Finally, an unbaised look at an African-American culture in the media
Posted on: June 25, 2008
CNN is hosting a special report Black In America, on July 23 and 24. There will also be an HBCU tour where CNN tours such Historically Black Colleges and Universities as Hampton University, Howard University, Atlanta University and A & M schools in North Carolina and Florida. To promote the tours CNN is hosting a contest where students can submit a video report on such subjects on how HIV and AIDS is affecting African-Americans, why you should or should not choose an HBCU over a regular school, the state of professional Black women that have never been married and other issues.
This is great news first off because African-Americans need positive discourse about the state of affairs in the African-American community that will be watched by someone other than just other African-Americans. Secondly the platform is CNN, whch is still a trusted source in the news media particularly for positive and uplifting news and third this isn’t another State of the Union type of presentation hosting by Blacks for Blacks. Usually, when there is a special presentation about something in the African-American community it tends to be negative. There are exceptions, particularly the dedication that PBS tends to show throughout the year though it is more prevalent during Black History Month when everyone else is wearing their badge proudly as though it were the pink ribbon of breast cancer research.
They also get you to think because they still host programs like Tavis Smiley’s show where he hosts one on one interviews with some of the brightest minds in entertainment, politics and academia. CNN has always had a presence but is probably better known for their commentary by Roland S. Martin than anything. I was watching the BET Awards Show yesterday and they were hosting promos for another installation of Baldwin Hills; a show not unlike The Hills of MTV though here the focus is of one of the richest predominately African-American communities in the nation.
This is the problem with even considering making a television show like Baldwin Hills or College Hill. Almost every African-American who has been to an HBCU can attest to the shenanigans of college life which aren’t radically different from those of so called party schools, state institutions that have digressed to having to showcase their party atmosphere to recruit students by word of mouth, though openly these are supposed to be prestigious schools. The show trivializes the importance of academia at the colleges it tours (it is a different college each season) and tries to dumb down the college experience in the vein of such MTV reality shows like The Real World. It could serve to advertise or promote those schools to get young Blacks to want to attend, but then again so did Drumline and School Daze.
As far as Baldwin Hills what African-American city dweller doesn’t know of a prestigious African-American neighborhood where the drama shown on that show doesn’t go on. In fact since these African-Americans had either arrived financially or were born into such a socio-economic situation why do we feel the need to watch other Blacks have a falling out just under the guise of it being entertaining because they are more affluent than we are. Isn’t there already enough of that sort of thing going on in the entertainment industry for African-Americans; it’s why shows like Keisha Cole “The Way I Am” are so popular. Yeah we like to hear about her life in the ghetto, but it isn’t interesting until she has drama at a radio talk show.
Taking a look at some of the general news topics on the Black In America website you see where Obama is calling Black fathers to task as well as the historical significance of his capturing the democratic nomination. But there are also some familiar themes as well that are fodder for everyday conversation in the barbershop and at the street corner but are difficult to articulate in a professional forum where the whole nation is listening and watching. Such as why African-Americans can’t get over race, Transracial adoption, which isn’t so much about the fact that Caucasians are adopting Black children but whether or not they truly understand the needs of African-American children.
You see the little kids in Black strollers with nappy hair and ashy feet; granted, you also see some of this amongst us with our own children as well, which isn’t any better. But when you see the kids, and then see the White parents, typically middle aged people that may not be able to have children anymore or who wanted a young child and did not want to spend months on the waiting list to recieve a infant of their own race, people want to ask questions. Some make the argument that the parents have the love and the financial resources to give that child a better life than they could have had in Ethiopa, yet others see it is as a reflection of African-American attitudes towards adoption in general.
Morehouse University has had their first White valedictorian. Should this be a big deal; Whites have been attending HBCUs ever since the days they stood hand in hand with us during the civil rights era so it shouldn’t surprise anyone. A lot of HBCUs have White professors that have a unique passion to teach young adults, but how will this be perceived in the African-American community? On the other hand, students at universities in North Carolina say that racism is still alive and well. The last time we had a real look at North Carolina may have been the Kings of Comedy tour via Spike Lee, or it could have been when Fantasia won American Idol I mean North Carolina seems that conveniently overlooked aspect of African-American culture to those obsessed about what it means to black elsewhere.
So that means that there is a story there that needs to be heard, just as there was a few years back in Jena, Louisiana. We need to shift our focus to what is happening in areas like Detroit, New York, Chicago, LA, Atlanta and other cities with strong African-American communities and look in new directions towards Louisiana, North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and other areas that have African-American communities that are just as influential, just as tight knit, just as proud as those we like to look at out of convenience. There are very successful, affluent, interesting communities in those states I’ve mentioned, but no one really wants to talk about them or really take a serious look at them. Katrina forced some of us to look at Louisiana, we complained that the President didn’t treat them right, that Whites had overlooked them and left them at bay, but we ourselves didn’t really think about or consider New Orleans at all unless you were talking about Mardi Gras.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I did because it was a passing fascination but one I had never really thought about until I lived in the South. Then Katrina happened, and there were parts of me that was interested to think about what that area would have been like if Katrina had never happened. I tried to keep up with the story, but there were always distractions and by the time that controversy at Duke University happened with those strippers I had moved on. Last I heard the state was allowing those in the hospitality industry to build massive hotels in those same areas, rather than do the right thing and encourage redeveloping the area for the lower class to move back into.
There are a lot of good, positive stories about Blacks in places you had never considered, and a lot in those you regularly do, that aren’t being told because they’re not sensationalistic and no one really cares to talk about it. Stories that quite honestly don’t sell and aren’t lucrative enough to develop a television series around. Black women who do have tight knit friendships that aren’t preoccupied with finding a man and aren’t materialistic or narcissistic. Black men who are encouraging their friends to do the right thing, not just by Black women, but people in general. African-Americans who actually go to church and are really living a righteous life, not just pretending on Sundays.
The best we can do is hope that CNN either tells these stories, or can help make it fashionable to do so. I used to love to watch BET because they had a program called Teen Summit that had their ear to the street and made living in DC look really cool because here you had entire communities of African-Americans that were well to do, getting along, and didn’t have the problems you tend to see elsewhere. That was a romanticized version, what I wanted to take away from it, but you don’t get that from BET anymore; then again I’m entirely too old to concern myself with what BET airs, I’m not their demographic, except on Sunday when Bobby Jones Gospel airs. Yeah that’s when I’ll tune in …
okay so the skinny jeans didn't work out for me so well ... 
July 9, 2008 at 2:05 am
Buddhist Perspective on Black America
As African American Buddhists gear up for what promises to be another pounding of “Black America as Christian Nation,” I again ponder a historical issue I raised my book Black Buddha.
Both slaveholders and abolitionists argued their positions based on the bible. Whether a slave remained in bondage or was “freed” their only faith choice was Christianity. The dominant religion in the black community has no origin other than this.
From then until today a black person who choses any faith practice or lifestyle not sanctioned by the black Church is considered to have “strayed” not only from the church but the interests and survivability of the black community itself.
To be black and Buddhist is to be seen by some as one who shows contempt for the African American covenant with Christianity, the legacy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement. In black America every Sunday from 10am to 2pm being Buddhist and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, or polyamorous is to be considered misguided at the very least and in extreme cases a navel-watching race traitor.
There are some exceptions such as when spending money in black businesses or being courted for the vote. But where does the child of a black Buddhist family fit into the Christian solution for Black America? How does the Buddhist parent explain the chant, “One nation under God,” to their child in a so called secular non-denominational school?
How can the potential of a black Christian president provide so much hope for America yet a duly elected black Buddhist Congressman remain relatively unnoticed?
Can CNN handle the responsibility of inclusion and objectivity around issues important to the black Buddhist community?
I’ll be blogging daily on each installment of this series (July 23 & 24):
http://originalblackbuddha.blogspot.com/2008/07/special-reports-black-in-america.html