By Tonja Renée Stidhum
Orlando Jones is not here for that culture vulture mess!
Jones has been all over the news and social media lately, after confirming he was fired from Starz’s American Gods. As The Root’s Karu Daniels recently reported, “Jones, who portrays the infamous trickster god Mr. Nancy (based on Anansi the Spider—the African folklore character), claimed that the series’ new showrunner Charles Eglee decided his character sends ‘the wrong message for black America.’”
Jones decided to add a bit more honey to that cup of tea on Sirius XM’s The Clay Cane Show.
“Culture vulture white guy is running around with a Black Panther T-shirt on talking like you black, acting like you black, thinking you blacker than black people,” Jones said. “You’re playing that whole game, which is the only reason you would run your ass around and say something is crazy as Mr. Nancy’s bad for black America and clearly there’s nobody around to correct you. There’s nobody of color around you who feels they have the guts to say, ‘Hey sir, you probably shouldn’t say that you write from a black male perspective. You’re like a 60-plus-year-old white man. Are you serious right now?’”
When Cane asked whether Eglee used a “blaccent,” Jones elaborated, noting, “If you ask anybody about who the season three showrunner is, the two things that they will tell you is that he is a white man and he thinks he’s black. He wears Stay Woke hats and Black Panther t-shirts and sunglasses. Dresses like old school Run DMC type of deal. Look at the pictures. He’s white, but it’s one of those white guys who talks like a black guy. I don’t have any problems with somebody who’s a fan of the culture, but that doesn’t make you black.”
Wow, Jones pretty much described Eglee as a Michael Rapaport/Gary Owens mashup.
“He was put in that position and clearly they didn’t let me go because the studio and the network didn’t agree to it,” Jones recalled. “So you hired a guy who—I’m going to use a word, I don’t mean to offend anybody. If you are offended, get over it. I’ve been called everything in the book. I don’t give offense, you take offense. That’s how this works. So I’m going to throw “wigger” in the air, alright? You claim it as your own. I wasn’t talking to you “wigga” I was just talking. So you got this guy who, that’s his behavior, that’s how he presents himself and you guys chose to hand this into this person’s hands because you thought that was a good idea.”
Jones also claimed Eglee expressed wanting to get rid of diverse characters such as Salim (Omad Abtahi) and (Ifrit) Mousa Kraish, whose story arc sparked interest since they were gay and Muslim.
When asked whether Jones plans to take legal action, Jones noted, “I think those have to be thoughtful decisions, and I also think that it’s more important to look at what you want the outcome to be. So, you’ll hear soon enough, it won’t be long, but at the end of the day, I always try and be mindful and thoughtful and encourage others to be thoughtful in those decisions. So, I’m not going to spit it out here like it’s not an important thing to consider when people make these types of moves.”
Original article was published here.
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