The Garbage we Call Urban Media and radio

My uncle once told me “sometimes what we don’t do is just as important as what we do.” I have taken this axiom to heart for most of my adolescent and adult life. I take it to mean that opportunity is a two-sided street of either seizing the moment versus being blinded by myopia and ignorance.

I am reminded of this often. As I read the Turkish daily News, the New York Times, the the Jerusalem Post and even the Atlanta Journal Constitution, information of a worldly nature is flowing. Writers write in tune with the global nature of both our world and being. But when I scan the topics provided by urban media and radio, I do not see such and only seem to scroll through mundane subject matter that can only be manifested w a concern with celebrity and entertainment.

I say this because it is day 7 of the protest occurring in Egypt against the autocratic regime of Hosni Mubarak and if one reads the Urban Grind, Bossip, Concret Loop, or watch BET or listen to any radio station with the mantra of “hot”, you will be lucky to see one article or hear one news brief on this historical event. Not one single article or discussion on what is occurring right now in North Africa, or insight concerning its relations to past revolt in Africa or what impact or meaning it has for African Americans. This is a completely different urban media than in the past. Now it is more interested in promoting the snake oil and chicanery of gossip and celebrity idolization – go figure.

Although urban by definition comes from the Latin word urbanus referring to cities, it has been reduced to a catch all for minority inhabited areas – mainly African American. And those that claim the mantel of being urban media outlets proclaim the delusive semblance of representing and well-being of said communities actually do not and impose more harm than good.

The sad reality is that these organizations have other interest as their priority and have mutated to something caustic, failing the standards of information outlets of past that lived and promoted social responsibility with passion and duty.

True, I write for a living and times have changed but the same struggle and needs of the past still remain. Unfortunately, many of my peers see avarice, greed and denseness as what is paramount and important more so than self determination and or collective social accountability. Supposedly astute in letters, most likely they could not delineate Henry Dumas for Alexander Dumas, Samori Toure from Sekou Toure, and Euclid’s theory from Maxwell’s theory (electromagnetism), a future from an option or a debt from a deficit.

This is just an example for topics as what is occurring in Egypt, or anything worldly is considered “outside” of their demographic. They do however, write incessantly on topics ranging from how many times Gucci Mane has been arrested, Basketball wives and how many baby momma’s Lil Wayne has but nothing on Mumia Abu Jamal in contrast or what China/US talks mean for African Americans. But what is to be expected reading E.Lynn Harris has been replaced with reading Richard Wright or a Letter from a Birmingham jail. I guess it should be anticipated. Today, many of us have never lived outside the US, let alone Africa or speak multiple languages.

Yes, I know, why read Condoleezza Rice’s latest book when we can attend to gossip, celebrity, fame and watching BET is more important. BET, that’s another story, claiming to be a television station but doesn’t have a morning or evening news program – they say such is not their demographic. People who desire to be informed are not in their demographic. I cannot answer my question but I can say that such is garbage when you think of that in comparison the proportion of Africa Americans living in poverty, infants dying before the age of one, incarceration rates, school dropout rates and illiteracy, unemployment figures or rates of HIV/AIDS among us.

Today unlike the past, nonsense is given predicate over value. Again, I guess it is to be expected. The inaction of urban media and radio gives definition to Harriet Tubman’s statement. “I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more if they had known they were slaves.”

For me it means I (Information) before E) Entertainment except after C (consciousness.)

TI and Gucci Mane Celebrated, Mumia Abu Jamal Still Forgotten

It is easy to feel concern, compassion or apathy, about what people openly discuss and talk about frequently — especially in this age of social networking with regards to sights like Twitter and Facebook. I joined Twitter around 2007, but have yet to open a Facebook site. From my perspective, the main benefit is that one can easily share information as well as keep track of events that are provided by news outlets, mostly newspapers that I would otherwise not be able to via a regular medium. However, it does have its negative aspects as well.

Last night, via Twitter, I found out that Atlanta hip-hop artist Radric “Gucci Mane” Davis had been released from jail. Not that it was important, but the interest it attracted and the unexpected joy and veneration with respect to his release was. Personally I could not understand it, but next it dawned on me that these people have never to my knowledge used this medium to gather momentum with respect to another individual in a similar position, Mumia Abu-Jamal.Jamal was a journalist and the founder of the Philadelphia Black Panthers. In 1982, he was convicted and sentenced to death for the alleged killing of a white Philadelphia police officer.

He has been in prison since 1981 and on death row since 1983, for the aforementioned murder of Daniel Faulkner. Prior to that, he was best known for his award winning reporting on police brutality in the city of Philadelphia called “Voice of the Voiceless”.

It appears that our priorities are backwards, giving more attention to Gucci Mane and other rappers who are incarcerated inclusive of T.I., Lil Wayne, than people who actually contribute positively to our community. Neither Lil Wayne nor Gucci Mane could compare to Mumia Abu-Jamal in character, community development or integrity. Yet Mr. Davis, speaking to a group of reporters said "My time in jail was trying, but I grew from it and am now a stronger and better person. I want to continue on a positive track and truly focus on being a role model to my fans and my community."

It is a shame and maybe even a sign of the times when a former president of the Association of Black Journalists and the founding member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Black Panther Party, gets less attention than people who through their music, applaud greed, self-centeredness, materialism and violent self-destructive behavior. Someone please explain, I just cannot not comprehend it.

America: A Nation of Peter Griffin's and Homer Simpson's

Sometimes I wonder what has happened to America. On the one hand you have folk who occupy themselves with celebrity culture and reality television and on the other, extreme zealots that use presupposed intellect to propound lunacy and outright hatred. In either instance, both sides of the above coin redefine idiocy and make it seem like stupidity has replaced suma cum laude.

Now as far as the first side goes, they are just as dangerous as the race baiting, islamaphobic nativist that are on the other end of the continuum and equally as dangerous. They tend to know when Lil Wayne is getting out of prison and how many times Lindsey Lohan has been arrested that who is their representative in the state senate or how to solve a polynomial.

It is this segment of the population mainly responsible for America ranking 26 in the world in math, science and reading comprehension. There book is the music video and they read TMZ and other entertainment blogs as if the information they contained was just as valuable as the Wall Street Journal. They are more apt to spend time in clubs, bars, lenox mall and the local car wash than the PTA, library, or helping their kids do homework.

Unfortunately these folk are not our nations only problem, for on the other end of the spectrum is a cavalcade of ignorance just as appalling. Although rather knowledgeable, this group lacks the ability to lucidly employ reason, problem solve or think critically. They unlike the previous who are oblivious to all outside the entertainment industry and have a penchant to allow fear and the disability of retrograde amnesia with respect to history, to direct their understanding of the world.


It seems these folk hate all that is not reflective of traditional White Anglo Saxon Protestant culture. The hate the current president for several reasons – that he is Black, has a name unlike theirs and that he lives in the Whitehouse. They even compare him to both Hitler and Stalin, while forgetting these two fought against each other in World War 2 and that on the down low, they believe in the racial superiority that Hitler preached. They have a disdain for other ethnic groups and religions for example, like Muslims and immigrants in particularly from Mexico; while confidently forgetting they come from similar origins.

Using the example of Islam, they forget theirs a history of Popes Innocent the III and Gregory IX, who massacred and murdered people, conducted the inquisition against heretics in the name of their one true God and religion – Christianity. Doing the work of a God in their views supported the beheading of non-believers and burning them at the stake. No different than the horrid beliefs of Islamic Sharia Law in my purview regarding infidels.

Or the case of Mexican immigrants, forgetting how they came to these lands without papers, illegally, cutting off heads of the Native Americans who were here before them, murdering women and children in order to steal their land – this too in the name of their white god.

This America I live in is backwards. They pray for TI not to go to prison but let Mumia Abu Jamal rot in prison with no interest. They applaud Thomas Jefferson as a founding father but ignore his documented goal to take without trade, the land of Native Americans and his wish for their extermination. I even just read a piece by John Avlon of the Daily Beast noting that 46 books have been published demonizing President Obama in his first two years of office compared to 6 and 11 for George Bush and Bill Clinton at the same period of their presidencies.

So why? Why is this bivalve of my America in 2010? Took me a while to come to a reasonable conclusion but all I could come up with was that this nation has been reduced to these types of people. One the one side, there are the Homer Simpsons and on the other, the Peter Griffins. The rest of us are in the middle shaking our heads, moving them from left to right as if we are watching a tennis match.