The path to racial comity turned rockier in 1991. Hard times have a way of hardening hearts and heads. Shut-out minorities demanded more. And many whites felt it was time to say, enough. This year, everyone seemed to consider himself a victim.
Launching his bid for the White House, Nazi turned Republican David Duke displayed his presidential timber when explaining his overseas trade policy: “We must go to the Japanese and say ‘You no buy our rice, we no buy your cars’.” Nice–he speaks a foreign language. Duke, who won a majority of white votes in losing the Louisiana governor’s race, has entered Maryland’s March 3 primary. Smart move: the 1972 Democratic primary there went to George Wallace.
Drawing a lesson from the videotaped beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police last March, Chief Daryl Gates named a panel to study reintroducing the chokehold, a method of restraint Gates once said could kill blacks because their arteries don’t function like those of “normal people.” Gates also suggested that racist LAPD computer messages (e.g., “Sounds like monkey-slapping time”) were actually written by minority cops. “Self-deprecating humor,” he called it. Gates hinted he is rethinking his promise to resign in April–which some Angelenos will hope is the chief’s own idea of a joke.
Spike Lee finally has company–Hollywood released 19 films by black directors this year. The success of newcomers John Singleton, maker of “Boyz N the Hood,” and others was marred by scattered violence at theaters showing their movies. But in L.A., money talks much louder than a few mindless yahoos. “Boyz,” starring rapper Ice Cube, posted the kind of numbers studio execs dream about. It cost a measly (in Hollywood terms) $6 million to make and delivered a box office of $55 million.
New course offering at the City College of New York: Racism 101. At one blackboard, Leonard Jeffries. His thesis: whites are “dirty,” “devilish folks”; Jews and the Mafia “put together a financial system of destruction of black people.” At the other, Michael Levin, who argues blacks should be segregated on the subway and that “on average, blacks are less intelligent than whites.”
The CW is cranky and resentful. Everything’s let it down–from the gulf war to the economy. But at least there’s someone to take it all out on: politicians.
PLAYERS Conventional Wisdom
Bush He won the war, and all we got was this lousy recession (and those damn tube socks). Quayle He earned an “up” arrow. We considered an “up” arrow. But Danny, you’re no “up” arrow. Reagan CW doesn’t think he committed treason– would he know?–but it was voodoo econ. Cuomo Graceful exit, but CW quickly goes revisionist: we never wanted you. Democrats CW wants excitement and is dying to fall in love with one of you. But it’s hard work. T. Kennedy Held own on stand, but CW will fully monitor any backsiding into party-animal mode.
The gulf war may have inflicted one good wound–on racism. From Gen. Colin Powell on down through the ranks, honors won by black soldiers made for a convincing victory in the black fight for respect. Minorities bear a disproportionate burden in the military (blacks make up 12 percent of the U.S. population, but they represented 20 percent of its forces in the gulf war). Most blacks in uniform say careers in the military offer them access to power and status they had never gotten as civilians. And, as they say about atheists, there are no racists in foxholes.
Local black residents begged for calm, but militant black activists and Jewish leaders in Brooklyn, N.Y., allowed the accidental death of Gavin Cato, 7, to escalate into violence. After a Hasidic man’s car struck Cato, the Hasidim never apologized. The Rev. Al Sharpton and others from outside the area helped stir anger into bloodshed. A Hasidic man was slain in apparent retribution, and mobs filled the streets for four nights.
Amid 1991’s rancorous battles between the sexes, Magic Johnson pointed both genders toward a common enemy: AIDS.
Magic Johnson was always good at the transition game. Now, in the biggest game of his life–for his life–he’s still playing up-tempo and adjusting to the flow. He says abstinence is the safest sex. He works out–for the Olympics, he says–and is leading the Lakers from the bench. One assist to his mood: his wife’s latest HIV test came back negative last week.
One group thinks something useful came of the ugly Senate hearings on Anita Hill’s sexual-harassment charge against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas: political consultants. Noting that blacks supported Thomas in polls, Republicans plan to use the hearings to draw blacks to the GOP. Democratic women’s groups say “post-Thomas trauma” has added thousands to their fund-raising rolls.
Now it can be told: the name of the woman who accused William Kennedy Smith of rape is Patricia Bowman. After months of trying to maintain her privacy, Bowman decided that coming forward was the best way to regain some control of her life. And although Smith was acquitted, she said “I believe me.”
If not an Oscar, “Thelma and Louise” deserves an award for Film Causing the Most Arguments in 1991. Women cheered as Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon gunned down a rapist, robbed stores and taught a trucker manners. Men got a nervous sensation in their stomachs. Murder, mayhem and sex–why, these women were acting like . . . men. in “Thelma and Louise,” women call the shots and men, for a change, are passive ciphers. Turnabout is fair play.
The hunter spies his prey: tuna for $1.09 in aisle 5. Modern man as provider. Frustrated by such an anemic role, hunter-gatherers by the thousands this year answered the tom-tom call of the men’s movement–dancing and drumming by firelight, perspiring in tepees, rediscovering the savage within. “We were chanting and sweating and screaming,” recalls one participant. “It was fun and uplifting … people talked about pain.” Sure. Expressing your feelings is all well and good, but isn’t there something, well, dorky about playing caveman at age 45?
Though times call for saving the cash we used to spend on movies, restaurants and fun at the mall. The dinner table, cradle of homespun CW, crackles with debate.
TOPICS Conventional Wisdom
Pride - Old CW: We kicked butt, pass the Moet. New CW: We got fired, pass the Thunderbird. PC = CW likes to be politically correct but is sick of PC police. Lighten up. Real Estate = Old CW: Next year we’ll get a bigger house. New CW: Remember when we had a house? Sex - No sex is safe sex. But don’t buy porn, just replay Thomas-Hill or Willie Smith tapes. Values + Back to basics. Even Lee Atwater said it was time to do the right thing. The Future - Yikes! Economy and enviro going down the tubes. Sayonara, American Century.
who arrested actor Paul Reubens (a.k.a. Pee-wee Herman) for “indecent exposure” in an X-rated movie theater, thus revealing how at least some Sarasota: cops spend their afternoons. And a dishonorable mention to the prudes at CBS and the Disney-MGM theme park who immediately ditched their Pee-wee shows. Toystore owners who rushed to pull Pee-wee-related merchandise from the shelves got what they deserved: shops that stayed faithful to Mr. Herman reported booming sales. As for you, Pee-wee–buy a VCR.
Supporters of teacher-turned-murder-accomplice Pam Smart held a charity picnic for her appeal effort in September. Smart, 24, got life for coaxing her 16-year-old lover to kill her husband. She says her trial was unfair, a media circus. Maybe: testimony on steamy sex and Smart’s bizarre decorum–she worried her dog Hayley might be traumatized if it saw the slaying–drew a worldwide TV audience. At the picnic, Hayley wore a PAM IS INNOCENT button. Smart lost her final appeal.
Yuppie murders women–with power tools, rats, household cleansers and anything else handy–and between slayings, talks about his wardrobe. That’s all there is to Bret Easton Ellis’s “American Psycho.” A novel so atrocious, Simon & Schuster dropped it. So offensive, feminist groups called for a boycott or a ban. Vilified so long and so loudly, Ellis raked in royalties from sales to people who never would have heard of the book if not for the furor.
PHOTO: That book
In a year of worry and frustration, there was always the dubious satisfaction of watching the famous bicker, squirm and fall.
As if things aren’t bad enough for the Philippines, Imelda Marcos says she may run for the country’s presidency in 1992. Back in Manila to face charges that she helped husband Ferdinand loot up to $10 billion, Imelda thinks God is on her side. She said Mount Pinatubo erupted because Corazon Aquino refuses to allow a hero’s funeral for Marcos, still unburied since his death in 1989.
Ex-billionaire Donald Trump and Marla Maples had a bumpy year. January: they say they’ll live together. June: he drops her for a model. July: on again–Marla gets a 7.5-carat diamond ring. September: off–Marla dumps wayward Trump. November: love triumphs, Don reproposes. December: Marla hurls shoe, ring, at Don in D.C. Then it’s patched up. They love each other, they love each other not, they . . . oh, who cares.
In war, it’s called “massive retaliation.” After Kitty Kelley’s bio accused Nancy Reagan of greed, shrewishness and adultery with Frank Sinatra, Sinatra said he hoped Kelley walked in the path of “blind guys… driving cars.” Kelley now has a TV show in the works.
Between the new perfume and Pee-wee, it was a year of self-love. As ever, the CW has mixed feelings about people whose main love interest is their pocket mirror.
CELEBS Conventional Wisdom
Kathie Lee - Regis is right Enough about Cody. P.S.: And the CW is sick of Frank, too. Schwarzkopf = Desert Storm love affair blows over. Time for this old soldier to fade away. Beatty + There’s life left in the old Narcissus: Has hit and baby on the way. Dershowitz - Used “I,” “me” or “my” 18 times in a book review. And don’t call the CW anti-Semitic. Demi Moore = Nice Vanity Fair pic, but emphasis is on vanity. What next–the placenta video? Mac Culkin = Cute “Home Alone” shtik. But CW thinks child-star monster needs a timeout.
Resigned (read: fired) White House chief of staff John Sununu is very smart–as he’d gladly tell you. But it’s not too bright to alienate so many people that when you need a friend, all you have are enemies. One of the last calls Sununu made seeking support was to Sen. Bob Dole. In 1988, Dole led George Bush in pre-New Hampshire primary polls. The then governor Sununu persuaded Bush to air a misleading ad implying Dole would raise taxes. Bush won. Years later, despite his best effort, Dole couldn’t save Sununu.
Lee Atwater, 40, George Bush’s master political tactician Lee Remick, 55, actress, “Days of Wine and Roses” Robert Motherwell, 76, painter David Ruffin, 50, singer with The Temptations Red Grange, 87, football’s “Galloping Ghost” Margot Fonteyn, 71, prima ballerina Kimberly Bergalis, 23, AIDS victim and crusader Leo Durocher, 85, baseball player and manager Graham Greene, 86, novelist Gene Tierney, 70, actress, “Laura” Danny Thomas, 79, actor and comedian Arthur Murray, 95, dancing master Colleen Dewhurst, 67, Tony Award-winning actress Harry Reasoner, 68, reporter and news anchor Eugene Fodor, 85, travel writer Rudolf Serkin, 88, pianist Frank Capra, 94, filmmaker, “It’s a Wonderful Life” David Lean, 83, director, “Lawrence of Arabia” Martha Graham, 96, dancer and choreographer Fred MacMurray, 83, screen actor and “My Three Sons” dad Yves Montand, 70, actor and singer Edwin Land, 81, inventor of Polaroid camera Claudio Arrau, 88, pianist Isaac Bashevis Singer, 87, Yiddish storyteller Redd Foxx, 68, comedian and actor Brad Davis, 41, actor, “Midnight Express” Tennessee Ernie Ford, 72, country-music star Ralph Bellamy, 87, character actor Paul Brown, 82, Cleveland Browns coach Frank Rizzo, 70, ex-mayor of Philadelphia Stan Getz, 64, jazz saxophonist Robert Maxwell, 68, media baron
