Free speech and responsibility
12th November 2018 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
Rapper Kanye West recently announced that he is distancing himself from politics. This comes after he decided to make a series of questionable statements and moves like wearing Confederate battle flags, suggesting that slavery was a choice, wearing President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hat and hanging out with the Commander-in-Chief like his best Black friend ever despite the many disparaging remarks the president has made about NFL players, people of color in general, women, immigrants and just about anyone who isn’t white, male and filthy rich. West, who said he is bipolar, said he doesn’t want people using him any more to say things that he really doesn’t believe.
I would have been more impressed if the outspoken rapper had admitted that he has grown weary of being called out for embarrassing his family, the Hip Hop Nation, Chicago’s South Side and Black folks in general.
The problem is that Kanye West is literally just the tip of the iceberg. There are far too many folks on television, talk-radio and social media who run their mouths all day but have no idea what they are talking about.
When it comes to talk radio, you will find far too many cases of “the blind leading the blind” these days. What you will not find in abundance are decorum, respect, professionalism, maturity or any semblance of training in broadcast journalism.
You will find lots of talk-show hosts that have very little command of the English language, talk in confusing, run-on sentences and verbally attack or belittle any guest or caller who dares to offer a differing opinion.
Sadly, there are some talk-show hosts that Google statements made by some of their guests in a feverish attempt to prove them wrong rather than listen and try to hear what these guests are saying.
Time and energy that could have been spent engaging in productive, meaningful dialogue or passing along critical information is instead spent by hosts who are hell-bent on proving they are smarter than their guests and worthy of being admired by the public.
Social media is even worse with folks from all walks of life making claims without anything to support them.
A friend of mine told me recently about a young man he met who teaches a college course to supplement his income. He says the young man told him that he does not read books — just like Kanye West — and somehow managed to make it through grade school and college at an HBCU without reading any of the standard reading material often cited by Blacks like, The Souls of Black Folks, The Mis-Education of the Negro, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, The Fire Next Time, Invisible Man and Native Son.
The young brother gets his news from the World Star Hip Hop website and is inconstantly posting his thoughts on Instagram. Why? Because he wants people to pay attention to him. Essentially, he wants to be “liked” and “followed.”
Never mind that it is highly unlikely that he has anything of substance to say and that he is likely only adding to the confusion that is already at a feverish high.
Then there are those who refuse to read books or newspapers but claim to know everything, in part because they watch political talk shows and panel discussions on television and the Internet and regurgitate what they hear.
The problem with that practice is that it renders them intellectually lazy and causes atrophy of the brain. If you don’t actually read and expand your mind, you have no idea when you are being sold a bill of goods by a talking head or a spin doctor whose priorities and perspectives may not align with yours.
We need to remember that individuals’ opinions and remarks are amplified by social media and reverberate across time and space.
Talk radio, television and social media are not substitutes for books and newspapers and should never be viewed as such.
We need inquisitive members of the community who are willing to invest in themselves and their communities by making the time and effort to read books and newspapers that shed flight on the plight of Africans in America, not fast-food activists and self-proclaimed experts and scholars.
This is the only way we are going to move closer to achieving clarity of our mission as people of African descent and unity of purpose and thought. Harambee.
This article originally published in the November 12, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
