I'll wait...
Ok, so yeah, the former First Lady, Barbara Bush (Yep the same Barbara Bush who claimed that Katrina victims were "underprivileged anyway" and better off in makeshift shelters than their ghetto communities.) actually said something that I agree with. But first the backstory.
Bush recently penned a Newsweek article wherein she praises Precious for "promoting literacy." In the article she is clearly talking about poor kids (and I am certain she means ghetto kids) when she says:
There are kids like Precious everywhere. Each day we walk by them: young boys and girls whose home lives are dark secrets. They are often abused or neglected, and seldom read to or given homework help. Without the skills they need to lead a productive life, the chances are good they will continue the cycle of poverty and illiteracy.
But something happened between the Newsweek article and the NPR interview. Someone--probably a Black person--pulled her coat about the film's detractors. The first thing out of BB's mouth was that she worries that the film may stereotype Black people. (Actually, if you listen closely, what she says is that Precious is "stereotyped as a Black"(!!!) This is probably closer to what she really believes. But imma let that Freudian shit slide) She stresses her point saying she "hates that because it isn't just Blacks...its an American problem." (yeah, ok BB)
She goes on to mention her alcoholism and her son's, Dubya, penchant for alcohol and (probably) cocaine...
Ok, I made that last sentence up. Full disclosure is not something we would expect from elite white people. But it makes her caveat meaningless. Without full disclosure from Barbara Bush about the white double standard we, Black people, are obligated to question her sincerity and her motives. Without a serious discussion of how the US government has worked against black freedom, justice and equality, her "support" rings hollow as hell. By her own admission Precious pathologizes and stereotypes Black people. But her son an alcoholic, (probable) cocaine abuser and Harvard reject can become a two-term president...
Black folks should be alarmed at Bush's support of Precious. This is absolutely not about the fear of "airing our dirty laundry." Given the subordinate status of black folks generally, I think it would be foolish of us not to be concerned with how we are portrayed in the mainstream media. You name me the quality of life indicator and I can already predict that Black Americans will be at or near the bottom of that ranking. This is not about "airing our dirty laundry" because this caricature of black life is nothing new. Black folks have been the target of public scorn by White America for centuries. Even the act of running away from a slave plantation was pathologized. Our subordinate status continues to be rationalized and perpetuated by these caricatures.
The "dirty laundry," as it were, is not about black people at all. It is about the often obscured mechanisms that keep us oppressed, including the myth of black hyper ghetto pathology and its evil twin, the pathology of white normativity (privilege, denial, the psychopathic racial personality, "objectivity," defenders of human rights and the "free" world, etc.)...
The point I took away from Ishmael Reed's scathing review of this abomination of a movie is that the marketers of Precious are targeting a white audience while at the same time strategically muting black discontent with this racist project. Oprah Winfrey and, more recently, Barbara Bush are part of that cynical strategy. What we need,in fact what we must demand, are stronger crtiques of white normativity and fewer portrayals of stereotypical black hyper ghetto pathology...and one less hypocritical "friend."
We should push Oprah to bankroll a movie that exposes United States government complicity in funneling massive amounts of cocaine into Black ghettos to fund covert operations in Nicaragua. That laundry has been putrefying for over a decade now. The courageous reporter who exposed the US government's dirty laundry, Gary Webb, committed suicide after years of vicious attacks from the mainstream press.
I can promise you that you won't find Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry and Barbara Bush rushing to hype that story.
You can listen to the interview below.
tags: Barbara Bush, cocaine, crack, drugs, Gary Webb, media, pathology, Precious, race
No comments:
Post a Comment