Those who know me well know that my oldest son's middle name is Richard. He is named after Richard Pryor. Yesterday was a very sad day for me.
Why would a young, Southern white guy name his son after Richard Pryor? If you have to ask, then you really don't know enough about Pryor and why he was so important.
Pryor appealed to me for a number of reasons, but one was that he rose from a troubled background to succeed in life. He came from a broken home, his mother worked in a brothel, he was molested as a child, he was black in white-dominated America, he was poor in a country where money rules. While I wasn't black and I was never molested, the other things are eerily similar to things in my own background. Here was a guy that was a lot like me and he made it to the pinnacle of American society by being himself and doing things his way. That was an inspiration and it didn't matter to me that he was black, I never even really thought of him as black, I just thought of him as the really, really funny guy that I loved to watch or listen to.
Another reason he appealed to me was that he was an outsider. My whole life, I've felt like an outsider. I grew up a open-minded liberal in the Southern, closed-minded racist South. I grew up thinking for myself when most people never did. And one of the reasons I did that was because of Pryor (and George Carlin and a few others). Pryor questioned the hypocrisy of the American system. He questioned the hypocrisy of corrupt religious leaders. He questioned the ridiculousness of race relations in America. I grew up around people who were racist in a area that was racist and it was people like Richard Pryor that showed me that all the things that I heard about black people were wrong. On a gut level, I knew they were anyway, since I grew up in racially-mixed or even predominantly black neighborhoods much of my life. But I was left to wonder if maybe the black people I knew were just the exceptions and the racist rants from family and friends were somehow true in the broader sense. Pryor showed me that they weren't.
But the most important reason he appealed to me was that he was just about the funniest person to ever walk the planet. I can't think of a single thing he ever did that didn't make me laugh, even some of the stuff that isn't as high in quality or in which he's the only saving grace, he always made (and still makes) me laugh. It bothers me in all the stories that everyone talks about how important Pryor was for black comedy and black comedians. That's a crock of shit. Pryor was important for all comedy and all comedians. Pryor was important for anyone who liked to laugh.
Pryor was one of the most talented people to ever live in America. He was one of the funniest people we've ever developed. He was one of the greatest stage performers. He was an Award-winning writer. He was an Oscar-nominated actor. He was a multiple Grammy winner. He was one of our most keen social observers. And he was one of the most influential performers in American history.
From Eddie Murphy to Dave Chappelle to Whoopi Goldberg to Robin Williams -- even all the way down to the stuff the Blue Collar guys are doing -- Pryor influenced them all. He had a huge influence in hip hop and rap and samples of his routines and films are among the most common found throughout the genre. He helped break down racial barriers and brought people of different races together in laughter. He elevated African-American street life to part of the national culture and, along with George Carlin, assaulted the Victorianism in our language that was both arbitrary and limiting to our ways of thinking and interacting with each other.
Sure, there are some who have a problem with his use of the language. Even he later regretted his use of the word "nigger," and there is probably no person more singly responsible for the widespread use of "nigger," "bitch" and "ho" than Pryor. But to focus on things like that is to miss the point. Don't let those things distract you from the actual message and the actual intellect behind the use of those words. Besides, Pryor was a social witness and a describer of what really took place in American society. It's fitting that Pryor was the first recipient of the Mark Twain prize, since the two have so much in common. Yes, there was the frequent use of the word "nigger," but also the keen social observation and satire and their ability to tell things like they really are and not how the dominant group in society tells us they are.
By an odd coincidence, I spent 20 minutes in my Introduction to African-American History class on Thursday talking about Pryor. An older black woman complained that she didn't like Pryor because of his foul language. But when we listened to a couple of audio clips, I noticed that she was laughing just as loud and hard as the rest of the class, the rest of whom were barely old enough to buy a beer (if that old). When Pryor was performing, you couldn't help but be drawn in and you couldn't help but laugh, even if you hated the way he said things.
And Pryor was certainly a flawed man -- just like the rest of us -- he just had his flaws magnified by the public spotlight. His struggles with drugs grew out of his passion for life. His struggles with marriage grew out of his love for women. His struggles with the law grew out of his love for freedom. Sure, he made many wrong choices, but don't we all? And he didn't have the most honorable viewpoints about everything -- his views on women ranged into the territory of sexism from time to time -- but these things were never malicious and he was always working to improve them. He was a caring, sharing man who made America a much, much better place.
Other Bloggers
Mustang Bobby has a brief reflection on Pryor.
firedoglake on Pryor and respectability.
Russell Shaw ties Pryor to Eugene McCarthy.
Roger L. Simon, who worked with Pryor on Bustin' Loose.
Digby on the conservative response to Pryor's death and seeing Pryor live.
Pam on growing up with Pryor and his take on cultural differences.
Shakespeare's Sister on why we loved Pryor -- he made us laugh.
Armando on why Pryor was so groundbreaking.
Media Accounts
Los Angeles Times
New York Times
Washington Post
I'll have anothe rpost later that takes a look at his career more specifically.