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Stop whining about the media! | page 1, 2
When it comes to comedy, well, comedy is usually about buffoonery in an American context, since wit and humor wrapped in sophistication are not thought to play from coast to coast as well as do dumb jokes and heavy-handed slapstick. Ergo, UPN, or, as Spike Lee calls it, "You People's Network." Let us now go to the world of television news, which is supposed to be one of the greatest offenders when it comes to concerted efforts to depict black people in a negative light. But in most cities you will see black people working on the news staff, either as anchors or reporting on a wide array of stories, from local to national politics, the stock market to the weather, the world of entertainment to the world of health. You will also see many black people in high positions of authority in local and national government either giving interviews or holding press conferences. Yes, you will see some young Negro guys with their pants falling off, their caps turned backward, their hands cuffed behind them and their heads getting pushed down as they are put into the back seats of police cars. From what I can tell, given the amount of crime black people have to suffer -- 50 percent of the murders, for instance -- the coverage doesn't seem disproportionate. And none of the people who are so disturbed by these negative images of young black people complain about them in the venue where they are most common: not in television news, but in black pop music videos. Andy Razaf, the great lyricist and partner of Fats Waller, could be talking about MTV, VH1, BET and the lowest of rap when he wrote in 1939, "The Negro race offers a gold mine of humorous, dramatic, and romantic material, having its share of heroes, adventurers, pioneers, martyrs, scientists, inventors, scholars, athletes, and artists in American and world history. Yet writers and producers continue to portray us as a race of clowns, flunkies, cowards, and degenerates." What better way to describe the rap world's monkey-moving, gold-chain wearing, illiteracy-spouting, penis-pulling, sullen, combative buffoons and their promoters of freelance prostitution, like Lil' Kim? But the anti-negative-image lobby invariably punks out when it comes to addressing its gangster brothers and sisters, who are supposed to be "keepin' it real." To me, however, the images in the mainstream media are more real than the misogynistic nihilism and hardcore whorishness of rap video. The reason TV news producers get blamed for projecting negative black images when rap producers are never blamed for their part in this mess is that old double standard formed by cowardice. It's easy to blame the white folks all the time, since their sins are well-documented, past and present. But to stand up to the enemy within the group takes a little bit of courage, something we rarely see out here.
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