C.J.: Dick Gregory fights ignorance, arrogance & Dan Snyder on behalf of American Indians

Dick Gregory manages to be soft-spoken yet incendiary.

The satirist and activist was in the metro for the national rally protesting the name of the DC-area NFL team when it was here to play the Vikings in November. If you're not comfortable seeing the words "white folks," "black folks" and references to the N-bomb, this interview with the man whose autobiography title is the N-word is not for you. It's also not for blacks who expect Gregory to go easy on them, especially on the subject of how American Indians have been treated.

Gregory has an insouciance that suggests that he's not impressed by much. However, one accolade has resonated with him. "I'm stunned there is a book out by National Geographic that lists 1,001 people who made America and I'm listed. I said, 'Wow.' "

He could have said much more about National Geographic's writing that Gregory "rose from the ghetto to become a nationally successful comic in the 1960s, who delivered biting satire targeted against racial prejudice. His comedy added a new dimension to the civil rights movement, raising the consciousness of black as well as white Americans. By the 1980s Gregory had left the comic stage and become an entrepreneur in the field of nutrition."

Our interview took place in the lobby of St. Paul's Crowne Plaza with protesters and public milling around. Clyde Bellecourt, leader and co-founder of the American Indian Movement; David Glass, president of the National Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media, both White Earth members, and others created a human perimeter to keep Gregory's fans from interrupting my interview.

"There were many [fans]. Wow," noted Glass, with a little heads-up for the Washington, D.C., area. "Fans and admirers of Dick Gregory, get ready. We are visiting Maryland's Fed Ex [Field] Dec. 28 for the last game of their losing season. It might not be as big as the rally in Minnesota, but we expect thousands and I think we'll have more celebrities. We are hoping to get congressman John Lewis, 1968 Olympian John Carlos and [former Viking] Joey Browner."

In my startribune.com/video I used a musical element plus the lobby noise to camouflage one word I bandied around with Gregory.

A: I just think the arrogance. You see, this has nothing to do with prejudice. It's white supremacy and most folks don't understand that, including white folks. And it works for them. This planet is 3 percent white people and 97 percent nonwhite, but the 3 percent control the whole planet. That's through white supremacy. I've always said if I ever took over the first thing I would do is make Negros apologize to white folks, 'cause [we're] mad at the wrong white folks. The white folks [we're] mad at couldn't help us if they liked us. Who wants to live next to a Ku Klux Klansman? And the real [white people] who are the problem, we don't see — the Rockefellers, the Du Ponts. Ku Klux Klan [doesn't] determine public policy. My shame, I'm 82 years old, is when I was growing [up] nobody told me that the cowboy movies were insults. So I'd go to the cowboy movies and pull for the cowboys. I'd go to the African movies and pull for Tarzan. What I like now is there are no cowboy movies so [new] generations [are not] seeing that and there's a friendly feeling toward Native Americans. … Momentum, momentum.

Q: Are you as surprised as I am that there are blacks who don't understand the name of the D.C. team is offensive?

A: I'm a little outraged and not surprised. My mother worked hard, two jobs, to see to it the six of us had Christmas — and she told me a white man named Santa Claus brought it. So I couldn't be surprised with that mentality.

Q: A lot of blacks don't realize how far back our relationship with, as I call them, the Original Americans, goes. Reservations were safe havens for runaway slaves.

A: You know why they don't know it? Because NBC and CBS haven't told them. Here's my take: I'm just as guilty as the white folks because if my sons and daughters broke in your house, killed everybody and took it over, I'm not responsible for that. But once I start living in there … So we aren't responsible for what happened to the Native Americans but now that we're part of this, you know. And I always say on Thanksgiving: When you black folks be praying and thanking and praising God, do you think about the [people] who invented Thanksgiving? I don't know if we can ever change the old black folks but [they're] fixing to die anyway. [Laugh]

A: [His name was a hybrid of two racially offensive terms for blacks and white.] Then you'd see black folks complaining. [Extended laughter] Then it would be a different ballgame.

Q: That's what you say humorously, but if you were serious?

A: I wouldn't even know how to start. I'd bring a committee in … You see [the owner of the D.C.-area NFL team Dan] Snyder is just a young, ignorant punk. What's going to happen is they are fixing to move that team back into Washington, D.C. [If Snyder wants to be in D.C. he may have to change the team's name because the mayor of D.C. finds it divisive.]

Q: You've been married to Lil since 1959?

A: Yes.

A: I'm gone most of the time. Mine was easy. I had a mother who used to preach to us, "No son of mine will ever get a woman pregnant and won't marry her." So I got her pregnant. Mom didn't say you had to stay with her. I told her the other day, 'If you ever leave me, I will never get married again.' She said Why? I said, 'It didn't cost nothing.' You get pregnant, go to the justice of the peace, get married. I didn't [spend] no $65,000 for a wedding and then go to South America [for a honeymoon]. I said to her, if you want this to work, it's not about love. It's can you be lovable as [a person]. You have children [with whom] you're lovable. The type of love you marry for is a sex thing and anger and all of that and all the crazy stuff that happens in a society that's sexist; you bring that to the marriage. That's not the attitude you have with your children. The house is on fire, you make sure you get them out. I've never raised my voice, at all. I've made millions of dollars. I never wrote a check in my life. All of that goes to her. She's able to tolerate [me]. That's what it is.

Q: One of your children is named Gregory Gregory?

A: No, no. Gregory. One name. Here's what happened. The real white folks showed up at my house two weeks after his birth and said, You cannot name your son Gregory. One name doesn't work on the computer. I said, 'Look, as a Christian did y'all throw the Bible away?' Because everybody in the Bible had one name. The real flak comes from one of my daughters I named Miss Gregory. There is one black woman on this planet that all white folks have to call Miss.

Q: Do you have any comedians you admire currently doing stand-up acts?

A: I don't look at them.

A: First time I've heard that name. I like this new crop of comedians but I don't get to see them.

Q: What's the greatest misconception about you, not that I think you care?

A: [Back when] I was in the military, wasn't any war going on but had there been a war, I'd have [gone] anyway. It's funny. [Despite] a white racist, insane nation, I'm willing to go and die.

Q: The name of your autobiography is [the N-word]. How often do you use that word in a week?

A: All the time. You know why? When I was a little boy I didn't hear too good. So when white folks called me [N-word] I thought they were saying bigger. … Y'all don't know enough about the word. I'm 82 years old and 98 percent of all the black women I've been around, I've never heard them say [N-word]. White people don't know that. They just think it's something we all say. Women don't say it. Basically men do, so it must be a sex thing.