Sophisticated, White-Liberal Ways to Criminalize and Marginalize Blacks: The Will Smith Role in Six Degrees of Separation

My recent interview with Ed Dunn of Fooky.com provides me with the perfect opportunity to Blog about being accused of playing the Will Smith role in Six Degrees of Separation. I first began to think about this character almost a decade ago when my number-one IT headhunter (who is a Black female) began dropping little hints to me about the number of times certain clients would check, and re-check my background. This behavior was clearly distinguished from her other (white) candidates. Evidently, my “BS” in physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara stood for “Bull Shit”—let alone my actual, real, genuine work experience. So let’s sketch together this Will Smith character:* First of all he is a conman, a professional liar like Jayson Blair.

• Second, the success of his con does not benefit anyone in the conman’s family. In fact, there is a homosexual “love” scene in Six Degrees of Separation where we see a white male ripping into Will Smith, clearly ‘benefiting’ from his success.
• This character is the ‘sincerest’ form of white-supreme flattery. Ultimately, the con benefits the victims, showing the victims how much value they have to be worthy of such an attack by an impostor so clearly intelligent and talented. In fact, there is sympathy—some kind of “connection” develops between the Stockard Channing character and the Will Smith character. But for me, in “real” life, there is and has never been such sympathy. My existence evidently only serves to show how meaningless and useless the Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland characters of the world are to me. Who cares how ‘great’ I am when my greatness does not serve you? I see that the Will Smith fictional character says to the white world, “I need you. You mean everything to me. In fact, please place your penis inside of my body.” And the Bryan Wilhite non-fictional character says, ‘I’m here to work and you are here to pay me so I can feed my Black-ass family. Kindly show me the space where I can sit.’ Which character provides more surface area for a “connection”?

What’s even deeper is that in the “real” world, I will argue (mildly) that actor Will Smith really blew up after playing the Six Degrees of Separation show. Playing this character showed “the world” that he is a “serious actor.” I immediately connect this “success” to similar fraternity hazing for Wesley Snipes in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! and the self-imposed, god-anointing of Tyler Perry, son of Flip Wilson. Don’t let me get started on Queen Latifah in Set It Off. It’s a broke-back mountain of Negro mountain climbing…

You know some white folks have that “frontier spirit”; they deputize themselves and are out to catch a “bad guy”… Think about the immense disappointment in finding out that they are killing an innocent man—but the plot twist in this non-Spike Lee film is that they get angry at their victim—they blame the victim of their own assault. Their minds desperately seek to undermine and discredit this innocent person in order to maintain their law enforcement status… the hero on the white horse… the smug informed one of the new world order…

This shit has to be going on in Guantanamo right now…

It takes a nation of millions to hold me back…

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