Prominent African-American Scholar Discovers Negritude

DISCLAIMER: ANY SIMILARITY TO RECENT EVENTS ARE SIMPLY COINCIDENCE (OR A GRAND, WHITE CONSPIRACY TO DESTROY THE BLACK MAN). ALL IMAGES, OF COURSE, WERE CHOSEN ON PURPOSE.


The recent arrest of prominent African-American scholar, Yale professor, and author of such classics in African-American study, Who You Callin' "Boy," Cracker?!, The Skin I's In, and Pork and White Women: How Things That Taste So Good Are So Bad for Black Men, Austin S. Simpleton, IV, has caused a national scandal and yet another abortive attempt in discussing race relations in America. Last Wednesday evening, Dr. Simpleton was in his backyard when the New Haven, CT, SWAT team rushed into his back yard and arrested the professor.

"I was eating a very refreshing arugula salad and grilling my shitake kabobs when they rushed in," Simpleton told Tome earlier. "I thought they'd made a mistake. I mean, some pret-ty sketch-y characters down the street since they stopped red-lining the neighborhood. But the police know me.

"I tried to explain it to them," he explained, sniffling. "And then they shot Candide."

Dr. Simpleton's Dead Saluki, Candide


With the doctor's eight-year-old Saluki, Candide, lying in the grass, bleeding to death, the SWAT team grabbed the 56-year-old professor and slammed him down on his concrete patio.

"I kept screaming, 'You know me! You know me!' But they would have none of it. They said that there had been some recent burglaries and that I fit the description. I asked them what exactly that was, and I could not believe what I was hearing."

The description that the police offered was that of a 5'3" to 6'7" African-American male of light to dark complexion with bald head, short-cropped afro, and ass-length dreadlocks. Dr. Simpleton confessed that he, indeed, fit that description.

"But I contended so did every African-American in the country," Simpleton continued.

"No," the officer in charge disagreed. "We could also be looking for a Jamaican, Cuban, Maori. Hell, we could be looking for some African from Timbuktu with a bone in his nose."

"Where's the bone?! Where's the bone?!" one officer was reported to scream, ramming his pistol into the doctor's face.

"Hey, have you seen 2001?" police Sgt. Paddy Kennedy asked. "Bones can be used as weapons, people. We were dealing with a known suspect. Don't you forget that?"

Dr. Simpleton, now convalescing in a local hospital, continued his tale through the tears.

"I just didn't understand it. I passed the paper bag test. I was a member of Jack and Jill. I went to Exeter and Harvard and the Sorbonne! I've taught at Emory and Cambridge and Yale! And the more I kept explaining my CV, the more they kept kickin' my black ass!"

I handed him a tissue.

"It's like I was no longer Dr. Austin S. Simpleton, IV, author of Pork and White Women! It's like I was that fool D'Angelo Washington down the street with his nine triflin' kids!"

"Red-lining," I shrugged.

"You know what I'm sayin'," Simpleton twanged. "Now they let any ol' mo'fucka live in the neighborhood. Like they ain't no difference no mo'!"

I was speechless.

"And there is a difference," the professor continued. "Did you see my groundbreaking PBS documentary, Where You From, Negro?"

"I ... I put on my queue."

"Well, when you watch it, you will see that there ... is ... a ... difference. I traced my genealogy. I am not like that D'Angelo Washington. I am half-Swedish, half-French, 35 percent Japanese..."

"And black," I proferred.

"Sure, sure, sure. Just ask my cousins, Tiger Woods and Rae Dawn Chong."

Neither were available for comment.

Dr. Simpleton continued to cry.

"I just don't understand what those police officers were thinking," he whimpered. "I speak French!"