Ty: Betty, why don't you explain what's going on?
Betty: Sure. Stan and I speak each night on the phone before we blog. We've been raising a number of issues, Stan also discusses those with his cousin Marcia. Marica does it with others as do I. And, basically, all of us here are having these discussions in one-on-one conversations so that we thought this would be a way to address it as a group.
Cedric: I'd like to add that we're not trying to win anyone over with this discussion. If something makes you angry, good. We're angry. And we're not going to pretty everything up for this conversation.
Ty: Good point. Marcia, let's kick the discussion proper off with you post on Friday, "Smart Black Woman: Gwen Ifill." For those who don't know, that's your second post. You're trying to do at least one a month. The point is to highlight a smart, Black woman. How did that come about?
Marcia: I had spoken to Betty and to Ann and we'd brought up "strong, Black woman" and how that's become, basically, a punch line. Even American Dad's spoofed it, having the family go to Saudi Arabia and having Steve, lost in the desert, tell himself he's a strong, Black woman. And Betty, Ann and I were just talking about how little time is spent by the corporate media noting smart, Black women or, for that matter, elevating intelligence within the Black community. And that started the conversation that we've all been having -- or took it in another direction.
Stan: Right. African-Americans have been oppressed throughout this nation's history with most who first came here coming over as slaves. And we need to honor those who came before but we also need to step up. This isn't a 'personal responsiblity' lecture, to be clear. The problems are not problems that Black America has created for itself. But we do believe they are problems that corporate media feeds us and that we embrace.
Isaiah: And to use just one topic, I'm not sure how many we'll have time for, the obsession with money. Or rather, the obsession with spending money. We amass a lot of crap. All Americans do, but that's true of Black America and Black America has been encouraged repeatedly for decades by the corporate media to be mindless consumers. Let's get these sneakers, let's get this suit, let's buy this or that.
Ann: Which only became more pronounced, my opinion, when corporate media started selling the embarrassment that was ghetto fabulous. Can you imagine music labels getting away with going to a White ghetto and selling the idea that this was the end-all, be-all and something to take pride in and work towards? No. People would laugh at the idea. But time and again, corporate America sells "stay down" to the African-American community. And, let's be honest, a lot of us buy what's being sold.
Ty: Betty, you had a point on this that Ann quoted in an e-mail she sent to all of us. Do you want to jump in here?
Betty: Sure. As Ann just stated, a lot of us do buy into this crap that the corporate media sells, this crap that's a trap and that keeps us down. And I think if we're honest about our history in this country -- collective history -- we can get at why that works over and over. As Stan noted, most of our ancestors came to this country as slaves. We worked as slaves. We didn't work for poor people, they couldn't afford slaves. We worked for the wealthy and we saw them stay wealthy and grow wealthier as a result of our work. So it would be only natural if some element of that traveled on down, as a result of folklore or narratives, or what have you that seeded a desire of "I will have that too." Meaning, a people enslaved as we were would naturally have an impulse to amass signs of success, external ones. I don't know how much that makes sense.
Cedric: No, it makes perfect sense. We worked, our labor enriched others, we did without, in later generations the impulse is to prove we're equal, we're solid people and, look, we wear Nike too, we wear this label and that label, look at our bling-bling, we work for no one now. I think you perfectly captured that thread that the corporate media can appeal to and has successfully and repeatedly.
Ann: And, if I can jump back in, there are many obstacles harming the African-American community and, in terms of the economy, certainly the demise of the manufacturing sector in the US would be chief among them. We can't bring back manufacturing -- and the loss is now effecting all Americans, regardless of race -- and we don't control the corporate media. We can call it out and we have.
Cedric: And we can look at what we're going to do. For example? Ann and I are planning to have kids in the future, not immediate future, and have already started putting money away for a college fund.
Betty: And that's what I do with the bulk of my checks. I'm very lucky in that the kids and I stay at C.I.'s since I got a promotion and was transferred to California. C.I. won't hear of anyone kicking anything in -- back me up on that Ty -- so most of my checks are going into college funds for my three kids.
Ty: Yes, I will back you up on that. And it is Betty planning for the future of her kids that has so many of us thinking. For example, we're also grateful for the TV commerical featuring an African-American couple expecting a child and planning. How often do we see that reflected in commericals or TV? We're usually -- explicitly or implicitly -- portrayed as too stupid or 'too real' to plan for life's events and instead they take us by surprise like some sort of exploding volcano.
Stan: I'm laughing because I love that analogy. I can picture us in a movie where we're all standing by a volcano with this stunned, Stepin Fetchit expression on our faces.
Ann: And picture a movie house guffawing at it because we've been conditioned to laugh at 'those silly colored people and their superstitions.'
Marcia: Exactly. And that's why I'm doing the "Smart, Black woman" feature. Black women in the United States have always been strong -- and we've often been attacked for that strength, even attacked within the Black community for it. But why can't we be smart? Why can't we be portrayed as smart?
Cedric: Exactly. Sidney Poitier has played a variety of characters in his film career and many of the better known ones are smart, African-American men, often possessing noble qualities. Contrast that with Denzel who wins the Oscar for playing a villain and has since seemed to have taken notice that that's what he's getting rewarded for. And I thought the whole compact between Denzel and the African-American community was he was going to represent the better parts of humanity on the screen. Let's be really honest, he's a pretty face, he's never been much of an actor. He had the looks to be a leading man and the agreement was, we support him and go to his movies and he plays roles that don't degrade us. Now he's playing criminals and dubious characters and, again, he's not Laurence Fishburne. He's not an actor. He's a leading man. He's not Samuel L. Jackson or any of the talented African-American actors. With Denzel, he was supposed to be suave on screen, smart and give us a role model. He failed to carry that.
Stan: And it's hard not to notice that he wins his Oscar for playing a villain and he works overtime to give the dominant culture what they want. And then, as if doing us a favor, he does those dopey films that are so Oprah Moments. Can't he just be the Cary Grant he was supposed to be?
Ty: It needs to be pointed out that any actor or actress is choosing from what is offered to them -- hopefully choosing the best ones. It also needs to be noted that at the level Denzel is, if he's not happy with what he's being offered, he can certainly find people to create material he would be happy with. But I think Cedric and Stan make some good points, Denzel was only recognized with the Academy Award when he played a bad guy. It's also worth noting that his bad guys aren't mythic, it's ghetto. There are actings working today -- and actresses -- who've played evil people. Denzel's portrayed street trash. So, following Cedric and Stan's point, even there he's let us down. There is no, for example, Gordon Gekko for Denzel.
Marcia: I don't know. I think the bad guy roles were also trying to 'humanize' Denzel for White audiences. I'm not saying White ticket buyers asked for it, I am saying that White run studios see Denzel playing these street roles as a way to sell him to audiences. Again, corporations are dictating how we are portrayed onscreen and, more and more in our disconnected society, these portrayals are mistaken for reality.
Ann: And these portrayals are killing us. I don't know what we can do. I don't think we can do anything. I mean look at our so-called heroes: A closeted lesbian who's turned navel gazing into 'empowerment' and a man impersonating a woman whose bad films make Family Matters look like Shakespeare.
Betty: I think what we can do is work to refine the image -- offscreen obviously -- so that education is valued in the same way other minority communities have valued it. I really feel like it was valued in the lead up to the Civil Rights movement and after but then it takes a huge hit -- and I think you can tie it into the disappearance of the manufacturing sector in the US -- and our community ends up being encouraged to accept the crumbs of the pie while everyone else gets a slice with filling and crust, and we're encouraged to believe that this is what we really want and how we 'keep it real.' I think we need to find the building blocks to reject the corporate message.
Ty: And I'm sorry but we did have a time limit and I think Betty's just given us the concluding remarks. This is a rush transcript which means enjoy typos. In addition, we've recorded this and it will go into the audio version of Hilda's Mix on Tuesday and we thank Ava and C.I. for agreeing to create the transcript from the recording.