One of my favorite radio shows, the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, just broadcast a discussion of “Hot Ghetto Mess.” (I refuse to use the new show title, “We Got to Do Better.” They need to pull the show, not just change its title.) Lehrer featured Cora Daniels, author of GhettoNation, and Jelani Cobb, author of The Devil and Dave Chappelle.
Brian Lehrer, as usual, asked all the right questions, and Cora and Jelani gave perfect answers, articulating what so many of us have been saying about all this foolishness. Cora impressed me with her assertion that the Hot Ghetto Mess site seems to merely poke fun at folk, without offering any meaningful context, analysis, or support for our people. Though the sister who built the site says she gave up a high-paying corporate job to work as a public interest lawyer in DC, and thus works to uplift the community, her site does feed a voyeuristic desire to consume Black pathology, which only puts us all down. I don’t think that providing a space to unveil and denigrate tastelessness and bad behavior will somehow help make it all go away or make Black life better. Cora also added that BET has such a significant record of irresponsibility, that this particular network’s broadcast of the site as an international television show is particularly problematic.
Jelani talked about the problem of normalizing Black pathology and the suggestion that any issues in our community are absent in mainstream American society. For example, the WNYC show aired a Hot Ghetto Mess on-the-street style interview with random folk who were asked how many African Americans are on the Supreme Court. Jelani pointed out that too many citizens of any color would be hard-pressed to correctly answer that simple question. Why is this ignorance labeled a Black thing when it is, in truth, an all-American thing? Charlie Murphy is hosting the BET show, and Jelani suggested the irony in that, as his brother, Eddie, had his own public mess out there when he was unable to claim paternity for his own child with former Spice Girl Melanie Brown.
Listen to the radio broadcast, and add your own voice to the public discussion. The mess is out there; let’s clean it up.
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Eisa, living in Baltimore/DC, you’ll understand this.
My Dad said something very profound when I met him for brunch last week. He said the point of our family’s newspaper business was not the newspaper itself. The point is my Great Grandfather showed us we can create a successful business despite any odds. After all, even Black folks did not think a newspaper for Negros was a good idea in the 1890s. Especially since 98% of the Black population could not even read. Where was the market back then? We created one!
When people say there is no market for “quality” Black entertainment, that is not true. We can create one if we want to.
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To my hubby’s point I want to share an experience we had today. I had the idea that my hubby and I would go see the movie “Talk to Me” tonight. When I went on “Fandango” to get the movie times (and theatres showing it in our area), it was limited. Now My husband and I live in Westchester and it is only showing in one theatre in ALL of Westchester (and not in the predominately African-American areas either). Just to make sure I wasn’t going crazy, I checked the theatres in NYC and although there are more places to see it there, it is also limited. It is at Magic Johnson though. So my question is: why are we getting “Norbit” and “A Hot Ghetto Mess” pushed down our throats and when something of quality (with an actor who in my opinion is overdue for an Oscar; and a Director who I consider to be a mentor in my business) comes out we have to look for it under a microscope.
To my husbands point, as a people we need to DEMAND quality! This forum is a great start!!!!!
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Blair,
Thanks for your comment. But some of it is a bit problematic and historically wrong. As a professor of African American history and a former black journalist let me provide some correction here . . .
You wrote, “After all, even Black folks did not think a newspaper for Negros was a good idea in the 1890s. Especially since 98% of the Black population could not even read. Where was the market back then?”
Correction: There was indeed a very vibrant market for black newspapers decades before 1890. Let’s begin with “Freedom’s Journal” the first black newspaper founded in 1827. The editors were Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm. Next we have the “Ram’s Horn (NY) in 1847 founded by Willis Hodges. Then “Freedom’s Journal (Rochester) in 1847 by Frederick Douglass. In 1855 San Francisco’s “Mirror of the Times,” and “The Kansas Herald of Freedom were established.
By 1855, ten years before the Civil War a total of 40 black newspapers were founded. Okay, that’s just the North – free blacks. So what about the South?
The South’s first black newspaper was established in New Orleans in 1862. It was called L’Union. I could list more. By 1865 there were newspapers in Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia. By 1875 Missouri, the last of the former slave states lacking a black newspaper, founded “The Negro World.”
Between 1861 and 1877, 115 black newspapers appeared across the nation. 500 appeared between 1880 and 1890. In 1902 alone there were 101 newspapers founded. Between 1895-1915, 1,200 black newspapers served their communities.
So it wasn’t that blacks didn’t think that newspapers weren’t a good idea. And it is NOT true that, as you say 98% of blacks could not read in 1890. As many historians have shown (Herbert Gutman, Gunnar Myrdal and others) that by 1890 (25 years after emancipation), nearly half the black population was literate despite extralegal violence and other forms of discrimination aimed at undermining black progress. Many of the papers did not last long because of economic factors, violence, discrimination, not because blacks didn’t think they were useful or a good idea or that there was no market.
I usually don’t respond like this, but I don’t like it when our history is consciously or unconsciously distorted by misinformation. I hope these facts will be useful. I can also provide an informative bibliography that can highlight these facts about blacks, literacy, and journalism.
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Stacy, thank you for your response to my comments and the history lesson. It is clear, with your obvious credentials, that your information was well researched.
My point was simply that WE can create marketable information (by and for Black people) in good taste, that is profitable, because we have done it before. Whether it is news or entertainment or both. Having sold advertising for a Black newspaper, I know the challenges.
What I was trying to say is, we don’t need a “Hot Ghetto Mess” polluting the airwaves. We can shut them down and demand more quality!
In the 2004 Harvard Business Review article “How Global Brands Compete” by Douglas Holt, John Quelch and Earl Taylor, it clearly details how American companies in the 1980’s began marketing and exporting products to other countries. These products were originally REJECTED because they were not the best quality and American companies did not really try to “communicate” with local consmers in those foreign markets in the branding decisions. Now, oversees branding and marketing is very inclusive and profitable for American companies.
Why can’t WE as Black people make the same demands FOR ourselves? Why can’t we as Black People make these demands OF ourselves?
Sometimes these blogs can blur the context of a comment. When I made my statement, I was speaking within the realm of personal histories. My information comes from the children and grand-children of people who where there fighting the good fight.
Perhaps you’ll take the opportunity to read my family’s newspaper online at www.afro.com. Although as a Black history scholar and Black journalist, I am sure you are already familiar with them. We can BOTH continue to learn from the rich histories outlined by their legacy.
PS, I am sure you will have a more candid rebuttal to my comments and that’s fine. As long as we stick to the original point of the article, my fingers can punch out keyboard strokes like Ali punched out Joe Frazier in the “Thrilla in Manilla”. I believe that is also historically acurate.
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Blair,
Again, thanks for your comments. I TOTALLY agree with you. And yes, I am aware of your family’s newspaper. I didn’t miss the point in your original message. But if we as a people are to make demands for and of ourselves we must come correctly. We must be accurate and thorough. We must know ourselves and the details of our own history (personal and collective) and we must know it well. As they say, “knowledge is power.”
I just felt compelled to clear up some historical inaccuracies. Not looking to go toe-to-toe in a fiber optic “Thrilla in Manilla.”
Peace and Love.
S. Patton
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Stacy:
After reading the history outlined in your response to Blair Smith?s comments, one cannot help but ask ?as people why we are in this position in 2007??
In reviewing the facts you outlined, it is abundantly clear that as black people we have a legacy rich in intellect, ingenuity and perseverance. This leads me to believe that we lost our sense of values along the way and it saddens me personally because we should have been building on the legacy and history you pointed out. Instead, with programming such as ?A Hot Ghetto Mess?, ?Socially Offensive Behavior (SOB)?); ?gangsta rap? music; referring to ourselves as ?N*****s, ?hos, and b****s? we seem to be reinforcing the exact opposite of that which our legacy points to. I am sure this is not a new notion. I am well aware that many people have thought, stated, and written books and magazine articles on the topic. Yet with all this energy and focus, it seems that it is not reaching the intended audience as we continue to tear down the very history you retorted in your comments.
With respect to Blair Smith?s comments, they are correct from his own personal history. I have the pleasure of being his wife and I have also had the pleasure of speaking in depth with his family. They shared with me the history and the hardships they had to overcome with starting ?The Afro?. Ironically the experience that Blair?s family had with respect to some black people (in Baltimore) at that time not seeing the need for a black newspaper is not relegated to that time (or to Baltimore for that matter). It is common knowledge in the publishing world that books by Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and authors like them did so well because white women were buying them?not necessarily blacks. That is not to say that that blacks/black women did not buy them, I did, and my aunts did. They are referring to the grand scheme (which is one of many dangers that come from the use of statistics without context). Recently, actor (and now writer) Hill Harper published a book ?Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny?. This is a book that many advised him not to publish for the simply stated reason that ?young black men do not read?. Now is that true historically? Maybe-maybe not; the point is when books, movies, music, video games, sneakers etc. are being marketed, they do not go by history, they go by marketing trends and data collected from those trends. At some point, the trend told then that ?young black men do not read?. Luckily, through an aggressive grass roots internet campaign (that stated what was being said about young black men not reading), I believe Hill Harpers book has sold relatively well (It was #1 non-fiction on AALBC). It is because of his perseverance and vision that the book is even offered. That is his contribution to cleaning things up in our culture.
This brings me something that Malcolm X said in one of his speeches. He said something like: If you give a thirsty man dirty water he?ll drink it? because he?s thirsty, but if you provide him with a pure vessel, he?ll have a choice. (This is not a direct quote but my recollection of what I heard from a recording).
Bringing this back to Eisa?s original point?.black folks are thirsty and there is only dirty water out there being offered to quench that thirst. I believe it is largely our own fault as we are not demanding (from ourselves or from society as a whole) clean water. Until we demand better, the history you enlightened us with will just be words on a computer screen. As it stands now?.through own actions we ourselves are tearing that history a part every time we allow a ?Flavor of Love?; ?Hot Ghetto Mess?; Socially Offensive Behavior (SOB)??(the list goes on and on and on ) to see the light of day. From a marketing standpoint, they?ll keep putting it out there if enough of us watch?because by watching it-we chose it! By staying silent we condone it.
In closing, I think it?s time for us to come down from the ?ivory tower? and take this knowledge into parts of our community that really need it. (I try do this through volunteer work and mentoring) because the younger generations (on average) do not seem to be getting the very knowledge you shared on this Blog. Do you know that many young, black people I mentor have said (to me) that I ?act? white just because I speak a certain way, or because I don?t dress like some misguided woman they saw in a rap video? But I can tell you they believe Flavor Flav is truly ?black?.
There is definitely a need for correcting erroneous data. Blair?s comment that ?98% of the Black population could not even read?, may have been historically incorrect,; however we better make sure that it NEVER becomes historically correct. From where I am standing this seems to be an insurmountable task at times. Yes, sad, but true, and of course based solely on my own personal experience!
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I think a huge problem is using what THEY put on television or radio (Hot Ghetto Mess, Flava of Love) as the barometer for what we as blacks are doing nationwide, or are accepting. We are not the ones picking our dregs of our society for media, they are. Do they pick the dregs of their society to make music or shows (tv or movies)? I rarely see it.
And I personally will not ask THEM to put better shows on for us. I will create my own Rosewood. They don’t care about us, they never will. I will not attempt to make them do anything to my benefit. We didn’t need them for well over 5,000 years, we don’t need them now. In my humble opinion, we need to take back our culture and stop asking them to give it back to us by changing programs on TV and all other manner of things. We need to work to create our own stations, buy up our own airwaves and do our thing, whatever that thing may be, as we had done for centuries upon centuries before they infiltrated OUR homelands.
I’m frankly sick of trying to “reach” them (white folks) or teach them, or force them or whatever–I want a revolution!
They want every aspect of black society and history to go away. Look at what they think about African Studies in colleges? They think it is a waste and only installed to give us black pride by telling lies about our history. Basically, they say we have no history and they would like African Studies to be stricken from college campuses–Mary Lefkowitz being the ring leader. I tell ya, if that don’t beat all.
I don’t know what else to write….