"You know, it's not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself," James Baldwin once said. He was an insightful man.
There are some things I watch on television and don't know why. There are some things I've committed to stop watching, and ended up watching anyway. "Flavor of Love" was one such show. By the time the show's sequel rolled around, I decided I would not watch it. I stayed true to my commitment for a few weeks, but hearing my friends talk about the show so often, I couldn't seem to escape. I found myself, once again, watching William Drayton aka Flavor Flav—the big-clock-clad former hype-man of one of hip-hop's premiere socially conscious acts Public Enemy—choose a potential mate among women who physically fought over him on a regular basis. To my embarrassment, I did find entertainment in it, even though every scene silently stole from me an opportunity to say loudly, "I'm black, and I'm proud." I watched anyway. The buffoonery continued, climaxed, came to an end, and I watched it all.
When I heard that two-time contender for Flav's heart Tiffany Pollard—affectionately referred to as Miss New York on the show—was getting her own show, "I Love New York," I vowed, as soon as I saw a preview, that I would stick to my proverbial guns and not watch another show like this one. I simply cannot, I thought, continue to watch something that I'm embarrassed to admit I watch. I cannot watch more people of color, with the token Caucasian, display the least of what humanity has to offer.
My decision was confirmed for me about a week ago. As a couple of my friends joked that they were going to kidnap me and make me watch "I Love New York" because of the characters' (yes, characters, not people) antics, I repeated firmly, much as a reminder for myself as for them, "I'm just not going to watch it." Another person at the gathering said, to no one in particular, "At least white people are paying attention to us now."
That did it for me. If a show like this is what it takes to get white people to pay attention to us, I don't want attention. Please. Ignore me. I do not want to be noted by the dominant culture for putting a contemporary twist on performances in black face. The more I think about it, the more I feel obligated to take a stand against watching the show. And when I think about it even more, I realize that it eerily parallels the fictional scenario Spike Lee paints in his 2000 release "Bamboozled." In this film, an executive producer develops a show idea that he hopes will get him fired. With auspicious irony, however, the show becomes a huge success. Sounds familiar.
Not only does a show like this one air dirty laundry, if you will, to the dominant culture, it also reinforces negative ideas about people of color to people of color. I know, I know, it's just a television show. But in the grand scheme of things, it's so much more.
It makes me think of a hand-written letter to the editor—a novelty in these days of e-mail—on my desk several months ago. My hands began to tremble like tambourines as I read the letter. "Jackson is looking bad because of the actions of a bunch of worthless, young black males. ... Why waste thousands of dollars worth of ink on a damn nigger who ain't worth 50 cents? I'd have their asses hanging from every tree limb on the lawn at City Hall." The insults didn't stop. The moment I read that the letter's author was George Lambus, a 59-year-old African American male, my heart nearly stopped.
I know the letter was extreme, and I'd like to think most folks—white or black—don't think quite so negatively of my generation, but after I got over the shock, my rage settled into contemplation. This man could have been my father, uncle, brother or one of my cousins, speaking these words of death to us. If people like Lambus are OK with casting away younger generations by lynching, then we've fallen so far from the community, connectedness and kinship we had during the Movement I hear my mother, grandmother and aunts describe.
I don't want to believe that "Flavor of Love," "I Love New York" and other such shows are all we have to bring us together as people of color, or that they are what connects us to the world outside ourselves. If so, I feel utterly hopeless, which fuels my usual frustrations.
I feel responsible, my deficiencies notwithstanding, to arm those around me with a sense of pride it seems we often lack. I haven't found the just-right thing to do or say to make this happen, but I do the little I can. For the past several months, I've been working with a wonderfully charming group of young people at a JPS high school. Some days I leave on a high, and other times I leave saddened. There are some definite stars in the classroom, but there are also some who study mindless television more than they will ever study a book. It seems that their dreams add up to little more than hoping they'll become rich by clowning around like Flavor Flav—they'll just skip the brilliant hip-hop part and go right to celebrity dumb. I want to scream at them: "Get a Grip! Don't you know you're making it worse for yourself?" But I don't.
I'm not trying to convince anyone not to watch these particular television shows, though I realize it may seem so. I am urging you—and all of us—to be more purposeful in what we ingest from popular culture. Sometimes, entertainment isn't good enough. And in the meantime, consider this: Our enemies, whether black or white, often look more like us than we care to believe.
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