The Gantt Report - I’ve heard people say that the whole world loves a clown. However, I guess the love depends on the location of the circus and the nature of the Big Top!

A friend of mine was talking to me recently about circus animals. He compared circus tigers to America’s Negro leaders.

You know a tiger is supposed to be a ferocious man-eating animal. Webster’s dictionary also describes a tiger as a cruel or aggressive person.

Why would anyone suggest that certain Negro leaders are tigers? Perhaps it is because some Negro leaders only show up in Black communities when its time to perform!

A circus tiger can run around the circus ring. A circus tiger can leap from circus block to circus block. A circus tiger can even jump through a hoop of fire.

But when the circus performance is over, a circus tiger will take his lazy *** back to the cage where the ringmaster says he belongs!

Hmmm! Is it just me or have you seen some Black people behave in that manner?

Everyday ringmasters, better known as white media folk, are quick to call on certain Negroes when they want a quote about a racial slur or a false rape accusation and the Negroes can’t turn down an interview request, an invitation to appear on CNN or a chance to perform on radio or television.

Oh, the performances by Negro leaders are Oscar and Emmy winning shows.

However, we don’t need circus tigers, zoo lions or tamed wolf packs to comment about what happens in the Black community or what happens to Black people. They talk about how bad the situation or the activity in question is, tuck their tiger tails and run as fast as they can back to their cages in suburbia.

If urban neighborhoods are considered concrete jungles, it would behoove us to seek out and to identify jungle tigers to fight for what we need in life.

I suffered an injury not too long ago that resulted in some minor brain damage but it seems like my memory is recalling that Martin Luther King protested for days in certain cities. The Freedom Riders registered people to vote in Southern States for months and months. Even Malcolm X stuck around to talk with people after he made a speech somewhere instead of running back to his limo and driving to his hotel room to count the money that was collected.

Why can’t the news media give more talk time and credibility to Black people that Black people believe in, want to hear and want to follow?

The best Black commentary is not on the Don Imus Show, The Bill O’Rielly Show or on Fox News.

If you want to know what African-Americans really think, subscribe to a Black-owned newspaper or visit a web site that posts a variety of opinions by Black writers.

No doubt, the circus is fun but circus tigers are not funny! A circus tiger at the circus can’t fight and a Negro leader that acts like a circus tiger won’t fight!

A circus tiger is nothing more than an imperialist pet. You better hand him a hot dog or a piece of bacon because that is the only way he can get something to eat.

Tiger Woods is more of a tiger than those pussycats that always show up on national television and radio news networks to comment about Black issues. (Gantt’s new book “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing” is coming soon. Contact Lucius at www.allworldconsultants.net)