You Would Expect Kissin' Cousins To Get Along

Kingfish Al Sharpton and Senator Foghorn Byrd

By James Lewis-The Amereican Thinker
One of the high ironies of the last several months was the brief news flash that the Rev. Al Sharpton is a distant cousin of the late and unlamented Senator Strom Thurmond, formerly of South Carolina. Even Al Sharpton seemed to be struck dumb by the news, at least for a long minute. It reminded everybody that Southern Blacks and Whites are often cousins.
Well, Mr. Sharpton is back in the news, having chased Don Imus off the air, and making an obnoxious remark about Mormons like Mitt Romney. So — close your eyes for half a minute, and imagine the Rev. Al talking — don’t you hear echoes of the old Dixiecrats, like Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd? I do. Maybe it really does run in the family.
Among the many sacrificial victims of the Cult of PC was the Amos ‘n’ Andy Show, one of the high points of American comedy — but now Streng Verboten. Because of course A ‘n’ A showed black people being funny. Yet the ability to laugh at ourselves is also a great blessing, a sign of sanity and self-acceptance. And while A ‘n’ A played to some negative stereotypes, the characters were warm and endearing as well.
Rap singers project a much more negative public image than Amos ‘n’ Andy could have imagined in their wildest nightmares. Historically, African-Americans discovered their style of humor in good part to stay sane under the oppressions of slavery and Jim Crow, and it’s all the more paradoxical that the civil rights movement has tried to erase a great and healthy tradition of black American laughter.
So the Commissars of PC censored the genius of Amos ‘n’ Andy. Well, we really don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, and many blacks have a very traumatic history, which does take a long time to heal. And yet forced niceness is the enemy of common sense. Once we allow our thoughts to be policed by politically correct zealots, the door is wide open for con artists and demagogues.
Amos ‘n’ Andy was based on sharp-eyed observation of Mississippi Delta culture, which shaped much of African-American feeling and thought after the Civil War. It was a culture of pain and suffering, but also of real laughter. It produced the mournful Blues, but also the delights of New Orleans jazz and Fats Waller; musical expressions of joy as catchy and infectious as any in the world. And it created wonderful fictional characters — like “Kingfish” in Amos ‘n Andy, who always tries to cheat poor Andy out of his money. But Kingfish gets his comeuppance in every episode when his wife Safah (Sapphire) catches him in the act, and drags him home for supper.
Yes, there is a racial aspect of the laughter; laughter is an equal-opportunity exposer. We can laugh at white con-artists and their marks, like Mark Twain’s two con artists, the “Duke” and the “King” in The Advenetures of Huckleberry Finn.
The whites who are regularly cheated by this pair of fakers are stereotyped small-town suckers. Fortunately, the reign of PC still allows us to laugh at them. (more…)