Just Because You're Paranoid, Doesn't Mean They're Not Out to Get Jamie -- Does It?

Take from someone who was dumb enough to pick an online fight with Roger Ebert over the saying "call a spade a spade" -- no, I don't play cards much -- there's nothing more embarrassing than calling out a racist incident which isn't.

Most recently, this bill fits an email I received four times yesterday on Oscar-winning actor/keyboardist/singer Jamie Foxx's music special for NBC Wednesday.

The email reads: "Please take the time to forward the below message to everyone in your address book. NBC is not doing any marketing & publicity on Jamie's Music Special on NBC because he stood his ground and wouldn't have any white guest as they requested. To make it even worse he had two controversial guest stars, that do not fit the "NBC profile" on his show. Tune in to find out who they are. They are purposely putting his show up against the second week of American Idol in hopes that it will fail. This will give them the excuse to never give another black person a music special because "it doesn't work". Let's show them that it does work, and that we support each other. Tivo Idol, and watch Jamie. J Foxx making history on NBC. This is the first time NBC has ever aired an entire young urban African American cast on a music special. We need to show support. This was not an easy sell for Jamie and he stood his ground to make it happen the way he saw fit.JAMIE FOXX MUSIC SPECIAL WILL BROADCAST WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25TH @ 8:00PM PST on NBC. PLEASE MAKE IT A POINT TO WATCH! There will be surprise special guests."

Sigh. Well, this overheated poster was partly right, anyway. It is rare for a young, black musician to get a prime time TV special, and it probably would help get more artists like Foxx on the tube if people watched the show.

BUT....

I know NBC organized a conference call with journalists to promote the TV special today and anyone who watched NBC last night saw a boatload of commercials for the show. My good friend, Washington Post staffer Richard Prince, even got a network publicist to acknowledge, on background, that NBC is airing the show twice this week -- Wednesday and Friday. I'm assuming they're airing it opposite American Idol in hopes of drawing a few young, urban viewers away from the Idol juggernaut.

Unfortunately, this race-based myth will likely richochet around in cyberspace -- right alongside the one about designer Tommy Hilfiger saying he doesn't like black people wearing his clothes on Oprah, as if she'd tolerate that -- getting lots of uninformed people angry for no reason.

(Though the Foxx rumor is too recent to surface here, I suggest checking out most Internet rumors you hear on a most wonderful urban legends factchecking site, Snopes.com.)

Perhaps we can all agree to focus on the stuff that matters -- poverty rates, education equity and real on air racism -- and let NBC roll out the red carpet for its Oscar-winning crooner in peace. Though the most unfortunate aspect of all this may be that we're still so troubled on these issues that this off-base email doesn't sound too far-fetched for some.

Comments

[Khan of the Wastelands]

Well I'll admit to my confusion.Many times, the argument from blacks is that too many shows on network TV are dominated by white characters. Shows like Seinfeld or Friends are castigated by many blacks for not having a single black recurring character."We need more diversity in television" we're told.Putting shows on like whatever the hell that Steve Eurkel show was or George Lopez doesn't cut it. We need to integrate the shows the philosophy goes.Now we have folks celebrating that Jamie Foxx is refusing to allow white people on his show. I admit this is the first I've heard about this issue, but this strikes me as a step backwards, not a step forward.Please explain to me why it is not, or at least why I should not be offended by JF's apparent racist stand. - Treaver

[Khan of the Wastelands]

On the "Spade a Spade" argument you had with Roger Ebert, I can recall being gasped at in high school when I used the term "Niggardly" in a short story I had to read aloud in class.Even the teacher lectured about how language like that was not acceptable. At 15 my confidence was not what it is now and being dressed down in front of 25-30 of your peers is not a character building experience.Fortunatly, it was very easy to find the root of the word and to prove that it has no racial connotations whatsoever, but has the unfortunate coincidence of sharing the first 4 letters with a certain term that we're supposed to label as the "N" word. I wound up recieving an apology and a bit of character that the teacher failed to give me with the previous lecture.My next short story was about a boy who was ostracized by an English teacher that had the dubious honor of not knowing the english language.- Treaver

[Anonymous]

Take from someone who was dumb enough to pick an online fight with Roger Ebert over the saying "call a spade a spade" -- no, I don't play cards much -- there's nothing more embarrassing than calling out a racist incident which isn't.ouch!!! yeah, i can see and understand how picking this type of fight with ebert would backfire, given the fact he and his wife are an inter-racial couple.(per the "spade-a-spade" comment: here's a tv angle for ya... i know the origins of the cliche, but is there a more boring piece of television than poker that espn and other cable outlets are puking out seemingly each night?i mean, poker on tv has all the drama of a test pattern.

[Eric Deggans]

I would agree with all you say about poker save one exception Celebrity Poker Showdown on bravo.Why? Because it's celebrities -- who are the cool kids in class we can't get enough of. It's Texas Hold 'Em, which means a gutsy, lucky novice can beat the most grizzled vet. And its mostly actors and comedians, who theoretically make their living convincing the world they are someone they are not.To answer Khan, I do think it is racist to arbitrarily exclude white people from a music special. But bear in mind we don't really know if foxx did that. We only have that tidbit from this misguided rumor-monger.Frankly, I still think some of the coolest TV around, if you can catch it anywhere, are clips of Nat King Cole's old TV show, featuring him dueting wth people like Peggy Lee and Mel Torme. Putting together artists who wouldn't normally work together, especially of different races, is usually a creative plus, I think.

[Khan of the Wastelands]

But bear in mind we don't really know if foxx did that.My bad. I inferred from your story that that's what JF did.

[Anonymous]

i commend you on yr taste for nat king cole, though, ironically, he was pretty widely seen as an uncle tom type in his day for crossing over into 'white' pop schmaltz with such mid-60s fare as 'lazy, hazy crazy days of summer' - which naturally became one of his biggest hits and i'm sure left nat laughing all the way to the bank.on the foxx rumor, the end of yr last post should suffice to explain anything that may or may not be true, i.e., nothing occurs on tv w/o a reason and that reason is $$. surely no one is stymying poor jamie foxx who is riding a top selling cd and coming off a top rated bio-pic. if he only wants black people on his show, maybe he likes 'black' music best.