Here We Go Again

My good friend Felicia recently emailed me the story about Bill O’Reilly and the comments he recently made on his radio show. Yes some of his comments were stupid and ill-mannered but is it worth giving this a great deal of time and thought….. eh no. Bill is quoted as saying,

“And I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship. There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, “M-Fer, I want more iced tea.”


Yes this was a very unintelligent comment for someone who considers himself a journalist. However, it also shows his limited exposure to successful, home trained, educated, and articulate black people. Many white people only get exposure black people outside of work on BET or MTV. Come on people don’t get your panties in a bunch, y’all know that we are portrayed as buffoons, whores, oversexed, dope fiends, drug dealers, on welfare, and basically just taking up space. Other races have become desensitized to the violence perpetrated against us, and think that all we do is complain.


I am not saying that Bill O’Reilly’s perception of Black America is correct but he is not alone in his inaccurate assessment, a great deal of other non black people feel the same way, only he has enough balls to say it. People all I am saying is that as a race we allow Corporate America and the government to shape the perception of Black Americans. We can not blame people for the way they feel about black people. To be honest there are times when I have negative feelings and thoughts towards other ethnicities, and that’s my ignorance. However, I feel this is just a ploy to take our attention away from Jena 6, Genarlow Wilson, and the woman tortured in West VA. However, some people are growing tired of being America’s step children and actually taking some action. Recently more than 500 people demonstrated peacefully outside the Northwest Washington home of Debra Lee, Black Entertainment Television's chief executive, yesterday afternoon, demanding that the network stop airing what they call demeaning and offensive portrayals of African Americans.


This is an excerpt of an email the reflects how my friend’s associate feel about the situation

I’m not a fan of this guy, and I detest him! However, he does make some good points and I see nothing racist about the interview. O’Reilly’s comments reflect the stereo-type that’s being packaged and marketed with the help of black folks who continue to consume, support and label such negative images of black folks as black culture, and when confronted about it, we are quick to say it’s just entertainment, when to the white boys, and the outside world it’s not just entertainment, but what they see as who black folks are. I have white friends who are just as surprised as Oreilly when I take them to an all black events where they don’t see the “BET” or VH1 images of black folks. They are actually surprised to see articulate black folks discussing issues such as investments, financial planning, international diplomacy, trade, domestic and international politics, etc. These white folks are surprised because they don’t often see such images of black folks on BET or VH1!!!!

When I talk to my young African cousins in Africa, many of them think the “N” word means to be gangsta or hard-core, or some sort of positive connotation. When I ask them why they think so, the first thing they say is that they got it from the rap videos, and plus they think because the rappers use it to refer to each other, it must be a good thing. The same goes for other foreigners as well. A majority of these people are completely clueless to the facts that this word was once used, and still used to subject, degrade, and mentally assault the minds of many blacks into believing that they were inferior.

The band was excellent, but they were dressed in tuxedoes, and this is what white America doesn’t know, particularly people who don’t have a lot of interaction with black Americans. They think that the culture is dominated by Twista, Ludacris, and Snoop Dogg.

Why blame Oreilly for such a comment? America is almost as segregated as it was during jim crowe, and most white Americans rarely interact with blacks, so what they see or know of black folks comes from the mass media. This is why it is so important that we demand better when it comes to programming that is meant for domestic and international consumption. What do we expect when we mis-use mass media to market ourselves world wide as hypersexual, aggressive, incomprehensible loud mouths, simpletons? What do we expect? Ofcourse we all know that this image of “black folks” is a minority of the black population, but thanks to the power of the mass media, we continue to indoctrinate not just the black youth, but white folks as well to buying into such rubbish by calling it just entertainment.

O’REILLY: Because the young, white kids don’t have to struggle out of the ghetto.
This is a very good point. We must understand that as sad as it is, there are two sets of standards when it comes to black folks and white folks in this country. A white man who commits and felony is more likely to get a job than a black man who commits a misdemeanor.