On the Dead and Dying, Part 1: Richard Pryor:
Just watch Richard Pryor, Live in Concert. Just watch it. If you haven't seen it, it'll make you understand why everyone is giving a damn that Richard Pryor died this weekend. If you only know the Pryor from his bullshit second banana collaborations with Gene Wilder, then you don't know shit about what Richard Pryor meant.

Pryor centered the American black experience, both urban and rural, on the stage in a way that was staggeringly, liberatingly profane. He embraced the linguistic freedom that Lenny Bruce paid for with his life and moved a kind of Afrocentric humor to the mainstream in a way that Redd Foxx and Dick Gregory could not. He was dangerous and popular, and thus he had to be commodified and defanged by being embraced by the very white culture he belittled. He was obscene not only because that's the background he came from, filled with whorehouses, drunks, and drug addicts, with his own experience doing working class jobs and in the military. But he lived a goddamn life before hitting the stage, and the life that he witnessed was far more obscene than the words "motherfucker," "pussy," and "nigger" could ever be.

The life of the black American was one of constantly trying to represent oneself against the bullshit definitions that white America created, according to Pryor. Sure, Pryor did the old shtick of the differences between whites and blacks, but it wasn't about the foods they eat or how their parents talk. It was how white people curse or drink or drop acid or gamble. But as often as Pryor did those kinds of jokes, he also portrayed a black America that was absent of the physical presence of white people, although, no matter what, they were always there, in the Mudbone routines, in all his work, haunting the background, because there wouldn't be "niggers" without white people.

Sure, he opened lots of doors for black comics and actors through his films and TV work, but the stand-up Pryor of the early 1970s remains a thrilling performer, a physical comic willing to throw his body across the stage as he acted out his stories. And he was someone who seemed like a threat. And there's very few people who can hold a knife to your throat and make you laugh while you feel the tip start to cut your jugular.

Here he is in 1972 on the riots in Watts: "Up until the point that we had a riot, everybody said, 'Those niggers are all right, they’re doing fine.' Then, when we had a riot, the White man said, 'Something’s wrong, 'cause these suckers are burning down my store. Now, I've got to give these niggers something. I thought they were happy.'"

Here he is on the word "nigger": "I think niggers are the best of people that were slaves. That's how they got to be niggers. 'Cause they stole the cream of the crop from Africa and brought them over here. And God, as they say, works in mysterious ways. So he made everybody 'cause we'd be arguing over in Africa about the Watusi, Matusi, etcetera, in different languages. You know? So he brought us all over here: the best, the kings, the queens, the princesses and the princes. Shit, and put us all together and called us one tribe and called us 'Niggers.'"

Here he is on his teenage years in Peoria, Illinois: "Oh, they'd arrest me you know; especially at night, they'd have to have a curfew, right. Niggers had to be home by eleven, Negroes twelve. And you'd be trying to get home. And always they'd catch you out in front of a store or something 'cause you'd be taking short cuts right. The cops: 'Put your hands up, Black boy!' You know you panic. 'All right don’t move. Put your hands against the wall.' There ain't no wall. 'Find one then. Put the hand scuffs on him, Fred.' And they'd put the handcuffs on me. Right. And I was really skinny, right? And they'd slip off and shit. And the dude get mad: 'All right, put them on his ankles or his ass or something.' They'd handcuff my thighs right, hop me to the car and call my father about four in the morning. 'Mr. Pryor. We have your son down here at headquarters, what about him?'

"'Fuck him.'

"My mother would have to beg him to come get to out. 'Please Buckie go get him.'

"'Fuck that nigger. Shit, I told him be home at eleven o'clock and I meant eleven. Goddamn, every time I turn around, that nigger's in jail. I’m tired of getting him out.'

"And I'd be praying he'd have a heart attack before he'd get there. Cause, he'd put some shit on me, right? 'Uhm hmm, I’m gonna get your ass out, cause you know I’m gonna tear your ass up. How much is it man? Twelve dollars. Yeah I'm going to pay it. You know I’m going to kick your ass. You can believe that shit.'

"And my mother would be crying, 'It hurts me more than it hurts you.'

"I’d say, 'Yeah, so let him beat your ass.'"

And, finally, here he is in full-on "fuck you" mode: "Once you get a job, nigger be respectful. You know this is the age of Aquarius, shit. Man, get a job. What in the fuck are you talking about? I went down, man, I ain’t bullshitin’, baby. I went down to the unemployment bureau. Ya dig? I just got out the joint, you know what I mean. I’m in the joint. I go to the unemployment bureau, the bitch telling me 'What’s your occupation.'

"I said, 'Pressing licensing plates.' Now where are you going to find a job for a nigger out here pressing licensing plates? And I'm a licensing-plate-presser, motherfucker. You dig. The old bitch got her tier and shit up there. Old ugly white hoe with crinkles and shit. Bitch got funky with me. I said, 'Well, fuck your job, bitch. Kiss my ass and your mamma’s too.'"