The Struggle, Brought To You Live By C-SPAN And Wells Fargo

---

Let me be up-front here: For about a decade or so now, I have thoroughly enjoyed hating on Black America’s favorite hustler, Tavis Smiley. Ah, yes, Tavis: the man who attempts to channel Larry King and Martin Luther King simultaneously. King me!

Look, my hate is justified: I have three journalism degrees (the story of Smiley’s hustle is actually part of my doctoral dissertation), with about 24 years and-an-out the journo game, I’m in the poorhouse. Smiley has one law-and-public-policy undergraduate degree, and in about the same time frame has become a millionaire interviewer who can get POTUS to send him a shout:

“You know that tough times for America often mean tougher times for African-Americans,” said President Obama, speaking via recorded video text for the 10^th anniversary of “The State of the Black Union” conference, held in Los Angeles Saturday. The President continued: “This recession has been no exception. The unemployment rate among Black Americans is a full five points higher than the rate among Americans as a whole.” The Community Organizer-In-Chief praised those assembled for fighting for The People: “It (the SOBU) represents an incredible opportunity to highlight not only the challenges facing the African-American community-but also the ways in which ordinary men and women are working to meet them.”

Smiley, understanding What This Meant, was so pleased at this he played the message not once, but twice during his roughly eight hours of live airtime on C-SPAN.

So what happened to that now-famous beef between Black America’s Unelected Spokesperson and America’s Elected Black President?  You remember: when Smiley politely-but-publicly got on Daddy-O’s case for not attending last year, and Black America responded with jumping on Smiley online with both feet? Oh, that’s old stuff; don’t be bringing that up in here. All good now, bay-bee.

Everybody got what they wanted. The Black President has addressed the  Black community at what is now unofficially known as the National Black History Month event. Smiley got bragging rights and serious coverage.

 Look! Even Michael Steele, the brother who’s now heading the Elephants, showed up! And the brother from the Party of Lincoln sounded kinda Black, too! Did I just hear him attack The New York Post for that chimp cartoon?

 What’s going on here?!? Is this some kind of “Fear of a Black Planet” thing going on? What will those angry white Republicans and Democrats who call up every day on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” think? And like maid Florence Johnston said on her debut episode of “The Jeffersons” in 1975, seeing the moneyed people she was now around: “How come we overcame and nobody told me?”

The answer is, Florence, is that we didn’t. The State of the Black Union-which I refer to semi-affectionately as The Negro Bowl, a term, alas, I didn’t make up-is both a remarkable achievement for Black America and an illusion so well-crafted that the gang at Hogwarts should bow down in reverence. It’s an achievement because, thanks to Tavis Smiley and C-SPAN, Black America has a daylong televised national town hall meeting during Black History Month. It’s an illusion because it’s not so much a televised think-tank as a chat-fest produced and populated by folks who want to get on the Speaking Tour Train! All aboard! And thanks, Wells Fargo, Exxon Mobil, Nationwide Insurance, and C-SPAN!

Smiley in MLK mode: “I want Barack Obama to be a great president,” Smiley announced in the morning-and repeated in the afternoon, in case those who were busy watching Saturday morning infomercials and cartoons missed it. “I believe he can be a great president, but only if we make him become a great president” by holding him accountable to his promises: “His accountability is our responsibility.” Then Smiley went into Larry King mode, talking about his new book, “Accountable: Making America As Good As Its Promise.”

For those of us who grew up with books about the Black Panthers and “Eyes on the Prize” on our Tee Vee screens, Smiley’s attempts have seemed admirable, but not substantive, in history’s light. He talked a lot about “accountability” on Saturday, but he or any of the other folks up there cheesing did not talk about founding-and funding!-a national Black Political Action Committee, so how is the reality of making President Daddy-O accountable to the Black community really gonna happen? In “Accountable,” his third book in the “Covenant With Black America” (read: Black Agenda) series, Smiley has an issue checklist for folks to use to make sure Daddy-O–along with local, state and national reps–is holding it down. But what happens when he doesn’t? Are Smiley and his boys-especially the walking, talking Black public affairs shows Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson-going to shut down the nation’s capital in response, a la MLK’s planned “Poor People’s Campaign?” Is The Man Who Would Be Two Kings going to take his considerable money and re-create the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the radical student organization that cheered Brother Malcolm and pushed Brother Martin to greatness long ago? Somehow I just don’t see any of that.

Anyway, all day speakers spoke, educators educated, motivators motivated, preachers preached and the crowd cheered. Along the way, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, U.S. Rep. Maxine Walters (D-Calif.) and Marc Morial, head of the National Urban League, explained to Black Televised America that the $787 billion stimulus bill Obama just signed will mean job training, a significant investment in education and other improvements in urban areas. Harvard Law professor Charles Ogletree-now known as the Obamas’ professor-suggested Blacks make and post criminal “Wanted” posters of governors who don’t take the loot. Jackson wanted to remind folks that America needs envoys in Zimbabwe and Sudan as well as Gaza, and that struggling college students burdened with loans should get the same zero or 1 percent interest rates that failing banks are getting. The Reverend also called for folks who’ve been foreclosed on to squat illegally: “Don’t leave ’till the morning comes. Just don’t leave.” Okay, now that sounded like Movement talk to me!

Smiley’s best line came when he explained that, like the rest of the United States, Black America was in new intellectual and socio-political territory in 2009. “Ain’t none of us been here before.” Yep. But, unfortunately, Smiley’s solution is giving average, everyday folks-ones without collective political, economic or social power-the right information and pushing them to work for change (individually): “That’s what this covenant journey for 10 years has been about.” I don’t see conservatives, with their billions and fully-staffed organizations and foundations, telling Rush’s Dittoheads to do anything but nod and vote. And although we voted, we can’t afford to nod off in front of the Tee Vee, especially not now.

This story is filed under: Politics

Read more like this in: cspan, race, state of the union, tavis smiley