COCO CAY, Bahamas – Comedienne Kim Whitley was trash talking as she stepped onto the gorgeous white beach armed with a water gun the size of a grenade launcher. Rainforest Films cofounder Will Packer, a brown-skinned man of normal good disposition, was braced for war. Hollywood heartthrob Mekhi Pfeiffer had a devilish gleam in his eye and a water rifle aimed at some poor soul’s noggin.
Thousands of swimsuit-clad African Americans poured onto the tiny beach island not far off the eastern coast of South Florida for one of the most anticipated events of the Tom Joyner Fantastic Voyage: the famous water gunfight between light-skinned and dark-skinned blacks.
Joyner told everyone he was getting an unfair advantage when he ordered the light-skinned people to line up and get their weapons first. But his adversary, comedian J. Anthony Brown and the commander of the brown-skinned brigade, wasn’t concerned.
It was the aptly-named Brown who thought the event would be a wonderful outing.
“I pitched it to Tom [Joyner]; I thought it would be great idea,” said the comedian-actor-entrepreneur. “We always do the light skin [versus] dark skin thing on the radio a lot — like we’re the field negro and [Joyner is] the house negro. So it seemed to be perfect to have a light-skinned [versus] dark-skinned water fight. And [Joyner] said, ‘Oh, let’s try it.’”
Contrary to what some believed was a political message attached to the event — that Joyner was mocking the ridiculousness of the light-skinned/dark-skinned phenomenon — Brown said the idea was to end the final day of the 7-day cruise on a high note. Mission accomplished.
“No, it’s not a way to mock anything. It’s just another avenue of fun. You can’t make it more than it is,” Brown said. “It’s light-skinned versus the dark-skinned — however you wish to separate them. It could be the boys versus the girls. But some people take it seriously. They come with some big guns. And they love it.”
Yes, they do.
Whitley and a throng of beach partiers were still battling blissfully long after Joyner called off the war with a massive dark skin/light skin unity dance in the middle of the beach. —terry shropshire
