#3

Last weekend, I recorded Vh1's Black to the Future specials and have now watched all of them (well, I'm only midway through the 90s, but I watched the 2000s already). I thought that, seeing as we're reading Malcolm X and studying black history and culture in general, it would be a good opportunity to take a look at it from a different, more pop-culturally driven perspective, and to also hear how other blacks viewed it all.

The special started with the 70s, a decade after Malcolm X was published. Already, in less than 10 years, the lives of blacks and their role in pop culture had changed drastically. They had their own T.V. shows, internationally famous music, and were remaking white movies and putting soulful spins on them (like the Wizard of Oz remake, The Wiz, where, instead of singing "Follow the Yellow Brick Road," they sing "Ease on Down"). It was, to put it simply, nice to see African Americans getting a chance to really live out their culture loud and proud. There must have been a great build up of suppressed energy for blacks up until then, who, as we've read in Malcolm, had been partying and lindy-hopping their way through the decades, but also in the shadows, out of sight from the white majority. Maybe that's why the 70s seemed to be an explosion of blacks pop culture and pride.

Still, though. The "commentators" of the special, if you will--the semi-celebrity guests who commented their way through the decades--still expressed the oppression blacks feel in American society, something that one doesn't always remember nowadays, what with entertainment powerhouses like Kanye West, Beyoncé, Will Smith, etc. The resentment towards the discrimination from the guys on Vh1 was different from Malcolm's: they weren't hatful towards whites, they just wanted equal exposure in film and music. Which is obviously understandable.

While reading Malcolm, I've begun to worry that, because of my whiteness and social status, I'm generally disliked by the black community. Is it so hard to imagine that I feel that? There have been moments while reading that I've had to put the book down, walk away, and fume because he's made me so angry. While Malcolm's racism towards whites is, on one hand, justified, it's still racism through and through. And with the knowledge that most blacks honor Malcolm X (and for good reason, no doubt), it made me wonder, "Do they, too, actually believe that whites are the devil?"

Granted, Malcolm's opinions do change once he goes to Mecca. But I'm kind of beyond the point of taking him seriously anymore; his rants became too... facetious, if you will.

But Black to the Future had black and white commentators, all reminiscing about the history of the development of black pop culture popularity together. Instead of all of the talk of separation and/or rebellion, they focused on the positive movements and seemed to genuinely be having a good time talking about it. While reading Malcolm, I feel that it's all negative, all hatred. It was nice, for those few hours, to get a new perspective on black history.

Lesson learned: T.V. > Books.






Kidding.