One of my missions in life is to hold a proverbial mirror up to society.
Sometimes people don’t like what I post because they don’t like what they see reflected in it. They recognize an attitude, an assumption, or a behavior they would rather not examine. Suddenly, the problem is the person holding the mirror. The problem is me.
Does that mean I am always right? No.
Does it mean I am perfect? Absolutely not.
I get criticized in my own posts. I also routinely call myself out on my own shit. That part sometimes gets missed by people who are too offended to notice that the criticism includes me.
I live in this society too. I have absorbed its prejudices, made mistakes, and had to confront things about myself that I did not like. And I am still doing that work.
But admitting that a problem exists is the first step toward doing something about it. We cannot fix what we refuse to acknowledge.
And I want something better. For myself. For my children. For the people whose lives are shaped by conditions they did not create and cannot simply wish away.
I want that “more perfect union” we keep talking about. I also want a better world beyond it.
You do not have to like the way I make my points. I know I can be blunt, sarcastic, angry, and confrontational. Sometimes I turn people’s own venom back toward them so they can hear how ugly it sounds when they are on the receiving end.
That approach can land. It can also miss. I am responsible for that. I am responsible for the “strays” caught by individuals and groups who didn’t do anything to me.
But I am tired of watching people show more concern about the tone of a response than the cruelty that provoked it.
They can demean marginalized people all day. The moment someone responds with anger, suddenly we need a discussion about civility.
Where was that concern before somebody answered back?
When I defend Black people, some accuse me of racism. But loving my people and refusing to let them become everybody’s punching bag does not establish hatred of anyone else.
Neither does questioning criticism that has been selectively aimed at us.
A criticism can contain a legitimate concern and still be used to advance a racist agenda. If someone cares about a problem only when it gives them a reason to demean Black people, I am going to question their motives.
That is especially true when they show no interest in solutions.
I also want to be precise about power. There is a difference between an individual’s prejudice and the power of institutions to turn racial prejudice into unequal treatment, exclusion, and deprivation.
That distinction is important. It does not mean my words are incapable of causing harm or that being Black makes everything I say acceptable. It means we should stop pretending that every expression of anger carries the same history, authority, or consequences.
I am responsible for my words. I am also entitled to challenge the systems and narratives that harm my people.
And I am not advocating physical harm against anyone. My goal is to eradicate racism, not give it another direction to travel.
That requires understanding racism beyond its most theatrical forms.
It is not limited to robes and hoods, shouted slurs, or segregated lunch counters. It also includes beliefs about whose intelligence, character, culture, and humanity deserve respect. It includes policies and institutional practices that maintain racial advantages and disadvantages.
A person does not have to announce that they hate Black people to support arrangements that keep Black people disadvantaged.
And a policy does not become harmless simply because the people defending it avoid racist language.
That is why I keep pointing these things out. Recognition should lead to examination. Examination should lead to action.
Take the constant fixation on violence in Black communities.
Black people living in those communities have every reason to care. We lose loved ones. We fear for our children. We want safe streets, and we want the people harming our neighbors held accountable.
But if someone claims to care about that violence, I expect them to care about the conditions surrounding it too.
Trauma. Poverty. Limited opportunities. Inadequate schools. Discrimination. Access to healthcare and mental-health support. The pressures that teach some young men to treat domination, retaliation, and performative toughness as the only ways to establish respect.
These conditions do not excuse a person who hurts someone else. They do matter if we intend to prevent the next person from doing it.
Calling the problem “Black culture” does not explain why it happens. Blaming DNA is racist nonsense. Reducing everything to bad parenting lets the rest of society wash its hands of conditions that families are struggling within.
Parents have responsibilities. Individuals have responsibilities. Institutions and governments have responsibilities too.
I am tired of arguments that recognize only the first two.
We should also examine struggling White communities affected by lost industries, declining opportunity, and neglect. Their suffering deserves attention, and comparing experiences could help us understand what people need.
Instead, some commentators use poor Black neighborhoods as a punching bag while offering very little to poor White people beyond somebody to resent.
How does that help either community?
If you care about people being safe, healthy, and able to build a life, then help address the conditions standing in their way. Stop using one group’s pain to distract another group from its own.
And stop acting as though racism disappeared when the Civil Rights Act passed.
A change in law can be a major victory without erasing the beliefs, habits, and power arrangements that made the law necessary. Those things do not vanish because open discrimination becomes less socially acceptable.
Nor did Barack Obama create racial division by acknowledging the realities facing Black people. Naming a problem is not the same as causing it.
The anger directed at those acknowledgments tells us something about what people expect Black public figures to leave unsaid.
That is part of what I want the mirror to show.
I want us to examine the difference between opposing racism in principle and resisting every uncomfortable conversation about how it operates. Between saying we care about a community and using its problems to humiliate it. Between demanding accountability from individuals and refusing accountability for institutions.
I am willing to have that examination include me.
But I am not going to stop holding up the mirror simply because the reflection pisses somebody off.
I have shared videos of Ku Klux Klan members and other racists explaining what they believe on my Facebook page. What interests me is how familiar some of those beliefs sound once you look past the robes, the slurs, and the willingness to say the quiet part out loud.
The KKK does not represent every American. Nor should one town, one interview, or one group stand in for the whole country.
David Duke wanted to make the KKK more acceptable to theAmerican public by presenting a more polished and white collar image of the group.
But that does not mean the ideas expressed in those videos exist only among people who openly identify as racists.
The belief that Black people are inherently less capable, less civilized, more dangerous, or less deserving can appear in different forms and degrees. Someone can reject the Klan and still accept assumptions that have a great deal in common with its worldview.
That is what I want people to examine.
For generations, racism helped justify conquest, enslavement, colonial exploitation, and exclusion. People dressed those justifications up as science, religion, common sense, and concern for civilization.
The cruelty came with an explanation. The explanation made the cruelty easier to defend.
We still need to pay attention to that process.
Racism can become so familiar that people stop recognizing it unless it appears in its most extreme form. They know a hood and a burning cross when they see them. They know an explicit slur when they hear one.
But a polished commentator making insinuations about Black intelligence, criminality, or belonging? Suddenly, we are supposed to consider whether that person is simply a misunderstood truth-teller.
Apparently, racism becomes harder to recognize when the speaker has a studio, a suit, and a respectable vocabulary.
Nick Fuentes is literally a self-professed Nazi (or Nazi sympathizer) who can get away with much of what he says, and was invited to Donald Trump’s mansion for dinner because he isn’t seen in the uniform of White supremacy.
I am tired of the idea that avoiding the N-word automatically makes an argument free of racism.
What is the argument asking us to believe? How is the evidence being used? What context has been left out? Is a problem being examined, or is an entire people being assigned a negative character?
Those questions matter more than whether the speaker remembered to avoid a slur.
Statistics deserve scrutiny too. A number can be accurate while the story built around it is misleading. Selective comparisons, missing context, and sweeping conclusions can turn data into a tool for reinforcing prejudice.
If someone uses a statistic to suggest that Black people are inherently defective, the presence of a number does not make that suggestion objective.
A spreadsheet does not wash racism out of an argument.
Charlie Kirk’s “truth” was nothing more than racism using cherry-picked and out-of-context statistics. These are often quoted on his podcast and while debating undergrad students on college campuses.
One of the things I wanted people to notice in those videos was the date.
When were these people saying these things? When were the incidents happening? How long after the major civil-rights victories were communities still facing intimidation, exclusion, and openly racist hostility?
Too many people talk as though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 closed the book on racism.
Those laws were extremely important. But passing a law did not instantly change everyone’s beliefs, dismantle every discriminatory practice, or erase the advantages accumulated under the old arrangements.
Some attitudes changed. Some people changed. Others learned to conceal what they believed or express it in language that gave them plausible deniability.
We should recognize progress without pretending that it finished the job.
That is also why I keep returning to the contrast between how Barack Obama and Donald Trump have been judged.
I am not arguing that every criticism of Obama was racist. I criticized him myself. His policies and decisions deserve examination like those of any other president.
But I watched people demand that he be endlessly calm, polished, articulate, restrained, and reassuring—and still treat him as illegitimate, threatening, or fundamentally out of place.
He could meet their stated standards and still fail the test.
Then I watched some of those same people celebrate Trump’s belligerence, insults, and disregard for restraint as signs of strength.
Conduct they would have treated as disqualifying in Obama became proof that Trump was authentic and willing to fight.
Donald Trump can get away with egregious behavior that Obama is not able to get away with. Obama had to mostly remain stoic during his presidency, while Trump can be angry and belligerent.
What changed—the standard, or the person being judged?
That question deserves more than a reflexive accusation that I am “making everything about race.”
I do not need to claim that every measure of the country’s condition was better under Obama to make this point. Presidents should be judged on evidence, and different outcomes require different comparisons.
My concern here is the permission some people grant one leader while demanding constant reassurance from another.
If restraint is essential to presidential character, it should matter when Trump lacks it. If inflammatory rhetoric is dangerous, it should not become admirable simply because the speaker is someone you support.
And if intelligence, preparation, and dignity are the standards, meeting them should count regardless of the president’s race.
Too often, that consistency disappears.
This is why the openly racist videos matter to me. They make certain assumptions easier to hear. Once we recognize those assumptions in their bluntest form, we should be willing to examine where else they appear.
George Lincoln Rockwell was the founder of the American Nazi Party (ANP). He was a very articulate man who attended an Ivy League University (Brown University). Often, he would dress in Nazi uniforms but he would often dress in a suit and speak while smoking his signature pipe. Often, his message wasn’t necessarily antagonistic or violent, but they were exclusionary and racist.
The delivery may be smoother. The speaker may deny any prejudice. The audience may insist that it is all about policy, statistics, or “telling the truth.”
But we still have to examine the substance.
Racism does not need a hood, a slur, or a confession to operate.
And refusing to recognize it until someone supplies all three gives far too many people permission to keep doing it.
I have absolutely no respect for people who spread the racist and transphobic conspiracy theory that Michelle Obama was born male.
None.
This lie has been debunked repeatedly, yet people keep recycling it as though repetition will turn it into evidence. Michelle Obama was born Michelle LaVaughn Robinson. There is no credible evidence for the claim that she was born “Michael” or assigned male at birth.
A picture of Michelle Obama as a baby.
But this is about more than one lie about one woman.
It is about the willingness to treat Black women’s bodies, voices, and appearance as public property. Apparently, anyone with an internet connection gets to inspect them and decide whether they qualify as women.
And some Black men participate in this bullshit when they should know better.
There are few better examples of Black women’s sex and gender being questioned than Brittney Griner. Griner is the subject of some very ugly conspiracy theories and assumptions. Griner is tall, has a deep voice, has no pronounced breasts, and doesn’t conform to traditional gender roles. And all of those things are ok and don’t take away from her womanhood.
Black women get called “masculine” for being tall, strong, outspoken, athletic, angry, or unwilling to make themselves small. A deeper voice becomes suspicious. Short hair becomes suspicious. Muscles become suspicious.
Even confidence becomes suspicious.
Women of other races can possess those same characteristics, but Black women are too often treated as though they have violated some rule of womanhood by possessing them.
Who made that rule? And why are we helping enforce it?
Venus and Serena Williams were attacked for their appearance, their athleticism, and their muscular build.
Think about the scrutiny directed at Venus and Serena Williams. Think about Brittney Griner and Grace Jones. Think about how quickly people turn a Black woman’s strength, stature, or appearance into an accusation.
The details of each woman’s experience differ. But the impulse to inspect, mock, and police Black women’s bodies is familiar as hell.
I hear echoes of Malcolm X’s criticism of the disrespect and lack of protection Black women face. Decades later, we are still watching people turn that disrespect into entertainment.
And the supposed defense of Michelle Obama sometimes falls into the same trap.
People point to her children, her marriage, her clothes, or how feminine she looks, as though the right combination of evidence will finally satisfy the people attacking her.
We should challenge the lie. But we should also challenge the premise.
A woman does not have to give birth, wear dresses, have a particular body shape, or meet somebody’s beauty standard to deserve respect.
Picture of Michelle Obama throughout her young years.
Michelle Obama does not need an exception made for her height or her facial features. There is nothing about those things that needs explaining away.
Nor should defending her require treating transgender women as an insult she must be separated from. The conspiracy is false, and its use of trans identity as a weapon is part of what makes it ugly.
Being transgender is not a disgrace. Lying about someone’s identity to humiliate them is disgraceful.
The people spreading this story often try to demean Barack Obama at the same time. In their telling, supposedly exposing his wife would somehow diminish his manhood.
That tells us something about the prejudices doing the work here. Black womanhood becomes something to ridicule. Black manhood becomes something to undermine. Transgender identity becomes something to sneer at.
And the whole thing gets passed around as a joke.
Isis King is a trans woman who is an actress and a model. One doesn’t have to be born anatomically female to be feminine.
What, exactly, is funny?
The contempt for Black women? The attempt to humiliate a Black family? The idea that somebody’s gender can be determined by studying a photograph and making shit up?
I do not find any of that clever.
You do not have to like Michelle Obama. You do not have to agree with her politics, admire her speeches, buy her books, or defend her husband’s administration.
There are legitimate things to discuss and criticize.
But disagreement does not entitle you to invent a different identity for her or subject her body to some imaginary gender inspection.
And being Black does not make participation in that harassment less anti-Black.
If you are a Black man spreading this lie, ask yourself why you are so eager to help people degrade a Black woman. Ask yourself whose approval you are seeking and what, exactly, you think our community gains from your participation.
The same goes for Black women who join in. Familiarity with this kind of scrutiny should give us more reason to reject it.
Michelle Obama as a child with her brother and her parents.
I am not going to insult somebody’s mother, grandmother, or partner to make that point. Those women do not deserve to have their appearance dragged into this either.
That is the whole damn problem: too many people think a woman’s appearance is fair game whenever they want to win an argument.
It needs to stop.
Black women do not owe you a particular kind of femininity. They do not owe you access to their private lives. And they do not owe you proof that they are women.
Criticize what Michelle Obama actually says and does if you have an argument to make.
But stop spreading this racist, transphobic bullshit and pretending it is political commentary.
I have been a fan of Shaquille O’Neal for decades. I bought Shaqs (his shoes)back in the day. I have defended his hip-hop career against people who act like he was a garbage rapper. I even listen to his EDM music. I love seeing him continue to get endorsements and get paid, and I have praised his generosity and down-to-earth persona.
But being a fan does not require me to ignore behavior that disappoints me. And being generous does not make someone immune to criticism.
That is where too many conversations about Black celebrities fall apart. The moment someone criticizes a wealthy, famous Black person, people start counting donations, comparing bank accounts, and asking what the critic has done for the community. Apparently, whoever writes the biggest check gets the final word on Black people and our liberation.
I do not accept that.
Many Black people were angry that Shaquille O’Neal would happily accept an honorary badge from an administration that many of us perceive as hostile and antagonistic towards the overall Black community.
My frustration with Shaq comes from the distance between the man I admire and some of the positions he takes publicly. I can appreciate his generosity and still question his politics. I can celebrate his success and still be disappointed when he lends his voice to narratives that undermine legitimate Black grievances.
Those things can exist at the same time.
When I described Shaq as having “coon tendencies,” some conservative White people and non-Black Latinos responded by attacking my name, my skin color, and my Blackness. Others reached for a conveniently selected Malcolm X quote. Very few seemed interested in understanding the criticism itself.
And I think it is hilarious that people who claim to oppose identity politics suddenly become experts on who is Black enough when a Black person says something they do not like.
My criticism is about behavior: Black people reinforcing anti-Black narratives, seeking approval at our community’s expense, or treating proximity to White power as more important than Black self-determination. It is not a declaration that every Black person who disagrees with me is a sellout. It is also not a label I reserve for Republicans.
Many Black activists and other Black people saw Jay Z’s deal with Roger Goodell as a selfish and self-serving move that would create goodwill for the NFL but would not give Colin Kaepernick his job back nor protect players from being punished for speaking out for Black issues.
Democrats get criticized too. Over the years, I have criticized Barack Obama, Jay-Z, Hakeem Jeffries, Jim Clyburn, Kamala Harris, and others. There are plenty of Democrats I do not like or trust. A party affiliation does not purchase immunity from me any more than a donation does.
I see Republicans as more overtly hostile to Black interests, but that does not mean I am obligated to defend every Black Democrat. In a hypothetical election, I would gladly support a better White or other non-Black third-party candidate over two Black candidates whose politics fail my community. The question is whether that person’s values align with mine and whether their policies would bring tangible improvements to our lives.
Many Black artists and athletes are indirectly complicit in the mistreatment of our community when they agree to protect their celebrity and pay and perform for white crowds that are hostile to their overall community. Their responsibility and allegiance to the community take a back seat to potential paychecks and career advancement.
Black skin alone does not establish a commitment to Black people.
That applies to people who terrorize our neighborhoods too. Killers, rapists, muggers, burglars, and robbers are destroying the same communities I want to see liberated. I should not have to attach a paragraph condemning them every time I criticize a celebrity or politician.
Law-abiding Black people do not enjoy losing loved ones. We do not enjoy discovering that somebody stole our catalytic converter and that we have to replace it with money we do not have. We do not enjoy being afraid in our own neighborhoods. The suggestion that we tolerate or celebrate these things is racist as fuck.
Black people are the people most negatively affected by Black criminality. We do not like criminality any more than other communities. Most crimes, violent or otherwise, happen within communities. In fact, many of the draconian laws of the 1990s, which led to mass incarceration of Black men, were requested and supported by many in the Black community at that time. However, there are grassroots efforts by many organizations in the Black community to bring awareness and fight against this criminal element. This is mostly goes ignored by the local and national media.
There is constant work happening in Black communities to prevent violence, support young people, and improve conditions. Much of it happens without cameras, national recognition, or a celebrity’s bank account. People who only drive through these neighborhoods on their way to work often know nothing about that work, yet feel qualified to lecture the people doing it.
This is why the “What have you done?” response annoys me so much. Someone’s unfamiliarity with my work does not mean that work does not exist. I do not owe a stranger my résumé so they can weigh it against a multimillion-dollar check.
I prefer not to brag about my work or post too much about it. I do what I do out of love for my community, not for recognition. However, my service to my community was questioned by those who don’t know me. I am active. Can I be more active? Yes. But there are many things in this collage that I could add because there are no photos of that work.
My work is my work. It is for the love of my community, not my personal glory.
With Shaq, one of the moments that really disappointed me was his appearance on Fox & Friends criticizing Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest. Shaq questioned the protest’s timing and method. I remember that appearance because of what the protest represented and where he chose to criticize it.[1]
There is a rule that Black people do not attack other Black people in media that is hostile and antagonistic toward the collective Black community. The way that conservative media, such as Fox News and the Rush Limbaugh Show, normalized and legitimized thinly veiled anti-Black racism should be studied for future generations. Shaq is entitled to his personal opinion, and part of me understands why he feels the way that he does. However, Shaq appearing on Fox and Friends to make it and legitimize their racially biased stances was a cardinal sin for many of us.
I understand that Shaq grew up in a military family. I understand that he may feel a particular reverence for the anthem. But Kaepernick was protesting injustice, and I saw that appearance as another opportunity for a hostile audience to dismiss Black concerns instead of confronting them.
To me, Fox & Friends has repeatedly helped turn legitimate Black criticism of this country into a debate over our behavior, our gratitude, and whether we are showing enough respect. That is a platform I would expect someone with Shaq’s influence to approach with care.
It left me feeling that protecting his public image and business relationships mattered more than standing ten toes down when Black people needed support. That is my criticism of his public choices. I cannot read his mind, and I am not claiming to know everything he does privately.
But I can respond to what he puts in front of the public.
And no, pointing to his philanthropy does not settle that conversation.
Money helps. Those of us who organize and fight these battles appreciate every cent we can get. A donation can feed people, keep a program open, or pay for something a struggling family desperately needs. I am not minimizing that.
What I reject is the assumption that generosity automatically proves a commitment to liberation, or that a wealthy donor has done more than everyone who has sacrificed years of time, effort, and personal resources.
Philanthropic work helps and is appreciated, but they are also done for good public relations and for cameras and recognition. Many people quietly do a lot for the community by donating their time, energy, and limited resources.
Philanthropy can come from compassion. It can also produce favorable publicity, protect a reputation, or serve business interests. Sometimes those motives overlap. The existence of a donation does not tell us everything about the donor’s politics or character.
History gives us plenty of reasons to keep that distinction in mind. In 1914, the Ludlow Massacre killed striking workers and family members in Colorado. Eleven children and two women died after fire swept through the tent colony. The conflict involved the Rockefeller-controlled Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, and the aftermath included efforts to repair John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s public reputation.[2]
The Ludlow Massacre led to the birth of modern public relations.
The lesson I take from that history is that a wealthy person’s public generosity should not make us forget the other ways their power affects people.
I am not equating Shaq with the people responsible for Ludlow. I am also not saying that his donations are a scheme to launder his image. I am explaining why “he gives money away” cannot be the end of every discussion about his public behavior.
I appreciate the money. I still have questions about the politics.
The same applies to other Black celebrities, including Stephen A. Smith and Bill Cosby. Too often, money and fame become shields against criticism. People act as though generosity erases every harmful statement, every bad decision, and every legitimate concern.
It does not.
Many conservatives weaponize cherry-picked words of past Black leaders against Black people who fight for justice, fairness, equity, inclusion, and liberation today. Yet, they often miss the context of those weaponized quotes.
This confusion also shows up in the way White conservatives invoke Malcolm X. They love his criticism of White liberals and the Democratic Party, but somehow lose interest when his criticism turns toward White conservatives.
That takes some serious caucasity.
Malcolm’s criticism of liberals came out of his frustration with White political power, manipulation, and promises that did not produce freedom. In his 1963 speech “God’s Judgment of White America,” he compared White conservatives to wolves and White liberals to foxes. The fox’s apparent friendliness did not make it safe, and the wolf’s open hostility did not make it an ally.[3]
Quoting the part about the fox does not turn the wolf into a friend of Black people.
Malcolm’s positions developed over time, and his life deserves more attention than a meme or a clip stripped of context. But Black people thinking for ourselves and deciding our own course remained central to his politics. That is part of what I admire about him.
The most important message from Malcolm X is often ignored by conservatives who quote-mine him. This most important message was Black self-determination and liberation through Black nationalism.
And I take that seriously when dealing with the White left, too.
I do not get my marching orders from White people. Period. Dot.
I have criticized White liberals, progressives, and leftists for racism, for treating Black struggles as opportunities to advance their own agendas, and for assuming they have the right to direct movements they did not build. Being on the left does not exempt anyone from that criticism.
I experienced some of this firsthand in Ferguson in 2014. I remember members of the New Black Panther Party and White anarchists giving conflicting instructions through bullhorns. The Black organizers I heard were urging people to respect the curfew to avoid arrests and bloodshed. The anarchists were urging the crowd to ignore it and confront the police.
What stayed with me was the willingness of outsiders to encourage a confrontation whose consequences would fall on Black people and the surrounding community. From where I stood, one group was thinking about protecting the people in front of them. The other seemed much more interested in confrontation.
Black bodies are not disposable material for someone else’s revolution.
My account of that night does not explain every protest or every person involved. But it explains why I do not automatically trust someone just because they claim to share my politics. Solidarity requires listening, accountability, and respect for the people who have to live with the consequences.
Many leftists use Black issues to wage their own personal revolutions while ignoring the many costs to the Black community. They don’t necessarily have to live with the fallout from fires, looting, and vandalism in predominantly Black communities.
I am a Black leftist because of my own values, experiences, and study. That position does not require permission from the White right or instructions from the White left.
It also does not require me to defend my Blackness every time someone dislikes what I say.
Yes, I am light-skinned. So were Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass, and plenty of other people whose commitment to Black people is difficult to dispute. What, exactly, is attacking my complexion supposed to prove?
My skin color doesn’t make me less Black.
My skin color does not erase my ancestry, my experiences, or my identity. Neither does my name.
My name is Mario. There are plenty of Marios and DeMarios in the Black community. Does a Black man named William become English? Does a Black woman named Natasha become Russian? Was Kobe Bryant Japanese because of his first name?
I am Black. I am Black American. I am not Italian, and my olive complexion is not evidence that I am secretly Mediterranean. My family history includes African, European, and Indian ancestry. I do not need to turn my genealogy into an exhibit every time somebody wants to dodge my argument.
If the criticism is about my position, address my position. My complexion is not a rebuttal.
And disagreement with a celebrity does not automatically mean jealousy. I have had a good life. I am educated. I have not starved. I have great children. I do not need Shaq’s wealth or fame to appreciate my own life.
In fact, part of my affection for Shaq comes from something we have in common: we were both raised by stepfathers who loved us and treated us as their own.
My father was an entrepreneur, a leader, and a pillar in the community where I grew up. He provided a good life for our family, but he also helped people around us. I watched him help pay for funerals when families could not afford to bury their loved ones. I watched him feed hungry children. I watched him clean up our street and alley and make sure we took responsibility for the place where we lived.
I watched him help raise other people’s children. There are people in my community who still thank him for what he did.
I have tried to follow that example the best I can. When Shaq talks about his father, Phil, I recognize something in that relationship. Two children raised by Black men who taught us about responsibility, manhood, and service to the community. That matters to me. I feel the same way about my dad that he does about his, even though we are not the their biological children.
One of the things that drew me to Shaquille O’Neal was his relationship with Phillip Harrison. O’Neal is not biologically related to Harrison, but he considers him his father. To Shaq, Phil is not a stepdad. Phil is his father and is respected and honored as his father. This is something that O’Neal and I have in common. Although our situations may be a little different, we both consider our stepdads our “real” fathers. The love that Shaq has for his dad is good to witness. Phil Harrison’s guidance made Shaq the man he is today and pushed him toward success.
It is one reason my criticism comes with disappointment. There is affection behind it.
I am also not placing myself above the problem I am describing. I have to check my own thoughts, feelings, and assumptions all the time. White supremacy and the idea of Black inferiority are taught throughout this society. Being Black does not automatically protect us from absorbing them.
All of us struggle with White bias and anti-Black thoughts. I am not immune to this way of thinking. We have been conditioned in many ways since birth to see Whiteness more positively than Blackness.
I do not believe any of us should assume we are finished unlearning those lessons. I certainly am not.
That is why I want us to be able to discuss anti-Black behavior without immediately turning the conversation into a defense of someone’s fame, bank account, or party affiliation. If I am reinforcing something harmful to our community, I need to examine it too.
Shaquille O’Neal is a celebrated athlete, entertainer, businessman, and philanthropist. Those accomplishments are real. They do not automatically make him a leader of Black people, or make his judgment on our political struggles more valuable than the judgment of people doing the work every day.
I want us to stop treating celebrity status as a qualification for community leadership. Selling products, winning championships, and becoming wealthy do not necessarily prepare someone to guide a people toward freedom.
Malcolm X’s biting commentary regarding the elevation of celebrities as Black leaders has a lot of truth in it. It is the white power structure that elevated their status, and many of these celebrities don’t want to bite the proverbial hand that feeds them.
I am unimpressed by Black obedience and respectability politics. Celebrating Black excellence or Black capitalism does little for me when the celebration ends with a few individuals becoming rich while the conditions facing the rest of our community remain intact.
What I respect is Black liberation and self-sufficiency. I want Black global advancement and autonomy. I want us to build the institutions, knowledge, resources, and collective power to stand on our own and make decisions about our own people.
My dream and my goal for the future is true Black liberation. This is not an anti-White vision. This is a world in which Black people have parity with White and Asian people. Black people building, owning, and deciding our own future. Education, healthcare, food, technology, media—and collective power across the diaspora.
That commitment runs through much of what I admire in Malcolm X and the broader history of Black self-determination. It is why I am an unapologetic Pan-Africanist and a proud Black American. It is why I study Malcolm, Dr. King, and the other giants whose shoulders I stand upon, even when their approaches differed and even if I disagree with each of them on minor details.
My loyalty is to my people and our liberation. No politician, party, celebrity, or donor gets to place themselves above that commitment.
I can love Shaq and still be disappointed in him. I can appreciate his generosity and still expect more from his public choices. I can criticize him without hating him, envying him, or denying the good he has done.
And I should not have to write a whole damn dissertation to explain that.
I’ve realized that White conservatives love Black people who tell them exactly what they want to hear about other Black people. These people get away with saying the shit that their White supporters can’t say without being correctly labeled as racist. So they need Black mouthpieces to label Black people as “EBT Americans,” “ghetto,” and “hood rats,” while conveniently ignoring how many White people receive assistance or engage in the same behaviors they condemn in Black people.
But “redneck” culture and poor White culture are often celebrated in country music and the mainstream, while similar expressions of poor Black culture are treated as subversive and problematic. Apparently, the behavior isn’t always the problem. Sometimes, it’s the color of the people doing it.
Being a Black person who produces anti-Black content online is an easy way to get notoriety and profits very fast. Many conservative White fans laud them as “freethinking” “truth-tellers,” but, these people’s connection to the Black community is permanently marred.
I was watching a video compilation of Black people responding to allegations that Texas Roadhouse employees had posted about spitting in Black patrons’ food. The controversy has prompted calls for a boycott. And sure enough, there was a Black man celebrating the idea of White employees spitting in the food of Black paying customers.
In his Uncle Ruckus-style rant, he called Black patrons the names I mentioned earlier and said Texas Roadhouse should “keep doing what they are doing” to keep Black people out so others could dine in “peace.”
Never mind the chaotic restaurant incidents involving White people. Never mind White people dining and dashing. Never mind all the examples that contradict this racist narrative. Somehow, when a White person acts out, it’s an individual incident. When a Black person acts out, it becomes an indictment of Black people as a whole.
Do you think conservative White people came after this “pick-me” for celebrating racial discrimination and alleged food tampering? No. They co-signed. And then they wonder why we call them racist.
Self-hating Black mouthpieces for White supremacy tell many conservative whites exactly what they want to hear. Many of these Black commentators downplay anti-Black racism in the West while painting White people as the victims of constant discrimination. The irony is that those who claim that marginalized people have a “victim complex” love to cosplay as victims themselves.
I don’t know whether this man believes everything he says or is chasing the attention and money that anti-Black commentary can bring. Either way, the result is the same: Black people are demeaned, and his audience gets a Black voice to validate its prejudices.
Liberal, progressive, and leftist Black people don’t want our dining experiences ruined by people acting out in public, either. But the difference is that many of us separate problematic behavior from race, ethnicity, and even class. And even when we are annoyed by the uncouth behavior of certain patrons, we are not going to celebrate someone tampering with their food based on race and the assumptions that come with it.
I tip well. I also have problems with the history of tipping in the United States and the way employers use it to shift responsibility for paying workers onto customers. Having worked for tips for years, I’m well aware of the stereotype that Black people don’t tip.
However, whether someone tips or not is not an excuse for poor customer service or mistreating anyone who comes into an establishment. An optional tip is a courtesy. It should not take the place of an adequate living wage. And it certainly should not determine whether someone’s food is safe to eat.
But I tip well anyway because I know it is appreciated, because it can lead to better service, and because I want to help people.
Although many of these Black commentators are conservatives… or PRETEND to be conservatives as part of their grift, it is NOT necessarily conservatism that is the issue with these people. Rather, it is the fact that many of these people are almost constantly contrarian and antithetical to issues that the majority of Black people champion.
Black people being anti-Black is never a good thing and should not be rewarded. Yet White conservatives are quick to embrace Black people who demean other Black people while treating White people as the exemplary model for humanity. Wrap it in a flag, call it “patriotism,” and suddenly contempt for your own people becomes a marketable personality.
Many of these commentators wear the backlash from other Black people as a badge of honor. Their White supporters call them “freethinkers” and “truth-tellers” for repeating the same racist talking points those supporters already believed.
What, exactly, is free-thinking about telling an audience everything it wants to hear?
You can criticize Black people. You can criticize public behavior. You can demand accountability. But celebrating racial humiliation and the idea of someone contaminating Black customers’ food is not accountability. It is anti-Blackness, and having a Black person deliver the message does not make it any less racist.
I’m going to beat the proverbial dead horse here, but I feel I need to reiterate a point I made previously in this blog.
One of the most persistent myths in modern American political discourse is the claim that the Democratic and Republican parties have remained ideologically consistent throughout history. According to this narrative, the Republican Party has always been the party of civil rights and racial progress, while the Democratic Party has always been the party of racism.
This claim collapses under even the most basic historical scrutiny.
To maintain the illusion, modern conservatives must ignore several inconvenient facts. They must ignore the political dealignment and realignment that occurred between the late nineteenth century and the late twentieth century. They must ignore the steady migration of white Southern conservatives—particularly segregationists—from the Democratic Party into the Republican Party during the second half of the twentieth century.
They must also ignore the uncomfortable reality that many of the political figures celebrated in modern conservative circles were themselves defenders of slavery, segregation, and white supremacy.
The historical record is clear: the ideology of Southern conservatism did not disappear after the Civil Rights Movement. It simply found a new political home.
During the 1960s through the 1990s, many of the most hardline segregationist politicians—often referred to as Dixiecrats—gradually abandoned the Democratic Party and aligned themselves with the Republican Party. At the same time, the Republican Party increasingly adopted political strategies designed to attract white Southern voters who opposed civil rights reforms.
This shift was not subtle. It was openly discussed by political strategists and historians alike.
Yet modern conservatives often pretend that none of this happened.
Instead, they promote a simplified narrative in which the Republican Party “freed the slaves” and therefore cannot possibly bear any responsibility for the racial politics that emerged in the twentieth century. The fact that the ideological descendants of segregationists now overwhelmingly identify as conservative Republicans is conveniently ignored.
At the same time, many conservative politicians and commentators openly celebrate figures from the Confederate past while dismissing or ignoring the Republican leaders who actually fought to preserve the Union and end slavery.
Where are the monuments to Republican generals such as William Tecumseh Sherman or Ulysses S. Grant in the regions that once formed the Confederacy? Why are Confederate leaders, who were Democrats of their time, so often praised in modern conservative political culture?
The answer is uncomfortable but obvious.
For many conservatives, the issue has never truly been about party labels. It has always been about political ideology.
This ideological continuity becomes particularly visible when modern politicians attempt to avoid even the most basic historical truths.
For example, when asked about the causes of the American Civil War, some contemporary conservative politicians have offered vague explanations about “government,” “freedom,” or “states’ rights,” while carefully avoiding the central issue that historians overwhelmingly agree defined the conflict: chattel slavery.
Yet the leaders of the Confederacy themselves left no such ambiguity.
In their own declarations of secession, Southern states repeatedly and explicitly identified the preservation of slavery as the primary reason for leaving the Union.
The historical record could not be clearer.
Attempts to obscure that fact are not efforts to promote historical nuance. They are attempts to preserve comforting myths about the past.
And those myths serve a political purpose.
By denying the ideological continuity between past and present forms of white supremacist politics, modern conservatives attempt to distance themselves from the legacy of segregation and racial hierarchy while continuing to benefit from many of the political narratives that sustained those systems.
None of this is to suggest that racism exists exclusively within one political party. Racism has existed across the American political spectrum throughout history.
But it is impossible to have an honest conversation about American history—or modern American politics—without acknowledging the ideological realignment that reshaped the nation’s two major political parties during the twentieth century.
History cannot be rewritten simply because it makes some people uncomfortable.
In fact, the opposite is true.
Understanding the darker chapters of our past is precisely how societies learn to avoid repeating them.
Black Americans have long demonstrated that it is possible to love this country while also confronting its historical injustices. Despite centuries of discrimination, violence, and exclusion, Black Americans have served in the nation’s military, represented the country in international competition, and fought relentlessly to expand the promise of American democracy.
Acknowledging historical injustice does not weaken the country.
Pretending that those injustices never happened does.
If Americans truly want to move forward, they must first be willing to tell the truth about where they have been.
In recent years, the phrase “Black Lives Matter” has become one of the most widely discussed and widely misunderstood slogans in American public life.
To many supporters, the phrase represents a call for accountability and equal justice under the law. To many critics, however, it has been portrayed as anti-police, anti-white, or even anti-American.
To understand the movement honestly, it is important to start with the basic facts about how it began.
Black Lives Matter did not emerge from a political think tank, a political party, or a coordinated national organization. Instead, it began as a social media response to a widely publicized case that many people believed represented a failure of the justice system.
On February 26, 2012, seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida, by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman. Martin was unarmed and had been walking back from a convenience store after purchasing a bag of Skittles and a drink.
Initially, Zimmerman was not arrested. The police accepted his claim of self-defense and released him without charges.
As news of the case spread across social media, many Americans (particularly Black Americans) viewed the situation as part of a long pattern in which violence against Black people was often minimized or excused.
Following Zimmerman’s eventual acquittal in 2013, three community organizers, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, helped popularize the phrase “Black Lives Matter.”
Garza made a Facebook post which ended in the phrase, “Our lives Matter, Black Lives Matter”. The hashtag and online campaign were born due to that post, and it went viral.
Black Lives Matter didn’t make it into the national and mainstream public spotlight until the following summer (2014) after the killing of Michael Brown Jr. by Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson. More than one hundred Black Lives Matter protestors came from out of state to Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, to join the local protests that had been going on immediately after the shooting.
The phrase was not meant to suggest that other lives do not matter. Instead, it was intended to emphasize a specific concern: that Black lives have historically been treated as less valuable within American legal and social systems.
In other words, the statement “Black Lives Matter” was not meant to exclude anyone. It was meant to highlight a problem that many people believed had long been ignored.
The movement that followed was decentralized and loosely organized. It consisted of activists, community leaders, and ordinary citizens who were concerned about issues such as police accountability, racial profiling, and unequal treatment within the criminal justice system.
Understanding this origin is important because much of the debate surrounding Black Lives Matter today is shaped by narratives that emerged after the movement began — narratives that often bear little resemblance to its original purpose.
Every so often in public conversations about race, someone will attempt to discredit a person’s arguments by accusing them of hatred or extremism that they never expressed. This tactic usually relies on exaggeration, misrepresentation, or outright fabrication.
Recently, someone repeatedly accused me of calling for genocide against white people. This is an accusation that is not only false but absurd.
Let me be clear about something.
I will never apologize for being pro-Black. I will never apologize for identifying as a Pan-Africanist, and I will never apologize for calling out anti-Black racism wherever I see it. Advocating for the dignity, safety, and advancement of Black people does not require hostility toward anyone else.
But I do care about being truthful about what I believe.
I do not hate white people. What I oppose, firmly and unapologetically, is the ideology and practice of white supremacy. Those two things are not the same.
White supremacy is a political and social system that places one racial group above others. It has shaped laws, institutions, and cultural narratives throughout much of modern history. Criticizing that system is not an attack on individual white people; it is a critique of a structure of power and inequality.
In fact, many of the people who helped shape my life in positive ways have been white.
Throughout my life, white friends, mentors, and supporters have offered encouragement, assistance, and opportunities when I needed them most. Some believed in me when I did not believe in myself. Others provided support during moments when I was struggling personally and emotionally.
Those experiences are part of my life story, and they make it impossible to honestly claim that I hate white people.
At the same time, acknowledging those personal relationships does not mean ignoring the reality of racism. Structural racism and discriminatory narratives continue to shape how people of color, especially Black Americans, are perceived and treated in many areas of society.
Recognizing that reality is not hatred. It is an observation.
Just as individuals and communities should be willing to confront sexism, homophobia, ableism, or other forms of discrimination, societies must also be willing to confront racism honestly. Criticism of injustice is not the same as prejudice against a group of people.
Too often, accusations of “reverse racism” or extreme hostility are used as rhetorical shields to avoid confronting difficult conversations about race and inequality.
But refusing to acknowledge racism does not make it disappear.
Advocating for justice, dignity, and equality for Black people does not require hostility toward other groups. It simply requires honesty about history, power, and the realities that many people still experience.
Being pro-Black is not about hatred. It is about refusing to remain silent in the face of injustice.
One of the most common talking points used in online debates about race and crime is the so-called “13/50” statistic. The claim is frequently repeated by people attempting to justify racist narratives about Black Americans and criminality.
But statistics, when presented without context, can easily be used to mislead.
The “13/50” argument relies on the selective interpretation of crime statistics, particularly FBI arrest data. It highlights the overrepresentation of Black Americans in certain categories of arrests, especially homicide and robbery, while ignoring the broader context of crime statistics and how those numbers are interpreted.
For example, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, white Americans (white alone) make up roughly 60 percent of the U.S. population. When looking at FBI arrest data, however, white Americans account for large majorities in many categories of crime.
Using the same FBI tables often cited in online debates, white Americans account for:
82% of DUI arrests
75% of sex offense arrests (excluding rape)
74% of vehicle theft arrests
72% of drug abuse violation arrests
70% of rape arrests
68% of burglary arrests
67% of property crime arrests
66% of arrests for offenses against family and children
65% of simple assault arrests
62% of aggravated assault arrests
62% of arrests for possession of stolen property
Overall, white Americans account for roughly 69 percent of all arrests, a number that exceeds their share of the population.
None of this means that crime patterns should be ignored, or that certain communities do not face serious challenges related to violence and crime. Black Americans are indeed statistically overrepresented in some categories of arrests.
But simply presenting one statistic without context does not explain why those patterns exist.
Crime statistics are shaped by many factors, including poverty, neighborhood segregation, historical inequality, policing patterns, economic opportunity, and social conditions. Reducing complex social problems to a single racial statistic ignores these realities and turns data into a political weapon.
This is why statistics must always be interpreted carefully.
Numbers can illuminate reality, but they can also be manipulated to reinforce existing prejudices. Selective data presentation allows people to construct narratives that appear objective while still serving ideological agendas.
The goal of examining these statistics is not to deny problems within any community, nor is it to portray any racial group as inherently criminal or morally inferior.
Rather, the point is to demonstrate how easily statistics can be used to construct misleading narratives.
When numbers are stripped of context and deployed as political talking points, they stop being tools of understanding and become instruments of propaganda. This is why Charlie Kirk wasn’t an objective truth teller. He was a racist but skillful manipulator of facts.
Understanding crime, inequality, and social policy requires more than slogans and selective data. It requires an honest analysis of the underlying conditions that shape those numbers in the first place
In 2000, Spike Lee was already a household name and a well-respected writer and director. He had already directed 12 movies by this time. These were She’s Gotta Have It (1986), School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo’ Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Malcolm X (1992), Crooklyn (1994), Clockers(1995), Girl 6 (1996), Get on the Bus (1996), He Got Game (1998), and Summer of Sam (1999). Although the relative box office success of his movies from the late-1980s through the mid-1990s was already waning from Crooklyn onward during this time, his movies were still critically acclaimed, and his artsy filming and unapologetic and unafraid attitude on tackling subject matters that many other writers and directors were afraid to tackle, gave the studios and Hollywood as a whole, artistic legitimacy.
Spike Lee’s 13th movie, Bamboozled, a satirical comedy movie about the embedded racism of the entertainment media (particularly in television) along with society, did poorly at the box office and confused and even angered many people who initially watched it. Some critics, when it was released in 2000, thought that it was too shockingly heavy-headed. Roger Ebert thought that the use of blackface was too over-the-top and made the movie and its jokes more shocking than they were funny. I think that it was because of the initial shock of the use of blackface and the imitation of minstrel shows of a past in entertainment and media that is still very hurtful to black people and an embarrassment for whites, most audiences elected not to watch the movie at all.
A funny thing happens with time, though. The movies that few people wanted to watch in theaters develop a cult following later. These movies are lauded and appreciated by those who understand and appreciate the messages, the humor, and the artistic decisions that made these movies the bane of audiences and critics when they were initially released. This is what happened with movies like John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). I will admit that although I barely knew anything about the movie before and during its theatrical release, I would often pass it by when trying to rent movies at Blockbuster. The cover art with the old school minstrel caricatures made the movie repulsive to me initially. It wasn’t until years later, seeing it on a streaming service, that I watched the movie after buzz about it on the internet, particularly on social media. I suspect that many people watched the movie via streaming services like Netflix. After giving the movie a chance, I could see the message of Spike Lee’s reimagining of old school, in-your-face minstrel shows, and parallel that with the more contemporary stereotypical media depictions and capitalizing on them.
A Brief History of Minstrel Shows
Example of blackface in minstrel shows.Even black performers participated in minstrel shows. Sometimes, it was the only work that they can find as performers.
The minstrel show tradition officially began with the song and dance performance of Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice, who performed as a stereotypical character, Jim Crow, in 1828 as part of a variety show. The song “Jump Jim Crow” would become a national sensation, especially in the Northern United States, where minstrelsy would become more popular than in the Southern United States. Thomas Rice would perform the character in blackface. Jim Crow was a character that Rice created who was a black, physically disabled stablehand who walked with a limp and would do a shuffling, hopping dance.
Poster for Jim Crow
The character became very popular and spawned many more white people in blackface performing stereotypes of dim-witted, lazy, and content slaves. Increasingly, more variety shows included blackface performances. By the 1840s, shows started to be entirely in blackface. For the next five decades, minstrel shows would be the most popular form of entertainment in the United States. The Jim Crow character’s name would later be used to categorize laws that were meant to keep black people in subservient positions, as second-class citizens, and as victims of an American form of apartheid after slavery ended in 1965.
The “Disappearance” of the Minstrel Show
It can be argued that minstrelsy didn’t completely go away after the mid-20th Century when it seemed to disappear (around 1960). Stage shows weren’t as popular as they used to be as movies and television became popular media in which people mostly got their entertainment. In the beginning of the 20th Century and even with the new media, aspects of the minstrel show remained. D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) employed many of the tropes used in the minstrel shows on the stage. It had white actors in blackface and actual black people performing stereotypical roles. Its popularity and message resurrected a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) that was dead over 40 years before this and would make it one of the most popular political organizations of the 1920s and 1930s, with members of both major political parties having membership and being influenced by the terroristic organization.
The Birth of a Nation (1915) showed the majority black state governmental bodies as disorganized, undignified, and corrupt, and the black people in them as uncivilized.A white man in blackface, who acted as one of the antagonists in The Birth of a Nation (1915), is seen being “brought to justice” (about to be lynched) by the Klansmen who were the “heroes” of this movie.
However, a new stereotype would arise that would be more dangerous than that of the childlike buffoonish “coons” and/or “sambos” of earlier minstrelsy. Starting in literature, the “black brute” trope would appear. This trope painted black men as animalistic predators who stalked white women to rape. Whereas the “sambo” stereotype was used to justify the perpetual enslavement of black people, the “black brute” stereotype was used to justify the systemic murder and second-class citizenship of black people. It is no accident that these stereotypes became popular during the time period in the United States in which anti-black lynchings were the most active (1880s – 1920s). This stereotype would not go away. Instead, it will later dominate other negative stereotypes of black men.
The classic coon, mammy, and pickaninny tropes employed by minstrel shows would be seen in early movies and shorts. The Three Stooges would use them in scenes with black domestic or service workers. The black characters in the Our Gang (The Little Rascals) series were modeled after the pickaninnies of minstrel shows. Early cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Felix the Cat were modeled after minstrel shows and would even sing minstrel songs in the shorts. Imitation of Life (1934) was full of the “mammy” character, Delilah Johnson, saying the most cringe-worthy anti-black things while pledging her undying loyalty to the white character, Beatrice Pullman. The biggest black stars of the early 20th Century, after movies had sound, were William (Willie) “Sleep ‘n’ Eat” Best and Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew “Stepin’ Fetchit” Perry.
More dignified and human black characters in mainstream Hollywood would come in the late 1940s. But minstrel characters would persist. In 1951, The Amos ‘n’ Andy Show premiered. The show was a live-action television sitcom based on the minstrel radio show by the same name. The show was a television hit and lasted all the way until 1960. This is the official end of the minstrel show.
However, many of the most harmful aspects of the minstrel show would survive to this day through 1970s blaxploitation films, the popularity of James “JJ” Evans Jr. in the show Good Times, gangsta rap music and videos, many Tyler Perry movies, and various other popular forms of American entertainment. In fact, it is the persistence of these tropes and stereotypes in popular media, especially movies, that spawned Robert Townsend’s first movie, Hollywood Shuffle (1987). Hollywood Shuffle is a spiritual prequel to Bamboozled in many ways.
Movie poster for Hollywood Shuffle (1987)
A reimagined alternative to a current social condition
In Bamboozled, Spike Lee imagines a television network in which minstrelsy wasn’t just hidden and denied but accepted and made into a hit television show. It was the product of irresponsible capitalism that cares more about profits and the illusion of diversity than any sense of responsibility towards the community. The black caricatures are packaged and presented to mixed audiences as ironic or edgy humor while corporate executives monetize disturbingly grotesque racial spectacle, and black writers, directors, actors, producers, and crew are financially and professionally trapped in a system that greatly rewards self-exploitation. In this imagining, media is a direct descendant of the minstrel tradition and never broke from it. Society is not in a post-racist era; we are just in a more polished one.
Escaping this unfortunate reality requires systemic changes. The problems in Bamboozled are not due to changes in technology, nor will they be fixed with technology. Instead, what must be done is that the power structure must change. Modern art is profit-driven and controlled by capitalistic corporations. Capitalism rewards spectacle over dignity. This is what you experience when watching daytime talk shows featuring lie detectors and paternity tests or when listening to Sexy Redd songs. The ratings, box office receipts, album sales, and other metrics justify any moral compromise by the corporation. And most of the executives who control the distribution of art are white, so they have no sense of responsibility towards the black community, especially the poor and working-class black community.
In the movie, CNS television network is run by white people who have final say in the content that they put on air. The audiences love Mantan: The New Millennium Minstrel Show and CNS makes sure to protect itself from any charges of racism by making sure that that everyone from the cast to the crew is black. There is a scene in the movie in which Myrna Goldfarb the PR Consultant in CNS, a white woman, gives the “Mantan Manifesto” to shield the company from any scrutiny, criticism or charges of racism. It is as follows:
“Gainfully employ African Americans in front of and behind the camera.”
“Let the audience decide.”
“Who are these would-be ‘cultural police’?”
“Who determines what is Black? We are not saying anything about the entire African American community.”
“This is simply satire.”
“If they don’t like it, ‘F-‘em!’ ”
“And lastly, always smile, wear kente cloth, reference Dr. King, and remember, this show was created by a non-threatening Black male.”
The cynical way in which heavy and much-needed conversations about racist portrayals, racism, and responsibility, while hiding behind the positive public relations of black employment and opportunity, makes this manifesto even more insidious.
Spike Lee suggests that the things to do to escape this condition are to have changes in media ownership and governance. . This is not explicitly articulated; rather, it is conveyed implicitly. The issue was that everyone over Pierre Delacroix (whose real name is Peerless Dothan and the main protagonist of the movie) is white and feels no connection or responsibility towards the black audience that they are trying to capture and build on. They didn’t care if the show helped or harmed the community. The only thing they cared about was the ratings. However, simply putting black faces in seats of power in a company will not lead to any fundamental and/or significant changes if the overall economic model rewards racial exploitation. So, a big part of reform is to go with a model that doesn’t. Also, there would have to be reform when it comes to cultural gatekeeping.
The Legacy of Minstrelsy Lives On
Bamboozled is more appreciated today than it was when it was first released over a quarter of a century ago. The film is seen today as less absurd and more prophetic in the same vein as Network (1976). In 2023, the movie was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress National Film Registry. Although the film used the over-the-top idea of a modern-day minstrel show fashioned in the same manner as minstrel shows of the past, the message of the movie resonates more now than it did when it was initially released.
Online, content is measured by engagement metrics that reward outrage and caricature, and viral culture spreads and monetizes stereotypes. Black “trauma porn” is still very popular, and black pain and spectacle still generate profit. Today, many black content creators upload videos of themselves engaging in “coonery [and] buffoonery” (to quote Spike Lee himself) for clicks. Many of them are either being anti-black contrarians or engaging in hyper-performative racialized personas for algorithmic gain, mostly for the popularity and approval of non-black audiences. Both online and on television, corporate brands use black culture for capitalistic endeavors while avoiding structural change. Diversity is treated more like a public relations project and less like a way to redistribute power and ownership in the media.
The Hodge Twins started off on YouTube as fitness influencers. After a while, they were doing comedic critiques on videos, sometimes being edgy and offensive while doing it. They slowly morphed into anti-black conservative panderers to maintain an audience online.
Bamboozled‘s extreme minstrel imagery is greatly exaggerated. But to me, that is the point. In reality, the minstrelsy is much more subtle and thus, deniable. Putting those images in one’s face makes one confront the ugly truths about the treatment of black people and culture in media. We no longer see people in literal blackface (at least most of the time) performing exaggerated and dehumanizing stereotypes. But we do see a constant parade of harmful “marketable stereotypes” which, in my opinion, aren’t too much better. Bamboozled is actually less of a reimagined condition and more of an amplified mirror held up to society, including black people themselves.
Conclusion
Spike Lee’s Bamboozled shows us that racial exploitation is not a glitch in a capitalistic society built on racism. Instead, it is the feature. What was thought of as grotesquely absurd satire is now being appreciated and studied. There are video essays about this movie by young content creators online. In true Spike Lee fashion, no one in this movie is immune from criticism. Even the somewhat “conscious” but hypocritical Mau Mau, who are miseducated “hoteps” (pro-black people who are usually socially conservative while embracing pseudo-intellectualism) that constantly indulge themselves in alcohol and marijuana while having trouble making an articulate statement, catch strays in this movie, y’know what I mean? The modern media ecosystem proves that this movie wasn’t a fantasy. Rather, it was a diagnosis of our society in the form of dark satirical comedy.
