Happy Birthday
by: Schvach Yid

Belatedly, as is usual for me, I’ve learned that this year marks the 80^th anniversary of the première of The Jazz Singer, which debuted the evening of October 6, 1927. This flick, starring Al Jolson in his now infamous and most politically incorrect black face, is noted as the first ‘talky’, even though it is in fact a combination talking/silent film.

Nothing is ever wasted – just ask whoever it was who concocted the Laws of Thermodynamics (I mean the list, not the phenomena of Physics).

Blogger rumor has it that at the recent ‘Annapolis Summit’, the Israeli (Jewish) delegation was required to enter the festival hall via a side entrance, while the eminent guests and their hosts entered by way of the grand entrance.

I don’t know if this is true or just blogger’s contrivance, but here’s a bit from the Jerusalem Post, at: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1195546767168&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull:

Evident everywhere, the discrimination against Israel received its starkest expression at the main assembly of the Annapolis conference on Tuesday. There, in accordance with Saudi demands, the Americans prohibited Israeli representatives from entering the hall through the same door as the Arabs.

Who’s the nigger now, one is prompted to ask. President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should have known better, one is prompted to exclaim. Believe me, they do, and that’s the problem. Anyone who works in the American workplace knows what this was about, or to paraphrase Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star in a TV interview some months ago, ‘there isn’t a Black person in America who has to fear the American workplace’. It’s not about fear, and for the US President and Secretary of State, the Annapolis conference was the workplace.

The Israeli delegation hadn’t a clue, and even if they had, I suspect they are too dull witted while on their feet to have responded appropriately, to say nothing of their general intimidation.

In 1988, the film Mississippi Burning was released, and promptly, civil rights critics jumped. The star of this movie, Gene Hackman, was taken to task on a TV talk show and given a class A tongue lashing by civil rights old guard and professor Julian Bond, who proceeded to dictate to his victim, and the TV viewing audience, that Hollywood is responsible for producing movies that inform and educate, rather than merely entertain and sensationalize.

Not long after, another civil rights old-timer, Bill Cosby, picked up and ran with the baton that movies and TV should educate (Bill sported a Malcolm X baseball cap in TV appearances following the August 1991 Crown Heights riot).

The marching orders had been given, and recently, they marched right into Annapolis, those cozy, get along, people of color.

So here it is - movies, education, the American workplace, and the Annapolis Summit. Two movies define the marching orders: The Boys in Company C, starring Stan Shaw (1978), and Trading Places (1983), starring Eddie Murphy.

For those of you who live outside the United States, I suggest you view these two ‘oldies but goodies’, and remember the pronouncements of Julian Bond and Bill Cosby. For those of us who work in America, no further explanation is needed for the goings on at the Annapolis Summit.

No number of prayer shawls would have consoled Al Jolson. I doubt Olmert and company have a clue.