On the bright side, this is slightly less distasteful than Big Sexy comparing himself to Rosa Parks. Newsday’s Neil Best observes the ongoing controversy surrounding Jason Whitlock’s coverage of All-Star Weekend and critique of “the Black KKK”.
“I don’t know if I’m trying to get people stirred up with this issue as much as I am trying to initiate a dialogue in the black community about a real problem,” Whitlock said. “Some things we’ve come to accept as normal are just unacceptable.”
That is provocative stuff, and predictably has caused Whitlock grief, particularly from black readers who have called him “a sellout” and worse.
At least he has leeway to explore such subjects as a black journalist, something a white columnist could not have done. Right?
Oops. Turns out that assumption is one of his pet peeves. Whitlock cited his columnist role model, the late Mike Royko, who was white.
“He’d write whatever the hell he wanted whenever the hell he wanted about anybody,” Whitlock said. “I’ve clearly established I’m going to address racial issues whenever I feel like it.”
As usual, Whitlock is unapologetic, as in this response to those who are unhappy with him for allegedly furthering stereotypes in his columns.
“How come no one says, ‘Hey, these guys putting out their ignorant-ass videos and this music, they are confirming every stereotype white racists might have?'” he said.
“And they’re doing it on a much bigger scale than I am.”
Bill Cosby, Rev. Al Sharton, C. Dolores Tucker, were all unavailable for comment.
(UPDATE : The Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Aldridge weighed in on the matter in Sunday’s paper, and he’s got a thing or two to say about tarring an entire group with the same brush.
Let’s get real: “gangbangers” is code for young black men. Many writers have twisted themselves into pretzels saying they weren’t talking about race when they described their fears, but it is hard to recall reading such angst about drunk and menacing white people at Mardi Gras or in Fort Lauderdale during spring break.
I wish more young black men weren’t so seduced by the worst of hip-hop culture: the misogyny, the glamorization of selling drugs and drinking, the indifference to formal education. I wish VH1 could find better depictions of black life than crackhead singers and illiterate sex-crazed fools. But I don’t know – and neither do any of the writers and bloggers – if a group of young black man approaching in cornrows and baggy jeans are thieves or pre-med students at Penn.
To assume either possibility is to be prejudiced. Period.
As a resident of a block where the elderly African-American retirees and 50 something careerists talk to me often about their issues with the younger generation embracing prison culture, let alone the half dozen or so Black teens on my block who are wrapped up in church, punk rock and skateboards, or computers who also don’t like that criminal scene… I sort of live around this issue most weeks… The general theme that gangbangers, thugs, or other violent actors do not represent African-American culture as a whole, as a people or as representative of a race should be accepted as fact by all readers. David Aldridge is prejudiced for making that assumption that gangbangers equal young black men. I cannot fathom how he can state that with a straight face. The issue is that the apocryphal “pre-med students at Penn” have adopted a violent, prison-based culture that has been the bane of successful Ivy League African-American students since… now I cannot find reference to this story, but there was a famous case where an Ivy League student (Harvard?) was shot by the police (in NYC?). The police were lambasted until it was uncovered that the student felt pressured to take up criminality outside of his Ivy League environment. I welcome links to that story as it had an affect on me 10-15 years ago. It specifically showed the pressure put on these kids by organized crime. That pressure + guns + cops killed that Ivy Leaguer and it would also hurt those pre-med students at Penn and that’s the point. Aldridge shows us the entire point and then claims that it’s something else.
The meth epidemic and the explosion of rural midwestern gangs like the Gangster Disciples absolutely paints the picture of white pimply teens w/ tear tattoos in Raiders-wear throwing firecrackers on ATVs as gangsters. No one can deny meth’s affects on modern organized crime in rural areas without being myopic. Kid Rock asserted, “I’m not straight outta compton, I’m straight out of a trailer.” The only way someone could ignore white gangstas in 2007 is to purposely ignore them to prove a point.
Another major issue is saying that these kinds of events, when targeting a white or mixed audience, don’t generate the same kind of reports of debauchery.
Biker Gang Violence Reappears at Surgis, South Dakota rally:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,207915,00.html
Coverage of Sturgis always focuses on white biker gangs, drinking, debauchery. Ostensibly this is a sports story. Really, a very white crowd.
Daytona Bike Week, deadliest in 65 years:
http://www.local6.com/video/7962011/detail.html
Pretty much every biker event draw police interested in stopping potential speed/crank/meth-related violence. There were multiple episodes of COPS filmed in both Sturgis and New Orleans/Mardi Gras. I saw them.
Also, the University of Maryland students who riotted after basketball games throughout the early 2000s have caused much handwringing in our local press and some CNN coverage. This is a huge issue, has received LOTS of press and airplay, and the majority focus is on white, on-campus fraternity violence.
To say that similar focus isn’t shown on white gangsters or bikers shows a level of myopia.
I can see nothing positive about embracing prison culture in popular culture. I feel just as weird/guilty about Suicidal Tendencies dressing in Crips clothing as I do NWA. I did NOT know in 1983 who the crips were and what their bandannas meant.
What’s truly insane is to look at the teens spending their hours and hours on the corner with women’s braids and prison-uniform clothing and write to an audience claiming that they aren’t up to something negative when their cousins and neighbors are sitting at the dining room table doing their homework or going to choir practice or on the computer or shovelling snow for money. If they aren’t doing something negative, then why are the other kids doing something positive and avoiding them? by defending these personal choices as representative of African-American culture this allows those same kids to call the African-American punk rockers, skateboard kids, bookworms, choir members, high school jazz band members and others on my block as “sell outs.” That should not be encouraged by people who know better.
This is a big issue in my city and it’s going to get bigger throughout the country.
Don
Some of this general myopia can be summed up in a conversation I had a few years back.
Friend: Everyone focuses on gun violence in rap music, never about white music.
Me: What about the shooting of Dimebag Darrel, didn’t that generate massive press? What about the 1980s heavy metal suicides?
Friend: I don’t remember those.
Me: Kurt Cobain?
So eliminate what one “doesn’t see” and then the filter on what one likes and then you have a skewed view. CSTB is the ONLY outlet I have seen covering this issue, does that mean no one else is? No.
I thought Whitlock went too far with the self-righteousness (ie- the aforementioned self-comparison to Rosa Parks), but I’m glad he said what he did. I’m not expert on black culture, but I do know that too many prominent people are afraid to even discuss these pressing, complex issues, and they’re shirking their responsibilities as writers by being willfully ignorant.
Throughout history, writers and artists have been asked to form the collective conscience of a society, and too often, our contemporary sportswriters would rather write fluff pieces about Gilbert Arenas’ quirkiness than talk about anything substantial.
Don,
the gunshot deaths of Dimebag Darryl and Kurt C. could well have inspired some debate about gun control, but if such conversations took place, I must’ve spaced on ’em. But despite both cases generating considerable press coverage, Darryl’s killing was clearly the work of a lone nut (wheras, say, Columbine was the work of a duo) And Kurt, of course, was a suicide.
You do have the legacy of Faxed Head to draw upon, if nothing else.
TMC,
I think Whitlock is perfectly entitled (as is any writer, regardless of race) to ask just what-the-fuck-is-up with a culture that glorifies violence, denigrates women, is materialistic-to-the-max, etc. However, none of those things are exclusive to hip hop, nor is all hip hop devoted to said themes. To repeat something I wrote earlier, I do think some of this is a trip to Generation Gap City. Whitlock has no problem with Jamie Foxx concerts and visits to the Spearmint Rhino. Roving gangs (klans, if you will) of marauding hip hoppers, however, have him looking for the nearest soapbox.
GC,
Good point about the Generation Gap.
Whitlock does sound like something of a grumpy old man when he sees violence and just blames it on The damn Hip-Hop.
So, that raises the question: is there any prominent person working in the media today who does speak for the black youth culture? I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head, anyway.
There is no debate. If there was no danger, no crime in society, this wouldn’t be discussed. All this inspires more misinformation and death. Teach a child to make no distinctions about an oncoming person, and you’ll have a raped, murdered, maimed, etc. child. Just ask Elizabeth Smart, whose mother brought a bum from the street into the home, thinking he was just like everyone else. (Elizabeth is the teenage girl who was kidnapped and raped a few years ago).
Just one example. Instead of talking about being good, why not try doing it.
sorry, Susan, but if looking like a bum was enough reason to call the fuzz, half of Williamsburg would be in handcuffs.
I definitely tried to address the Generation Gap issue in my post referencing my elderly neighbors (several graduated from segregated high schools well before World War II !!) and the careerists. To a great extent I can only view things from my current perspective- hey teenage punk rockers, can I pay you to shovel my elderly neighbors’ steps? Is that a TV on the Radio t-shirt? Cool. Vs the 21 yr olds who glare at me as I drive by their corner.
Jim Crow was probably last active as a serious cultural menace around the late 1980s (depending on how you view the Katrina response). Since then, integration in all levels of business has been the norm. 20 years later you have a widening gap between the African-American haves and have-nots in a more integrated urban environment strongly affected by booming housing values and unmanageable suburban commutes.
That, combined with a strain of African-American conservatism (not the crazed Alan Keyes kind, a more bootstrap kind) and power of mega-churches, means fertile ground for this kind of commentary. Debra Dickinson declared that Barack Obama doesn’t understand African-American culture. Barack Obama is going to be in the top 5 major political figures of the next 2 years. Therefore this discussion will be repeated ad nauseum.
first, i was skimming through and i thought the title was “Whitlock: I’m The New ROTHKO”! I was dissappointed when i found out he hadn’t taken up painting.
second, do The Meatmen count as a gang?