Let me give you a glimpse of the real Harry Belafonte, which has been hiding in plain sight since the 1990s.

Film maker Robert Altman- known by most people for his film M*A*S*H- made movies which employed overlapping dialogue, much of it improvised.

One of the films made by Altman (which is often overlooked even by film buffs) is his 1996 Kansas City about gangland activities in that town in the 1930s.

Harry Belafonte is in this film, and much of his dialogue is improvised. Altman let Belafonte be himself, to the extent it fit into the film.

In this film, one line from Belafonte is a commentary on movies. He says "Movies. White people sit around all day thinking up that shit. And then they believe it!” This is an improvised line. It is Harry Belafonte speaking.

But, it pales in comparison to a joke Belafonte tells in the film, also improvised:

"Did I ever tell you the story about Marcus Garvey, a Jew and a White man?

Well, they were shipwrecked on this island, and one day, they was walkin' along the beach and they found themselves this whiskey bottle, and they started to brush the sand off the bottle and out comes this genie. And the genie says 'I been here for four thousand years and I want to thank y'all for lettin' me out. Anything you want! One wish.'

So, he turns to Garvey and Garvey says 'Well, I would like all the Black people in the world to go back to Africa and live forever.'

And he turned to the Jew and said 'What do you want?' and the Jew said 'Well, I would like to have all the Jews in the world go back to the Holy Land and live forever.'

Then, he turned to the crackah and he said to him 'What you want?' and the crackah said 'Wait a minute! You mean you got all the niggers in the world in Africa, and you got all the kikes in the world in the Holy Land?'

And the genie says 'Yeah' and he says 'Well, then, shit! Give me a martini!'"


That was Harry Belafonte.