I Was A Member Of The Black

I Remember When Langston Hughes Used To Write A Column In Black Newspapers Around This Character Jesse B. Semple. He Always Used That As A Voice, Sometimes In Comic Ways, Of Having Everyday People's Voice Come Through This Common Folk Hero, Who Was An Ordinary Working Guy. He Would Talk About Anything From Police Brutality To The Korean War. Those Kinds Of Expression And Identification Are No Longer Prevalent In Our Popular Culture.

It's Also Important For Those Who Promote Those Issues Within The White Community - The Somewhat Privileged Community - To Talk About Issues Affecting People Of Color.

Just Look At The Cinema Itself: It's Comprised Of Lots Of Movies About Graphic Novels, And If You're Not 20 Years Old And Wearing A Cape And A Mask And White, You're Out Of Business. Today's Cinema Is A Proliferation Of Comedies, Which Are In Some Ways Creating Caricature Images. They're One-dimensional.

The Civil Rights Movement Didn't Deal With The Issue Of Political Disenfranchisement In The Northern Cities. It Didn't Deal With The Issues That Were Happening In Places Like Detroit, Where There Was A Deep Process Of Deindustrialization Going On. So You Have This Response Of Angry Young People, With A War Going On In Vietnam, A Poverty Program That Was Insufficient, And Police Brutality. All These Things Gave Rise To The Black Power Movement. The Black Power Movement Was Not A Separation From The Civil Rights Movement, But A Continuation Of This Whole Process Of Democratization.

I Didn't Elect [barack] Obama Because He's A Black; I Voted For Obama Because He Was The Right Person At The Time.