Affirmations from my Oppressor.

For the love of black white folk.
I am trying hard to understand the concept of capitulation. Is it safe to wear the mask that grins and lies or do we have to shake the notion of the "twoness," the duality Dubois entertains. Washing dishes the other night, (yes even quasi intellectuals have to wash dishes) I actually found myself talking to my two year old son in hopes of having a conversation beyond the monosyllabic. His current vocabulary consists of "mine," "no," and "stop." Needless to say, I would be guiding most of the conversation. I was asking him to tell me the direction media. As African Americans who represent either scholars, technologists, consumers, or even owners and producers of media, what is our role as professors and scholars when it comes to those who have been historically disenfranchised and marginalized by the power of media. As instructors and scholars are we to just simply train our successors to get a job and continue the incessant patterns of foolishness or do we train them to be critical agents of change? I am finding myself at odds with a colleague who to me represents what is wrong with the industry. A fellow African American, a fellow scholar (he has his Ph.D. while I am working on mine) a former reporter, I fail to see what he is doing to make a difference within the politics of representation. Its as though I see a white folk in black skin and it happens. For me the danger in that manifests itself in further perpetuating the existing problem in post secondary education at the HBCU. The black student is being trained to be a cog in the machinery of labor as opposed to being exposed to higher concepts of critical thinking and transformative agents. I am confused, more so puzzled, because I strongly feel that just because as one becomes literate, one should be able to think: I would believe that as one learns how to function, the environment for said functionality should be one that fosters creativity and discourse. From that creativity and discourse, serious problems can be addressed. Instead, traditional media education/curriculum teaches you job skills. How to get a job, keep a job, adhere to standards and never provoke or probe to investigate; to find the truth. It as though the Negro Caucasian, capitulates and in doing so surrenders their power. The voice of the Negro Caucasian represents one who has been duped so much to the point where his or her perceived power is only the power that is given to them and not earned. Meaning, that same power can easily be taken at will by those who initially bestowed it upon them in the first place. That said, the Negro Caucasian operates as an agent oppression spreading the gospel of passivity. The Negro Caucasian represents a post modernistic Friday, whose religion says a still tongue makes a happy life and a closed mind demonstrates a beautiful mind. Our students, our successors must be yanked from the politics of apathy and thrust onto the main stage of critical intellectualism and self emancipation. Just as we set standards in style, we must now set the standard in reclaiming the modalities of discourse. We must reinvent ourselves (individually and collectively) not for the 21st century but for the 22nd, 23rd and beyond. We must come to the consensus that the only slave and master of us is us and cease and desist form affirmations by the oppressor.

The N Word Revisited

I know there is a reason why I think talk show shrinks should be taken off of the air. Dr. Phil proved some two weeks ago. I didn't have time to launch my grief about this when the show first aired but now that I have a little breathing room, I can at least begin to start. As we all know, the good rev, Jessie Jackson back in the summer decided to just jump completly off the chain using the N-word saying he wanted to castrate presidential candidate Obama. OK so being good producers at the the Dr. Phil show, someone decides, hey, lets devote an hour to the topic. Not a bad thought, but my goodness, the show, if you have time to watch it on youtube, is just completely denigrating to watch as nothing constructive came from this dialogue. In fact, this dialouge could seriously be considered "negrophobic" as I saw black folk and white folk just really at their absolute lowest. -- Note, you can add Dr. Phil to my list of white folk.
To begin, the show is made up of two comedians, Paul Mooney and Cheryle Underwood, one conservative white radio host, and Hill Harper, who in my opinion is being set up to be the next great black acomodationist (if he is not careful). Via satelite is Al Sharpton. Ok, lets get down to business. My chief gripe is that there was nothing intellectual about this conversation. The show boiled down to the double standard to black folk using the N-word why white folk cannot. Silly question. White people who have some sense know that the N-word is assaultiative speech which in turn has the potential to cause them great harm. What to me was missing from this diatribe was some historization of the word and its power of objectification. See, no one bothered to mention the fact that this word was used liberally like the lynch of the antebellum day. I think another part of this program that must be condsidered is the hegemonic control applied to the show