Sunday, June 11, 2006

Mahogany interviews Melvin Van Peebles



Friday, June 9th, 2006
The Original Badass
Seventy-three years young, film master Melvin Van Peebles is still blacking out on hollywood’s racism

Posted In: Magazine, Real Life
story: Mahogany L. Browne
On the relationship between Hollywood and Blacks in the ’70s:
Nonexistent. It was a vacuum. It was close to a medieval guild system. When I first started, the job they finally agreed to give me was as an elevator operator. They tried to convince me that I didn’t have the creative skill, or the aptitude, required to be a director. Jump cut: 10 years later. I come back with a prize-winning feature film. And at that they can’t say nothing. Just like they can’t say black quarterbacks aren’t smart enough to run a team or a black manager can’t handle a baseball team.

Continue reading this story in the July/August 2006 issue of KING (#32).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You have crossed my mind twice in 2 days...

last night- my best friend's college friend was in town, and when I looked at her for the first time I swore I was looking at YOU..I even had to step back and look again

I asked her- do you know Mo Browne?
And she said- where's she from

and I said BK

and she said SO AM I

I thought you had changed names :-) and the other visitors from BK all knew your name,

and then today, I was reorganizing my bookshelf and what do I find? Your book from 2001...and that Haiku about the 40 ounce...deep

I hope things are well for you Mo...

Tell Amari to have a GREAT summer in CAli, I wish I was going :-)

7:57 PM