By Colby Malsbury

Well, another year is upon us.

And you know what that means.

Yes, it’s time for that most gruesome of online traditions to get under way – the commencement of the 2022 Celebrity Death Watch Pool. With the withered old harridan Betty White deigning to open the festivities in the closing hours of last year, it promises to be a lucrative game indeed. Who had Bob Saget in the first two weeks of January, again?

Even these two luminaries, though, haven’t been able to top the (admittedly early) Grand Mack Daddy of all the Luciferian passings thus far, though – iconic black actor and honorary grand marshal of Wakanda’s Rose Bowl parade for half a century running Sidney Poitier, who died at age 94 on January 6^th. It is unconfirmed whether or not he had been vaccinated, but it seems to be erring on the side of caution to presume that he indeed had been. But as that obviously has no bearing on anything whatsoever, just as fellow black demigod Hank Aaron’s vaccination did not, we shall move on.

It should come as no surprise – at least not to Gen-X and older readers – that the accolades being awarded to Poitier upon his demise tend towards the….hyperbolic. Typical is the encomium offered by Variety: Sidney Poitier was the single most important actor in American history. Not the best actor, mind you – just the most important. This grandiose bit of flattery rests on his status as the first black Hollywood actor to be regularly cast in leading roles….or, better said, as the first black Hollywood actor to be carried through a picture as a token by an A-list white actor, until his oft-reiterated designation of ‘importance’ by the 1960s compelled white audiences to attend his movies out of a sense of guilty duty, thus enabling him to carry a picture himself. ‘Duty’ being the operative word there. For Poitier has always struck this reviewer as being a thoroughly unlikable and unappealing leading man. If white blue-collar and agrarian moviegoers of mid-century had to suffer the ‘charms’ of black thesping at some point, one would think they would recall the comedic antics of Stepin “Oh Lawds!” Fetchit with a lot more fondness. But, of course, he wasn’t “important”.

“Well, you’re just being racist!!!” says Justin Trudeau. “He was a much-beloved icon!” Beloved and iconic by whose standards? By the paying public, or by studio (((moguls))) who, eager to get a few prestige pictures cranked out every year, put Poitier into every project they conceivably could, shot said projects in widescreen black-and-white for an extra mood of gravitas, and waited for the Academy Awards to come a-rollin’ in? In that sense, I guess he was the most important actor of all time. He certainly was the bellwether letting white Christian America know that their preferences in entertainment were about to be rendered entirely nil for one and all times.

Of course, in the 50s and 60s you couldn’t hope to usher in cinematic depictions of future white displacement with any run-of-the-mill Negro found mouldering on a dark corner of Watts, with poorly Marcelled hair and a surreptitiously hidden syringe containing cheap elixir in a coat pocket. So Poitier most certainly was an articulate and bright and clean and nice-looking guy, as Joe Biden might have said about him, and probably tried to do so in his hackneyed Twitter eulogy before a staffer reminded him that schtick had already been done. Being born of parents from the ‘civilized’ Bahamas rather than from the ghettos of Detroit, Kingston, or Kinshasa proved advantageous. His round face, full cheeks, pearly whites, and sensible head of hair – all enhanced in effect by the aforementioned pretentious black-and-white cinematography in the “important” movies he was wont to star in – certainly made him a most inviting and non-threatening anti-white revolutionary. A revolutionary of a sort who would be gladly embraced by the Greatest Generation’s preponderance of affluent, newly-suburbanized liberals – the kind who kept the similarly bland revolutionary author James Michener on the best-seller lists throughout the same period.

“Well, but you have to admit he had acting talent!” I do?

Like several other mid-century Hollywood actors, Poitier got his start in theater – in his case, the American Negro Theater. Unlike many of those other actors, Poitier never seemed able to transcend his theatrical origins. His entire bit seemed to be the creation of the persona of the Angry Yet Eloquent Young Negro – intense stare, gritted teeth, forceful enunciation of mildly ebonic phrases like ‘Man’ and ‘don’t give me that jive’ – but delivered in a very stagy and hammy style, as though he was playing Othello in Harlem. Over a fairly lengthy career, Poitier never saw fit to alter his trademark vaudeville act much at all. And sure, while it might be appropriate for a socially just ‘message’ movie like 1961’s A Raisin in the Sun – which had Broadway origins to begin with – it becomes more than a bit ridiculous to see him using this exact same technique in the twilight of his career, when he was taking supporting roles in wannabe summer blockbusters like 1997’s Bruce Willis-starring The Jackal. But only the likes of blackface and Amos n Andy are allowed to be vilified as outdated and cringeworthy African-American tropes. Always remember that.

Needless to say, Poitier’s filmography is one long – dare I say unbroken – record of blatant anti-white propaganda. Quite the accomplishment, and one that can be considered one of the more effective strategic psy-ops in Hollywood history. A partial listing of examples:

Blackboard Jungle (1955). Poitier stars as a wayward Negro youth in a fully integrated NYC vocational school. While the white juvenile delinquents are presented as irredeemably destructive and worthy of the penitentiary, Poitier’s character is allowed to be redeemed ( and feted as a natural “leader”) by movie’s end by liberal gadfly ‘I care!’ teacher Glenn Ford. Poitier is also clad in a dazzling white t-shirt throughout the movie. None-too-subtle symbolism of his purified and angelic status?

Something of Value (1957). Poitier is a Kenyan involved in that country’s hideous Mau Mau uprising against white settlers. Rock Hudson co-stars as his former childhood friend who sees fit at the film’s climax to beg and mewl Poitier to show a little mercy towards them thar ignorant whites while promising whites will do better next time, rather than blasting the murderous brute into a better place. Given Hudson’s infamy regarding his sexual proclivities thirty years later, perhaps his casting provided a bit of sterile Caucasian subtext the filmmakers were delighted to have associated with their product.

The Defiant Ones (1958). One of the definitive movies of Poitier’s career. Remade multiple times, its basic theme featured in untold movies to this day. 48 Hours, anyone? Lethal Weapon? Independence Day? Hell, even Rush Hour? A well-known tale of two convicts on the lam, one black and one white, handcuffed together and forced to cooperate to save the both of them, despite their mutual animosity. Gets extra points of risibility for having the chutzpah to cast Brooklyn-born Khazar Bernard Schwartz – sorry, I mean “Tony Curtis” – as the racist Southern redneck white component of this dynamic duo.

Porgy and Bess (1959). All-black musical in which cocaine use and prostitution are major subplots. But it’s a ‘light’ movie, so don’t take that bit of reality too seriously. Major box-office disaster that put an end to independent producer Samuel Goldwyn’s career. Who says there is no justice in this world? Near-impossible to find today – a victim of Song of the South Syndrome. Hasn’t stopped the original Gershwin play from being revived on Broadway, though.

A Raisin in the Sun (1961). Another one of Poitier’s signature roles. All-black kitchen sink drama focusing on a tenement-dwelling ghetto family and their sudden chance to get ahead. Sid is the hotheaded son who despises The Man for always Keeping Him Down, and wants to use the money from a life insurance check to open a liquor store. A harbinger of LBJ’s Great Society? Poitier is at the peak of his nostril-flaring Angry Yet Eloquent Negro game here, although his many monologues keep threatening to lapse into his native Bahamian accent.

Lilies of the Field (1963). Poitier stars as a virile black handyman who builds a church and provides groceries for a trio of utterly incompetent white nuns – all recent emigres from Eastern Europe. And this, friends and neighbors, is how we will prevail in the Cold War! Did I mention that the nuns want the church and groceries to minister to the local Mexican population? Well, they do. A faux-Christian movie that doubtless many a church group was suckered into herding its unwilling charges into going and seeing back in the day. Also the movie that won Poitier his only Oscar. So you know there’s definitely no agenda at play here.

The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). Poitier has a plummy cameo as Simon of Cyrene, the man who carried Jesus’s cross to Calvary. Can you even? Because I sure can’t even. Let’s move on.

The Slender Thread (1965). Magical Negro Poitier is a hotline operator who talks despondent white woman Anne Bancroft out of suicide.

A Patch of Blue (1965). Magical Negro Poitier turns on the charm to a blind white woman, and she falls for him. Cuz she don’t see no color, geddit? Her decidedly unmagical bigoted mother disapproves. As might be apparent, by the mid-60s Hollywood was getting a bit brazen in ushering the agenda into the Middle American zeitgeist.

1967 would see Poitier’s peak of influence, with a triumvirate of transglobalism:

To Sir With Love (1967). In this one, Poitier’s negritude is of such epic proportions that it cannot be contained on these shore – he must take the magic to Britain! To give dispossessed white youths in London’s East End hope by teaching them in a publik skool, naturally. And this, friends and neighbors, is how we’ll win the American Revolution, I guess. Did I mention all the white girls find “Yassuh” dreamy? Particularly Lulu, who felt compelled to croon a maudlin ballad his way that became a major pop hit? Though given the rather overreaching passion with which she belts it out, perhaps ‘To Sir With Lust’ would be a more apt title.

In the Heat of the Night (1967). Poitier’s most famous role, as transplanted Philadelphia detective Virgil Tibbs, in the deep South to help the residents of a small Mississippi town investigate a murder, despite the machinations of the local rayciss police chief to hinder him at every possible opportunity. Jurisdictional issues, anyone? Oh, who cares. Let me tell you, this one really pulls out all the hate-whitey punches. See a rayciss plantation owner slap Sid after being accused as an accessory, only to have Sid slap him back twice as hard! See a degenerate white redneck pressure his sister into getting a back alley abortion before Sid rides to her rescue! See, at movie’s end, the rayciss police chief relegated to carrying Sid’s bag for him to his train, and bidding him a cheery farewell in the process! Little wonder this New Left manifesto copped a Best Picture Oscar. Sid himself missed out on a nomination for the acting statuette, but his co-star Rod Steiger – not Jewish himself, but who played Khazars on screen constantly in this era and afterwards – was no doubt delighted to take home that honor himself for his portrayal of Chief Cuck of Carpetbagger Falls. Poitier would go on to star in a couple of sequels in the 70s reprising his Tibbs character. He didn’t make it to the pantheon which housed Shaft, Superfly, and Blacula, but it wasn’t for lack of effort.

Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner? (1967). I suppose you’ve probably heard of this one, too. The theme first blatantly introduced in A Patch of Blue finds its full measure here, as chipper Sid is about to marry his lily-white fiance, and her liberal parents are all in a tizzy about whether they should shake his hand or high-five him upon their first meeting. Despite the fact that this thing plays like an episode of Marcus Welby, MD today – and not a particularly good episode, either – it is currently streaming on Netflix. Guess effective brainwashing never goes out of style. Bonus points for bringing in the most familiar on-screen white couple of old Hollywood – Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy – for a ritual humiliation that symbolized a true passing of the cinematic guard. Not that either one cared, mind you. Hepburn picked up her second Oscar for this – she won her third Oscar the year after, which suggests the Academy was especially grateful to her for her sacrifice to Moloch – and Tracy picked up a nomination himself and comfortably died thereafter. And they all lived happily ever after. Too bad other whites didn’t.

Buck and the Preacher (1972), Uptown Saturday Night (1974), Let’s Do It Again (1975), A Piece of the Action (1977). A quartet of Poitier-starring comedies – the first one being a Western! – notable for two reasons: he stepped into the director’s chair for all of them, and they all co-star Bill Cosby. How’s that for taking the cringe factor up a notch? In all four, they co-star as con men out for a quick buck. Thus, these also all double nicely as a documentary record of both of their careers. Poitier would later try to recreate the magic in 1990 by directing (but not appearing with) Cliff Huxtable in Ghost Dad, which proved to be somewhat less “groundbreaking” than Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner was.

Little Nikita (1988). Sid’s an FBI agent doing a background check on talented teen River Phoenix before he joins the Air Force. He discovers that River’s parents are sleeper agents planted in the US by the Soviet Union decades before. Sid stops a “rogue” Soviet agent from silencing said parents, and the family is allowed to continue its domestic tranquility in peace. How inspiring. Though pretty long in the tooth by this point, Poitier was still considered the standard of progressivism sufficiently to do his part in promoting the faux-freedom policy of glasnost. Pity the movie bombed spectacularly and marked the beginning of the end of Poitier’s career. Racism!

Separate But Equal (1991). Poitier plays Thurgood Marshall. Nuff said.

Carrying the water for the New World Order so faithfully over the decades certainly paid dividends for Poitier, as he was feted with every achievement fallen man could concoct to honor those whom the world loves. An honorary Oscar. The Presidential Medal of Freedom – awarded by Obama, naturally. Treacly ghostwritten bestsellers. (The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography. Gag.) A knighthood, for Pete’s sake – despite being born in Miami and thus attaining immediate American citizenship, Poitier’s Bahamian parents apparently were sufficient reason for Elizabeth to introduce ol’ Sid to the guardianship of the Realm in 1974, and nary a peep was heard from anyone Stateside about the violation of the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause. The Ambassadorship from the Bahamas to Japan, despite the fact that his primary residence was Los Angeles for the remainder of his life. Being the inspiration for the comic book character Green Lantern. And, of course, the greatest catch of all for one of his hue: a white trophy wife. In this case, Canadian-Lithuanian actress Joanna Shimkus, his second wife of 45 years – from 1976 until his death. Sid also managed to sire two children with her three years before tying the knot. Wonder if the church groups that swarmed to see Lilies of the Field ever took notice of that?

All these vanities ultimately proved for naught, though, as Poitier professed a kind of agnostic pantheism for his “religion” – declaring on Oprah in 2000 that he believed in a “oneness with everything”. Poitier is now in a position to realize how much in error he was. For if he stood before God and belted out his prideful catchphrase “They call me Mr. Tibbs!”, God’s answer would likely have been short yet eloquent: “I Am not they.”