ROGER SIMON: I Dreamt of Richard Pryor Last Night.

I wonder what Richard would have made of critical race theory, Black Lives Matter, and all that.

As far as I could tell there wasn’t a racist bone in his body. Like the best comedians—and he was the best—he was an equal opportunity destroyer. I recall practically falling on the floor in laughter when he imitated a black person and white person walking through the woods.

The obvious subtext of what to me was his best movie—“Stir Crazy” with the also brilliant Gene Wilder—was that a black guy and a white guy could love each other. Who makes a movie like that these days?

Who lives a life like that these days? Well, a few of us still, but the world is conspiring against us.

Another factor that may have been running around in my head when I had this dream was the treatment of Senator Tim Scott after he had the honesty to declare, during his speech after Biden’s tedious litany of social engineering, that “systemic racism” did not exist in our country.

The “Uncle Tim” hashtag onslaught that immediately appeared on Twitter was but another display of pathological hate on a noxious social media outlet that has long since outlived its usefulness.

How would Richard have reacted to all this? Of course, I can’t say. I want to believe he would’ve thought it all an apt subject for satire, but the sad truth is that many of the most creative and insightful black people (cf. Morgan Freeman) have been forced to walk back sensible statements by the victimology-addicted people in their community and their white elitist allies.

I never thought I’d say it but…. oh, for 1980.

Much less opportunity for corporate grift in a world where we judge men by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Speaking of which, guess which famous quote by Martin Luther King isn’t present on the walls of his iconic DC memorial.