subscribe to? And the trooper said W actually subscribed to two newspapers that were delivered every morning to the front door of the Mansion, the Wall Street Journal and the Houston Chronicle. So, like, not the Austin American-Statesman which meant Bush was actually smarter than he looked. 

That’s a joke, actually. 

The trooper continued, we’re still standing in the sliding doorway at Whole Foods, just far enough inside not to trigger the electronic sensor. It's cool inside, he’s still checking out the people leaving, discreetly, but no niggers or Mexicans coming or going and therefore no one with probable cause to stop, right, isn’t that how the Texas criminal justice system works? He continued with his rap. 

And he said him and the other officer on duty that morning, on the lawn of the Governor’s Mansion, said to W, that day, that morning, Election Day 2000, Y2K, the Year of the Millennium in the World Capitol of Live Music: 

        “Hey Governor, how’s it going?” 

        And W, who was always nice to the help, pretty cool one-on-one—so people in Austin said—rolled his eyes and smiled what must have been his good-old-boy aw-shucks peckerwood smile and replied, half-joking, “It’s going to be one of those days,” which it was. It was actually "one of those days" for like the next month or so until the Supreme Court ruled that those votes in Florida didn't count. 

Or, like, for the next few years, actually. 

        Through Hurricane Katrina, certainly, or until the waterline dropped. Until the surge started working in Fallujah too, that would just be an uneducated guess. And that, like, fit with all the available hearsay in ATX. 

        Never saw the big guy in person during those six years he was a resident but everybody told me, both D’s and R’s, that Governor Bush was very charming personally, when they went to his office in the Capitol, or the Mansion, or wherever, very personable one-on-one. They also said he was always the smartest guy in the room, at least in Austin, which seems doubtful now in light of later events in D.C. and abroad, like in Baghdad. But that’s what people said who met him when he was governor. The smartest guy in the room, no shit. 

And this one chick, a hot little Chilean “abnormal psychologist” specialist-type chick who wanted my bone, frankly, not that it’s important here—this is a true story. Like 100%. 

She asked me once about W in a hostel somewhere during a prelude to a hookup, and knowing that Austin is my home, what is he really like, she wanted to know. 

Who? 

“President Bush,” she said, and my response was he’s very personable one-on-one, because that's what everybody told me in River City. She looked at me and answered, completely serious, this is absolutely true, “They said the same thing about Adolf Hitler.” After that—since then—when people ask me about George W. Bush, based upon my knowledge of ATX, my answer is to skip straight to the chase and say he’s a fucking Nazi. No lie. 

My last memorable encounter in the Old Austin was among the beautiful people and high prices of Whole Food but not on the bulk aisle. 

In express checkout one afternoon there was a striking older white lady, one or two customers ahead of me in line, and somehow she looked familiar. Don’t know what she was buying although it was too expensive whatever it was. 

She looked like she could afford it though, not Michael Dell-rich, not like she could buy the whole store, just whatever she wanted in it. What struck me most were her clothes. 

Her apparel. 

She was rich enough to be understated which in Texas means wealthy indeed. Fashionably broken-in jeans, almost chic, like someone had worn them for her to soften them up, and a sheer very expensive maybe even silk blouse and a thin gold bracelet on her wrist, not like the ingots that ordinary Texas mega-rich women wear. 

This wasn’t oil money, or cattle wealth, actually, it was political gold which means respectability as well as cash. Her hair, kind of golden too, actually, was perfect, a helmet but perfect. 

She looked well-cared for and sure of herself. It was Ann Richards. 

We chatted for a second. It had been twenty years, more, since we’d last seen each other, in the Travis County Courthouse when she was still Precinct 1 County Commissioner, whose district was West Austin, back in the day. We talked on the telephone once when she was State Treasurer too but that conversation was a long time ago in an Austin that no longer exists. 

Ann’s rap after she got beat for reelection was that she never looked back. That’s what she told interviewers if she was asked, what happened happened, she said, she lost, W won. That was that and she moved on with her life. Which meant going to New York or wherever, working as a political consultant, a commentator or strategist or whatever. That’s what she said. That's what she did, documentary evidence proves it. 

But by the time we ran into each other at Whole Foods, that version of history was no longer holding up. What had happened in the meantime was 9-11 and Iraq, W had four years in D.C. at that point, when we met in express checkout—this was like September or October, the fall of ’04 at the end of his first term in the White House and a lot of people were dead who otherwise would not be. The metrics, the numbers described it all, particularly body counts. 

And you could kind of see that on Ann’s face. She had fucked up and she knew it. Ann Richards didn't say anything, she was too smart for that, too experienced especially after four years in the Mansion up the street and even longer in the Courthouse, across the way. She certainly wasn't going to say anything to someone who was not in her inner circle. She kept her mouth closed but her features were harder to control. 

Nothing was said but nothing needed to be said, it was all written on her face. You might think she was ill but the cancer hadn’t been diagnosed yet. This was something different, regret. It’s kind of like illness but the symptoms can be harder to diagnose or might mimic other conditions. Not being a psychologist or anything, not like my Chilean friend who called W a Nazi. My bet was that Ann felt responsible. She felt guilty for unleashing George W. Bush on an unsuspecting world. W’s career was one baby that needed to be strangled in the crib. Ann Richards was the last politician with the motive and the means to do it. 

        The trouble is, and this may have been Ann’s thinking, when you bring in somebody to go dumpster-diving in Austin you can’t always be sure whose dumpster it’s going to be. Maybe that was what she feared about playing hardball. 

It's amazing that people who never knew her talk about what a saint Ann Richards was. If she was a saint, the Texas Governor’s Mansion was the wrong place for her to be. Who a leader nurtures—who a leader praises—is important and she did a good job of that, encouraging women to join the process, and all, being a mentor you would call her, a role model. But just as important as whose career you start is whose career you end. By that measure she failed. We shook hands and she went her way. She was living around the corner in some condos. Whose other principal resident was one of President Johnson's daughters, Lynda Bird or Luci Bird, whichever one lives here in town. 

Watching Governor Richards walk away, no security, no assistant, nothing except the purchases in her hand. In this town that's what it sometimes came down to, yes, even “in the Old Austin.” No matter how important you were. One day you ended up carrying your own groceries out of Whole Foods. It could be a lonely walk through the parking lot. 

Anyway, that day, going back inside and collecting my shit—and the receipt—and saying to the checker, like, “Do you know who that was? That was Ann Richards.” 

The guy was a hipster, probably a glass-blower or mixed-media artist just working the cash register to pay for the herb that gave him inspiration. He was completely unimpressed. 

“I just saw,” he told me, “Sandra Bullock in produce.”                

Barack the Black Whale

    The captain of the small coastal trader on which I bought passage was steering south along Colombia’s Pacific side, in mild seas, listening to vallenato, a pile of crushed beer cans at his feet. It was 4 a.m. and crew and passengers were mostly asleep when suddenly there was a blinding light in the captain’s eyes and a loudspeaker order to cut his engine and prepare to be boarded.

            The Colombian Coast Guard had arrived to do a little interdiction.

            The costaguardas launch carrying four men and an officer slid alongside, and in a moment the four sailors had taken positions at various chokepoints across the tiny freighter, while the officer went to the bridge to chat with the captain. Someone shouted from the darkness for the passengers to present identity cards and passports. A look at the coast guard launch was enough to discourage any thoughts of escape. 

            The freighter had one 350-horsepower engine and we had been crawling along at less than ten mph. The coast guard launch, perhaps one-twentieth the size and weight of its prey, had a hydrodynamic aluminum frame and canopy, with three 350 HP outboard engines yoked together side by side and, according to the freighter’s helmsman, who had seen it in action, was capable of speeds approaching flight. Somewhere—off in the darkness—the mother ship, the coast guard cutter that had sent the launch, was waiting as backup. The old days when traffickers in this part of the contraband world had faster boats than the people chasing them, or when the smugglers had more and bigger guns, are apparently past.

            My bunk just behind the bridge offered a perfect view of the interaction between the coast guard officer and the captain. The officer asked to see the captain’s cell phone. We were about a mile offshore and the captain had been making and receiving calls, as had others on board who weren't asleep. The officer began to scroll down through the phone’s memory of calls while asking an occasional question of the ship’s master, without actually looking at him.

            “Five crew and ten passengers,” the captain answered one inquiry.

            “Scrap metal,” he answered another, about his cargo.

            That much was true. I had seen it loaded, up the coast, near the Darien Gap from which we had sailed. There are few roads on either the Panamanian or Colombian side of the border and most everything inanimate going in or coming out moves by sea. Beer and foodstuffs go north, as well as bicycles and motorcycles, medicine and military supplies. Various kinds of hardwood and any kind of recyclable debris that the captain can make a profit on comes back south to the port at Buenaventura. At least that describes the legal trade.

            The coast guard officer took his time and finally finished scrolling through the phone and handed it back to its owner. The officer made a lackadaisical search of the bridge, looking into cabinets. He stepped into the passenger berths, identified himself to me, and asked to see my papers. “Guardacostas,” he said rather apologetically, to explain the disturbance. He thanked me for my cooperation and was gone, with his men, over the side. What they had really come for was just to look at the captain’s phone.

            The crew had disappeared into the nooks and crannies of the ship at first sign of trouble and now reappeared on deck and joked nervously after the launch was gone. In the morning I asked the purser, who was by profession a civil engineer who had actually helped design this ship for the run it was making, “What was the coast guard doing here?”

            “They were doing their job,” he said matter-of-factly which increasingly describes the Colombian public’s attitude, with some exceptions, to the heightened security of recent years. He also explained about the captain’s cell phone.

            “There’s a lot of wiretapping that goes on,” he said approvingly. “Suppose they are listening to a particular telephone in Medellin, and there is a conversation about a shipment coming in tonight by boat, but the boat’s name is never mentioned. Or they just have a telephone number that they know is involved in the traffic . . . .” That traffic coming south like us would include guns and cash. Going in the opposite direction, toward Panama, would be, you guessed it, la blanca.

            If the coast guard had found the wrong number on the captain’s cell phone, the ship would have been seized and searched painstakingly, and the crew held until the authorities knew what was what. Another captain along the same route running between Buenaventura which is Colombia’s main Pacific port, and the border of Panama, told me that tracking devices had been placed on his bridge, paid for by the U.S. government, that showed the ship’s position at all times to a surveillance station in Chile. If the ship went off course for any reason, like to meet a smuggler, Bogota got a call from Santiago to send a vessel to investigate. It’s a good thing too. My last trip to Buenaventura, two years ago, pirates boarded a boat just outside the port, ordered crew and passengers into the water without lifejackets, and just took the vessel. That was all they wanted. It’s a rough coast—Colombia’s Pacific side—and seems much more dodgy than the Old World charm of the Caribbean and Cartagena. Where so many cruise ships stop and yachts run between North and South America.

            In the morning, the crew was mostly over the coast guard’s rude shock. We had seen whales breaching the day before. Now we were beginning to see trash in the water which meant civilization, in this case Buenaventura, was near.

            The captain was asleep. He only took the wheel at night and during the problematic actual entry into port.

            “How many states in the United States?” the helmsman asked me suddenly.

            “Fifty.”

            “How many did Obama win?”

            “Thirty-six,” I answered at random.

            The Pacific coast of Colombia is heavily-populated by African descendants and most of this crew was black. Barack Obama is the “Black Whale” in these waters, a kind of talisman, the most that any man can aspire to, short of being Pele or God. The helmsman and pursuer both assured me that the President will win reelection.

            On the horizon there was a big patrol boat moving fast, cutting through the waves, on its way to meet a container ship crawling in from Asia. They would ask to see that captain’s cellphone too.   

Ten Toms Who Take the Money and Sell Out the Race

             

There are only two requirements to be an Uncle Tom: African American heritage and a willingness to give white people what they want—to an extraordinary degree—to their benefit, and to your own. In an age of changing race dynamics, who is an Uncle Tom and who is not has a compelling interest to people of all races. 

There’s a reason after all why even the most conservative Republican leaders have a Negro, or two, in the background when making major announcements. For better or worse, despite our troubled history with the white majority during slavery and during Jim Crow, African Americans are seen as the conscience of the United States. But “black people” doesn’t mean everyone. It is therefore a fair question who among us is a Tom and doing the unconscionable. In other words, who is for sale and who is not?  

To cut to the case, 10 names are listed below, Uncle Toms all but of varying degrees and for different reasons. Seven of the ten are household names while one is an influential journalist and another is general counsel to the premier public university system in the world. One is a former military officer who became a high Washington bureaucrat. Each is a race traitor. Individual dialectic and doctrinal crimes will be enumerated but there are some commonalities, not just that one has deferred to the white race—that’s an everyday occurrence for people of color living in the most powerful country in the world with the most powerful Caucasians. You have to do some of what The White Man and The White Woman ask, or be crushed for your refusal. The unspoken rule is however that you get called out when your accommodation reaches unseemly levels. And it’s a judgment call what is unseemly. First, however, the list, which is not ordinal, only categorial.

That means that while #1 in this example, Oprah Winfrey, is arguably the biggest Tom in the world, #2—the actor Morgan Freeman—is not the second biggest race traitor living. He’s merely one of many, in this case a top ten Tom, which rhymes, btw, Top Ten Tom, but he's not the #2. Undue accommodation is hard to quantify in any particular order. There are Toms for instance, there are worse Toms, or bigger Toms, but identifying “the worst” or biggest Tom as mentioned above is really impossible. What Oprah is really is the richest or most prominent Tom not the biggest sellout, unless you’re counting her money, in which case she is. Does that make sense? Nor, btw, is this list exhaustive. In other words these are not the only Toms out there. 

Uncle Toms can be found everywhere, in every field of endeavor, from education to the world of business to policing. A lot of black chiefs or police and sheriffs, for example, rise to high office by shooting other Negroes or by locking up their own peeps who aren’t guilty. Black public officials are particularly prone to selling out to the white power structure, as seen through a black revolutionary lens. 

For instance in my hometown, Austin, Texas—World Capital of Live Music—the current black city council member is a Tom, as is the state representative whose district includes the disappearing black part of town—which this black legislator has helped to sell to white real estate interests—and the former police chief, who is also a sister, btw, like the legislator and the city council member. These are Tomasinas if one used that term for female Toms which one does not, actually. The new city manager, who is a brother, hasn’t been here long enough to sell out but the last black city manager did, and when he finally developed a backbone, late in his stay in the Texas capital, he was ousted by white business interests during a quarrel over the staging of the South by Southwest festival. So, like, there is an element of danger to being or not being a Tom. And also of comedy. 

Black humor, of course.

Target stores are currently under boycott by black people for various DEI crimes, which we will not get into here. Suffice it to say that the boycott has been so popular and deemed so important that it has been extended. So, like, in Target’s new ad campaign there is just a pair of hands shown and the hands belong to, you guessed it, the black peep. Allegedly to show the company’s commitment to inclusivity, which no one particularly believes but when a business is in a P.R. hole, it’s the kind of thing management thinks will help. Anyway, there’s a funny TikTok video by an African American comedian as she draws attention to Target not showing a face, just a pair of black hands, as the TikTok lady tries to identify the race traitor in our midst. 

She rolls her eyes and says she’s compiling a list of possible suspects of breaking the boycott, in other words, of Toms, although she doesn’t use the term. What’s interesting is that her list includes her own sister. She calls her sis to ask, like, are those your hands and her sister hangs up on her. But she calls again and her sister, who is a dentist, and has nice hands, says no it’s not me and says she’s still boycotting the company. 

At first the narrator strikes her sister from the list of suspects but then returns her to the list with an asterisk as a still possible race traitor or, yes, Uncle Tom. “We’re not angry,” the black TikTok lady says a couple of times, “we’re just disappointed.” 

There’s some more eye action here, black people are especially adept at communicating disapproval/disbelief without saying anything that, in the past, might have gotten us lashed or killed. Not exactly eye rolling but a clear effort to convey that she is more than disappointed? That’s the comedic view of being a Tom or a proto-Tom but some people are angry at Target and have posted less amusing videos about boycotting the company. 

The point is that there’s a reason it’s just a pair of hands, because any African American actress who allowed her face to be shown in a Target ad right now would likely be called out as a Tom. Black people in this country know how important it has been to maintain a united front to achieve progress and, consequently, there’s little patience with race traitors. Which is why a list is helpful, in order to remember who is who, kind of like the tiktok sister’s list. That’s why a list of Ten Top Toms is so illustrative—because we’re both disappointed and angry, actually. 

As you read on you will learn why Barack Obama is not named but former Vice President Kamala Harris is, and why Michael Jordan formerly of the NBA is, but Michael B. Jordan of Hollywood is not. Beyonce isn’t but her hubbie Jay-Z is, most def. If being named a Tom were like an Academy Award it would be called the “Tommie” and the actual award would be a Golden Handkerchief, or a Hankie, like an Oscar, for short? For biggest handkerchief head. 

Without further ado:

1)  Oprah

2)  Morgan Freeman

3)  Condoleezza Rice

4)  Jay-Z

5)  Kamala Harris

6)  Michael Jordan

7)  Dean Baquet

8)  Charles Robinson

9)  General Lloyd Austin

10) Clarence Thomas

Before getting down to specific race crimes, a few words on nomenclature, which is surprisingly important. Used interchangeably here are Uncle Tom and handkerchief head. 

Back in the day, field workers wore handkerchiefs for protection from the sun, while brothers and sisters today wear them as a cultural and/or artistic commentary that should not be confused with subservience. In addition, in the past, technically a woman who displayed Tom-like subservience was known as an “Aunt Jemimah,” named after a famous brand of pancake mix, but that term will not be used here. There is also of course “house nigger,” which is still popular. Interestingly, a few years ago a Jewish comedian, Bill Maher, offended vast swathes of the black population by describing himself as a house nigger. He also used the term incorrectly.

This was no real surprise—that he made a fool of himself and had to apologize—because Caucasians, especially American Jews, often believe themselves to be so “close” to black people that they can take liberties with us and our culture. In the past comedian Sarah Silverman used the N-word in her standup routines, although just this week she apologized publicly and she is kind of hot which cuts her some slack. Hot women are forgiven some high crimes and misdemeanors because in race-warrior dogma, these women may have shown lapsed attention to right and wrong while they’re busy being hot. Does that make sense? There’s a photo a few years ago of Sarah in a bikini and she totally rocked the swimsuit.

This is however still a worrisome habit with white people which also carries liability for blacks because if you hear a white person, Jew or gentile, using the N-word and you don’t speak up you are, by definition, an Uncle Tom! That's how the system works. There's very little wiggle room for anyone, even our Jewish brothers and sisters. After all, blackface in the 20^th Century was popularized by a Lithuanian Jew, Al Jolson, singing “Mammy.” There's no patience left, bro, either at Target or from Hollywood. 

It’s no surprise therefore that Bill Maher's use of the term was both wrong and wrong, Maher believing that being a house nigger conveys an easy life, in common parlance, whereas what it really means in black revolutionary dogma—first and foremost—is subservience to a white agenda, which leads to an easier life. Does that make sense? You can’t put the wagon before the horse, bro. It may seem to be a subtle distinction but it’s fundamental to rooting out Toms. Black people don’t believe there’s anything wrong with easy living, the problem is what you do to achieve it. In any case, all race traitors, regardless of gender, will be called Toms here.              

       A few words on methodology are also appropriate. The term Uncle Tom comes from the hugely popular pre-Civil War novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but you already know that. There’s a scene at the beginning of the book when Tom’s “kindly” owner has encountered financial difficulties and is about to sell his favorite Negro down the river, which is a sequence of events, btw, that we still see today post-Emancipation when whites get in trouble and decide whom to sell out first and usually it’s also a Negro. 

        In any case, in the book Tom’s sale will lead to a less comfortable existence for the titular slave—and separation from his wife—and in order to make the sale, Tom’s owner recounts for the prospective new owner a tale of Tom’s upright character. Tom was dispatched on plantation business to the free state of Ohio, where he could have escaped to Canada, but instead Tom returned to the plantation carrying $500 of the owner’s money from a transaction, his owner explains with great satisfaction. 

        The argument is frequently made that the Uncle Tom of the book has become, through the years, confused with the subservience associated with the modern concept of a handkerchief head, but that Tom of the story was, actually, just an upright Negro who did the honest thing. On the contrary. 

It’s a belief that has led to numerous misunderstandings through the years. White people even today expect us to be better than they are, morally, and ethically, which is not particularly hard to do, actually. But that has limits. The idea that we will accept poor behavior by Caucasians and that we are willing to make sacrifices on our own part and undergo hardships in order to help little blonde-haired Miss Ann or young white Master William to become a better person is very often misplaced, big time. Especially in mass media like the movies, where Caucasian audiences love that particular storyline. 

In the UTC context, if Tom really were an upright Negro—as part of a black revolutionary dialectic—he should have split for Canada, taking the money with him. Before he left he should have shot his “owner” in the head and burned down the Big House too. None of that happened because the Uncle Tom of the book was in fact an Uncle Tom, hate to break it to you, bro. Had he done his duty to the race, we probably wouldn’t still be struggling today with unreasonable expectations by white people.

Half those on the Tommie list have chosen, btw, non-blacks as their life partners. We won’t go there, personal attraction is a personal matter, but one may say with some certainty, that if one does not think that white people are the devil incarnate, which some black people still do believe, it’s probably easier to ask for or accept a first date. Does that make sense? 

Practically everyone listed here has had a significant business or professional relationship with white people, which is kind of inescapable living in the U.S. In fact it’s also safe to say that Toms are all about the money or the professional advantage of kowtowing to white people and do not really view whites anymore, if ever, as superior beings or as inherently commendable people. Although it is worrisome that many of the figures on the list, or almost on the list, Barack Obama for example, are rarely seen in public with other black people. But of all the things you can say about Barry, even the less salutary aspects of his career in politics, “He’s a Tom” is still not one of them. 

To be explained presently, in the why-Kamala-is-a-Tom context.

There’s only one exception on the list, Justice Thomas, as a possible example of black self-hate. Clarence Thomas apparently did not like his origins as a poor Negro born to a formerly Gullah-speaking family in Savannah, which is fine, he had ambitions and sought to better himself. But he has done that almost exclusively by tying his wagon to white people. Like Barack Obama, actually, but there's a big difference. Justice Thomas is a guy who doesn’t seem to much like himself which is totally cool because a lot of other people don’t seem to like him either. Barack Obama on the other hand is full of self-appreciation which in this context is a good thing.

As a historical note, for those who believe that the Bush family represents the Old School sane Republican Party, it helps to recall that the biggest conservative whackjob on the United States Supreme Court today, Clarence Thomas was appointed by Bush the Elder, and the second biggest, Samuel Alito, was appointed by Bush the Younger. (Here the list is ordinal.) So, too, the primary Democratic bane in the Lone Star State, and the object of ire of black Representative Jasmine Crockett of Dallas, who almost made the Top Ten Tom list herself, btw, is Governor Greg Abbott. The Texas governor was an unknown judge in Houston until George W. Bush appointed him to the Texas Supreme Court, where Justice Abbott began his political rise. 

George W. Bush is also responsible for the rise of Condoleezza Rice, Condi the Barbarian, aka the Butcher of Baghdad. #3 on our list. But we won’t get into that here, either. Or not much.

The good news is that Toms appear to be a slowly dying breed. It has become harder and harder to find them, at least in public life, because black people know what is expected of our leadership and we are frankly watching for missteps. DEI may be officially dead but not its principles. A back of the envelope calculation finds more opportunities today to be a Tom but fewer takers. Does that make sense? 

Most of the Toms on our list are of a certain age, while most black young people today expect equal opportunity and expect to keep their dignity too. Michael Jordan formerly of the Chicago Bulls is 62 and silent while Michael B. Jordan of the movies is 38 and has spoken up. And we all know the history now better than in the past, because we’re writing it, instead of Tom-friendly white historians, especially white liberals who pose as white saviors. Not to beat what should be a dead horse. 

The test, in the last couple of years, that has mostly helped to separate the Toms from the rest of us is, interestingly, the Gaza War. There’s been a decided reluctance until relatively recently—after Israeli inhumanity became undeniable—to call out genocide, and before the war to call out Israeli oppression. 

Democrat Jasmine Crockett who is a firebrand member of Congress from Dallas, and who has never spoken a measured word in her political life—including some really tacky anti-disabled comments about Governor Abbott—suddenly becomes diplomatic and understanding of the Israeli position when discussing the massacre of Palestinians. Jewish business interests in the U.S., with family and cultural ties in the Middle East, have shown no reluctance to blacklist—in politics or even in the entertainment industry—and cut campaign contributions to candidates who have spoken up for the Palis. 

In fact, despite fiery rhetoric against Republicans, Representative Crockett is already on the road to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, although she hasn’t yet arrived, because she’s hot and may one day, one hopes, choose to turn off to a more morally-sustainable destination. 

Generally it takes a while to get there and isn’t solely about one’s faulty vision on one issue, unless you’re, like, a pro-Klu Klux Klan black person, or a total African-American whackjob like #10 on our list. It hasn’t all been about Palestine, in other words. Some Toms have been selling themselves for a long time. Let’s take a look.

1)  Oprah, the “Big O,” or “Okra” as she is known less charitably by some, is a formidable person on so many levels. But not all of them are good. A billionaire with a book club, a movie career and a magazine that only displayed her on the cover, month after month for 20 years, what’s not to like if you want to be influential? The problem for Oprah is that she starts out with a high index of suspicion because her market has been identified for so long by white women. Which means, regardless of her impact, that she is tap dancing for one audience. There’s also that disquieting quote from biographer Kitty Kelley, early in Oprah’s rise, in which Oprah described herself as a member of the Kennedy clan, no shit. We can leave that for discussion on her therapist’s couch, still, the constant attention to her image does get a little old. Another great African American of her generation, Denzel Washington, for example, has through the years quietly funded rehab for wounded soldiers in San Antonio. Everything that Oprah does on the other hand comes with a press release and is, ultimately, about the Big O, not other people. A black journalist who has interviewed Oprah, and also interviewed a prominent black America diva, Diana Ross of the Supremes, said that with the singer, the writer could tell that the diva was trying to pretend she was a nice down-to-earth person when clearly she was not. She was a diva instead, not that there's anything wrong with that. While Oprah one-on-one was genuinely nice. There’s no reason not to believe that is true. This is a very complex woman. But Oprah’s personal charm is not to be confused with Oprah the Corporation, which is similar to Target in terms of its primary aim, profitability.

2)  Morgan Freeman is a wonderful actor with a soulful and worldly-wise voice and thru the years it’s been possible to watch his star-ward progress as the roles available to him have expanded. He has played God, presidents (including Nelson Mandela) and convicts. Unfortunately he also had roles as sidekicks or servants of white people—magic Negroes in fact—most famously in Driving Miss Daisy which is the one role that continues to define him and puts him on our list today: “Winner of the Academy Award® for best picture of 1989, this gracefully moving drama, adapted from the hit play by Alfred Uhry, chronicles the 25-year friendship between a stubborn, aging Southern widow (Jessica Tandy) and her loyal chauffeur (Morgan Freeman),” which sounds uncomfortably like Uncle Tom’s Cabin on Wheels. For starring in a movie with that title alone, Driving Miss Daisy, come the revolution, Freeman deserves a blindfold and a last cigarette. Maybe no cigarette, actually. Indeed if Uncle Tom’s Cabin were filmed in the modern era, Freeman is the first actor to come to mind to play the lead. This is the historical danger of performing as a stereotype in a movie, no matter how big the box office. The title of another one of his many films offers a needed perspective: Guilty by Association. Which leads, btw, to another Hollywood actor who would be on this list for a single role, were he still living, Michael Clarke Duncan. The film is The Green Mile, staring America’s favorite white actor, Tom Hanks, based upon a Stephen King story that should be called Driving Miss Daisy to Prison. The extraordinarily embarrassing plot, and role for which Duncan was nominated for an Oscar, features a black prisoner willing to be executed for a crime he didn’t commit in order to cure the white warden’s wife’s cancer, which the inmate has taken into his own body, a la Magic Negro, to spare the white woman. This is the kind of shit that Hollywood loves, and white audiences too. If Michael Duncan were still alive he would be on our list but Tommies, like Nobel Prizes, are only bestowed upon the living.

3)  Condoleezza Rice. This is an easy one. As National Security Advisor and Secretary of State to President George W. Bush, she played a big part in the deaths of tens of thousands of dark-skinned people in the Middle East. Secretary Rice deserves neither the blindfold nor the last cigarette. Somehow she has escaped criticism because she left D.C., and as is often mentioned, as if it’s a mitigating factor in her guilt, Condi speaks French and plays the piano. So did many Nazis, bro. It’s interesting that a few years ago a young black woman who attended Stanford, where Condi returned as a scholar, after laying waste to Iraq, said how admirable and what a “role model” Professor Rice was to black women for the power she had achieved. The young woman speaking was from Ghana, and had come to the U.S. as a student, not growing up in the culture of the civil rights movement here, and thus displaying one of the principal differences between slave-descended blacks and African-born brothers and sisters, who come to this country and think it’s a candy store. Not all success is to be admired, bro. In this country, Toms still get called out.

4)  Jay-Z. Mr. Beyonce strikes out on a couple of counts. Artistic merit doesn’t cut you any slack nor does having grown up hard in the hood. In Jay-Z’s case, in the Bronx. It’s not how you grew up, bro, it’s your adult behavior that counts, especially once you’re past your salad days. Like Oprah, Jay-Z has achieved billionaire status but he seems more interested in adding to his pile—and buying bling—than helping the downtrodden, although his rap, to the media, is totally different. The excellent biography of Jay-Z by Michael Eric Dyson captures the former and the latter. In the epilogue, Dyson points to Jay-Z wearing a sweatshirt memorializing the black quarterback Colin Kaepernick who stood up to football’s white power structure. Then, shortly thereafter, switching sides, Jay-Z signed a $25 million contract with the league. Despite efforts to put the transaction in the best light, that’s the definition of selling out. Beyonce’s record, on the other hand, shows a lot of interaction with the Israelis, and little support for the Palestinians, but she was an early proponent of Black Lives Matter and she’s been giving Country Music’s white culture a headache recently, which is a good thing. And she’s hot.

5)  Kamala Harris. The major difference between former Vice President Harris and former President Barack Obama is success in two elections. The fundamental theory of running for any elective office is doing some nasty or distasteful shit to be elected and then, in office, doing things that are transformational or good. Vice President Harris was totally dodgy on the campaign trail, lying about a clearly dysfunctional Joe Biden (although in all fairness, her campaign can also be seen as a way to push Biden to the exit), support for a genocidal Israel, and backing of the 1% that has become the leadership of the modern Democratic Party. Most of which looks a lot like Barack Obama on the campaign trail too. The difference is that Obama won his election, twice, which gave him the opportunity to do some good things, as in health care. While Harris is still most memorably known—to use a great one-liner that you heard in San Francisco back in the day—from her time as S.F. district attorney and later as California Attorney General: “She never met a black man she didn’t want to lock up.” She is hot, but not that hot. Case closed, we hope.

6)  Michael Jordan. Arguably the greatest basketball player of all time, the one and only MJ has had a less illustrious history post-National Basketball Association. As is true with Oprah, and Jay-Z, he is a billionaire who has, for example, not pledged to give away his wealth. That’s because, as is the case with Barack, and Oprah, it’s all about Michael. There’s a truly odious anecdote, that hopefully is apocryphal, allegedly told by fellow NBA superstar Charles Barkley of walking down the street with Jordan, and being asked for a dollar by a homeless person, and Jordan refusing and saying, words to this effect, “Let him make it the same way I did.” Jordan’s self-gaze is particularly unfortunate because he is one of those former athletes with more to offer than mere money. There’s an interview he gave, once again about the Colin Kaepernick blacklisting by the NFL, that is astounding because Jordan is as well-spoken and analytical as he was effective on the basketball court. This is a very very very intelligent and thoughtful guy, which he ought to get more credit for as a player, namely his brain power as well as his ball handling skills. But in the end it’s all about him. Compare basketball’s Michael Jordan for example to the black American athlete who changed this country and the world, Muhammad Ali. Like with MJ on the basketball court, there’s actually no comparison.

7)  Dean Baquet. One of the most powerful behind-the-scenes Negroes in recent years, former executive editor of both the L.A. Times and the New York Times. To cut to the chase, you don’t rise to the top position in American journalism by challenging the status quo. During his eight years in the big chair in New York, Baquet continued what has been the NYT’s historical policy of covering up mistreatment of the Palestinians, the Times’ embrace of elitism and long record of lagging hiring and promotion of minorities—except the big guy himself. To say nothing of the less savory racial policies of the White Lady (the NYT's nickname) in print, such as largely ignoring Latinos, and blacks being used mostly as vehicles for “liberal” self-promotion of white saviors. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Also to be laid at Baquet’s feet is the beginning of what appears now to be a very one-sided view of Donald Trump’s first term. You may not like the guy, Trump that is, but under Baquet’s leadership the N.Y. Times-Democrat began calling out everything Trump-related as wrong, a policy that is once again in effect today, while having ignored wrongdoing during the Obama and Biden administrations. It's called biased journalism, bro, which is in none of our best interests. In Baquet’s favor, and it’s a big deal, is the excellent 1619 Project, and #metoo (not to discount the work of the female journalists involved, particularly Jodi Kantor who is hot and smart). Two errata: there’s a cool half hourlong video of Baquet interviewing Jay-Z, in which you can see the fear in Jay-Z’s eyes as he is being asked about the NFL, in other words questioned about being a Tom, which Baquet does not pursue. Jay-Z uses the opportunity to unnecessarily and falsely praise NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who is a pro-Israel whackjob and acts like a modern-day plantation overseer, censoring speech of mostly black athletes. It turns out well though because included is a brief and pithy observation of why basketball players are more outspoken than football players, Jay-Z’s explanation being that the smaller size of a NBA squad makes easier political organizing (while one might add, no irony intended, that basketball players are not constantly being knocked on the head.) Another interesting fact is that so many of those mentioned in any review of Toms and not-Toms spent time in Chicago, including Barry, Oprah, MJ and Dean Baquet, who won a Pulitzer while working as a reporter there. Michael Clarke Duncan of the truly horrendous The Green Mile was also a Chicago guy. Don’t know what that means but there’s obviously something in the water.

8)  Charles Robinson. This Harvard graduate and silk-stocking lawyer is from an upper crust section of Philly and serves as a placeholder for all the black people in management across the country who have sold out to The White Man. And The White Woman. Robinson’s conduct during two decades as General Counsel of the University of California, all ten campuses, regarding race, equity and transparency has been execrable and slime-filled but the best argument to include him on the list is actually a photo. You’ve heard that a picture is worth a thousand words? It’s true, bro, and helps you to spot Toms too. What does this one tell you? 

                                            

9)  Lloyd Austin. Former four-star Army general and President Biden’s Secretary of Defense. Primary enabler of the Israel Defense Forces during the Gaza War, who signed off on more than a few arms shipments to the IDF and is in large part responsible for the deaths of thousands of dark-skinned people. To say nothing of his side hustle after his army service and before joining the Biden Administration, as a defense contractor. The U.S. Army through which General Austin rose to four-star rank actually has made great strides in civil rights, across decades, by ending segregated practices and by elevating excellent black and Latino and Asian officers to command. This guy is not one of those. Like Secretary Rice, General Austin has blood on his hands and a lot of it. Like Condi, no last cigarette and no blindfold.

10)       Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. For some of the preceding individuals, come the day of revolutionary justice, there will be a last cigarette and a blindfold. For some no blindfold and for some no cigarette. For Justice Thomas, there’ll be no trial. We’ve already heard enough to pass judgment. And interestingly, while one generally does not want to explore a Tom’s personal life, or marriage to a person of no color, Jennie Thomas is the exception because she seems to be an even bigger whackjob than he is. Normally black men are exempt from this particular complaint, btw, because brothers are only trying to bed white women in order to prevent them from mating with white guys. It's actually a kind of selflessness on our part, in other words, denying white men breeding resources, does that make sense? When that happens, the general idea is hit and run, get the booty and move on. But in the case of the Thomases, what should have been a minor hit-and-run turned into a major accident.

It seems only fair, if one is going to name names and call out Toms and proto-Toms, that black people who have done the right thing—like the title of the movie by Spike Lee—often to the detriment of their own careers, or at great personal expense, literally, should also be named. A few black leaders in this regard to ponder:

1)  Denzel Washington

2)  Spike Lee

3)  Professor Angela Davis (who kinda wrote the book on resistance)

4)  Colin Kaepernick

5)  Ta-Nehisi Coates

6)  California Controller Malia Cohen (who represents the opposite extreme from University of California General Counsel Robinson, she is a black bureaucrat who grew up in the S.F. hood, became private secretary to then-Mayor Gavin Newsom, entered elective politics and still remains grounded and loyal to her peep)

7)  Tech entrepreneur Robert F. Smith—from Austin actually—who wiped out student loan debt for an entire graduating class of a HBCU, Morehouse College. He has also signed a pledge to give away his wealth, unlike other African American billionaires.

8)  Reverend Jesse Jackson

9)  Michelle Obama

10)  Viola Davis. She has admitted her bad role, in The Help, playing a maid for a bunch of overprivileged white women. Otherwise she’s a gem and could also give Morgan Freeman lessons on acting.