Superbad-Ass
In his Pineapple Express review (“High-Grade Shit,” Aug. 6-12) Armond White says that Superbad was set in the ’70s. It wasn’t. If he bothered to see the rest of the movie and not just the opening credit sequence, he might have noticed that the characters talked on cell phones and surfed the net, neither of which was around, I don’t think, during the ’70s.
Maybe he should give that film another viewing, and pay attention this time. He might not end up finding the movie quite so offensive if he gives up his biases and just watches it.
Just a thought.
—Jose Olivera, NYC
Armond White’s Response: Did it ever occur to the legion of Superbad-asses that the gaffe was Rogen’s? Could those working-class kids have possibly afforded the Internet in the early ’80s? I’m not just asking; I’m thinking.
Looking for King Kong
Dear Susan Crain Bakos: The thug named Mykul, who knocked you to the ground in front of St. Nick’s Pub in Harlem and took your purse, and pleasure in strolling away, as you waited, in vain, for signs of support to show up for you, was a reality check (“Harlem: It’s a Hard-Knock Life,” July 30-Aug. 5). You may have required that knock on the head to push you out of the twilight zone of blinding white light you seem to float around in when it comes to Harlem. You represent a small group of white women who think they’re re-playing Faye Raye, expecting to be rescued by big, black King Kong in an African jungle. Now you’re disillusioned with my village and want to blame us and run.
Harlem is just a diverse, multi-layered community of people who file W-2 forms for over six figures down to minimum wage. Harlem has high school dropouts and Ph.D./MD residents, who live in the midst of an eclectic street life. We have world-class artists, business owners, ministers and good parents who home school their children. Harlem is complex. We function like all urban communities.
It is your lack luster perception, of what your mono-dimensional perception of our lives, in our community, really is that is the age-old issue. You want/need the jungle to exist, to satisfy your primal instinct for savage sex and titillation, from the wild black beast… Your needy white thighs, as you graphically mentioned in your condemnation of Mykul, were left unsatisfied. It is unimaginable, that you could think a 15-minute subway or cab ride would deliver you to a fantasyland…
Harlem is NYC… It’s urban America at its highest form and serves as the ultimate standard for all things city related to “cool and hip.” African Americans in Harlem own that mystery territory. But everything comes with a price.
It is this coolness that smacks of music, food, dancing, talking, walking that creates the magic that drives whites, like you and all others, here. Unfortunately, the white woman can actually think that the attention she gets so readily from the big black type man makes her superior to the loud black bar woman degraded in the article. Susan, as many others, think that big black will not treat her and her whiteness poorly. She, foolishly, perceives his treatment of his own black female counterpart as inferior, to her treatment by him.
Well now you know. You can get hit on the head and stolen from on a public street with an audience. Your Mykul experience represents one man, not a community. He is who he is. And he knows how to treat whom… I do not defend or apologize for your experiences uptown any more than you apologize for your white benefits gained from my 400 years of American enslavement.
Move on. I had to. We had to.
White people like you are dangerous. Black folks need protecting from you. Have you ever heard that a NYC policeman, when faced with a visibly armed or unarmed white woman (or man or child), shot them until dead multiple times? White people get shot in the leg, arm, shoulder,etc. We get the full “I’m scared of them treatment” from police, and now here you come uptown saying, “Harlem is no place for a woman without male protection.”
Did it occur to you that upward mobile, successful black women were not the flavor of the patrons of St. Nicks Pub? Were you aware that you were in the shell of the past remains of jazz musicians who rarely if ever go near the Pub anymore? The true giants of jazz who had the clout had been gone for years, and the Pub slipped into ghetto/hip-hop/world music. The word is out there about the newer, serious jazz locations.
Many of the loud and crude black women you spoke about probably cared less about you or protector than they did the way the air shifted when you showed up in the bar. Most of those bold, black bar women can spot phony money and people without formal training. The reason you were left on your own is that everyone knew the deal. They knew you were trying to be Jane in your sexual longing for the Harlem jungle experience.
When big black Tarzan/King Kong showed up and knocked you in the head, they just watched. Since you knew his name and he knew yours, the crass black women allowed you to be humiliated by your choice of male fixation. They have seen your fantasy scene played out before.
Now that you’re in real time: Get dressed, check sources and make reservations or plans to go to places that like and cater to quality clientele and really have world class musicians. Take the same precautions in Harlem that you would in Chelsea or the Meat Packing District, where white women get killed leaving bars after drinks…
Harlemites are not doing a buck and wing dance and smiling their pearly whites at you few, white people who have a need to be needed by black people. Hip-hop is not your enemy; your en-mass ghetto expectation of us is out of a B movie, while your overblown star status is totally unsupported. Your Eurocentric worldview is dangerous to black people, generally.
Let’s be real. There is a reason he singled you out, and one day we may hear his story. But this “well-spoken and acceptable black woman agrees with you,” he was wrong. It was not fair to Nelson’s fair lady.
—Theda Palmer,Ph.D.
Author, Life Coach, Lecturer,
Intercultural/Interpersonal
Communication,Professor Pace U.;
The Seasoned Woman,Inc., President;
Co-owner of Bill’s Place, Harlem
In his Pineapple Express review (“High-Grade Shit,” Aug. 6-12) Armond White says that Superbad was set in the ’70s. It wasn’t. If he bothered to see the rest of the movie and not just the opening credit sequence, he might have noticed that the characters talked on cell phones and surfed the net, neither of which was around, I don’t think, during the ’70s.
Maybe he should give that film another viewing, and pay attention this time. He might not end up finding the movie quite so offensive if he gives up his biases and just watches it.
Just a thought.
—Jose Olivera, NYC
Armond White’s Response: Did it ever occur to the legion of Superbad-asses that the gaffe was Rogen’s? Could those working-class kids have possibly afforded the Internet in the early ’80s? I’m not just asking; I’m thinking.
Looking for King Kong
Dear Susan Crain Bakos: The thug named Mykul, who knocked you to the ground in front of St. Nick’s Pub in Harlem and took your purse, and pleasure in strolling away, as you waited, in vain, for signs of support to show up for you, was a reality check (“Harlem: It’s a Hard-Knock Life,” July 30-Aug. 5). You may have required that knock on the head to push you out of the twilight zone of blinding white light you seem to float around in when it comes to Harlem. You represent a small group of white women who think they’re re-playing Faye Raye, expecting to be rescued by big, black King Kong in an African jungle. Now you’re disillusioned with my village and want to blame us and run.
Harlem is just a diverse, multi-layered community of people who file W-2 forms for over six figures down to minimum wage. Harlem has high school dropouts and Ph.D./MD residents, who live in the midst of an eclectic street life. We have world-class artists, business owners, ministers and good parents who home school their children. Harlem is complex. We function like all urban communities.
It is your lack luster perception, of what your mono-dimensional perception of our lives, in our community, really is that is the age-old issue. You want/need the jungle to exist, to satisfy your primal instinct for savage sex and titillation, from the wild black beast… Your needy white thighs, as you graphically mentioned in your condemnation of Mykul, were left unsatisfied. It is unimaginable, that you could think a 15-minute subway or cab ride would deliver you to a fantasyland…
Harlem is NYC… It’s urban America at its highest form and serves as the ultimate standard for all things city related to “cool and hip.” African Americans in Harlem own that mystery territory. But everything comes with a price.
It is this coolness that smacks of music, food, dancing, talking, walking that creates the magic that drives whites, like you and all others, here. Unfortunately, the white woman can actually think that the attention she gets so readily from the big black type man makes her superior to the loud black bar woman degraded in the article. Susan, as many others, think that big black will not treat her and her whiteness poorly. She, foolishly, perceives his treatment of his own black female counterpart as inferior, to her treatment by him.
Well now you know. You can get hit on the head and stolen from on a public street with an audience. Your Mykul experience represents one man, not a community. He is who he is. And he knows how to treat whom… I do not defend or apologize for your experiences uptown any more than you apologize for your white benefits gained from my 400 years of American enslavement.
Move on. I had to. We had to.
White people like you are dangerous. Black folks need protecting from you. Have you ever heard that a NYC policeman, when faced with a visibly armed or unarmed white woman (or man or child), shot them until dead multiple times? White people get shot in the leg, arm, shoulder,etc. We get the full “I’m scared of them treatment” from police, and now here you come uptown saying, “Harlem is no place for a woman without male protection.”
Did it occur to you that upward mobile, successful black women were not the flavor of the patrons of St. Nicks Pub? Were you aware that you were in the shell of the past remains of jazz musicians who rarely if ever go near the Pub anymore? The true giants of jazz who had the clout had been gone for years, and the Pub slipped into ghetto/hip-hop/world music. The word is out there about the newer, serious jazz locations.
Many of the loud and crude black women you spoke about probably cared less about you or protector than they did the way the air shifted when you showed up in the bar. Most of those bold, black bar women can spot phony money and people without formal training. The reason you were left on your own is that everyone knew the deal. They knew you were trying to be Jane in your sexual longing for the Harlem jungle experience.
When big black Tarzan/King Kong showed up and knocked you in the head, they just watched. Since you knew his name and he knew yours, the crass black women allowed you to be humiliated by your choice of male fixation. They have seen your fantasy scene played out before.
Now that you’re in real time: Get dressed, check sources and make reservations or plans to go to places that like and cater to quality clientele and really have world class musicians. Take the same precautions in Harlem that you would in Chelsea or the Meat Packing District, where white women get killed leaving bars after drinks…
Harlemites are not doing a buck and wing dance and smiling their pearly whites at you few, white people who have a need to be needed by black people. Hip-hop is not your enemy; your en-mass ghetto expectation of us is out of a B movie, while your overblown star status is totally unsupported. Your Eurocentric worldview is dangerous to black people, generally.
Let’s be real. There is a reason he singled you out, and one day we may hear his story. But this “well-spoken and acceptable black woman agrees with you,” he was wrong. It was not fair to Nelson’s fair lady.
—Theda Palmer,Ph.D.
Author, Life Coach, Lecturer,
Intercultural/Interpersonal
Communication,Professor Pace U.;
The Seasoned Woman,Inc., President;
Co-owner of Bill’s Place, Harlem
