Tavis Smiley is in danger of becoming the next Oprah Winfrey, and that’s not a compliment.
For what seemed like the zillionth time, I sat around all day Saturday watching his annual “Tavis Smiley Presents: State of the Black Union,” live on (where else?) C-SPAN. I forgot who first thought of calling it “The Negro Bowl,” but the moniker seems appropriate.
I’m concerned because Smiley—somebody I admire for creating his own national Black-oriented forums—is getting a little too much power to frame the national debate of people of color.
At this year’s Negro Bowl, held at Hampton University, one of his many announcements of future projects was that he was going to moderate presidential debates on issues pertaining to Black America. The forums, held at Howard and Morgan State, for the Democrats and Republicans, respectively, will be aired primetime on PBS later this year. Now, when you have a PBS hookup, you use it, right? But what gives the non-journalist Smiley the right to decide how the next president of these United States will address the concerns of Black America?
I guess some would answer, “The Covenant With Black America” and the new companion, “The Covenant in Action,” gives him that right. Okay, perhaps. Maybe Smiley’s tactic—to be Larry King and Martin Luther King simultaneously—has its perks.
But it almost seems that, with these books and televised forums, Smiley seems to have (earned) a little bit too much power to frame the range of national (televised) debate within Black America.
What’s wrong with that?
Well, to start with, Smiley’s brand of pragmatic, televised liberalism leaves out many, many people who are committed to struggle but who are not “establishment” figures. Where were the political activists strongly to the left of Jesse Jackson this year, like Harry Belafonte or someone from the Nation of Islam? Would their talk of revolution not be camera-ready, or was there room for only one Black agenda the year the corporate sponsors were a visible part of the program?
Second, and perhaps more importantly, Smiley’s activism keeps pointing to the individual. That’s a cop-out on a grand scale. Individual Blacks don’t have the access to political, social and economic resources to fight the power; activist organizations and foundations do. Smiley, a millionaire, has never called for the forming of an activist organization. Why? Would that upset Wal-Mart, the corporate sponsor of his television show?
Remember the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee? Its members went throughout the Deep South, alone, often with no cameras or microphones following them. They absorbed most of the racist terror of Jim Crow, telling the people: “We’ll help you organize, but don’t worry; we’ll also be your buffer between you and the white folks oppressing you.” SNCC leaders Diane Nash and John Lewis, for example, didn’t tell the people, “Here’s a book; it’s up to you.” They took full responsibility for the struggle. But then again, they weren’t marketers; they weren’t trying to create and maintain their brand names. They were willing to sacrifice everything, including their lives, to defeat white supremacy. Yeah, yeah, I know: that was a looong time ago.
I’m not hating—much. Again, I have great regard for Smiley and what he’s done for our people. Heck, my doctoral dissertation proudly documents his great accomplishments in media. And the Negro Bowl is the closest thing we have to a televised Black think-tank.
But the closer I watch, the more it seems like he’s created some sort of Black intellectual church that he’s pastoring—one without a deacon board to either keep him in line or to push him to the heights to which he keeps referring. It’s almost as if he’s a progressive version of Oprah—someone who’s drawing the lines of debate in order to “keep everyone feeling energized and “empowered.” Meanwhile, those with real power in America, comfortable with the idea that we won’t do anything even remotely radical to upturn their apple carts, continue using their resources to attack us every chance they get.
In the afternoon session, psychologist Dr. Julia Hare warned the thousands in the audience to not be confused by those who would try to turn “leading Blacks” into “Black leaders.” Smiley has proven that he is a committed Black leader. But if all he’s doing is leading us to the bookstore so that Black America can do some deeply pragmatic, individual, feel-good projects, it might be time to change the channel.
 
Drums in the Global Village 