The Media (Reprise)

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” - Malcolm X

The media is supposed to be this unbiased entity. We treat it like it has this god like quality of all knowing truth. But the media and most major media outlets are controlled by huge corporations. Which is just another word for business, and what's the goal of a business? To make a profit, so the media reports stories that fit the constituency of the major corporation that owns that particular media outlet. Be it a newspaper, news broadcast, magazine, or what have you.

The newspapers and websites draw you in with particular headlines so that you buy them read the stories but pay attention to the ads. They want you to buy whatever the paper is selling, so that the paper can inturn sell more ad space and further it's influence.

Think about the motives. The media and all of these major corporations who own the record labels that exploit artists condemn what the artists proposes in his or her music. Well the current climate of rap and hip-hop music at least, which is a filled with violence and chauvinist montra. They are giving these artist contracts and fronting these people millions of dollars to start trends that are going to help sell product for their constituency.

All the blame is being placed upon the rappers but who's throwing the money at these artists? Who's really glorifying the negative conditions of the black community? Who's gaining the most profit? I'm not trying to let the rappers off the hook because they are selling away their people as well as their souls for something that means absolutely nothing. These rappers are just slaves. I ask this question and think about it. Why is hip-hop and rap a billion dollar industry but there are no black billionaires in hip-hop? There are artists and people who are particularly close but they make nothing compared to the people who write their checks and distribute their material. These people are lusting after a piece of cloth made of cotton that holds dead slave owners on them. They still got us picking cotton. Picking cotton over our family, over our friends, over our culture, and over our people.

It's like Famous Amos cookies. A black man came up with the recipe, the company was originally black owned, but the company was stolen from him and they continue to use his face on the package. Hip-hop is a white industry with black figure heads. The motives of these corporations is not to progress the music or globalize the artform, it's to poison the minds of the youth and promote consumerism in the black community. Our artform (if you can call it that now) has been reduced to nothing but jingles and advertisements for hennessy, diamonds (which also enslaves our brothers and sisters in Africa, diamonds are overpriced and not as rare as you think), bentleys, hair styles, sneakers, and just about anything else that you can sell, and that aren't black owned or affiliated. That's why were the community that spends the most money outside of our community and has the least amount of money inside of our community. Instead of promoting the values of family, love, respect, growth, and education, they promote and glorify ignorance, adultery, consumerism, disrespect for women, and the destruction of our people at the hands of drugs, alcholism, and all the other, as Malcolm would say "vices that destroy the moral fiber of our community."

We all applaud these rappers for "keeping it real," and a lot of us try to mimick them in dress and in style, buying rims and cars and other luxuries outside of our means, which leads to debt and indentured servitude or slavery. We forget that they're making more money than us because we identify with them. They speak about things we witness and they trivialize the daily struggle of the residents of the "ghettos." Not all black neighborhoods are as they describe in the music there are plenty of black neighborhoods that are prosperous all over the country, but the media doesn't want to see a black person unless they're in chains, being lynched, or compromising themselves in someway.

The concept of saving is foreign to us. These corporations are genius. All you have to do is put a black face on something and we support it with our dollar. Have Shaq eating a Big Mac, Usher drinking a Sprite, and Jay Z selling a computer.We glorify it with them. We need to stop supporting these Uncle Tom's exploitation and selling out of our community and start thinking and growing on our own.

These artists and Uncle Tom's are making millions of dollars they're becoming giants of industry, masters of capitalism. But it seems that they're selling their souls and exploiting their people instead of using their fame and status to educate. Something we need more than anything. It's not their job, I suppose, but James Brown once said that he feels that it's his responsibility his job to educate his people to use his celebrity to help his people not exploit them. To help lift them out of a miserable condition or help them lift themselves out of a miserable condition. We as supporters of these businessman and "artists" need to hold them accountable and tell them that we're not taking part in this minstrel show. These brothers and sisters brag about how much money they have but how you going to ever have more money than the people who print the demon cloth?

Bamboozled, a Spike Lee Joint, is a great movie. Black people with blacker faces, thats what blacks are in the media today, all they show is black people who are portrayaing what the masses believe that it is to be black. If there was a definition. I don't know why were the only race who has to be defined, but whatever. It's a difficult notion to grasp but we can't be human we can't show love and compassion we have to glorify and accent the stereotypes in our community. The stereotypes that express the negative condition that some of us are in. We have to brush aside the injustices perpetrated by this nation everyday to our people and act as if everything is okay. We have to "show them pearly whites," be non-threating, shave our face, change our voice, and mannerisms to be accepted.

The hypocrisy is ridiculous. "....all men are created equal," but this nation is supposed to be "the great melting pot." We're all supposed to mold to one ideal, one way of life, act as the dominate culture acts. We're supposed to nurture and further the notions of all those "pretty sounding words," (Malcolm X) and phrases that this nation likes to propagate. If any of this were true this nation would be the great mixed salad, where the tomatoes, lettice, eggs, and salad dressing are their own equal parts but without them you don't have a salad. They get us to believe in all of these false ideals and supposed truths that this nation broadcasts to the rest of the world. It plays itself like a mixed salad, where all cultures, creeds, races, and religions are embraced. When in actuality it's just a nation that continues to embrace the deep rooted system of white supremacy a system that the media was born out of, that the media glorifies. and a system that the media supports.