by Ishmael ReedA movie that “makes D.W. Griffith look like a progressive.” Oprah Winfrey’s “third black man as sexual predator and the second black incest film.” A fiction whose “policy message is that welfare recipients are black women who wish to avoid work, who use their time having sex with their daughters, watching television and dining on pig leavings.” Is this a film – or a crime?
The Selling of "Precious"
by Ishmael Reed
This article previously appeared in Counterpunch.org.
“A niche market could be defined as a component that gives your business power. A niche market allows you to define whom you are marketing to. When you know who are you are marketing to, so it's easy to determine where your marketing energy and dollars should be spent.” – Defining Your Nice Market, A Critical Step in Small Business Marketing by Laura Lake
One can view Sarah Siegel on “YouTube” discussing her approach to marketing. During her dispassionate recital she says that she sees a “niche dilemma,” and finds a way to solve that dilemma. Seeing that no one had supplied women with panties that were meant to be visible while wearing low cut jeans, she captured the niche and made a fortune. With five million dollars, she invested in the film Precious, which was adapted from the book Push, written by Ramona Lofton, who goes by the pen name of Sapphire, after the emasculating shrew in “Amos and Andy,” a show created by white vaudevillians Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll.
(Ms. Lofton also knows a thing or two about marketing. Noticing the need for white New York feminists to use black men as the fall guys for world misogyny, while keeping silent about the misogyny of those who share their ethnic back-ground, she joined in on the lynching of five black and Hispanic boys, “who grew up in jail.” She made money, and became famous. They were innocent!)
When Lionsgate Studio and Harvey Weinstein were quarreling over the rights to Push, which has been marketed under the title of Precious, about a pregnant 350-pound, illiterate black teenager who has borne her father’s child and is assaulted sexually by her mother, Sarah Greenberg, speaking for Lionsgate, said that the movie would provide the studio with “a gold mine of opportunity,” which is probably true, since the image of the black male as sexual predator has created a profit center for over one hundred years and even won elections for politicians like Bush, The First.
“The image of the black male as sexual predator has created a profit center for over one hundred years.”
But politicians, the KKK, Nazis, film, television, etc, had done the black male as a rapist to death. The problem for Sarah and Lionsgate and her film company Smokewood, was to solve “the niche dilemma,” which they saw as selling a black film to white audiences (the people to whom CNN and MSNBC are referring to when they invoke the phrase “The American People”). An article in The New York Times, 2/4/09, reported on the confusion among the investors as they fumbled about for a marketing plan.
“The studio prides itself on taking on marketing challenges, but “Push”…is one of the biggest to come along in some time, marketing experts say. African-American audiences of all demographics could wince at the film’s negative imagery. As films like “The Great Debaters” and “Miracle at St. Anna” have shown, a release labeled a black film by the marketplace — and
“Push” already has been — can be an incredibly tough sell to mainstream white audiences.
“Lionsgate already seems a little befuddled. On Monday the company initially agreed to discuss the inherent marketing challenges. A few hours later it backtracked, rejecting any marketing talk but saying executives would be happy to speak broadly about their delight in nabbing the movie. Before long that offer was also rescinded.”
Three standing ovations given Push’s test run at Sundance convinced some of the business people that although white audiences might decline to support films that show cerebral blacks, The Great Debaters, in which Denzel Washington plays the great black poet Melvin Tolson, or Spike lee’s Miracle at St. Anna, which shows heroic blacks, they would probably enjoy a film in which blacks were shown as incestors and pedophiles. White audiences continuing to give the film standing ovations and prizes and critical acclaim indicates that when Lionsgate’s co-presidents for theatrical marketing, Sarah Greenberg and Tim Palen said of Precious, “There is simply a gold mine of opportunity here,” they were on the money. It was Geoffrey Gilmore, director of the Sundance Film Festival, who enhanced the sales potential by providing the marketers led by Ms. Siegel with another selling point. In an interview he said that Push might hit “a cultural chord” because of all of the discussion about race prompted by the election of President Obama. It was after their cynical manipulative tying of a black president to their sleazy product that I wanted Sarah to change the name of her panty company from So Low to How Low.
Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck who engage in a sort of corny 1930s-styled racist rhetoric could learn from Sarah. At times they look as though they’ve lost their minds and are not pleasant to look at, while a manicured, buffed Sarah, who doesn’t go lightly on the eye shadow, looks better. She is salmon colored and though middle-aged wears baby doll clothes and if you Google her name, Sarah Siegel, along with “images” you’ll find her posing in photos some of which have blacks smooching her.
“Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck, who engage in a sort of corny 1930s-styled racist rhetoric, could learn from Sarah.”
“Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck, who engage in a sort of corny 1930s-styled racist rhetoric, could learn from Sarah.”
The Nov. 22 blog “Gawker” points to the way Limbaugh, Beck and Savage have tried to associate Obama and his administration with rape imagery. Ain’t they out of touch. Sarah Siegel has joined an innovative marketing plan that couples Obama’s name with the most extreme of sexual crimes.
This woman, who hangs out with Hollywood stars and unlike Bill O’ Reilly, an Irish American who has lost his way, knows that blacks are able to handle table utensils--she’s dined with them—might have invested in a movie that some are calling the worst depiction of black life yet done.
New York Press critic, Armond White, in a brilliant take down of the movie, compares it with Birth of a Nation. I would argue that this movie makes D.W. Griffith look like a progressive. Moreover, I’ve looked at a number of pictures that show how the Nazis depicted blacks and though Jewish and black men appear as sexual predators in many, I’ve never run across one in which minority men are shown as incest violators.
The black sexual predator is represented obsessively in the novel that inspired the bombing of the Oklahoma Federal building and the recent murder of three Pittsburgh policemen. But not even The Turner Diaries, by William Pierce stigmatizes black men as violators of the incest taboo at a time when the black male unemployment rate is 25% in some cities, 50% in New York. It took Hollywood liberals and their pathetic black front people to do that. Is there a role that black actors won’t perform? One that celebrity blacks won’t lend their names to? (If the white Oscar judges perpetrate a cruel joke by awarding this film Oscars, will the black audience members
stage a walk-out even though it might mean never working in that town again?) Indeed it was Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of the film that convinced the investors that they were on to a hot property.
stage a walk-out even though it might mean never working in that town again?) Indeed it was Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of the film that convinced the investors that they were on to a hot property.
The Times’ reports:
“A deal did not emerge for ‘Push’ until about a week after the festival ended, with potential distributors balking over the price insisted upon by Cinetic Media, a New York marketing and sales company for independent film, according to two people with knowledge of how the deal came together but who were not authorized to speak publicly.
“A spokeswoman for Cinetic declined to comment, but bidders said Ms. Winfrey and Mr. Perry had been crucial to the deal’s coming together.”
Indeed, the business model for both the book, Push, by Sapphire renamed Precious, for the movie by Lionsgate, which beat Harvey Weinstein for the rights in court, was the black incest product, The Color Purple, which has been recycled so many times that comedian Paul Mooney says that he anticipates a Color Purple on ice. But even that incest film doesn’t go as far as Precious, which shows both mother and father engaged in a sexual assault on their daughter in graphic detail, Sarah Siegel’s way of solving her “niche dilemma.”
TheRoot is The Washington Post’s black zine, among whose bosses is Jacob Weisberg--he says that he helped to launch it and has considerable influence, like deciding who gets hired and fired. The zine’s black face is Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Since the beginning of the movie’s run TheRoot has provided cover for Precious probably because Gates is tight with Oprah Winfrey and wrote a kiss up book about her. (Now that Joel Dreyfuss has taken over, TheRoot will quit being a shameless promoter of stupid NeoCon “tough love” ideology. He is journalist with integrity.) TheRoot’s support for the film is at odds with the furor that has erupted among blacks across the country about this film.
“This movie makes D.W. Griffith look like a progressive.”
Famous journalists like Jack White and Dori Maynard of the Maynard Institute say that they, like thousands of blacks, won’t even go see it. The whites who are behind this film didn’t have a black audience in mind when they drew up the business strategy for the film. Their “niche audience” got their money’s worth. The naked black skinned man Carl of medium built who rapes a 350 pound daughter, who elsewhere in the film goes about flattening people with one punch, is little more than an animal. A vile prop. A person with no story and no humanity. Writer, Cecil Brown, said that Carl is the real victim of the movie during an interview with Aimee Allison, a KPFA interviewer who has brought POVs that up to now have been missing from the Pacifica Network.
Sarah’s “niche audience” is well served. The white characters are altruistic types, there to help downtrodden black people and are among those who are to be admired. They’re there to correct blacks when they make mistakes, like a white girl who shows up in a special education class out of nowhere to explain to the character Precious the difference between the word, “insect,” and “incest.” This also follows the Nazi model. Aryans were idealized; hated minorities were degenerate.
According to this film, if you’re a lucky black woman, a white man will rescue you from the clutches of evil black men, which is why white male critics are slobbering all over this film, giving it standing ovations and awards every day. Even white critics at hip places like The Rolling Stone, a place where Elvis gets credit for “changing American music.” This reminded me of Alice Walker’s appeal to white men to rescue black women, printed in a London newspaper, and Steven Spielberg’s comment that when he read The Color Purple all he could think of was rescuing Celie, the abused heroine (while he has yet to make a movie about the Celies among his ethnic group).
(The Huffington Post’s embrace of the film probably explains Arianna Huffington’s continued scolding of the president. During the week of Nov. 23, she called the president, one of the hardest working presidents in history, “lackadaisical,” which, to black people, who know the dog whistles, means lazy. Shiftless.)
The movie says that if a white knight is not around to sweep you up, maybe a fantasy light skinned boyfriend will do the job. The light skinned literacy teacher, whom the camera favors, and a firm welfare worker of the same skin tone, played by Mariah Carey, who has welfare recipients at her mercy, are among the movies positive characters, while black and brown skinned women are shown as petty, sullen, quick tempered and violent.They romp through the movie scowling and glaring at people and telling people things like “you ain’t shit.” This film includes the worst portrayal of black women I’ve ever seen, which makes TheRoot contributors’-- young black women professors- -endorsement of the film puzzling.
“The white characters are altruistic types, there to help downtrodden black people and are among those who are to be admired.”
“These are the types who are using the university curriculum to get even with their fathers and teach courses in black women’s literature, but can’t identify more than three. (The great novelist, the late Kristin Hunter Lattany, who was driven out of her college teaching job by a racist campaign [see her novel, Breaking Away] did not receive a single retrospective from these women.)
They don’t seem to read criticism by black women either. During an endorsement of Precious, one of them, writing in TheRoot, repeated the canard that only black men opposed The Color Purple, when the book and the movie offended some of most prominent literary stars. Barbara Smith, Toni Morrison, Michele Wallace, and bell hooks, who described the film as “aversion therapy” for white women, are authors of scathing comments about the book and Steven Spielberg’s interpretation. Trudier Harris, next to Joyce Joyce, the most prominent of black women critics, said that she discontinued criticizing the book after retaliations from the powerful white feminist academic lobby.
Haven’t these TheRoot contributors read Walker’s “Stepping Into The Same River Twice” where Walker herself objects to Spielberg’s treatment of that book’s incestor, Mr.? Indeed Walker, Tina Turner and bell hooks have observed that in the hands of white male producers, directors and scriptwriters, the black male characters in the texts of black women writers become even more sinister. TheRoot accompanied its brown nosing of the movie with a picture of Celie, played by Whoopie Goldberg (who said that what Polanski did to that child was not “rape, rape”) holding a knife against Mr.’s neck. That scene doesn’t appear in the book. Spielberg put that knife in Celie’s hand. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. who has been appointed Commissar of African American culture said that those who criticized “The Color Purple” were “misguided.” Was he referring to Morrison? Wallace? hooks?
“Black and brown skinned women are shown as petty, sullen, quick tempered and violent.”
I suspect that the whites who are behind Precious monkeyed around with the text as well. A film in which gays are superior to black male heterosexuals (“They don’t rape. They don’t sell crack”). Next to the whites, the male who treats Precious and her dysfunctional friends with the most understanding is John John, the gay male nurse. Lee Daniels, the gay “director” of the film once ran a nursing business.) In this movie Caribbean Americans are smarter than black Americans.
I suspect that the whites who are behind Precious monkeyed around with the text as well. A film in which gays are superior to black male heterosexuals (“They don’t rape. They don’t sell crack”). Next to the whites, the male who treats Precious and her dysfunctional friends with the most understanding is John John, the gay male nurse. Lee Daniels, the gay “director” of the film once ran a nursing business.) In this movie Caribbean Americans are smarter than black Americans.
Oprah Winfrey is listed as the “Executive Director,” along with Tyler Perry, whose movie efforts have been described by writer Thembi Ford as “coonery.” This is the third black man as sexual predator and the second black incest film that Ms. Winfrey has either endorsed or performed in, yet, only a few titles by black male authors have been adopted by her book club. On Sunday, Nov. 23, during a phone interview with Keifer Bonvillin, author of Ruthless, an inside look at the Oprah operation, I asked him about her embrace of the black male as a sexual predator trope. He wrote:
“Last year, I published ‘Ruthless,’ (a true story based on conversations I had with Oprah Winfrey’s office manager). The book detailed the unfair treatment African American men received from Oprah Winfrey and the negative stereotypical images of African American men that Oprah sent out in her films. The office manager also gave me a rare glance of Oprah Winfrey’s private life.
“This was the first time one of Oprah Winfrey’s employees spoke openly about her as they are prevented from doing so by strict confidentiality agreements. Oprah tried hard to block publication of the book. She and her attorney went so far as to have me arrested. The charges were dropped and the book was published.
“Since the publication of ‘Ruthless,’ I noticed several profound changes in the way Oprah Winfrey is doing business.
1) Oprah produced ‘The Great Debaters,’ which was the first film produced by Harpo Films (in my opinion) to not have negative stereotypical images of black men.
2) This season, Jay Z, became the first African American rap artist to perform on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
3) This season Oprah’s book club selection, ‘Say You’re One of Them,’ was written by a black man, Liwem Akpan. This was the first time in years a black man who is not one of Oprah’s friends was featured in the book club.
“I was very encouraged by what I was seeing. Then came ‘Precious!’ Like her addiction to food, Oprah does well for a little while but she just can’t help herself.”
“This is the third black man as sexual predator and the second black incest film that Ms. Winfrey has either endorsed or performed in.”
Another reason that Ms. Winfrey supports the film is because she endorses the policy points the movie makes about 
welfare recipients. Precious is encouraged to take a job as home care worker for $2.00 per hour. Throughout the movie, poor women are guided to WorkFare. The movie almost becomes a commercial for the program. The policy message is that welfare recipients are black women who wish to avoid work, who use their time having sex with their daughters, watching television and dining on pig leavings. They don’t intervene when their boyfriends rape their children (even the grandmother refuses to intervene). Oprah’s attitude toward welfare recipients was described by Pat Gowens, editor of Mother Warriors Voice. She said that “Oprah Winfrey” is “someone who reinforces the U.S. war on the poor and unequivocally supports white male supremacy.” She writes about what happened to welfare mothers who were invited to appear on her show after threatening to picket the TV megastar.
welfare recipients. Precious is encouraged to take a job as home care worker for $2.00 per hour. Throughout the movie, poor women are guided to WorkFare. The movie almost becomes a commercial for the program. The policy message is that welfare recipients are black women who wish to avoid work, who use their time having sex with their daughters, watching television and dining on pig leavings. They don’t intervene when their boyfriends rape their children (even the grandmother refuses to intervene). Oprah’s attitude toward welfare recipients was described by Pat Gowens, editor of Mother Warriors Voice. She said that “Oprah Winfrey” is “someone who reinforces the U.S. war on the poor and unequivocally supports white male supremacy.” She writes about what happened to welfare mothers who were invited to appear on her show after threatening to picket the TV megastar.“For 30 minutes before the show, Oprah’s cheerleader worked the audience into a frenzy of hatred against moms on welfare. When the show started, Welfare Warriors member Linda, an Italian American mom with 3 children, was sandwiched between two women who attacked and pitied her. The African American mom on her right claimed to have overcome her ‘sick dependence on welfare’ and bragged about cheating on welfare and allegedly living like a queen. The white woman on her left was not a mom but had once received food stamps. Both women aggressively condemned Linda for receiving welfare. Throughout the show Oprah alternated between attacking Linda and allowing panel and audience members to attack her. Poor Linda had been prepared to discuss the economic realities of mother work, the failures of both the U.S. workforce and the child support system, and the Welfare Warriors’ mission to create a Government Guaranteed Child Support program (Family Allowance) like those in Europe. But instead Linda was forced to defend her entire life, while Oprah repeatedly demanded, ‘How long have you been on welfare?’
“Later we complained to Oprah and her producer about the false promises they had used to lure us onto the show. (We had engaged in extensive negotiations prior to agreeing to appear. We said yes only after they agreed to discuss welfare reform, not our personal lives.) The producer shoved an Oprah cup (our pay) into our hands and pushed us out the door, angrily denying their treachery.
“By the time we arrived home, we had received calls from moms on both coasts warning us about the promos Oprah was using to advertise her show: ‘They call themselves welfare warriors and they refuse to work. See Oprah at 4:00.’”
“The policy message is that welfare recipients are black women who wish to avoid work, who use their time having sex with their daughters, watching television and dining on pig leavings.”
Well, as my great grandmother often said, “If you dig a ditch for someone, dig two.” Kitty Kelley, winner of a PEN Oakland Award for censorship has an Oprah biography due from Crown. This might be Oprah’s ditch. The publication of this book is the real reason why Oprah is quitting her show. Kelley has never been sued for libel and her book about the Bush family was so hot (and useful) that the Bush Klan succeeded in shutting it down with the help of Bush 1st’s golf caddy, NBC’s Matt Lauer. Editors of The New York Times Magazine section hold the same position about welfare recipients as Oprah.
I stopped reading The New York Times Magazine years ago, weary of its parade of flesh eating black cannibals, lazy and shiftless welfare mothers. (The Times’ coverage of Africa could be written by Edgar Rice Burroughs.) It is a section of the newspaper where Daniel Moynihan is treated as some kind of Celtic god. This is the guy who accused unmarried black mothers of “speciation.”
A book promoted by the magazine in which all of the crack addicts were black and in which one photo showed a black crack addict, a mother, fellating a John while a baby was strapped to her back even offended Brent Staples, a black member of the editorial board. That crack is a black drug, exclusively, is just another media hoax meant to entertain whites of the kind that dates to the very beginning of the American mass media.
So I wasn’t surprised that the magazine section featured a spread about “Precious” featuring Gabourey Sidibe, the 350-pound actor in the title role, on the cover, certainly an act of black exploitation. However the interviewer, gossip writer Lynn Hirschberg, did perform a service by catching Lee Daniels, the “director” of Precious in a couple of exaggerations. In an effort to follow the marketing plan, the title of the article was “The Audacity of Precious,” after Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope,” subtitled “Is America Ready For A Movie About An Obese Harlem Girl Raped And Impregnated By Her Abusive Father?” Lionsgate spent big bucks to advertise the movie in the Times.
During Lynn Hirschberg’s interview with Daniels, he claims that he directed Monster’s Ball, about a black woman so dimwitted that she begins a relationship with her husband’s white executioner (though as a porn movie it was superior to Co-Ed Confidential). The husband was played by Sean Puffy Combs.
Turns out that Daniels didn’t direct the film. It was directed by Marc Forster, a white director. So, did Daniels direct “Precious” or is he really playing the flak catcher for this heinous project like Oprah Winfrey and Perry? When he went on the set to exercise his role as “director” did the white people who own the movie and provide the crew for this film call security? Hard to say.
He also said that he grew up in the ghetto. His aunt disputes this.
“A.O. Scott said that this movie about fictional characters was part of a ‘national conversation about race.’”
He also said that he grew up in the ghetto. His aunt disputes this.
“A.O. Scott said that this movie about fictional characters was part of a ‘national conversation about race.’”
The Times has printed no less than four articles, all of which have either praised Precious, or gave those who defend the movie the most lines. Two were written by A.O. Scott, who said that this movie about fictional characters was part of a “national conversation about race.” This is the problem with films like “Precious.” White critics like A.O. Scott, who hog all the criticism space as black, Hispanic, and Asian American journalists are being fired in droves, get a chance to pick and choose which cultural products that will ignite a discussion about race, usually ones that show blacks as depraved individuals, individuals that are used to blame black men and in this case black women, collectively. He suggests that based upon a movie adapted from a fiction, all black males are incest violators, the kind of group libel aimed at the brothers when Gloria Steinem said that The Color Purple told the truth about black men.
Why didn’t Dexter, Paris Trout or Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out Of Carolina, begin “a national conversation,” about race? Ted Turner tried to suppress Bastard Out Of Carolina, this white incest film, and only through the intervention of Anjelica Huston was the film aired. Turner pronounced it too graphic to be shown on his network, CNN, which poses blacks as degenerates 24/7. In several states, Bastard has been banned from classrooms and school libraries.
Also, why doesn’t the Times open its Jim Crow Op Ed page so that a member of Precious’s target, black men, as a class, could respond to this smear, this hate crime as entertainment, this Neo Nazi porn and filth. There are hundreds of black male intellectuals (yes, black men are more than athletes, criminals and entertainers) who would take up the challenge. But the Op Ed page is only open to one black writer, consistently--Orlando Patterson--who, like the ‘20s writer Claude McKay, is the kind of Jamaican who has nothing but contempt for African Americans.
Sapphire (Ramona Lofton), who wrote the novel Push, also has a biography like Daniel’s that shifts about. First she told Dinitia Smith of the Times (July 2, 1996) that Precious was an actual person. “She lives there,” she said, “pointing at a dowdy building over a check cashing store.” Don’t you think that if such a person existed that Lionsgate wouldn’t include her in its marketing plan so ubiquitous that an ad for this film appears on my email screen when I sign in at AOL. It figures? AOL’s expert on black culture and politics is DNesh D’Souza .Their coverage of black culture is limited to black NFL and NBA athletes who get into trouble outside of strip clubs.
Part of the packaging of both the novel and the film has been to cash in the culture of recovery. Sapphire says that she was a former prostitute and a victim of incest (Lee Daniels does his pity party routine during the Times’ interview). She also said that she is a recovering lesbian. In 1986, she began to “remember things.” “An incident of violent sexual abuse“ when she was “3 or 4.” Her father, an Army Sergeant, denied her claim. He died in 1990. (Lee Daniels also “remembered” abuse by his father. I wonder what his aunt would say.)
Her “remembering things,” and being inspired by two other profitable black incest products led Alfred Knopf to give her a $500,000 advance for two books, one of which, entitled “American Dreams” included a poem called “Wild Thing,” which blamed the rape of a Central Park Jogger on black boys.
As Steven Spielberg put the knife in Celie’s hand, Sapphire put a rock and pipe into the hands of boys who spent their youth in jail for a crime that they didn’t commit.She has her narrator say: “ I bring the rock down/ on her head/sounds dull & flat/like the time I busted/the kitten’s head/the blood is real and red/my dick rises.” She has one of the defendants, Yusef Salaam, participating in the rape. “Yosef slams her/ across the face with a pipe.” Yusef Salaam served 5 and ½ years. Do you think that Sapphire might make up to Mr. Salaam for destroying his reputation in a book for which she received $500,000. And what about Naomi Wolfe and other millionaire feminists whose agitation helped to convict these innocent kids. Maybe they can join Sapphire in setting up a trust fund for these victims “who grew up in Jail.And what about Linda Fairstein? She got rich, too.
“Sapphire put a rock and pipe into the hands of boys who spent their youth in jail for a crime that they didn’t commit.”
Called a “Zealot, Crusader, and Megalomaniac,” Linda Fairstein, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Sex Crimes Unit, often shown as an “ultra-blond” in an “air-brushed” photo, saw prosecuting these children as a step toward fame and fortune. In the words of Rivka Gerwirtz Little, author of “Ash-Blond Ambition, Prosecutor Linda Fairstein May Have Tried Too Hard” (Village Voice,11/19/02) they were convicted as a result of the zealousness of the ambitious prosecutor, the Jim Crow media, which found them guilty and contributed to the hysteria surrounding the case, and by New York feminists, black and white. (Donald Trump wanted the children to get the death penalty.) Little writes,
“The men in all of these cases, who were convicted despite the existence of exculpatory evidence, still see Fairstein and her minions as either zealots or headline seekers, pursuing verdicts that would appease the outraged public. Oliver Jovanovic thinks Fairstein was also making literary hay from her cases.
“Jovanovic, the Columbia University microbiology Ph.D. candidate, had dubbed the ‘cybersex’ attacker, who was convicted and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for kidnapping and sexually torturing a Barnard undergraduate ‘had his own run in with Fairstein.’ After he served nearly two years of his prison term, an appeals court overturned his conviction in 1999, again saying that crucial evidence was withheld during the trial that could have shown Jovanovic and his accuser had a consensual sadomasochistic relationship, or that she simply fabricated the story. Morgenthau dismissed the case before a pending retrial in 2001.”
“Each time one of these cases occurred, her books probably went flying off the shelves,” says Jovanovic.
“She used what happened in that unit to make money, and that is wrong she earned, according to The New York Times, $2.5 million in sales by 1999.”
Little also questioned the rush to judgment of feminists in the case in her, “How Feminists Faltered on the Central Park Jogger Case” (Village Voice, 10/15/02).
“Feminists who rallied on the courthouse stairs outside the 1990 trial of five African American and Latino youth accused in the Infamous rape and beating of the 28-year-old Central Park jogger made It painfully clear-there was a choice to make: gender or race. With flimsy evidence and an almost immediate indictment by the public, advocates for the teens believed they were easy lynch victims and demanded further Investigation and fair trials. But to some feminists, bringing up ‘the race issue’ muddled the case and detracted from the bottom-line issue--violence against women and justice for the victim.
“Thirteen years after the teens were convicted, DNA evidence and a confession to the crime by Matias Reyes, a convicted rapist behind bars, indicate a strong possibility that the five accused--who walked into prison as boys and emerged years later as men--would have been a worthy cause for any left activist group to champion. In the jogger case, no one even considered their five mothers a cause for feminists, though with little money or proper representation, they saw their sons railroaded, and the media portrayed them as out-of-control ghetto mamas.” The young men, who went to prison as children, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Kharey Wise, and Yusef Salaam, received from 5 ½ to 13 years.
“One of the reasons that Bryant Gumbel left NBC was that Couric was chosen to interview O.J. Simpson instead of him.”
Because of his defense of the poem “Wild Thing” by Sapphire (Ramona Lofton), printed in a literary journal, the Portable Lower East Side, which “was a graphic depiction of the thoughts of a participant in the rape and beating of a Central Park jogger,” according to The Washington Post, John Frohnmayer, was fired as head of the National Endowment of the Arts. During an appearance before the National Press Club, he warned that “the political battle over the NEA [was] part of a broader cultural war and invoked the specter of the Nazis' takeover of Europe to underscore his point.” Another technique the Nazis used, whether Frohnmayer knows it, was to blame their enemies for crimes they didn’t commit like the burning of the Reichstag, which is what happened in the Central Park Case. The “wilders,” it turned out, were innocent. When Little called to ask feminists who judged the children guilty, when no forensic evidence tied them to the rape, and after Matias Reyes confessed to the crime (his semen matched that collected from the jogger) only one would respond. Susan Brownmiller, who libeled all black men as rapists in her book, Against Our Will, was a holdout.
She said that regardless of the scientific evidence pointing away from the guilt of the five, she still believed that they were guilty. I wonder was Sapphire called. I wonder how she feels about her poem. I wonder whether we would have found out if Katie Couric had given her the kind of grilling that she gave Sarah Palin. One of the reasons that Bryant Gumbel left NBC was that Couric was chosen to interview O.J. Simpson instead of him.
Sapphire, who helped to set up these children, the way that she and her cynical backers like Sarah Siegel, whose depiction of black men is worst than those found in American Renaissance magazine, have set up black men. In Precious the out of control ghetto mama whom they market is played by Monique. Carl, her husband, who commits the unspeakable, is Sapphire and Sarah Siegel’s “Wild Thing.”
I asked D. Scott Miller, a writer for the San Francisco Bay Guardian his take on the different biographies of Ramona Lofton. He said,
I asked D. Scott Miller, a writer for the San Francisco Bay Guardian his take on the different biographies of Ramona Lofton. He said,
“I would say that her bio has been shortened and extended when it's convenient.
“Here’s the opening of her Amazon Bio:
‘Sapphire was born in 1950 and spent her first twelve years on army bases in California and Texas. As a teenager she lived in South Philadelphia and Los Angeles. She graduated from City College in New York and received an MFA from Brooklyn College. From 1983 to 1993 she lived in Harlem, where she taught reading and writing to teenagers and adults. She lives in New York City.’
“Here's the opening of her bio post-push, but pre-Precious:
‘Ramona Lofton, better known to her readers as Sapphire, was born in 1950 in Fort Ord California. On the surface, her family was characterized as normal and middle class. Her father was an army sergeant and her mother was a member of the Women's Army Corps. As a child, Sapphire's family relocated several time to various cities, states, and countries. When she was only 13 years old, Sapphire's mother became the victim of ‘alcoholism and eventually departed from her life. Her mother died in 1983. In that same year, her brother, who was then homeless was killed in a public park.’
“I would not say that she is lying, or even stretching the truth. But I see a difference. Don't know which one she's using right now.”
I wasn’t surprised that NPR’s Terry Gross would become part of the film’s promotion. I stopped listening to her years ago because she seemed to have a thing about casting all black men as sexual predators.
She once maneuvered a famous black writer into directing her wrath against her father toward all black men and when a woman from South Africa was brought on to discuss the rapes occurring in that country, Gross asked whether rape in that country was interracial. The woman answered that white men rape too, which seemed to come as a surprise to Ms. Gross. When whatever is bothering Ms. Gross about black men gains entry in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, maybe the editors will name it after her. Gross’s Syndrome. Or maybe she and Ms. Brownmiller can flip a coin.
“The withering contempt and sheer malice for black people that this film represents and embodies is an integral part of a very disturbing and destructive trend among a number of cultural hustlers, thieves, and conmen.”
I only tuned into Ms. Gross’s interview with Daniels because poet Al Young called and asked me to do so. It was instructive. The NPR airwaves were full of giggles as they carried on their dialogue. At one point, she asked whether violence among blacks is cultural. He said that it was hereditary, thereby signing on to about two centuries of quack race “science” and a Neo-Nazi line promoted by the Times’ Sam Robert’s who once wrote that blacks were “prone” to violence and by the Op Ed pages’ token black contributor, Orlando Patterson, who wrote recently as though violence is black.
This in a country where the National Rifle Association owns or intimidates every politician but Michael Bloomberg; where one hundred million guns are available and where accidental deaths by gunshots in white homes dwarfs those occurring in the inner city, which is not to excuse such deaths, which lead to high homicide rates.
One of the reasons is that the police, white and suburban, have a poor record of solving urban crimes and as a result of NAFTA, thousands have joined the underground economy (in Oakland, where I live, only 37% of homicides are solved; in nearby Danville, an affluent city, when a white youth’s murder resulted from a drug transaction gone wrong, 11 detectives were assigned to the case, and the killer was caught the next day).
Daniels and Gross’s discussion about the black violence gene occurred at a time when The National Association of Black Journalists was criticizing NPR for its firing of black personnel. And so when the Times and the producers of Precious are profiting from stereotypes that reach back to the Enlightenment, they receive an endorsement from NPR whose “Ghetto 101,” produced by the late Ellen Willis, was one of the most offensive of black pathology ratings boosters and money makers. Violence?
The white majority has given mandates to policies that have resulted in the murders of millions of people since World War II.
While white male critics are campaigning feverishly to land one of two Oscars for Precious, the dissent from some black critics has been blistering. Most notably Armond White who, as a result of his review printed in The New York Press has become a folk hero among young black cyberspace intellectuals of the kind who are making a comeback after about twenty years of the left and right establishments laying black intellectuals on us who sing from the song book as they. One of those who praised White’s review printed in The New York Press, was Kofi Natambu the brilliant young editor of The Panopticon Review. I asked him what he thought was behind Precious:
“The withering contempt and sheer malice for black people (and especially black men) that this film represents and embodies is an integral part of a very disturbing and destructive trend among a number of cultural hustlers, thieves, and conmen and women in film, literature, theatre, and the music industry that is being vigorously promoted and marketed by white corporations and Madison Avenue. It's no coincidence that the increasingly casual and overt racism that is routinely displayed in advertising and the media generally is working hand in glove with the contemptible and venal likes of artistic pimps and prostitutes like Lee Daniels, Tyler Perry, and Oprah Winfrey. This development has been dismissing, marginalizing, and destroying the impact and influence of genuine African American artists in all the arts now since the mid '90s and has in the past decade reached its vicious apex in the heinous ‘work’ of such black retrograde and reactionary assholes as the people producing and directing this film. Remember Percival Everett’s brilliant novel from 2001 called ‘Erasure?’ Remember his devastating critique of this nexus of white racism and black minstrel confidence schemes in his rendering of the phony black author (who sounds a LOT like Sapphire!) called ‘My Pafology?’ as now this is what this ugly marriage between the white corporate media and Uncle Tom/Aunt Thomasina minstrelism has come to in the modern world. If something is not done to stem this tide it's only going to get worse and soon.
"My Pafology indeed.”
Armond White wrote:
“Winfrey, Perry and Daniels make an unholy triumvirate. They come together at some intersection of race exploitation and opportunism. These two media titans—plus one shrewd pathology pimp—use Precious to rework Booker T. Washington’s early 20th-century manifesto Up From Slavery into extreme drama for the new millennium: Up From Incest, Child Abuse, Teenage Pregnancy, Poverty and AIDS. Regardless of its narrative details about class and gender, Precious is an orgy of prurience. All the terrible, depressing (not uplifting) things that happen to 16year-old Precious recall that memorable All About Eve line, “Everything but the bloodhounds nipping at her rear-end.’”
“Precious is an orgy of prurience.”
As a result of his dissent A.O. Scott dismissed Armond White as “a contrarian” which means that his conclusions about the film differed from those of white critics. The late Tillie Olson, a genuine progressive, had it right when she pointed out, sagaciously, in The New York Time’s Magazine, that many whites engage in a perverse voyeurism when viewing black culture.They want to peek behind the curtains of black life to seek confirmation that all of the myths they’ve heard about black life are true. Richard Wright said that “The Negro is America’s metaphor.” More like America’s anti-depressant. People who are miserable in their own lives getting off by consuming black depravity, a big business. The audience at the 2:00 matinee that I attended was 90% white, the marketer’s “niche” audience. Not only did I have to swallow this seedy material for the purpose of entering this review in my forthcoming book, Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media, subtitled The Return of the Nigger Breakers, but was assaulted by two offensive previews: Clint Eastwood’s movie about Nelson Mandela and Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, a black Princess this time, which, judging from the trailers, will be a remake of Song of the South. In the film, Iku (“eniti ile re mbe lagbedemeji aiye onorun”), the top- hatted mythological figure from the Yoruba religion is depicted as evil (in the film he is Doctor Facilier, “A schemer, a conjurer and a sorcerer of sorts”), and a follower of Oshun, a water spirit, with thousands of followers in this hemisphere, is caricatured, in the movie. In the movie her name is Mama Odie. It’s bad enough that Oprah endorses the stupid and mindless Precious but then she has to go perform for Disney. A project that demeans African Religion. And has already criticized by some blacks for the black Princess lacking a black male love interest. The Daily Mail reported on 18th March 2009
“With America’s first African-American president in the White House, Disney is counting on an African-American princess to be a big hit in Hollywood.
“But even though The Princess and the Frog isn’t released until later this year, it is already stirring up controversy.
“For while Princess Tiana and many in the cartoon cast are black – the prince is not.
“Which has led some critics to complain that Disney has ducked the opportunity for a fairytale ending for a black prince and princess.”
Both directors and all of the screen writers for this movie are white men.
I recommend that they an Oprah read William Bascom”s “ Sixteen Cowries, Yoruba Divination From Africa To The New World.”
I recommend that they an Oprah read William Bascom”s “ Sixteen Cowries, Yoruba Divination From Africa To The New World.”
This kind of ridiculing of black culture is nothing new for Disney. In a 1932 cartoon Mickey and Minnie were pitted against “fierce niggers.”
The opinions of black movie goers about Precious probably concur with those of White and Courtland Milloy. Courtland Milloy of The Washington Post wrote:
The opinions of black movie goers about Precious probably concur with those of White and Courtland Milloy. Courtland Milloy of The Washington Post wrote:
“I watched the movie at a theater in Alexandria where show times are nearly around the clock, from 10:15 a.m. to 12:15 a.m. The audience was mostly black women and teenagers. When the lights came up, all of the moviegoers appeared sullen and depressed that I attended.”
Milloy continued:
“After escaping the abuse of her home life, Precious ends up in a halfway house. She is still functionally illiterate and has two babies to care for, one with Down syndrome.
“Strangest of all, many reviewers felt the movie ended on a high note. Time, for instance, wrote that Precious ‘makes an utterly believable and electrifying rise from an urban abyss of ignorance and neglect.’
“Excuse me, the movie ends with the girl walking the streets, babies in her arms, having just learned that her father has died of AIDS -- but not before infecting her.”
As a weak justification, and following the prompting of Geoffrey Gilmore, Lee Daniels told the Times interviewer that he was mindful that the movie contained stereotypes but that was ok because we have a black president, which must thrill the birthers, the tea baggers, those who create posters in which Obama appears as witchdoctor, a Muslim and the joker. On Nov.23 some wingnut put up a picture of Michelle Obama as a monkey at Goggle. The haters of the Obama must really feel in vogue thanks to Daniels.
“Lee Daniels told the Times interviewer that he was mindful that the movie contained stereotypes but that was ok because we have a black president.”
Another part of the pitch is that the men in the film could be men of any ethnic group, a sales pitch used by Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage for her theatrical products, praised by some of the same types who are crazy about Precious. Atlanta Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker received a Pulitzer for referring to black men as “idle” and “bestial” and they awarded Janet Cooke one for making up a story about black parents who were so rotten that they made heroin available to an eight year old, over the objection of a black panelist who smelled a fraud. Three great playwrights, Adrienne Kennedy, Ed Bullins and Amiri Baraka have never received a Pulitzer. These black men on the screen or on the stage doing terrible things to women could be Bosnians, so the line goes.
In her interview with Daniels, Lynn Hirschberg said something similar: “Precious is a stand-in for anyone — black, white, male, female — who has ever been devalued or underestimated.”
To which Milloy answered:
“Let’s see: I lose my job, so I take in a movie about a serially abused black girl and I go, ‘Oh, swell, she’s standing in for me.’
“Maybe there is something to the notion that when human pathology is given a black face, white people don't have to feel so bad about their own. At least somebody's happy.
“Sexual abuse is certainly an equal-opportunity crime, with black and white women similarly affected. But only exaggerated black depravity seems to resonate so forcefully in the imagination.”
Will the “niche” audience for which this movie is intended ever become weary of the brothers being symbol of universal male misogyny? The face on the bull’s-eye at which disgruntled feminists from all ethnic groups aim their arrows, women who are scared to challenge the misogyny practiced by males who share their background? Judging from the box office receipts,
maybe not. As of Nov. 22, three weeks after the debut of the film, box office receipts totaled a gross of $21,277,521.
maybe not. As of Nov. 22, three weeks after the debut of the film, box office receipts totaled a gross of $21,277,521.
What is the solution offered by the people behind this film for the millions of blacks who are suffering from a depression during white America’s recession? After a hurried flurry of images belonging to Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Shirley Chisholm, Precious becomes redeemed by semi-literacy and black pride. The film’s true ending occurs when Precious and her mother engage in furious battle; the black pride part seems forced. After the mother/daughter battle, the movie lingers like a wounded animal that nobody has the nerve to put out of its misery. Even more dreadful was somebody’s idea to tack on one of these trite sistuh solidarity songs.
What else do the film makers recommend that the underclass do, people who in the movie go into stores and rob and down a whole bucket of fried chicken, an image borrowed from The Birth of a Nation? Go to church and get sterilized, which is the subtle Eugenics message that appears on a sign, “Spay and Neuter Your Pets,” as Precious and her two children travel to their new apartment.
“Precious is to blacks what Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ was to Jews.”
According to Stefan Kuhl in his book, The Nazi Connection, Eugenics, American Racism and German National Socialism sterilization is an idea that the Germans borrowed from the United States as a way of ending the reproduction of unwanted groups. People who possess a violence gene?
In the mid-seventies, the late Chester Himes predicted that the Establishment was trying to start a war between black men and women. They succeed by treating both groups as opposing sports teams. And so while Armond White has been denounced by defenders of the movie, many of them women, and whites who consider him “contrarian,” the woman who put up the money, Sarah Siegel, has chosen to remain in the background. None of the exchanges I’ve read even mention her name. While the print and blog war over Precious rages on, she relaxes in her mansion, counting the profits from her Gold Mine of Opportunity: Precious; which is to blacks what Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ was to Jews.
Finally, who will market the next black movie that white audiences will pay to see? MSNBC has been drawing a lot of laughs from the same demographic by running a story about a black man who has been arrested twice for having intercourse with a horse and infecting the horse. Even the token progressives on MSNBC favor this story. I’ll bet somebody is working on the screenplay and the niche marketing for the film. Sarah, you listening?
Ishmael Reed’s “Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media: the Return of the Nigger Breakers” will be published in the Spring by Baraka publishers of Quebec. He is the editor of Konch. He can be reached at: ireedpub@yahoo.com
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The Age of Oprah, Cultural Icon For the Neoliberal Era By Bruce Dixon June 2009
The obove title belongs to an interview that Mr. Dixon conducted last June with the author of a recent book of the same title that apparently does (I have'nt read it) a good job of fleshing out the demographic muscle behind the anointed Oprah and her longstanding mystique.
I think it is worth reading in this recent, fulmative climate of ethnic identity crisis that beggs, possibly, reassesment of the very collective/sellective priorities that constitute it; the crisis that is, that was and may always be among us.
Here; I'll do half the work.
The Age of Oprah, Cultural Icon For the Neoliberal Era
Posted Wed, 06/04/2008 - 05:38
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A Black Agenda Radio Interview by Bruce Dixon
f you work hard enough, if you prepare long enough, if you visualize astutely and pray on it resolutely, it really can happen for you. At least that's the way it works in the world of Oprah Winfrey. In the Age of Oprah, author Janice Peck explains, there's no such thing as collective problem-solving; there are only individual, market-driven and spirit-centered solutions. Water polluted? Buy it bottled. Dissatisfied with your kids' school? Find a private one or home school. Dead-end job with no respect and no benefits? Polish that resume and assume an attitude of gratitude, or get ready to start your own business. House falling down? Maybe you can qualify for an extreme makeover. Is the world view of Oprah really uplifting after all? Or does it disempower individuals and disarm communities?
Bruce Dixon interviews Janice Peck, author of The Age of Oprah, Cultural Icon for the Neoliberal Era.
The Age of Oprah, Cultural Icon For the Neoliberal Era
A Black Agenda Radio interview by Bruce Dixon
The following is a rushed and lightly edited transcript of BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon's on-air interview with Dr. Janice Peck, author of The Age of Oprah, Cultural Icon For the Neoliberal Era, broadcast Monday, June 2, on WRFG Atlanta's Just Peace show.
Those wishing to hear the audio of this interview, about 23 minutes, can click the flash player below.
Click the flash player below to listen to or the mic to download an mp3 copy of this BA Radio interview.
BD: Unless you've lived the last 25 years in some cave under a mountain with no cable TV, Oprah Winfrey is one of those figures in American life that need no introduction. We're all familiar with the outlines of her life and career, how she rose from rural poverty in Mississippi to head a vast media empire of radio networks, TV and movie production houses, multiple magazines, a web site and of course a long running syndicated talk show with multiple spin-offs. We know Oprah is a billionaire, and we're acquainted with various, intimate personal details of her life, her favorite colors, how many dogs, cats and houses she has, and how she likes to shop and especially how she likes to give away money and things to the less fortunate.
Don't we already know just about all there is to know about Oprah? What else is there?
JP: You're right the vast popular literature on Oprah is enormous. I think there are things we (still) want to know, and that's what drove me to write the book about her.
What I wanted to do is not look at Oprah from a personal perspective, but to situate her historically and politically, to understand how she became this very powerful, this world and international icon in relation to some political and economic developments in the US over the last twenty-five years. In some ways what I've done is tried to write a political history of the enterprise of Oprah and what she's done, something quite different from most of the things we usually see written about her.
BD Since this is a political history of Oprah, how Oprah relates to culture and politics, does that mean that you had t sit down and talk to her about this?
JP: I actually did not interview Oprah Winfrey for this project, for a couple reasons. One is very simple. In the nineties when I was teaching at the University of Minnesota and first got interested in studying television talk shows, I wanted to go to Chicago to be in the audience and interview Oprah Winfrey, and I was told by her publicist at the time that Ms. Winfrey did not talk to academics, she did not give interviews to academics. Well, I thought, that's alright, I don't really need to talk to her. But also because the kind of book I've written is not really a biography, where you need to talk to the individual and learn a lot about her personally. I'm writing about her as a cultural phenomenon and public figure. I'm looking at her through the lens of this enormous amount of media coverage we have on her. In some sense talking to her wasn't what my book was about, it's more an observation about her power, her cultural significance from the perspective of a media analysis.
BD: So if we want to know where her favorite shoe store is or something like that, we'll have to read the manazine, huh?
JP: Yeah, there are plenty of other places where you can find those kinds of things. I didn't think I needed to repeat them.
BD: We probably couldn't afford to go to her favorite shoe store anyway.
JP: Most people cannot... I chose the title “The Age of Oprah, cultural Icon for the Neo Liberal Era because in 2000 Newsweek magazine had a cover story that referred to it, to our age as the Age of Oprah. I thought that was a perfect title because I'm trying to make the argument that Oprah Winfrey represents certain important things about our era. That's where I got the first part of the title.
BD: You're calling her a cultural icon for the neoliberal era. Now we understand that you're not calling her liberal, or even neoliberal, but that neoliberal is a label for the times in which we are living. So what are some of the hallmarks of this neoliberal era that we're living in, and what makes Oprah a ciltural icon for neoliberalism.
JP: Neoliberal and neoliberalism is a term to refer to an economic theory and also a set of policies. We can historically situate that with the election of Ronald Regan in the US and of Margaret Thatcher in England. It's a theory about what kind of relationship the government should have to the economy. It's a response to what was seen as a kind of economic crisis in the 70s, with high inflatiion, what was called stagflation. This was seen as a way to correct that.
After World War 2 in the US the idea of the relationship of the government to the economy was that the government needed to intervene in the economy to make sure that we avoided crises like the Great Depression, for example. So it was the responsibility of the government to focus on full employment, and economic growth on the welfare of citizens and that would gurarantee economic and political stability/ When there was this crisis in the seventies with rising prices and inflation (falling profits) neolibearalism was presented as the solution. It's got several things that are very familiar to us. First of all, very drastic tax custs, especially for big corporations and those at the top of the economic ladder, Deregulation, where government holds back from regulating the airlines, the banking industry and so on.
Privatization of services that had been the responsibility of the government so utilities and mail service and prisons and defense --- we now have all these privately owned prisons, for profit prisons, and we hve contractors fighting the war in Iraq. And finally large cutbacks in spending on social programs. Most people can see that in cuts of like education. At the public university where I teach only seven percent =of its budget comes from the state of Colorado. And we especially we've seen cutbacks in the services that were to assis the most needy citizens.
BD: So neoliberalism basically started with Reganomics and the descendants of Reaganomics, privatization and militarization which are still with us. So what is it that makes Oprah the cultural icon of neoliberalism? She doesn't talk about the army or about privatization, so what's that got to do with her?
JP: That's a great question. That's the project I am trying to accomplish with this book. Basically Oprah has risen from the middle and eqarly eighties from somebody who was just a talk show host. Today she is seen as somebody who is a kind of a world figure, everybody knows her by her first name. My argument is that the way to undersand the journey of this woman is to understand neoliberalism as a political and economic project. For example, if we start looking at neoliberalism it argues that any political or social issue that we encounter today must be seen through the lens of the market, the free market. It turns all problems into individual ones that can be solved in the market. If there's contamination of the water table, for instance, we should buy bottled water. That kind of attitude, that we should solve problems with the market and through individual activity and indivdual transformation is ultimately the same message that Oprah Winfrey sells to us.
BD: So you're saying that Oprah is the messenger, she brings us the message of what's required for us to adjust our attitudes neoliberalism and this neoliberal order require of us ordinary people, how it requires us to look at all of our problems as individual problems. None of our problems then, need to be addressed by organizing and communicating with each other.
JP Neoliberalism emphasizes a kind of minimal government, a stripped down, hollowed out government and maximum personal responsibility. I think this term personal responsibility will probably ring familiar with your listeners. We hear it all the time, we hear it from politicians and also we hear it from Oprah. If we have problems, if our lives are not going well if, we don't have the things we want in our lives, then what we need to do is take personal responsibility, put our minds to it, have the right attitude and so on. That is the key to bringing about positive change. To give you an example of this, where Oprah very much exemplifies this idea that the market and individual positive attitudes are the solutions to social problems, Your listeners may be familiar with a show that was on this season called Oprah's Big Give. It's a “reality” show where people are competing, who can give the most, who can find the neediest people, and so on. There's a couple of points in that series that really stood out.
One was in Houston, where one of the contestants decided that they were going to help this public school, this grade school in the city that needed computers, and had no playgrounds and basically had very few resources. You've got all these kids at the end, they built the playground, the kids were screaming with joy, the teachers were sobbing, they were so pleased. It's a city school, it's a public school where most of the kids we see are black or Latino. We've got this really “feel good” moment where the kids get this, but if you step back from it one of the things we might ask is why are public schools in the United States are so drastically underfunded and why is this seen as a solution, this charity, as opposed to taxation, where (through) the government, that we all pay taxes to we are all collectively responsible for things like education.
That is the way in which Oprah models the (neoliberal) attitude we should have toward the world. We can be personally generous with others when we find people who are the deserving needy but we don't ask questions about the way our society is organized and the way resources are distributed.
BD There are even imitators... the “Extreme Makeover (Home Edition)” show where they build somebody a new house every week
JP: Other people have studied this too, they call it “charity TV”. In the final episode (of Extreme Makeover) this season they went to New Orleans. They found a couple families who were made homeless by Katrina. They built them new houses, and everybody feels real good, but they don't step back and ask the questions most of us would like to have answered...
BD: (Such as ) Why whole neighborhoods never got their sewer and water service restored, or why vast square miles of real estate that black families actually owned are gone.
JP: ...and what parts of the city are going to be rebuilt and which citizens of New Orleans are going to be welcomed back. None of those questions are asked, nor why the levees were in such terrible shape to begin with, because of this gutted government that doesn't pay for things.
BD: Oprah's life and career are offered as living proof of the maxim that if you can dream it, you can envision it, you can pray on it, it'll happen for you, no matter what the odds. Most people will agree that this is a message that has no politics, liberal, neoliberal or otherwise that it's a profoundly positive and empowering message. What, if anything are these people missing, what ?
JP: There's nothing wrong with saying we should dream, have dreams and aspire to fulfill them, but I think it's important not to decontextualize that. Because of the misallocation of resources in our society you have to begin with those kind of questions. The idea that the only thing that stands in the way of someone like me, who is at this point a professional middle class white woman with lots of education and a good salary, that there's no difference between me and some woman, also my age, in her fifties, a woman without all those resources, that we're the same and all we have to do is take personal responsibility and dream big, that's actually a very harmful message, because it's a desocialized message, it's a depoliticized message. I
Part of what I'm arguing here is not that she's personally a liberal or a conservative or whatever, but that there is a politics to her message...
BD: Like you just said, it's a desocialized politics that puts the personal responsibility for being poor and oppressed exclusively on the poor and oppressed.
JP: Yeah, and it's a comforting message for those who don't have to feel that they have any responsibility or any obligation to their fellow citizens, because we're all simply about personal responsibility. I'm trying to argue that that is a political move which ultimately denies that we are all responsible for one another.
BD: Speaking of comforting messages, Oprah is also one of those characters who, like a certain presidential candidate this season, who is said to have “transcended race.” Now, “transcending race” should be a good thing, shouldn't it? Why is this not a good thing with Oprah?
JP: I have a chapter in my book that's about this question of “transcending race”. The idea that we should aspire to live in a world in which we all regard each other as equals and fellow citizens regardless of race, that's a very nice idea. I'm not opposed to that. But to say that Oprah “transcends race” in my analysis has a lot to do with the fact that she is a very comforting presence for her majority white following. The way she accomplishes that is not to do or say anything that would make her white followers uncomfortable. So to present the world as though it's a post-racial world, and race is no longer a problem, that we've swolved all that in the sixties and so on, is a very comforting thing for her white followers.
So Oprah has disassociated herself from a lot of the political aspects of the civil rights movement, even as she mentions certain kinds of heroic figures, like Sojourner Truth or Martin Luther King. Early in her career she talked about going to an all black college and not feeling comfortable with her fellow students...
BD: Why not?
JP: Because they were angry...
BD: Oh dear. All those angry black people
JP: ...and she was not comfortable around those kinds of students. At the beginning of her career she gave interviews distancing herself from that kind of black history and black experience, so when you say she has “transcended race” I say in my book that in some ways that just means that white people like her. We don't live in a society that has transcended race, so it's only possible to do so if you cover up, if you avoid certain kinds of issues. That's been very much the case with Oprah Winfrey.
BD: So Oprah can keep enough of her black self to be able to do that neck thing that sistas do, or to drop a couple paragraphs in fluent ebonics if she needs to, but she makes folks comfortble, she's a comforting figure for people who maybe shouldn't be all that comfortable.
JP: You don't get to be popular the way she is if you make too many people uncomfortable. It's the same sort of thing with the Cosby show, (which) was the number one TV show for years. In order to be number one, to have that massive audience, it's got to be careful not to upset people.
BD: There's a saying that goes “nothing succeeds like success”. Oprah's done very well for herself in building audience share and influence, and a vast personal fortune. So isn't the lesson for bright young people, especially black people, who are looking to change the world through media, isn't the message to follow in her footprints, right? ...to be upbeat and positive, to give the market what it wants. Isn't that the lesson of Oprah's career?
JP: It's certainly the lesson that she would like to pass on. But as a media critic I guess I would encourage not only black young people, all young people who are interest in going into media to think about some other kinds of contributions they could make to society as well.
BD: So thank you for this half hour, this twenty-five minutes, really. Say the name of the book again, please.
JP: the book is the Age of Oprah, Cultural Icon for the Neoliberal Era. It seems to be selling OK. I was interviewed by the New York Times last week about a story that has to do with Oprah's ratings declining over the last few years.
BD: Why would Oprah's ratings decline?
JP: There's been a flurry of news stories in the past week that began with a Times story... her ratings have declined for the last three years straight. She is still the number one talk show, but she has lost a quarter of her female audience age 25 to 54 over the last 3 years. Her circulation for the magazine is down too. There are questions too as to whether her endorsement of Obama has hurt her, but I guess we'll have to discuss that in another venue, since we are out of time now.
BD: I guess we will... we've been talking with Dr. Janice Peck, author of The Age of Oprah, Cultural Icon for the Neoliberal Era. Thank you so much, Janice.
JP: Thank you for inviting me.
Dr. Janice Peck is Associate Professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications of the University of Colorado at Boulder. If you don't see her book, the Age of Oprah at your local bookstore, ask for it. They'll be glad to get it.
Thanks for putting the nail in the coffin Coolbreeze
No one has come forward to argue that Oprah represents Black Women, let alone, Black People... because she doesn't. Is she creative, yes, industrious, sure, a good businesswoman, mmm huh, is she "Black?," Hell No! She's a mainstream, milquetoast, bland proponent of American Exceptionalism and neo-liberalism, with her psuedo-psychology focusing on "your personal faults and shortcomings." Which of course she has none, being able to rise "above color and circumstances" to rule the TV roost. (I would submit that she's also an example of the failure of feminism).
Yes no one is going to come here and argue for symbiosis between African America Women/People and Oprah Winfrey. You'd get laughed off this blog if so. No one is going to come her and argue that ANY African American is going to become a cultural icon unless they'ved conformed or, like Ali and King, had their radical legacies whitewashed by commercialism and historical amnesia & revisionism.
In the midst of abject silence, Mrs. E.C. has spoken, "yes honey, what's that you said?" Answer: "Oprah is a White Woman in Black Skin." Poor wittle Oprah, trapped inside that "ugly" Black skin, big booty, big lips, kinky hair and all. boo hoo hoo. Too bad she can't wear any of them "extensions" advertised on her website, or become a Revlon spokesperson. LOL
Thanks Oprah, thanks to you Blacks can't "own" anything, be it "Rap," or "hair weaves." You treading on sacred ground, Girlfriend. LOL
BTW, on a more serious note, for a look at how the media can help destroy a peoples, check out this article:
Corporate American Media and Israel’s 2008-09 Gaza Invasion
by Steven Salaita / December 14th, 2009
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/12/corporate-american-media-and-israels-2...
Touching Movie
This is really very bad thing that some people make fun of their family and family values.
Acai Berry
Colon Cleanse
It's official...
or semi-official. I asked my wife a few minutes ago, "Why don't Black woman watch Oprah (since none of you lovely Black females would respond) she said, and I quote:
"Because she's a White Woman with a Black Face." Case closed. LOL
Seems Oprah is about as "authentic" as the Real Houswives of Atlanta." Yall know damn well she's no spokesperson for Black Women. That's Christy Brinkley or Heidi Klumm, not Imani or Tyra on the cover of "O." "O" means, "Oh shit, I'm a white girl in black skin. LOL
How's that for "pontification?"
This film and story was
This film and story was completely written, produced and funded by African-Americans no? Sapphire and Oprah Winfrey are now evil black bitches who hate black men? What the?? This is what I'm reading here. This sounds too much like misogyny, which incidently doesn't exist in the Black Community. Neither does physical, verbal or mental abuse among each other.
It's time to get over that old way of thinking. Its time to actually deal with some of this leftover psychic junk. And believe it or not some of our people need mental help. Because obviously the characters in this film are sick, mentally and spiritually.
No one wants to deal with that, they'd rather put this all off on black women hating black men.
Just because
African Americans had a major role in writing, directing or producing this movie doesn't mean it deserves, "The Good Housekeeping Stamp of Negro Approval," it just doesn't. That's the kind of facile thinking we witness, for example, with Obama: "He's the Black President," The Crackers are out to get him," and therefore he's "with us," "looking out for our self-interest." Bullshit . This President will turn out to be worser for the plight of Blacks than Reagan. But "because he's Black" I am not suppose to discern that? Claude Anderson's, "Powernomics," for a good take on "inappropriate behavior by Blacks." Example? A few Africans/Blacks were complicit in the Slave trade.
I have not heard one person say that the reality of "Prescious" is unreal, impertinent or irrelevant. As I said, "don't confuse Afro-centric with Sexism." I can only personally attest to the fact that, for me, a strong, free-spiritied, independent, confident, self-assertive Black woman is the most attractive thing on the planet, sexy as a M.F.r, with downright cosmic appeal (and that's not to put down women of other ethnicities, but to state a preference) And for those reasons, among many others, I have no vested interest in drowning our their voice or minimizing their struggles or power.
Let's revisit "feminism" for a moment. It occurs to me, as I alluded to herein, that feminism has it's own failures to own up to, it's own superficialities to face up to. I won't attempt a litany. However, I find it offensive that women of all races and ethnicites flock to shows that depict them in unflattering, misogynistic ways, "damsels in distress fashion," shows like "Tool Academy," "For the Love of Ray J," "Rock of Love," the "Bachelor," "Real and Chance," "Bridezillas," and on and on... Where is the voice of so-called Feminism over these portrayals? Where is NOW in protesting what appears on Television-- beautiful, seemingly intelligent women, groveling over some chumps or referring to each other as "bitches" with a salaciousness that mimics that of a pimp?
Nobody watches this shit more than my wife... so women need to own up to their silence and complicity as well--projecting their emotions and lives on facile bullshit. "Blame Rap" for misogyny? While there is merit to that critique scan television and you'll see it's white women and men, producing, acting in and writing shit that demeans women more than "Rap" could have imagined.
(Speaking of which..... "where is Rap?" Dying, dead? Has the white power structure used it up...time to move on to something else?)
This is my point, among many others, that I've repeated in countless blogs: "I'm sick and tired of White People (whether alone or aided and abetted by Blacks) using Black People for their Bullshit Morality Play" whether sports, art or politics.
Once again, people are voting thumbs up or down on "Prescious" via their pocketbooks. The results bear their own witness.
Nobody same a damn thing about Black men hating Black Women for pointing out Black Male shortcomings. Especially when such shortcomings are universally acknowledged. Afterall, when President Pimp Daddy Obama went to Black churches or gatherings like the NAACP to chastise Black men, was there not universal cheering amongst Blacks, neigh even Black Men for same? (Despite the fact that he was on some mission to appease Whites when he said it).
I for one have no problems admitting my f/u's or shortcomings, I just don't need no crackers trying to frame my reality for me, even if a bunch of Negroes are rubber-stamping it. Especially when they can't get their own f***king reality in check.
Well...
I haven't seen the film yet. My mother saw it with a friend and said it was powerful. I've been hibernating in Europe for decades, truly in a time warp, so the way the film is described really blows my mind, and makes me think my country is really hypnotized and doomed. I look at it from the perspective of someone not browbeaten by the last 20 years (Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama) of American society, and having a good, clear memory of the way things were before they became so hyper-real.
I remember the debate surrounding the book and film "The Color Purple", from Ivy League seminars, Nation of Islam speeches, clear arguments by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, and other forums. Despite the clear arguments against both book and film, and despite the advanced education and political astuteness of my parents, especially when it comes to understanding Racism/White Supremacy, I remember my mother always eerily defending the book and film with the words "(The Color) Purple's got a lot of truth to it." So I hear you concerning those unheard voices and invisible members of the population (Of all people, Black women; America really is d....), and I'm almost tempted to say it serves all those right who have denied this, and that this is the way it comes out. However, I know better than to say or believe this, for I also recall the comments made by James Baldwin in January of 1987, the same year our hero passed away. They were quite simple, straight to the point, and are related to why I am so baffled by "Precious", how far we have come, how hypnotized, brain-washed, and ENDANGERED we are. Baldwin stated that he hadn't read "The Color Purple" and had only seen the film, which he found to be horrible. He then said he had no problems with the way they portrayed Black men in the film, but you better tell me why and how he got that way. There is a reason why Black men behave that way and you better explain it. He continued by stating that if someone like Paul Newman plays such a role, everyone learns in the film why and how got that way, and in the end we all feel sorry for him and hope he gets better. But if a Black man plays such role all you get is this catalogue of brutality.
This is what blows my mind. Everyone should know this. This was so standard before we moved into hyper-reality. This is standard in literature as well as in film. There doesn't have to be a blatant explanation, but there has to be one. And certainly we are urged to have more sympathy for white "brutes" than we do for Black ones. Now here we are living in a society, in the middle of this financial crisis, where the causes of black unemployment, mass incarceration, massive discrimination, massive poverty, high death row candidates, the greatest destruction of wealth ever, are clearer than ever. The causes of the neglect and direct assault on Black people are so clear, but we are still served up another catalogue of brutality without a full explanation, as far as I can gather.
My perspective is distant, I agree. Though I live in Europe, I have always had contact with people from all over the world, people from very rich cultures and with valuable experiences, people who fought in liberation struggles, and people who survived (US and European sponsored) terror all over the world. For most of my stay here they have been my only friends, and the combination of their wisdom and being situated on European soil allows me to put things historically and sharply into perspective with the following ominous comments, yes ominous:
Black people are in a very dangerous situation in America, and the parallels to the situation of Jewish people in Germany and Europe during the 1930s have never been so strong. If you look back at the level of assault, the level of discrimination and abuse we have suffered under the system of white supremacy during the Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush II eras, then MAY I REMIND YOU that this occurred when America's dominant position in the world was not threatened very seriously at all, just a few crises and signals of what may be on the horizon. However, the current global crisis, the increasing power of emerging countries in Asia, South America and the Middle East, all make it VERY CLEAR to the decision-makers in America and every other American who consciously and subconsciously believe in and support the system of white supremacy that it's not just America's supreme dominance which is threatened now, but it's very existence (as a global player) on the world stage, and certainly its financial sovereignty. If these are the new stakes, if it is that serious and existential, then what do you think they have planned for Black people, how much time do they feel they have to waste? Do you think they can afford to have Black American "witnesses" around if "non-white" powers are about to assume some decision-making roles and reduce America's power if not threaten its very existence as regional power.
Now from this perspective, a perspective shared by many people from around the world who are not browbeaten by America's daily hyper-reality, this is why films like "Precious" are made, and it is no accident that the director was the producer of the film Monster's Ball. It is all to get the mind prepared to see a certain portion of the population as, powerless, destroyed, pitiful, and certainly expendable. This is a far greater priority than telling an unspoken truth which every Black person cannot deny, but a truth which not every person in America can or is willing to explain convincingly, or to investigate objectively.
Thanks for taking a look from across "the pond"
Your position is stated with much eloquence and clarity, we appreciate it, or at least I do.
If only we heard more perspectives from others who live abroad, be they nationals or ex-pats. If only our intoxication and worship of American Exceptionalism did not blind our vision, plug our ears, and cloud our judgment. Why does America ignore or silence the voices of "the other?" Why is it that only Whites are deemed qualified to render judgments on the plight and conditions of Black Americans? You would never know there are 20+ million Blacks in America from watching or listening to our "media." Right now every amateur hour chump wants to either "investigate" or analyze Tiger Woods situation. Why do Whites project their bullshit "morality" on those with whom they share very little or find disdainful in private? Why does nobody give a shit about sex scandals in Europe?
I was talking to an acquaintance about this last night, we are hoping that Tiger doesn't cop to the "sex addicition," rationale to explain his conduct, for fear that he will NEVER LIVE DOWN THAT "ADDICITON." Ten years from now, I don't want to see some White Person on 60 minutes, or ESPN 360 ask Tiger, "How are you dealing with your sex addiction?" If Tiger has a sex addiction then most men need to hit the pscyoanalysts couch. Because if they are not getting, or pursuing some strange pussy, they damn sure thinking about, though not always acting on it. I'm not advocating infidelity simply being brutally honest about coming to grips with male sexuality.
I say this because Tiger is considered "Black" despite his perorations to deny the same. I say this because sex between a Black man and a White woman remains a taboo. I don't have the natural eloquence and patience of Oggy, I get "crude" because I desire to break down the B.S. , I'm impatient at times.
The bottom line is this, it's what Oggy and Mr. Reed, and myself are writing about: LET'S NOT BE NAIVE OR FOOLISH TO THE POINT OF DENYING SUBLIMINAL MESSAGING. That's the thrust of the "media" today, to essentially brainwash us at every turn. The "media" won't inform us on the extent to which unemployment is devasting Black folks, they'd rather tintillate us with how many hotties Tiger's banging, that's "news" in America. Why would an "esteemed" paper like the WaPo repeatedly allow a crank like Palin to grace it's Op Ed pages, this psuedo-celebrity/politician? "You do the math."
Typically most "blockbuster" movies, their promotion and hype, the media reviews and dissection all lead down the road of "social engineering." Every year, without fail, we'll see 1 or 2 other variations on the Holocaust Theme. I ain't made at Jews for keeping their history front and center, rather I'm mad a Blacks for being complicit in whitewashing theirs. And all to often it's as Oggy states: "It is all to get the mind prepared to see a certain portion of the population as, powerless, destroyed, pitiful, and certainly expendable. " Was it a coincidence that "300" was made during a period of anti-Iran bellicosity, or that the Persians looked like Blacks? I don't think so.
Don't think this can happen in the 21st Century? Then take time to analyze and dissect the case study of the Zionists and their Western accomplishes and their wholesale destruction, marginalization, demonization, and demoralization of the Palestinian peoples. The objective is not just to steal the land, the over-arching objective is to destroy their spirit and will to struggle and to influence world-wide opinion for the same.
It is not "doomsday" speech to see the contours of increasing destruction and marginalization of African Americans, sadly with complicity with Status Quo/elite Blacks and their inappropriate behavior. WTF is "post-racial" and what fool would buy into it in the midst of unchecked assault on African American families and communities?
Gil Scott said, "The revolution will be televised." I don't think so, Scott perhaps never grasped, when he wrote those lines, the scope, depth and magnitude of the confluence of the National Security State and Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and so-called "journalism."
http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/hollywood-films-and-cia-propaganda
Let's not confuse Afrocentric with Sexist
Being somewhat familiar with Mr. Reeds work,-- I haven't read any of his books--, but have read many of his essays, I posit that perhaps some of us are confusing sexism with (IMO) Mr. Reed's decidedly Afro-centric point of view.
What Mr. Reed discerns and articulates is the power, and political and social messaging behind movies, the hidden and not so hidden agendas, and the fact that this "tool" is a powerful cultural, social and political determinant. I surmise it's why he repeatedly cites, "Birth of a Nation," a seminal piece of cinematography if there ever was one.
When President Woodrow Wilson screened this decidedly pro-Klan, anti-Reconstruction, pro-lynching, Black stereotyped movie at the White House, the message was powerful. He in effect endorsed all of it's venality and symbolically signaled to the nation that Black mass murder was acceptable. The Birth of a Nation was no accidental creation.
http://www.filmsite.org/birt.html
It's well documented that the CIA has long-standing connections with Hollywood, just like they have bloggers on the internet, just like they have agents in the ranks of journalism, and so on. To be sure, there are a multitude of poor quality, mass-produced, consumeristic movies created for quick profits and DVD sales and rentals. It's one reason I don't go to the movies. But in a mass media, celebrity-driven culture like America, the purpose of movies subtle and not so subtle political and social messaging. The Harvey Milk movie is one that comes to mind. One cannot ignore the this fact.
Paternalism, especially White paternalism or Elitism is a heavy theme in American movies, perhaps this is what Mr. Reed is dissecting, that, and the political motivations behind those who finance, produce and promote the movie. How can we forget, when has the Right Wing allowed us to forget, the confluence of Hollywood and politics or culture? How many US movies about the invasion of Iraq failed to convey the theme of American virtue and inherent goodness? The gritty, hardened soldiers "saving the day," or a cute little foreigner? Even those with "credible" Black actors like Ice Cube, Terrence Howard, Jamie Foxx, or Don Cheadle.
There's a reason folks, that I couldn't stand to watch "300," a tale of the inherent goodness, virtue and superiority, the superhuman strength of the "West" over the "East." It didn't help one bit that the "Persians," looked like the Temptations and the Greeks like the Gatlin Band. So, even for entertainment purposes, subtle and not so subtle messages are sent.
To ignore that the universal ending of a Hollywood script is a White Person riding in, virtuous, or conflicted, but inherently good, saving the day is to ignore Hollywood's Star System, and the mostly, secondary role of Black actors.
As I said before, admittedly flippantly, "Black incest?" Tell me something I don't already know. Rich White incest? Again, what the f***k was the Hapsburg Dynasty all about? Or any other imperial structure of governance that existed before the advent of modern democracy. So, isn't it appropriate to give Mr. Reed the benefit of the doubt, (or me despite my crudeness), that suppressing the incidence of Black incest or minimizing the struggles of women, Black, poor, White whatever is not the portent of his critique, that what he is critiquing is subtle and not so subtle messaging,-- the propagandizing of the populace, the conveyance of a certain worldview that does not necessarily depict the complexities and nuances of African Americans? But rather resorts to prototypical characterizations? Does anyone here seriously believe attitudes and ideas are not being shaped by mass media?
Think about how ESPN and especially the NFL has damn near been by adopted by the US military. This is explicit messaging to make warfare more acceptable. The one commodity that we DO export in America folks is "our 'culture,' mass consumed media, particularly films," that's about it. The rest of the economy is based upon us consuming it.
Is this movie anymore
Is this movie anymore damaging to the image of black people than the craptastic fare marketed to (and often written and produced by blacks) black audiences - be it movies, TV, rap music, or anything on BET and UPN? Or, some of the stuff people do in real life?
Mr. Reed needs to have a cup of decaf and calm down. It's a movie, folks - one of many out in theaters 2-3 weeks and then on to DVD and mostly forgotten. I doubt there is a vast female writer conspiracy to make black males look bad. As for Hollywood's portrayal of black males - black females aren't exactly being shown in any better light.
One commenter asked why blacks weren't flocking to this movie. I don't follow much mainstream TV or radio and didn't care to see the film after reading an early blurb about it, but I'd be interested to know if there were a lot of commericals for and promotion of the movie on TV shows and radio stations watched/listened to by blacks. Has Queen Oprah, Tyra, and the rest of afternoon vapid chat fest shows had any of the stars of the movie on? How many screens nationwide are showing it? Where and how much it's being promoted in mediums used/consumed by blacks might be a factor.
On an unrelated note, Mr. Reed slams Arianna Huffington for calling Obama lackadaisical. Mr. Reed calls Obama one of the hardest working presidents in history. Either Reed is so apoplectic over Precious he can't think straight or he's a victim of the kool-aid. Or maybe not. Obama is hard working all right. Hard at work screwing over average Joes and Janes. If he ain't shipping their loved ones off to be shot up/messed up in military adventures based on lies, he's letting insurance and drug companies craft a health care plan that will be more detrimental than any movie Oprah and Sapphire dream up. Reed shouldn't get too mad at Huffington; she was one of those poser progressives who was all up Obama's butt during the campaign. I'm sure her criticisims of him are tepid at best.
Mmmmmm... Not really...
Not considering that Mo Nique one of the "stars" of the Movie also starred in "Soul Plane," one of the "best" Blaxploitation movies of all time. Perhaps the producers thought that a sexy man like Lenny Cravitz would get the ladies in the seats. I can dig it... because if "Prescious" looked like Beyonce or Nia Long I might climb my behind in a seat too.
Let's get impolitic, politically incorrect, BUT TRUTHFUL for a moment.
The young lady starring as Prescious is unattractive, plain and simple, and thinking about her father doing her just ain't the same as thinking about "me" doing Gabrielle Union. Let's face it folks, sex sales, and I ain't buying what Prescious is selling. Crude you say, "perhaps?", sexist too, "maybe," but real shit. Don't blame me, I''m simply a "victim" of made-in-America sexual saturation (just kidding). But thinking about Prescious getting boned by her Pops gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Honestly, and again, this is impolitic, the young lady ain't going to get much play because she makes Whites and some Blacks uncomfortable. As I light skinned n***ga hear me out, "there's intra and external racial discrimination against dark-skinned Blacks." Prescious looks too Black to get play from Larry King or Tyra, she reminds him, them, and some of us too much of slavery and reconstruction, and the 60s struggles, and most want to forget them days, all too often to their detriment. (Why else would Blacks vote for OBushco?) Prescious is not "anglicized" yall, that's why you won't see her on the Today Show with Matt and Meredith, negroes like Al Roker would be as uncomfortable as them.
Let's be real, how many dark-skinned Black women, or "Mexican-looking" Hispanic women get media play? Not every Hispanic looks like J-Lo nor every Black woman like Beyonce, but you'd never know it watching American movies and TV. See any dark-skinned honeys like Erika Badu on "For the Love of Ray J?" Yall know what I'm talking about.
P.S. I love me some dark-skinned honeys, btw. "the blacker the berry...."
Addendum I: I almost forgot, Prescious is obese and large or obese woman, be they Black or White ain't going to get much love from Mainstream Media. Oh they will get caricatured. Now, that's not my judgment folks, that's just the way it is, it's why White girls go bulemic and exercise infomericals and ads have svelte woman. Although I must confess that although "big girls need love too," that's wonderful, beautiful, just ain't getting it from me, not w/o copious amounts of Long Island Tea.
a plea for a closer look at Precious
This critique seems to be endemic of the kind of sexist black male critique of women that marginalizes a woman's voice if the story they tell of black men is not sufficiently satisfactory to black men such as yourself or those who are paid to critique particular film. That is a form of censorship I totally disagree with. Sapphire has an ultimate right to tell her side of the story, however influenced by white males it might be. We don't need a film to remind us that black men are not rapists. King reminded us black men that truth pressed to the ground always rises. Richard Wright once said that racism is a problem for whites, not for us. This whole critique of the film is problematic to me because it is too preoccupied with essentially a problem created by white males, and should be with finding usable lessons for its viewers and readers. A more rigorous critique should have included how her time on army bases may have influenced her interest in a victim of verbal, physical, and sexual violence and how that should lead to a critique of U.S. Military aggression which by the way is the real and true culprit of Sapphire's Precious abuse.
You write that the white characters are altrustic types and ultimately endorsed by the movie. This is patently false. The teacher and social worker are obviously enforcers, arbiters of white racism. They both encourage in their own way the destruction of Black life by encouraging Precious to get rid of the baby or put it up for adoption. However Precious rejects their pathological narratives and decides to take individual agency to stop the cycle of abuse continued by her father, but certainly originated in the racist American mind devoted to dominating other peoples of color in the world. I wonder Professor Reed if your sexism disallowed you to see the kind of critique Sapphire is making in her book. Do you think in the character of Bigger thomas Richard Wright in Native Son was simply showing white superiority and Negro inferiority? If not, then I kindly ask that you extend the same critical courtesy to a black woman writer in Sapphire. In my mind, what Addison Gayle Jr. has identified in Wright's character of Dalton is exactly the same problem n the character of Precious' teacher and her social worker, that you claim the film is celebrating. It is the problem of the white liberal that thinks they are helping when they are actually hurting and allow the cycles of Black pain and trauma to continue. Sapphire's social worker and the teacher are as insidious as Wright's Dalton is in creating a political condition, the ghetto, that ultimately devalues Black life by allowing cycles neglect ad abuse to continue. Ms. Winfrey nor Mr. Perry were single handedly responsible for creating the conditions of a precious. Your attack against them is misguided and exaggerated when you call them a-holes. If Ms. Winfrey chooses to promote films that reflect her experience of abuse, that is absolutely her prerogative as a producer. It is valid and should not dismissed as a bare bones intentional attack on men. I think a sexist point of view tends to see this as such. We need serious engagement as men to think about how we on an individual level support and condone such Preciouses. Your tone in this piece is very American, very much like George W. Bush in lacking rigorous self criticism. Precious should beg the question, how could I prevent at the individual level the promotion of more Preciouses. I say the answer is to support people in Congress now who are demanding immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan and who fight for single payer medicare. CALL YOUR 202 224 3121 AND TELL THEM YOU SUPPORT SENATE AMENDMENT 2837 FOR SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE AND THAT YOU SUPPORT REPRESENTATIVE LEE'S MEASURE TO WITHDRAW TROOPS IMMEDIATELY. To end the cycle of abuse. -RF.
It is interesting that you
It is interesting that you refer to Mr. reeds personal critique of the film as censorship. He does'nt posess such power; however, his literary prowess does serve him, and many of us well by illuminating "precious"- facts that explode the "Precious"- pathological fictions with which the ruling, dominant ethinicity and classes loves to beat us over the head with while laughing all the way to the bank.
I don't know if Mr. Reed's perception of Wrights' Bigger Thomas (read as all black people) as simply inherently inferior and living pathological existences, and that of the white characters as inherently superior and therefore responsable for that pathology and acting on it either out of pitty or shame; But I do, and for many that was the problem with "Native Son", and that is what I think Mr. Reed is signifying on. Zora Neal Hurston was mobbed out of the male dominated literary scene of her time (30's) because of her insistance on portraying a view of black life that was not predicated on the reactions by Blacks to the whims and norms or paternalisms of white society.
The fact that such a film can and is made in these times reveals: if not that Black people are inferior thus whites are superior; then at least the illusion that we/they respectively are must be kept in tact. And like Wrights book, this film is written and produced for white audiences to champion; but unlike with Native Son, Precious is to instill fear and loathing not guilt and shame in white people.
The other aspect of Reeds critique that you over look is his repeated comparisons of similar themes and or ethinic pathologies if you will in white society that rarely become the Gold Mine projects of amoral capitalists, and marketed as such similar media attractions . Do you not consider this a curious thing to ponder; or is it simply a condition of living in a sytematically racist/classist society (that was, by the way, what it is before the word Nazi ever crossed anyones lips) that one should accept as not being in the position to portray similar human frailties that also exist among white folks?
Whether Mr. Reed is mysoginistic (as he is often named) or not is beside the point; and that there are Black people who may share the experience as that portrayed in this film is also beside the point. The point is that it is a missuse; an abuse of power and media influence that shapes the minds of the public about a people or gender of a people, when those manipulating that power do it to degrade and dehumanize their subjects while simutaneously refusing to depict their own in the same light.
You wrote:"Precious should beg the question, how could I prevent at the individual level the promotion of more Preciouses. "
I would asnswer: Stop making and or promoting degrading Social Science Fiction Propaganda films such as "Prescious"; And then maybe write and send a million and one letters to the president asking him: Please, please, please >Mr. Presodent, why don't you feeeed me.
reply to coolbreeze
To Coolbreeze: Professor Reed's work has given us artists & writers the blueprint for how to manage the polluting mainstream of American culture and I'm grateful for it so yes I do think there's a need to see the human frailties portrayed in Precious, among white folks as well, that Professor Reed pointed out. However that was not Sapphire's story and Lee Daniels presented Sapphire's story, a story which she is most culturally familiar with; I would not ask Sapphire why she couldn't write a story showing frailties of whites especially if she says she is not intimately familiar with that. What Professor Reed's critique has taught us is how unscrupulous Hollywood moguls seek to profit from negative black male stereotypes, however close or not Sapphire was to white human frailties, and they need to be called out on it, and he did that better than I ever could. All I argue is that the film be seen more as an exposure and critique of white racism than a critique of black men.
To your second point I agree its a misuse of power by those who degrade and dehumanize their subjects while refusing to depict their own in the same light. Professor Reed's pointing at the pathological behavior and nature of the 'niche industry' in the critique of precious is extraordinary and very necessary. All I argue is that the film be seen more as a critique of white racism than black men. It would help us to a safer place as Americans. As Jesse Jackson said, we're all in the same boat now. We need to work towards ending militaristic American aggression. Please click here and tell your representative NO to more war funding:https://ssl.capwiz.com/pdamerica/issues/alert/?alertid=14461501&PROCESS=Take+Action
Your thoughtful response is appreciated, nevertheless..
As someone with roots in Mississippi,--both parents and grandparents hail from there--the pathologies of Black folk are well-known to me through anectdotes, so I didn't mean to curtly dismiss them, I'm just not graviated to them. Blacks are not flocking to this movie for some reason, I surmise they are tired of seeing these pathologies, as real and significant as they are, constantly and repeatedly paraded through the lenses of Hollywood. I imagine many don't trust Hollywood to present it fairly? I surmise some of it is also asesthetic, (what some may refer to as sexist). I don't consider myself sexist and reject all attempts by others to label me as such, but for pure entertainment and asethetics I don't want to see a big-boned, superficially unattractive woman struggle through incest and racism. Not because the story is not relevant or real, I just don't want to be "entertained" by this type of story just like I am no longer 'entertained" by Tyler Perry's constant, repetitive stories of sin, love, and redemption, it's just played out.
For the record, I'm equally tired of seeing heroic whites save the downtrodden Black kid/super athlete, I get enough of that shit from ESPN.
I imagine some of the responses to this movie are purely "aesthetic," or "entertainment," driven, it's not that the message is lost on well-informed persons.
I've been waiting for my wife to recommend seeing this movie, but she hasn't even mentioned it in passing, there's not a lot of buzz, IMO, from Black women regarding this movie, and I don't claim to have all the answers why. I suspect "entertainment" value has a lot to do with it. It's not like there isn't enough real world, depressing shit we don't have to deal with day-to-day, why go to the movies and coopt someone else's pain? That may sound callous, it's not intended to be, it's just "real." Movies are a diversion.
Does anyone have a better explanation why Black women (let alone men) are not flocking to see this pic? It' has to be something better than "denial" because everybody knows this shit goes on. I'm all ears.
Last, let's not confuse critique with censorship. I'm an absolutist when it comes to the 1st Amendent, whether it's Klan Marches, Nooses, or films about Black incest.
Addendum I: People flock to see Will Smith's "The Pursuit of Happyness," because it's uplifting, same reason they wanna see a polished ESPN version of White Family Saves Black Kid abandoned by Black Family and Relatives, aka "The Blind Side," I suspect, with outstanding actors Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon (IMO) they'll flock to see "Invictus" as well. Similar themes of "uplift."
The "Pursuit of Happyness" was not only a great story, with great acting and plot, but it was a needed relief from years of Black Men and Oprah bashing, IMO. Yes, were are complicated, conflicted, profound individuals, and I don't typically trust Hollywood to portray same.
personal visions
{i love this site!...thanks!}
this is an excellent column.
but, i viewed this film through the eyes of a traumatized early child educator.
i have taught a generation of "preciouses" born to toxic young parents who are breeding in record numbers.
this film has grave flaws.
but, it is also a realistic depiction of the tragically and increasingly flawed lives of a generation of children like the infamous "shaniya davis"...
see more on the film at:
http://aliciabanks.vox.com/library/post/precious-a-colorist-classic.html
alicia banks
eloquent fury
Blacks are voting 2 thumbs down with their dollars
I wouldn't go see this shit, and it appears most Blacks share that sentiment. I read something recently in passing (which is why I can't find the link) that Blacks prefer the movie "Blindside," over "Precious" and it had to do with the negativity of "Precious."
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1627717/story.jhtml
Nobody wants to see this crap which is just a 60s version of Black incest a la "The Color Purple." It's funny how Oprah "knows so much about relationships," but the bitch can't find a man, and she ain't raised no youngins. ( Don't get mad at me using the "B" word, from my survey of TV nobody uses it more than women).
I'm curious, "Do most Black Women even watch Oprah?" My wife prefers Wendy Wms. and Mo' Nique. (Though both appear better than Oprah, Mo Nique gets on my nerves when I do bother to watch, she talks to much Ngawa Black Power shit but will take the sorriest, negative Black roles roles for a paycheck). Oprah has become a billionaire parading Black pathologies to White people, pathologies which are part and parcel of the pathologies of ALL peoples, that, and her "New Age," feel-good, psuedo-psychology "I am woman hear me roar" bullshit. I wonder if she'll do a number showing the incestuous relationships amongst the wealthy? Sellout.
http://past.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/174/1/158
RE: Enlightened Cynic
Why should Oprah be worried or even care about incest among white people? They have systems and institutions in place and funding for them to get help OR brush their dirt under the rug. Its US who's sores run and fester and stank. What are we going to do about it?
But we can't do anything until we first come to a concensus about our national identity. That's a topic for another day.
@Seventies Soulchild
"Why should Oprah be worried or even care about incest among white people?"
I'm tempted to say, "I don't know you tell me?" Cause I need some assurances about what she "cares about."
But Oprah does worry and care about white people, does she not? In point of fact, who does she cater her audience, topics, and "opinions" to? I asked the question several blogs ago, "Do Black women even watch Oprah?" Since I've yet to get an answer, let me proffer one, and say, "No." The "sistas's ain't vibing with Oprah and her cast of characters. Sure she might put out some entertaining stuff, (The Color Purple should have won an Oscar) but that doesn't make her an advocate of Black interests, despite her status and likability. I don't claim to be the male version of Zora Neal Hurston, but my antenni ain't picking up any, "We love Oprah," vibes from African American women, I sense no common bond, nothing on a "deep" level, I doubt hairstylists and clientle discuss the lastest Oprah episode. We can all appreciate the superficiality of her "success." After all, we Middle Class Negroes just love us some "successful Blacks" don't we?
Last time I checked, "O" Magazine didn't exactly look like a glossier, more expensive, comprehensive version of "Essence Magazine, " with a measure of "Black Enterprise," thrown in for good measure.
http://www.oprah.com/magazine/omagazine
http://www.essence.com/
http://www.blackenterprise.com/
Maybe I'm not a media critic on the level of Mr. Reed, my prose not fit for the NY Times, but I ain't blind....nor deaf. Maybe I can't define status quo in toto, but I know it when I see it.
Update No. 1: "I'll be goddamned," check out the link on hair extensions, now I just knew there'd be some "Nubian" hair thrown in for "good measure," to keep the natives from being restless, but all I saw was extensions for Barbie and Ken. "OPRAH!!"" That's why sistas ain't feeling your Uncle Tom ass!!" You won't even give them no "extension" play, no "weave" recognition, 'Bee Yatch'! ROFLAF
Update No. 2: Oprah ain't catering to you, "us" broke-ass, struggling working poor & middle class ni***as." Foie gras is not Chinese take out.
And the "Hamptons," aint Hampton, VA.
Bruh. . .
Is "pontification" your middle name or is it "out of context" ROFLMAO and SMDH. Please at least argue the finer points of my comment. Oh wow!
Identity Consensus
ain't going to happen as long as Elite, uber Negroes like Obama and Oprah whitewash our history and culture. You can say what you want, but a picture speaks a thousands words and O Magazine ain't for those with nappy heads, so much for her authenticity.
Yes, Whites have all kinds of tools at their disposal, which is why Blacks with power ought to make sure we have the same. There should at least be a "colored section" in "O." Or a "Black" Dr. Phil to address our pathologies.
Pontification? Nah, shit-talker.