Your Black Woman: Sister, Can You Spare Some Class: Black Women in the Media

Sister, Can You Spare Some Class: Black Women in the Media
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer - YourBlackWorld.com

Who can argue with prophetic leader and political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal’s assessment that “Black women are the most disfavored of all the nation’s women?” Only a fool would. Black Women, historically, have had to endure the horror of living in a world that screams hatred from its four corners. Like piercing swords drilling a hole into one’s soul, many Black Women are subjected daily to inhumane attacks from the left, right, front, and back angles of society. White Men, whose historical role as the original Slave master still persists, hold steadfast control of the wheels of society and therefore decide in which direction wealth, prestige and honor are steered.

With a 2004 Government report documenting $30,134 as the median income for Black households, one is certain which course the national financial vehicle has traveled. Black men, once devoted protectors of Black Women, now function as “Slave-master surrogates,” in interaction with their sisters. Black Women also have a hard time with confronting the reality that “White feminists,” who recruited them in the 70s for the epic “Gender War,” never abhorred any desire to join hands in the fight for liberation from the shackles of White Male Supremacy. In addition to coming to grips with the rampant racism exhibited in many White feminist organizations, financially-disempowered Black Women also face the firey scorn of well-to-do Black Women who hypocritically blame them for the criminal conditions in whinh they exist. With such precedent, I ask again, who can argue with prophetic leader and political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal’s assessment that “Black women are the most disfavored of all the nation’s women?”

The controversies of Tawana Brawley and Anita Hill are explicit examples of the White Supremacist media’s hatred of Black Women. To hide this malevolence, one or two Black news anchors are employed (disproportionately meteorologists), but underneath, the evidence is as overt as Fox News’ bias. In the world of Mass Media, the role of Black Women has traditionally been dual-natured: “The stereotypical, angry black bitch” or “the regurgitating, self-hating, conservative mouth piece” – a la Amy Holmes & Tara Setmayer. Any other attribute is vetoed or outlawed. Fox News reporter, Cal Thomas, bore witness – though unknowingly – to this reality earlier this year. Thomas was quick to point out that Black Women of sophistication are a rare commodity on Television screens because of the White male supremacy culture that revels in the demonization and objectification of Black Women. Cal Thomas, a man of low intelligence, made a blunder, however, in confusing passion for anger:

“Look at the image of African American Women who are on television. Politically, you have Maxine Waters of California, liberal Democrat. She’s always angry every time she gets on television. Cynthia McKinney, the former Congresswoman from Georgia, was another angry black woman. And who are the black women you see on the local news at night in cities all over the country. They’re usually angry about something. They’ve had a son who has been shot in a drive-by shooting. They are angry at Bush. So you don’t really have a profile of non-angry black women.

With corporate America’s grip on Commercial Hip-Hop Culture tightening by the hour, the commodification of Black female bodies takes on a whole new context. It is no coincidence that Queen Latifah, who once embodied the symbolism of a Black goddess, is today, nothing but a sad spectacle to behold. The once-upon-a-time pro-Black militant-minded and feminist Queen Latifah has become a washed up Hollywood product, with an appetite for destruction. If Viacom and other big-name corporations within the Hip-Hop beltway were to exist unimpeded, Trina, Lil’ Kim and Remy Ma would represent the holy trinity of female artistry in Hip-Hop. But such inference would be problematic because, for every Trina, there once was a Nefertiti; for every Lil’ Kim, there once was a Moni Love; and for every Remy Ma, there once was a Lauryn Hill. Unfortunately, a self-respecting, knowledgeable and highly-educated female artist like Lauryn Hill is deemed radioactive in an industry built around the exploitation of diffident young Black Women.

Many younger Blacks are familiar with “Tip Drill,” and the horror of Hip-Hop music videos. In this particular video, the rapper Nelly is featured swiping a credit card down the gluteus maximus of a Video Vixen. As expected, this despicable act – deemed entertainment – was beyond the pale for certain Black female activists who perceived it as the last straw in their accommodation of misogyny in Hip-Hop. In 2004, Nelly was scheduled to visit the Black female College, Spelman, for a bone marrow drive. Unbeknownst to Nelly, a few Spelman students didn’t quite consider his music to be that “entertaining,” and had drafted a plan to see how much of a man he truly was. “The Spelman sisters,” as they’ve come to be known, challenged Nelly to a forum to address the issue of Black female Exploitation in Hip-Hop videos – particularly with regard to his video, “Tip Drill.” As one might imagine, Nelly swiftly turned down the offer, appearing to be more concerned with his image than the dire issue of bone-marrow transplants. The way the Spelman sisters figured, a bone-marrow drive is equally as essential as a healthy soul. The Spelman sisters sought to question the conscience and motive of a man who would openly denigrate the legacy of Black Women, but claim concern to the sector of their organism that guarantees blood circulation – hence, life.

The morally decrepit performance of artists like Nelly has granted ample leverage to White-controlled media channels such as Vh1 to promote shows that defile the integrity of Black Women. Vh1, a subsidiary of Viacom, has done more damage to the self-worth and decency of Black Women than any other channel in recent history. Vh1 has skillfully structured its programming in such a way that an untrained eye watching it might be misled into believing that Black Women are naturally promiscuous and adulterous. Some might even fall victim to the lie that the availability of young Black Women on Vh1 reality shows is ample proof of culpability or willingness, but such inference would suggest that if those same Black Women were paid the exact share of incentives to appear on a morally upright and spiritually nurturing show, they would decline instantaneously. By this measure, it’s presumably evident that White male executives of big media are easily satisfied with a Black female constituency whose preoccupation with self-deprecation runs afoul of the legacies of Fannie Lou Hamer, Harriet Tubman, Barbara Jordan, Rosa Parks, and Callie House.

It is no surprise that the same media which revels in the destruction of Black female identity seeks to fulfill the same with today’s most important Black female: Michelle Obama. More disturbing is the reality that Michelle, like prominent Black public figures before her, lacks the confidence – there’s certainly the willingness – to, quite simply, be herself and refuse the Obama camp’s incessant attempts at recreating her into a “submissive, all-American first lady.” One thing is for certain, however: Black folks of consciousness have their work cut out for them. For Change is not an empty rhetorical stunt, but rather a fortified, systematic dismantling of a historical structure – especially one which has oppressed, repressed, depressed and suppressed the hopes of a mighty race.

Reposted From Black Commentator

Brother, Can You Spare Some Class: Black Men In The Media

Brother, Can You Spare Some Class: Black Men in the Media
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer - YourBlackWorld.com

On October 15th, Comedy Central is slated to premier a “satirical fake news show” called, Chocolate News. David Alan Grier, most famous for his many characters in the ‘90s hit sketch comedy series In Living Color, will be the host. The show is reported to be a cultural spin-off of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, but judging from the released trailers, Comedy Central is aiming for a much different objective. The scene is an all too familiar one. The trailers feature Grier, like past Black comics before him, dressed up in feminine outfits, yelling at the top of his voice, acting erratically, and operating in an incoherent shuffle. It is as though this long national nightmare, of which President Ford spoke, is far from over.

In early 2005, Chappelle’s Show, Comedy Central’s most popular series at the time, received a set-back from production because Dave Chappelle, star of the show, had come to a sobering conclusion that he did not wish for his soul to be purchased at the price of corporate America’s offer. As the legend tells itself, Dave Chappelle turned down $50 million – the allotted price for the third season – and escaped to South Africa for a “spiritual retreat.” Comedy Central, uneasy about the kind of message being sent to Black boys and girls across the globe, initially spun Chappelle’s departure into a battle with the flu, but subsequently reoriented it to suggest a meltdown of insanity and eccentricity.

Dave Chappelle, upon a return to The States, informed TV icon Oprah Winfrey, that he was motivated to halt production of his ultra successful show because it had grown increasingly “socially irresponsible.” In response to the growing concern from within the Black Community, vis-à-vis his many overtly stereotypical sketches, Chappelle remarked that he didn’t want “black people to be disappointed in me for putting that [message] out there. … It's a complete moral dilemma.” What an unusual and unprecedented act of solidarity and candor.

What Dave Chappelle understood, quite explicitly, is the depth to which images matter. Dave Chappelle, unlike his counterparts, has a concerted knowledge of history and is aware of the degree to which Minstrel shows, in the past, have damaged the quality of life for Black folks worldwide. For Chappelle, stoking the flame of suffering would be unforgivable and unacceptable. If contemporary Black comedians, artists and entertainers in general, possess a similar amount of self-worth, the world would undoubtedly be a much better place for Black people. Veteran Black Panther activist and presently incarcerated political prisoner, Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin a/k/a “H. Rap Brown,” once noted that in the stadium on entertainment, Blacks “dominate the field,” but stop short of actually “controlling” it. In essence, commercial Hip-Hop artists foolishly parade around with diamond-encrusted slave chains on their necks, but ultimately realize who the “master” is.

Hip-Hop, a musical genre constructed from the agonizing and cruel conditions of inner-city life, has now morphed into a safe-haven for over-sexed men, over-sexed women, cutthroats, pimps, promiscuous females, testosterone-filled adolescents, capitalists, criminal international bankers, government agents, drug-dealers etc. What once represented, as Public Enemy founder Chuck D put it, the “CNN for black people,” is now a disseminator of filth, uncleanliness and impurity. Corporate Black male rappers – powered by big name industries – operate like cranked-up robots whose sole purpose is the further degradation of Black women. With the much publicized studies claiming 72% of Hip-Hop’s consumers to be White kids, with 80% of that being suburban White females, one wonders for whom the proverbial “studio gangsters” flex their steroid-laden muscles.

The triple evils of BET, VH1 and MTV have wreaked more havoc – in the 21st century – upon the Black psyche than at any other period in entertainment history. Under the umbrella of Viacom, owned by the 85-year-old White Sumner Redstone, BET, VH1 and MTV have risen to great heights as the primary source of amusement for the 18-35 demographic. Even more foul is the reality that BET – also know also known as “Black Evil Television” or “Black Embarrassment Television” – has extended that margin to accommodate, through marketing schemes, kids as young as 9 years. old.

Like every rotten apple, BET was once a ripe beacon of illumination and intellectual stimulation. At a certain period in its formation, the now withering BET entertained a diversity of programs and a line-up embroiled in novelty. As the late Notorious B.I.G. once quipped, “Damn, sh-- done changed.” With long-axed variety shows including, “Our Voices with Bev Smith,” “BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley,” “BET Tonight with Ed Gordon,” “BET Nightly News,” “Teen Summit” and “Lead Story,” it seemed odd that Black Entertainment Television would, in a pathetic move, attempt to substantiate the magnitude of such loss with the addition of a weekly half-hour political talk show, hosted by noted activist, Jeff Johnson. In 2007, many activists in the Black Community grew weary of BET’s stubborn reluctance to feed its viewers healthy material, and therefore employed numerous avenues to send a strong message of resistance to the corporate monsters – mostly white – whose programming decisions are wiping out the consciousness of an entire generation.

One of such activists, Opio Osokoni, created an international “Turn off Channel Zero” (TOCZ) movement in mid 2007. Through a self-produced documentary, Osokoni searched for answers to the over-saturation of Black male buffoonery on Viacom and the mainstream media at large. The documentary featured a panel of acclaimed activists such as Public Enemy member Professor Griff, Hip Hop journalist Davey D, Last Poet's Abiodun Oyewole and Morgan State University Professor Ray Winbush. In less than 80 minutes, Turn off Channel Zero was able to accomplish what most mega-budget Hollywood scripts constantly fail in fulfilling. It exposed the corporate characters that pull the strings behind big media companies.

One intriguing development was the fact that most of those forces, who now sit atop the Hip-Hop and “urban” industry, are Caucasian or non-black. These corporate criminals are, without a doubt, the chief culprits in the continual cheapening of the Black Community’s integrity. With the stroke of a pen, they have outlawed positive/uplifting imagery, and promoted – with full force – the incessant caricature of Black life that has grown into a normative state on most entertainment and News channels. Rosa Clemente, V.P. nominee of the Green Party, spoke out eloquently against this reality in a 2005 protest of the Hip-Hop station, Hot 97. “Believe me, when you look at Emmis.com, and you see the 7 top executives of Emmis Communication, they are all white men over the age of 50, programming poison to our children,” Clemente said. “As a new mother, with a two-month old, I refuse to let these companies, these corporations, call my daughter a bitch, a hoe, a nigger. It’s over. It’s not about ‘free speech.’ It’s about your peddling drugs into the mind of our community. What you do is addicting our children to violence.” Another sobering finding, that TOCZ uncovered, is the reality that White corporate executives have always found – and would always find – Black males who would readily submit themselves for the usage of the devil.

Many older Blacks are familiar with Stepin' Fetchit and the horror of minstrel shows. White directors, in the 1800s, formulated a plan to keep their pale-faced audiences everlastingly entertained. The way they figured it, if Black men soon resolved their internal battle with self-hatred/self esteem and decided to abruptly refuse the role of “lawn jockey” for White-owned media production companies, white actors could simply darken their faces with cosmetic products and perform in a way they believed was natural to Black people – that of drunkenness, laziness, ignorance and incompetence. Luckily for the swine, locating Black men who perceived their prime objective in life to be that of lackeys and coons for White satisfaction has proved to be no daunting task.

In the ‘70s, CBS found it amusing to promote a sitcom called “Good Times.” The premise of the show was apparently to propagate the concept that a family with unpaid bills, horrible living conditions, insufficient food, and domestic commotion was somehow dwelling in “Good Times.” As expected, the cast of gifted characters was incomplete without a silly-acting son whose self-obsession, poor taste and preoccupation with promiscuity was accommodated, and sometimes encouraged, by the loving, yet misaligned set of parents. It was also in the ‘70s that NBC ‘made a killing’ with the variety show, The Flip Wilson Show. A show which, amongst other factors, was most popular for the Geraldine Jones skit, featuring the host, Clerow Wilson Jr. reduced to the role of a sharp-tongued black woman who was devoid of any sense of personal responsibility and always retorted – when caught – “The devil made me do it!”

This phenomenon of Black men unashamedly embracing offers that require appearances in dresses and drags have blossomed into a cash-magnet enterprise. Tyler Perry (Madea) and Martin Lawrence (Big Momma’s House), two very famous comedians, are perhaps the most treasonous in reprising self-imposed roles, where the mocking and open denigration of Black women (whether consciously or subconsciously) is entertained as “humor.” It is somewhat ironic that these two acts are most beloved by Black women, whose mass consumption of “mammy-like” stereotypes helped make Perry and Lawrence instant multi-millionaires.

It is no surprise that the same media which revels in the destruction of Black male identity seeks to fulfill the same with today’s most important Black male: Sen. Barack Obama. More disturbing is the reality that Sen. Obama, like prominent Black public figures before him, is too uninformed to acknowledge the degree to which such acquiescence would redound toward the disadvantage of generations to come after him. One thing is for certain however: Black folks of consciousness have work cut out for them. For Change is not a cheap political exercise, but rather a unified hegemonic force against a system of convention.

Reposted From Black Commentator