Promoting Bad Black Behavior is a Good Thing?

Good for white supremacy, not the Black community.

If two rappers have identical talent and ability and one rapper’s music promotes the killing of other blacks while the other rapper promotes the uplifting of the black community, which one will get signed to a deal and which one will fall into obscurity to the point where most people will never know their music-style even exists? We all know the outcome of this fictional scenario and it doesn’t just apply to the music industry. It’s pervasive in all forms of media and entertainment.

This is an issue Black creatives have dealt with for many decades. If Black artists create content that is uplifting for their community, they will likely have trouble selling their work and making a living. On the other hand, if they produce content that reinforces negative behavior and stereotypes, then they will likely have a much more lucrative career, but at the cost of their moral conscience. Why is the system even set up this way? Is it because Capitalism REQUIRES a permanent underclass and Black folks keep volunteering?

As I mentioned, this is an old, long-standing issue and some diligent people have been chipping away at “the system”. Before all the Hollywood Diversity Fellowships came into existence, there was the Guy Hanks and Marvin Miller Screenwriting Program at USC, which was a fellowship program for minority writers. Along with the screenwriting component, the even more satisfying aspect of the program was an immersive course in Black history. For me, the most impactful thing was reading and studying actual slave narratives, which one might argue had nothing to do with screenwriting. Oh, but it had everything to do with voice; the voice of the oppressed. And this raised the question, once an oppressed people found a voice, why would they then go ahead and use that voice to oppress their own people even further? Remember the first scenario about which rapper gets the record deal? And how does that rapper use their voice/platform?

The Guy Hanks Screenwriting program has been shut down for many years now. But back in the 90s when I attended, it was one of the only ways for Black writers to get an introduction into Hollywood. Today it is much easier for minority writers breaking in to Hollywood with multiple Diversity Programs to attend. But the Guy Hanks program was unique. It had another, much more sinister agenda beyond screenwriting instruction. The program had the additional goal of building Black writers who would be ‘conscious’ of the power they wielded in shaping the Black community and hopefully the writers would be persuaded to choose upliftment over debauchery, which is the much more lucrative, seductive path promoting and reinforcing negative black behavior. Imagine that, Black writers believing they actually had the option of presenting uplifting images of Black people? That’s a threat to the current system indeed. After all, the ‘system’ needs its permanent underclass to survive, right?

I think that overall the Guy Hanks writing program did have a net-positive effect for Black writers. Many alumni of the program went on to become working Hollywood writers, producers, directors. But the struggle still continues because of the Golden Rule. He or she who has the gold, makes the rules. A Black creative may set out with the best intentions of uplifting their community, but if their boss tells them to do the opposite or look for another job, survival instincts kick in. Until Black Americans develop an economic base to fund, create, control and own our media and entertainment output, we will continue to struggle against institutions that benefit financially from the promotion of negative Black behavior and stereotypes.

Oscar Micheaux and his contemporaries had it right. Though short-lived, they did have a self-sustained Black film industry. Then the Black actors saw what white actors were being paid and left for Hollywood to trade in their leading roles for higher paying subservient roles in white films playing butlers, mammies and servants. Taraji P. Henson wasn’t the first Black actor to want more pay when they found out what white actors were making, and she likely won’t be the last.