It's your typical american dream story: an uneducated kid from North Carolina gets trained under the famous Harlem mobster Bumpy Johnson, and becames one of NYC's most feared crime lords.
It's also the topic of Denzel Washington's new movie: American Gangster
This movie just re-enforces the nyc stereotype of the only way a black man can reach the top is by becoming a hardened criminal. I can't help but feel 90% of the people who go see this film will have their pants hung around there knees, puffy jackets over their patterned sweatshirts that have pictures of dead rappers, and baseball hats still with their tag from the store on them. I mean come on!
Oh yah, Russel Crowe also makes an appearnce in the film. I hate that guy! I don't know why, but something just pisses me off about him. He's the type of guy who the first time you meet him would have no problem saying something really jackassy, like "you know your really short" or something.
Rant over.
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3 comments:
I dunno - last I checked, the flick made over 250MM - that's a lotta kidz with baggy pants
Aitch
COMMENTARY: Drug Dealer Frank Lucas, Denzel and Dad
My Father as a kid delivered groceries to the first drug kingpin “Bumpy” Johnson, who at the time, lived in the corner building on 120th street and 5th Avenue, across the street from Mount Morris Park. He use to tell me these colorful stories with admiration, about this man. Bumpy was an employee and conduit for the mafia, helping to orchestrate the distribution of heroin into Harlem and surrounding communities in the 1940's, an epidemic that would later spread and engulf the entire country for generations to come.
The street gangs of the 40's would become some of the first addicts, their members would ultimately form the first ruthless drug-gangs of the 50's, 60's and 70's. Families were destroyed individual lives ruined, violence and crime across the board increased at staggering rates. In spite the gains from the Civil Rights Movement, as a community we never fully recovered from the initial impact of the flooding of drugs into our communities.
Frank Lucas, portrayed by academy Award winner Denzel Washington in “American Gangster”, was the driver for Bumpy Johnson until his death by heart attack in 1968. By the time Mr. Lucas took power- the Harlem community had been decimated by this epidemic and the second generation of addicts already overwhelmed the streets. Like the Hip Hop culture violent movies have a tremendous impact on our children. Our young-people are continually bombarded with negative messages that unfortunately help shape and mold their character, Al Pacino's as Scareface is still a popular image on T-Shirts.
The moral of the story is not that the bad guy gets it in the end. Too many hopeless kids who are engaged in criminal activity, view the demise of these individuals in a fatalistic and morbidly glamorous way. Enlighten by our past history and current events we have to be careful not to glorify criminals. Mr. Lucas has the right to have his story told but as parents, mentors, big brothers and sisters, we must always monitor the messages and more important the response to the message portrayed in media.
Dad's discussions about Bumpy, were a small part of the rich history of the community that he shared with me. He gave me, as I did my son, Claude Brown's definitive book on life in Harlem, “Manchild in the Promise Land”, when I was a teenager. He also talked about Malcolm X and Dr. King, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. Together we watched, Gil Noble's informative program “Like It Is”. My love of history and current events came from my dads talks about the Bumpy Johnson's as well as the Dr. King's of this world. He taught me to discern the messages that would bombarded me in my life-time. He knew then that no matter what, there would always be plenty of people like Bumpy Johnson and Frank Lucas around to share theirs.
Brotherman
This is what I think: Frank Lucas
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