Lost Causes

Pictured here is SCAN's Afro-Italiano American Relations Ambassador Robert De Niro with official "lost cause," former heavyweight champ, Mike Tyson.

While SCAN never had formal ties with Tyson (we would avoid him mostly and say his application was still being processed), we did try to reach out to him when he officially became a publicly well-known Negro. Tragically, he didn't get pass page 7 of the 1990 edition of SCAN's Public Negro Handbook.

This was especially tragic considering having sex with women you barely know who are one year out from being underage is not advisable if one wants to avoid such things as rape charges.

And SCAN did offer him a chance to go into our treatment program in the Caymans, but that was a disaster, as he repeatedly upset the staff and challenged former patients Russell Tyrone Jones and NFL All-Star Laurence Taylor to fight him. The Taylor incident was especially disturbing considering it was an eerie portent of what was to come just a few months later.

Taylor was playing dominoes with Darryl Strawberry when Tyson walked over wanting to play. Taylor was still upset with Tyson for trying to break facility rules by swapping urine samples with him. Tyson then declared that if he couldn't play dominoes no one could, flipping the table. Strawberry tried to diffuse the situation, but he was still detoxing from an $8,000-a-day eight ball of cocaine habit. The most he could do was curl up in a ball in the corner of the rec room screaming about child support payments, shaking violently.

Tyson and Taylor grappled, causing considerable damage to the rec room. The fight ended when Tyson, having Taylor in a headlock, ripped out Taylor's custom "LT" lightning bolt earring with his teeth, tearing a hole in his ear. Taylor was so enraged that both he and Tyson had to sprayed with mace and shot with rubber bullets just to diffuse the situation.

While SCAN has been out of touch with Tyson since then, we sincerely hope that the horrible face tattoo was the last of his incredibly tragic behavior.

And despite the lower profile, the restraining order against him coming within 500 feet of any SCAN member remains. While he is pictured with De Niro above, De Niro is only an honorary member of SCAN working as a goodwill ambassador between the organization and our white brethren. So while awkward, their meeting at the opening of the new Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas over the weekend did not violate the court order.

But at De Niro's request we will be filing one on his behalf.