Please excuse the following cliche, for I will have much to say about the 'poor' Minorities of America. This is not an essay, it only smells like one.
A couple of weeks ago the Dixie Chicks won 5 grammy awards, largely because of the tribulations endured after their comments about "being ashamed to be from texas" because of George W's involvements overseas. They went through a lot and bounced back, I'm not taking anything away from their struggle, but here's what I think:
Not being a fan of George isn't exactly a taboo opinion. Rumour has it, 51% of Americans didn't like him to begin with. And yet the media hyped up this paying out of 5 awards for a tidbit of independent thought as some sort of victory or large step forward. I argue that this, much like all the other 'quick-fix' payoffs is actually a tiny step forward followed by two large steps back.
The point of this Dixie Chicks example is to show that our culture doesn't really want to entertain radical thought, it just wants to make popular those thoughts which were already quietly held by the majority. But enough about the Dixie Chicks, I don`t even like country.
So now here are my two problems:
a) Using quick payoffs to suppress revolt
b) Using expression to suppress thought
Of 'a' there are so many examples, and the Dixie Chicks isn't even the most recent example. There was this Inus character who called the Women's NCAA basketball team a bunch of nappy headed hoes, and when it began to really stir contraversy the black people of america were 'rewarded' with an apology, much like how they were rewarded by Kremer by having a talk with their 'representative' Rev. Al Sharpton. (For more on this, see Hugh Hibbert's note "Weighing In...").
But it doesn't stop there, Mel Gibson apologizes to a rabbi and suddenly there's no longer any reason to crucify him. Mohammed Ali's Olympic Gold is given back to him a few decades after he is stripped of it for his beliefs of peace, and suddenly America has made ammendmants for years of racial disharmony; the same ammendments they supposedly made years before when they finally told Ray Charles he could play in Georgia again. Tell a gay or two that he may act, become famous, and perhaps even hold an office, but that he may never marry within the confines of his country.
The theme of all of these things are the same, each event propogates the illusion of positive movements. America, as a leader of the world, is in the business of globalization, but you can't convince the world to be globalized with you if the rest of the world hates you. In response to that, this is what they do. Every fiscal quarter America has to give out its report to its shareholders (the developed world) and in that report they have to show the developed world that they have made actions and instituted programs towards human harmony. But like most corporate reports, this is all gloss and fanfare. Between every token ribbon-cutting ceremony of equity and brotherhood, there still runs a consistent stream of injustice and hatred. So long as we continue to buy into these reports, there will be no need for America to actually make changes. The quick fix will continue to supress revolt.
For 'b' I go back to the example of Rev. Al Sharpton, or his predecessor Jesse Jackson, or further back, the early Martin Luther King. The problem that surrounds these characters is the same problem that surrounded gangster rappers such as Ice Cube and Tupac: As long as one black man is yelling loud enough, he can drown out the voices of a million others.
To be brief, I have the feeling America turned up the volume of its peaceful black pastor Dr. King mostly to deaden the noise of the tens of thousands of blacks who felt the resolution was not going to be peaceful. And while the good doctor chanted that he had a Dream, under the noise of this there was much commotion over the death of Malcolm X and the imprisonment of Bobby Seale. Lest America have to be plagued by the radical and violent thoughts of the 'rogue' Black Panthers or the Black Muslims of America. At least back then they were masking good with good. If you *had* to let one man speak for all the blacks, Dr. King was a pretty good choice.
As a side note, once Martin began to write extensive radical anti-vietnam literature, he too was silenced, by death, showing that radical opinion still was not supported.
So who represented us afterwards? As the 80s rolled around it was no secret that blacks were angry. 'By any means necessary' was engraved in hearts and printed on the posters of Malcolm holding his rifle. The ghettos grew and from that, so did Gangsta rap. Suddenly what it meant to be black man in the USA wasn't an afro, a silent protest, defined features and darker skin, you had to be an angry nigga that rhymed.
But as rappers and rap-lovers alike protested the sterotype that gangsta rap's popularity inflicted upon us, our political 'leaders' took the helm, and this became an even greater problem for us than gangsta rap. For as long as we have 'black political leaders' instead of 'political leaders who are black' the public will always be muted by them.
I'm not sure why Jesse Jackson's approval of the term African American gave anyone the right to use it, but I wouldn't mind if the term was put to rest. If you ask me, appending someone's title with their ancestor's continent is the most racist move that has been made.
For the non-racist, I never feared him calling me a nigger and meaning it, so I have little comfort in the fact that *now* he respects my ancestral roots. For the racist, this only goes to show that you're not even willing to take the extra step to find out the country from which I, or my parents, or my parent's parents, came. To you, I'm just, 'from over there' as opposed to right here in front of you. Not much difference in calling me 'one of dem niggers' and 'one of dem african americans' if you really mean it.
Likewise, I don't even know who came up with the idea of reserving a month of our each year to devote (non-exclusively) to black history, but that to me has always had token written all over it. How much is really learned? Ask yourself, through all of the black history months, how much literature have you read about Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Dr. King, and how little you've read about the radicals; the Panthers, Malcolm, the opposers of the Chitlin' Circuit, Nina Simone's 'Mississipi God Damn', Marley, Belafonte, Garvey and Selassie's politics. And why just blacks? Have we not all struggled?
The answer to that is exactly what bugs me today, if I may repeat: Our popular culture does not support radical thought, it only wishes to make popular those silent opinions which are already widely-held. And these token publicity stunts of equality further suppress the thought.
Why write it out? Why say all of this? Because I believe that suppressing the thought is the easiest way to suppress the will. Everything starts with an idea, and if there are no radical ideas there will be no radical action. And for anyone who has read this far, you probably agree that we live in a time that is in need of radical change.