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Books by Tavis Smiley
My Story of Growing Up in America /
The Covenant with Black America /
The Covenant in Action
Never Mind Success: Go for Greatness /
Keeping the Faith /
Black Rage, Black Redemption
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The Tavis Smiley Presidential Forum
"Showtime At The Apollo!"
By
Leutisha Stills, senior correspondent, CBC Monitor
4 July 2007
Tavis Smiley's
presidential forum, before a black audience, with
questions by black journalists, focusing on the issues
ignored or bypassed in the mainstream media, but vitally
important to the African America community, was billed
as a historic occasion. But what we got was something
else --- a game show format, driven by shallow sound
bytes, all of it summed up for us by the same Republican
pollster who gave us the "Contract For America" and the
"death tax." Tavis Smiley's presidential forum shows
what we get when we confuse black celebrity with black
leadership, and marketing with journalism.
Despite the
claim of at least one Democratic candidate, there
still is a Black America and the social, economic,
social and political gulf between it and white America
remains very real. So a presidential debate with
questions from African American journalists on topics of
particular concern to black voters and communities was
an exciting prospect. But the disappointing product
Tavis Smiley delivered last Thursday showed the limits
of what African Americans can expect when we confuse
black celebrity with leadership and black marketing with
journalism.
I've attended and written about
Tavis's events
before. As always, I hope for the best, and this
was no exception. This time, I imagined that we might
come away with something more constructive,
comprehensive and decisive as to which candidate would
be the best one to lead America. I hoped we might see a
discussion particularly sensitive to the issues of Black
America, one that would not take our vote for granted.
In other words, I wanted - we wanted - these
Presidential candidates to actually hear our cry, our
complaints and our concerns, and not buy us off with
platitudes and canned rhetoric to make us feel good.
First the good news:
The Tavis Smiley presidential forum
was fairer than CNN's. CNN grouped its favored
candidates Clinton, Obama and Edwards together at center
stage, and managed to give them not just all the best
camera angles but most of the question time, too. By
contrast, Tavis promised to assign candidate positions
randomly, and to give everyone the same amount of time.
The Smiley forum did feature
questions from three journalists of color (DeWayne
Wickham, Michel Martin, and Ruben Navarette, Jr.), who
presumably played some role, along with Tavis, in
selecting the questions. Tavis also allowed members of
the public to submit proposed questions in advance over
the internet.
Smiley's studio audience was mainly
black, and a black man, Tavis himself, got to sit in the
moderator's chair. The affair was held at historically
black Howard University.
There were questions you'd never hear
in front of white audiences on such topics as the racial
selectivity of the nation's criminal justice system, and
the black AIDS rate. There was even a question on the
right to return for those dispersed by Katrina.
All the candidates seemed to agree
that mandatory minimum sentences were part of the
problem, not part of the solution.
And now for the bad news.
The bad news was that it wasn't a
debate. Not at all. No point and counterpoint, no
follow-up questions or rebuttals. After nearly half an
hour of
overlong Negro Introductions and perorations about
the event's historic importance candidates were allowed
no more than 60 or 70 seconds per question, sometimes as
little as 40 or 45 seconds. Within this format sound
bytes often triumphed over substance. Hillary Clinton
sidestepped a difficult question about black women and
AIDS with a pandering line about how if AIDS were the
number one cause of death among white woman it would be
dealt with differently, a mumbled sentence or two in the
middle and another flourish about dealing with AIDS the
way they used to when it was a gay man's disease in the
golden age of her hubby's presidency. Time's up. Next
contestant, next question. It was closer to being a game
show than a presidential debate. Senator Chris Dodd
accurately gauged the mood of the affair, volunteering
to take "Global Warming for $600!"
Presidential debates and forums
usually include some ordinary folks, either as audience
members or sometimes as questioners. But Smiley's
studio audience seemed to be mainly people like himself
-- black A-list celebrities and entertainers, many of
them guests on his shows, with a thick layer of current
and former black elected and appointed officials.
Studio cameras cut restlessly back and forth between the
candidates and Al Sharpton next to Harry Belafonte,
Michael Eric Dyson, Terri McMillan, Iyanla Vanzant, Ruby
Dee and Sonia Sanchez, members of Congress Rangel,
Waters, and Jackson-Lee, that guy from the Young & the
Restless, and many more.
It wasn't exactly BET or the Image
Awards, but it made me wonder. Was this a presidential
debate? Or was it another marketing opportunity? Does
Tavis think black people won't watch a presidential
debate without black celebrities on camera? Or was
Tavis just flexing his own "star power" - reassuring
audiences and sponsors that any time they see him they
might see some other celeb too? Journalists and media
people of all types including this correspondent were
exiled to another room.
The candidates were never directly
asked a "when will you get us out of Iraq" question,
despite the fact that African Americans are more against
this war than anyone. One would think we deserve to be
able to evaluate the candidates on this important issue
side by side.
Finally no presidential debate or
forum is complete without its own spin cycle, its
explanation of what the candidates said and what we
should be hearing. So Tavis accepted the generous offer
of
Frank Luntz, a helpful Republican pollster, to
explain the reactions of an African American focus
group, supposedly standing in for all of us. Tavis
himself explained it in a
Democracy Now interview last Thursday:
"What Mr. Luntz has
been asked to do, what he quite frankly offered to do,
was to set up a people-metering room where some thirty
African Americans -- they're all black, they're all
Democrats, they're all voters -- are going to be asked
what they think of the debate, the forum, as it
unfolds... we'll be able to read the data as to what
they thought about every person on the stage answering
these questions... Mr. Luntz has been a guest on my
program a couple times, as has Newt Gingrich and any
number of other Republicans... And the role he's playing
is helping us to understand what the top line is for
what these African American Democrats had to say."
Frank Luntz used to work for Newt
Gingrich. He's the Republican propagandist who gave us
the 1994 "Contract
For America," and who came up with the idea of
calling the estate tax the "death
tax." His latest book is titled
Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People
Hear. Who could be better qualified, Tavis
must have asked himself, to interpret the African
American reaction to this historic political exchange?
"People metering" is when you give
each person in your focus group a little panel with five
or six buttons that might be marked "strongly agree,"
"somewhat agree, neutral," "somewhat disagree," and
"strongly disagree" or a similar range. Your group
members push one button at all times, and you
electronically monitor the results from second to second
as the candidates talk. It's a glorified applause meter.
Leave it to Tavis Smiley to turn a
Democratic presidential forum into a star-studded
episode of "Showtime At The Apollo."
It gives me no pleasure to call
Brother Tavis out like this. But giving us a
Republican-spun, sound-byte driven game show
front-loaded with self-important speeches and explained
to us by a pollster who worked for
Rudy Guliani's last three campaigns is not a service
to black America, or the
black consensus. It does not showcase African
America's political concerns, it trivializes them. What
a letdown.
CBC Monitor senior correspondent Leutisha
Stills can be reached at leutishastills(at)hotmail.com
Source: Black
Agenda Report
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A Related View
 |
We are
all watching Obama's tightrope walk, his
attempts to appeal to the white majority
while maintaining some semblance of
integrity regarding the plight of black
Americans. It's a heavy burden. In contrast,
Hillary Clinton is on relatively sure
footing. Obama must tilt away from clarity
and passion about issues disproportionately
affecting blacks while
Clinton
is free to perform the black candidate's
role. In last week's debate, it was she who
took on the traditional black candidate's
persona, she who was both passionate and
rhythmic in her cadence. |
Her endings built
to crescendos. Be it real or pandering, Clinton can
openly connect and show solidarity with black Americans
in ways that Obama cannot.
There is no better
example than Clinton's comment about the
disproportionate effect HIV has on black communities.
She said that if "HIV-AIDS were the leading cause of
death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34,
there would be an outraged outcry in this country." For
Obama to have said the same words in the same fiery
manner could have been political suicide. By forfeit,
Clinton essentially becomes the black candidate; it's
not a space America would allow Obama to fill.
Amina Luqman.
Obama's Tightrope.
Washington Post
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Laughter for Poor Robin
By Rudolph Lewis
In Nairobi Betty
tells me the nights have turned cold. Here at Jerusalem
we’d think that report is a fantasy not to be believe. We
go mad here with 100-degree humid days. The death-like
monotony came to an end two days ago with great
thunderclaps, enough to waken the dead. Then there was a
downpour but the heated humidity returned. Today was
filled with gentle cooling showers, ending with a
rainbow at dusk in the southern sky with faraway
rumblings and a few streaks of lightening. I cut off the
computer and lay down to dreams.
Cosmic rainbows and
final destination dreams and an ocean of distrust in
between made my day wonderful and weary all at once.
Tomorrow’s forecast is uncertain. None believes there is
enough love in America to bring the warlords down from
their magic carpets from which they toss their bombs and
edicts upon the defenseless below. They cannot hear our
cries in our ant-like existence; they are blind to the
bloody ignorant misery below. Our elected
representatives need studies and consultations with
their handlers before they will respond to suffering and
act against the will of those who chose them for their
offices. The tree frogs today however were thankful for
showers.
There’s a need for
a great national bath. Water heals. Even if the water
gods agree to concede to such a ritual cleansing,
Congress would drag its feet until a consultation is had
with hordes of lobbyists, celebrities, market
manipulators, and pollsters, as we had with the Howard
University Debate of Democratic candidates, organized by
the great black author, TV personality, and convener of
media events, multi-millionaire Tavis Smiley. So until
someone can figure out how the wealthy can make a
killing off the needed ritual cleansing of American
hearts and souls, we will go dirty as the Texas cowboy
up to his nostrils in profits from black crude.
The night has
turned cool here at Jerusalem. The waning moon rises.
There are always things that can be done to take one’s
mind off a death that approaches, or destruction that
seems inevitable. One can do a bit of house cleaning and
if one is suffering from some ailment like heart trouble
or asthma, someone in need of a few dollars can be
called on to assist. One can go through one’s cedar
chest to check items hid away to see if they are still there. One can
change one’s routine of drudgery or take a nap as water
drips from the eaves into the puddles by one’s window,
or go visit a friend in North Carolina or Paris.
As that great
Oklahoman Ralph Ellison reminds us, we need not by
necessity be victims. We can be adventurers. Despite the
parasites that create nothing, except on paper, and wish
to dominate everything by use of armed forces to impose
their will, we, bereft of the persuasiveness of the
ballot and the efficacy of cries of “let it be,” can
make use of the prophylaxis of the blues, which has been
century-tested to cure spiritual ulcers. If we must die,
if our nation must enter the moral garbage bin of
history because of greedy oil men riding high on magic
carpets, let us not die as depressed cynics.
Let us go down deep
into our reserves. For as Kalamu says in one of his
poems, depth measures our humanity. So as the parasites
pick feathers from around poor robin’s rump, let us
laugh at the paradox of how we have allowed a nation
once filled with hope to sink into the suck hole of
greed and white arrogance. For as Ellison expressed it,
“There is a mystery in the whiteness of blackness, the
innocence of evil and the evil of innocence.” If we have
concluded that the hip hop man’s bling-bling goes
nowhere, the soul man’s sensuality grows weary, let us
return to lessons of the blues man. Let us not give into
the nation’s parasites darkly.
When there is
another presidential forum organized by an enterprising
media organizer, like Tavis Smiley, and the candidates
respond to game show questions, let us belly laugh, roll
about on the floor, let tears of absurdity flow from our
eyes. Let this din of laughter chase them from the stage
back into the arms of their parasitic friends to be
consoled. Maybe a cosmic rainbow from ocean to ocean
will appear as a sign from the gods that our blues
ancestors are pleased. Maybe, just maybe, our laughter
will be our saving grace.
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posted 10 July 2007 / update 23 June
2008 |
