Whatever else you say about Mezz (a person with faults and ideosyncracies, and he wasn't a great musician), it was natural for him to try to be one of the people he admired so much. I cannot find him crazy for that, but it is the bizarre culture surrounding him that
could admire black music, steal from black musicians and stand by while black people were systematically mistreated in every
conceivable way. That Mezz was a person of Jewish descent makes it even more understandable.
That contradiction in the mainstream white U.S. American culture must have been hard to bear for anyone with any sensitivity. I suspect Bix it felt it more than most.