Cecil Brown, white writers writing black material

Okay, since I was talking about Todd Bridges and John Hughes' inability to write blacks characters, here is a recent article by Cecil Brown on the Counterpunch website, Goodbye, White Friends!
"White People Aren't Into Black People Anymore"

http://www.counterpunch.com/brown04272010.html

Article mentions Clint Eastwood, Francis Ford Coppola, Morgan Freeman, Robert Altman, Richard Pryor, Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Louis Malle, Sean Connery, Johnny Depp, Heiner Muller, Volker Schlöndorff, Wim Wenders, Peter Aalbæk Jensen, Lars Von Tier and the Dogme bunch, Michael Moore, Bill Cosby, and finally, Melvin Van Peebles.

The article begins with a discussion of blacks with famous white friends who have stopped returning their calls.

Doesn’t it seem strange, even stupid, to expect Clint Eastwood to call you back? I personally would not have him in my address book. Not being that into his films to begin with — not since the movie about Charlie Parker’s life — I could not understand his disappointment. Why would he want to be friends with Clint Eastwood anyway? Clint, he insisted could really play the piano.

I yawned. Give me a break. I interviewed Clint on the set of "Bird," but to get the interview I had to wear a hassid wig and get in line with the extras.

But my friend is different. It just reminded me of the painful reality — many black people have famous white friends who don’t call them back any more.

And discussion on whites writing black characters:

The new black writers are not black, but white women. The novel that’s selling like hot cakes is a book by a white woman called “Helpers.”

When I sent my agent my book on my friend Richard Pryor, she wrote back that nobody’s interested in “Mr. Prior.”(Her spelling and her ignorance.) When she meant that if there is a book by a white guy who never met Richard that would be a book she’s interested in.

...

I still get return messages from some white friends, though it really doesn’t bother me. I know what the literary agencies are up to, and I know that white authors and playwrights and script writers write all black material. The public is not very discerning these days. Real Black people are not in—white guys writing about blacks are really in.