Wouldn't You Like to Get Away?

We at the Secret Council of American Negroes believe that every Negro life is worth saving, even those that some would argue have run their course, done blackness far too much damage and cannot be saved. At SCAN we NEVER GIVE UP on our once esteemed, now fallen "Negroes of Note." We will exhaust every effort to rehabilitate, recalibrate, renovate, levitate and enunciate our brothers and sisters until they are reinvigorated with love for the cause and can do no more damage to themselves or others.

Due to a recent vote among SCAN representatives nationwide the organization is officially opening the books and allowing members to finally take a glance at our time honored Dr. Charles S. Drew Rehabilitation Facility located on SCAN's Island Fortress Retreat on Grand Saint Sojourner Island.

Here at Grand Saint Sojourner, which SCAN shares with natives of the Caribbean and our sister organization Negroes of North America, we house multiple living, medical and re-education facilities that work to correct the wrongs of racism, moral bankruptcy and incredible stupidity.

Former patients recently reintroduced to society include Whitney Houston and Nicole Richie. As we speak, Celebrity SCAN Rehabilitation Professional Christian Therapist Denise Katrina Matthews is on her way to pick up formerly incarcerated Rapstress Inga Fung Marchand for some "divine nasty girl intervention."

A former patient, Matthews has become one of SCAN's most ardent spokespersons intervening with recalcitrant black celebrities and advocating why these individuals need to "Get right with themselves," often testifying how she "was once out of (her) mind" but is now "right with blackness! That you, JESUS!"

She can get a little preachy, but she's a good woman.

Also, on an unrelated note, she makes excellent French toast. When at the Fortress she will often reward "good" patients with a delicious, eggy batch of her divine, gooey cinnamon-flavored confection.

"Bad" patients get cold grits.

Other well known celebrities we have helped include James Brown, Sean Combs, Whoopi Goldberg, Darryl Strawberry, Martin Lawrence, former DC Mayor Marion Berry, Oprah Winfery (Don't act so surprised. Even Diamond-level SCAN members need to buy their own four or six acres of Fortress property and have their own hospital staff in-between weight-loss/powerful-rich-woman stress cycles), Halle Berry, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson (A work in progress! We do not give up ... unless) and Mike Tyson (who, sadly, has been declared a "lost cause" since the late 1990s. We're here if you ever get a clue, Mike.)

We also offer marriage counseling (You made it through the rain, Shaq and Shaunie ... we hope), anger management (Naomi Campbell, Matthews said she will not sue you but will continue to pray for your Satan-bound soul) and college correspondence courses (You will talk pretty one day, Sir Charles).

SCAN will be allowing Gold-level SCAN members a once-in-a-lifetime tour of the facility so check for your golden blackness tickets in the mail. But please, do not become so enraptured by the crystal blue waters, gorgeous sunshine and golden-glazed Vanity special French toast that you plan to habitually ruin your sobriety around Christmas time every year. We will send you to the Drew facility next to the US Embassy in Haiti. They only have ONE sous chef and you know how much you enjoy the latest French cuisine!

Here are some other facts about our historic facility:

* Our highest peak is called "Saint Michael," but not for the Catholic saint. Michael Jackson has donated more than $250 million dollars to the island fortress. After he paid for the heliport on the highest peak we ran out of excuses why nothing on the island was named after him.

* The Fortress is fully staffed with everything a Negro with issues needs. From Foie gras and Chilean sea bass for the discriminating palette. Cheetoes, hot pickles and packs of Now-n-Laters for those ... less discriminating.

* Saint Sojourner is named after former slave, abolitionist and proto-feminist Sojourner Truth. She was canonized in 1912 by excommunicated, rebel African Brazilian priest, Father Robeirto de la Llamas who would go on to create the secretive banned Catholic sect of La Virgen Negra, where he named himself "the Black Pope."

The Black Vatican is located on Saint Sojourner where Pope Robeirto and his successors are buried.

But, please, be discrete about the "Black Pope" thing.

* Saint Sojourner Island Fortress is run completely on geo-thermal energy. That and it's about 80 degrees year-round.

* No private cars are allowed on the fortress. Those Hummers and Escalades were harming the 250-year-old cobblestone streets. Also, it made it easier to wrangle the more habitual offenders.

* The year-round residents of Sojourner Island include esteemed SCAN academics, doctors and unheralded Negroes run out of the Americas for being "uppity." The island also contains the native Boa people who are half Negro and half Polynesian.

They're nice, but please, don't comment on their haircuts and love of Robitussin. It's rude.

* Saint Sojourner is presently home to the first black American Pope, Leonardo T. Briggs, of Pin Point, Ga. who holds mass three times week and enjoys the crispy, sugary Monte Cristo sandwiches Matthews often prepares and feeds to him directly.

We know what your dirty mind is thinking, but the Black Pope is completely chaste. And Matthews just likes feeding him Monte Cristos. It's a very good Monte Cristo. That woman really knows how to brown bread.

* Saint Sojourner, while technically still part of the United Kingdom, is a mostly autonomous state. It generates most of its wealth through the rehabilitation center, Oprah's fortress estate, sugar cane, manufacturing Malibu Coconut Rum and 99 different flavors of St. Sojourner brand incense.

It burns twice as long and is twice as pungent!

* Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye famously broke into the island's rum reserves and nearly OD'ed. But we nursed them back to health. At SCAN we have a slogan, "Die on someone else's watch."

SCAN is proud to say that no celebrity has died on our premises.

* Seriously. Don't blow your sobriety to come back here. After three visits we start assuming you're not serious about getting well and we drop you off at America's third best methadone clinic in Gary, Indiana.

You've been warned.

SCAN Editorial: Has Alicia Keys Lost Her Friggin' Mind?!?

By AverageBro, for SCAN

I've never been the biggest Alicia Keys fan. Not because I don't like her somewhat bland and overly-hyped music, but mainly because I just don't really mess with R&B like that much nowadays. Yeah, I'm cool with Dwele, and that recent Erykah Badu was a-ite, but overall, I spend more time on the AM dial, far removed from the thump and bump of the typical Hot/Power/Kiss genre of playlist-driven stations. When I do listen to music on the radio, I'm far more of an "urban contemporary" or "smooth jazz" guy.

And besides, I'm just not feelin' those damn vocoders.[1]

[Editor's Note: I'm also prolly still a little salty over that India.Arie/Grammy thing a few years back. And I know India's career has since fizzled and she's back to working the 3rd shift at Denny's, but still, she got straight robbed!]

That said, while I generally find Keys to be relatively inoffensive Starbucks background music and little more, I wonder exactly what was she sippin' when she went all Dale Gribble[2] on us and gave these quotes during a recent interview with Blender Magazine.

There’s another side to Alicia Keys: conspiracy theorist.

The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter tells Blender magazine: "‘Gangsta rap’ was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. ‘Gangsta rap’ didn’t exist."

Though she’s known for her romantic tunes, she told Blender that she wants to write more political songs. If black leaders such as the late Black Panther Huey Newton "had the outlets our musicians have today, it’d be global. I have to figure out a way to do it myself," she said.

Keys, 27, said she’s read several Black Panther autobiographies and wears a gold AK-47 pendant around her neck "to symbolize strength, power and killing ’em dead," according to an interview in the magazine’s May issue, on newsstands Tuesday.

Another of her theories: That the bi coastal feud between slain rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. was fueled "by the government and the media, to stop another great black leader from existing."

This whole thing reminds me of that old Chris Rock routine. Just put on your headphones and fast forward to the 40 second mark.

"MLK was assassinated. Malcolm X was assassinated. Them two Negroes got shot!"

Alicia Keys, please stick to your formulaic piano ballads and leave the Biggie and Pac conspiracy theories to the LA Times.

Question: Is Alicia Keys making any sense?

Alicia Keys shares her conspiracy theories on 'gangsta rap' [NY Daily News]

[1] Seriously, what the hell is Mariah Carey doing singing with a vocoder? She actually has talent. My "The Vocoder Is Ruining My Life" Post is coming later this week. Stay tuned.

[2] Only the best character from the best animated TV series evar, just in case you were wondering.

From the Front: SCAN's "Littlest" Agent

Sometimes SCAN has to take on high risk/high reward situations in order to go places no Negro has ever gone before. These are the real heroes in the "War on Ignorance." Whether it's an unnamed agent working to destroy BET from within or a dedicated team of SCAN speech therapists spending 20 hours a week teaching Charles Barkley how to pronounce "Mississippi," everyone has a part to play. But only the best of the best get a crack at the glass ceilings of American society. Like SCAN double-agents Eldrick "Tiger" Woods, Gen. Colin Powell, comedian Whoopi Goldberg and, of course, The Big O.

These and others like them are the unsung heroes of preserving blackness by gaining the trust of bigots before smothering their racist babies in their proverbial cribs.

The following is a correspondence from one of the greatest double-agents in SCAN's 143 years of operation, a wily Ethiopian-born operative recruited by SCAN shortly after she came to this country under a flurry of international scrutiny.

She is SCAN's "Littlest" Agent: "Sally Selassie."
--------------------------------------------

Sally: This is Sally.

SCAN HQ: Are you safe?

Sally: We're OK to talk. I hotwired my Play Skool phone for Wi Fi. The Man suspects nothing. As always. The Woman, she is suspicious, but has no proof. She almost found last month's communique so I had to cram it down the toilet to cover my tracks. Things got messy, but I was able to blame it all on Pax.

The woman totally gave me a look that said she knew I was lying, yet she punished Pax anyway. As if that would break me. I'm from Ethiopia. You've got to come with harder shit than taking away the "Dora the Explorer" tape from my fake brother.

Then yesterday she thought she saw me messing with The Chosen One's baggage of Cheetos. I'd laced them with laxatives to keep The Woman distracted so I could run my communique to Connor Antony Cruise about getting his father to back an action movie based on Monica Rambeau starring Angela Bassett. She turned and offered me the bag. I could not afford to drop my cover.

So I ate them.

It was a very messy afternoon on the bayou.

As she paid someone else to wipe my ass I think she knew, but as always, she said nothing. She is a worthy foe. I respect her. But I will do what I have to if she gets in the way.

SCAN HQ: Higher ups wanted me to pass along that they've been impressed with your work thus far. Getting them to move to New Orleans to bring more attention to the 9th ward and other places ravaged by Katrina. Outstanding. Although finagling "A Mighty Heart" didn't quite go as planned.

Sally: The Woman insisted! I had to weigh the options. Let her look stupid with curly weave tracks and a bad accent or kill her and try to get adopted by Halle Berry.

There was only one option in that situation. Halle Berry is a terrible actress.

SCAN HQ: Tell me about.

Sally: She blows.

SCAN HQ: I mean, I know we're supposed to pretend to like her ...

Sally: It's OK. She's quite pretty just really, really bad, you know?

SCAN HQ: Before I got this job I had to work in SCAN's media library. Jesus, if I ever have to watch "Losing Isaiah" or "Queen" ever again. But I'm getting off message. Did you get package we sent? It should have come in the form of a "gift" from The Big O.

Sally: Oh, the invisible ink inside The Chosen One's teething rings and the sidewalk chalk for Maddox that's made out of Klonopin! Genius ... those were better than the candy necklace made out of razor wire and sulfur tablets. Helped me get rid of that nosy maid. No matter how many times The Woman told her I was lactose intolerant she still kept giving me unpasteurized goat's milk with my Oreos. No one fucks with my Oreos.

SCAN HQ: But what about the Pixie Stix blow darts, credit cards and Hello Kitty thumb drives we sent you? Those thumb drives are very important. We're trying to get the Jolie-Pitts to adopt a three-year-old double agent out of Haiti. He says he knows you. His name is Robespierre. He was the one with the Kermit shirt on at the Live Aid.

Sally: What? Those were in there? I didn't see it. The Woman! She must have taken them out before she handed me my stuffed bunny! But I could knock her unconscious if I dissolve some of the Klonopin chalk into her bottle of Fiji water.

SCAN HQ: No. No. They were inside the stuffed rabbit.

S. Sally: What? No!

SCAN HQ: You just need to cut its head off ...

Sally: Oh my God. Are you sick! She's innocent!

SCAN HQ: It's just a stuffed animal.

Sally: It? It! She has a NAME! She's from Build-A-Bear Workshop and her name is Zee Zee Hop!

SCAN HQ: Get it together, Sally.

Sally: You don't understand. You're not looking into her big black eyes, cuddling her fluffy ears! I don't wanna!

SCAN HQ: You knew the risks when you signed up for the job, Sally! This is for the sake of black people every where. You have to remember your mission: To push Hollywood to make decent movies for Angela Bassett. To make sure black interests get exposure through the Jolie-Pitts' celebrity over-exposure. And to make sure you grow up smart and strong and beautiful so you can someday lead your country to prosperity.

Sally: I don't wanna.

SCAN HQ: My God. Can it really be that hard? You just admitted to killing your maid over Oreos?

Sally: (Sniff) That was different. I didn't like her.

SCAN HQ: Just do it, OK. There's a pocket knife inside that X-Men toy we sent two weeks ago. Just slice it open with that.

Sally: I know what to use, Gary.

SCAN HQ: And you're not supposed to say my real name over the line.

Sally: I can tell from the tone of your voice that you've never loved and lost someone on a mission, Gary.

SCAN HQ: Sigh. We promise to send you another rabbit.

Sally: OK ... I want a pink one next time. And I want her wearing a tutu. And I want her name to be Ms. Chuckles. No ... Iman. No, no wait. Ms. Chuckles is better.

SCAN HQ: It's done.

Sally: I have to go now. The Woman is back from the set and I have to convince Pax to hop on his Sit n' Spin so I can recharge this phone. Oh, sweet Ororo Munroe. Why do all the good die young?

Lost Causes

Pictured here is SCAN's Afro-Italiano American Relations Ambassador Robert De Niro with official "lost cause," former heavyweight champ, Mike Tyson.

While SCAN never had formal ties with Tyson (we would avoid him mostly and say his application was still being processed), we did try to reach out to him when he officially became a publicly well-known Negro. Tragically, he didn't get pass page 7 of the 1990 edition of SCAN's Public Negro Handbook.

This was especially tragic considering having sex with women you barely know who are one year out from being underage is not advisable if one wants to avoid such things as rape charges.

And SCAN did offer him a chance to go into our treatment program in the Caymans, but that was a disaster, as he repeatedly upset the staff and challenged former patients Russell Tyrone Jones and NFL All-Star Laurence Taylor to fight him. The Taylor incident was especially disturbing considering it was an eerie portent of what was to come just a few months later.

Taylor was playing dominoes with Darryl Strawberry when Tyson walked over wanting to play. Taylor was still upset with Tyson for trying to break facility rules by swapping urine samples with him. Tyson then declared that if he couldn't play dominoes no one could, flipping the table. Strawberry tried to diffuse the situation, but he was still detoxing from an $8,000-a-day eight ball of cocaine habit. The most he could do was curl up in a ball in the corner of the rec room screaming about child support payments, shaking violently.

Tyson and Taylor grappled, causing considerable damage to the rec room. The fight ended when Tyson, having Taylor in a headlock, ripped out Taylor's custom "LT" lightning bolt earring with his teeth, tearing a hole in his ear. Taylor was so enraged that both he and Tyson had to sprayed with mace and shot with rubber bullets just to diffuse the situation.

While SCAN has been out of touch with Tyson since then, we sincerely hope that the horrible face tattoo was the last of his incredibly tragic behavior.

And despite the lower profile, the restraining order against him coming within 500 feet of any SCAN member remains. While he is pictured with De Niro above, De Niro is only an honorary member of SCAN working as a goodwill ambassador between the organization and our white brethren. So while awkward, their meeting at the opening of the new Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas over the weekend did not violate the court order.

But at De Niro's request we will be filing one on his behalf.

Passing is for suckers: Beyond the One-Drop-Rule

Not-black-black people clip of the week. From left to right, CNN reporter Soledad O'Brien, actor Wentworth Miller, CNN political reporter Suzanne Malveaux, and major league baseball star Grady Sizemore.

In a post one-drop-rule world, The Secret Council of American Negroes tips their hat to our successful, paler brothers and sisters who are in highly visible positions, behaving well, and not afraid to embrace the black along with the 20 other ethnicities flowing within them. These not-black-black-people are to be admired, unlike Nicole Richie, who is on notice to be voted out of the race. We've already sent her to black rehab a few times. She seems to be doing better with the help and money of her father Lionel Richie.

As for our not-black-black-people honorees:

Soledad O'Brien (who is too talented for CNN. We think CBS should fire Couric and get some Soledad in their lives) is Australian, Irish and Cuban and is a member of both the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association Hispanic Journalists.

Wentworth Miller is a little bit of everything, claiming African-American, English, Italian, German-Jewish and part Cheroke, Russian, French, Dutch and Lebanese as his ancestry (the more the merrier I suppose). While he plays "el hombre blanco" on "Prison Break," he openly claims his half-black heritage and was featured in the film adaptation of "The Human Stain." He was good. The rest of the film, not so good.

Suzanne Malveaux comes from the black elite, a descendant of educated and successful Louisiana coloreds. She is of African, Spanish and French descent. At CNN she's very hard-hitting and smart. She has no tolerance for filler or inane banter.

Grady Sizemore was one of the few baseball players who wore Jackie Robinson's number last year during the celebration of baseball breaking the color barrier. Many people were surprised to learn that Grady's "Jew-fro" was really an "afro." His background is less complex, his mother is white and his father is black.

Kim, You Are Not Black

To Kim Kardashian, we are sorry to inform you that you are not black. You are not even black by association. We know that black men are attracted to you and your posterior, which is considered ideal within the world of black beauty. But seriously. You don't get to be black just because your butt is round, you like to wear gaudy colors and you sleep with black men. If we didn't give Madonna an African American Express card in the 90s we aren't going to make a pass for you now.

Therefore we are sorry, but we have to deny your current application. We appreciate your present boyfriend, football star Reggie Bush's vouching, but he doesn't not have enough clout in SCAN to make that happen. Please try applying for a pass when your resume consists of more than a sex tape with Brandy Norwood's little brother and lots of cheap magazine, pre-coitus-esque spreads of you and your rear end.

Thank you.