A Tale of Two Cultures : AN ACTOR-PRODUCER’S PERSPECTIVE DURING BLACK HISTORY MONTH

My wife, Daphne Maxwell Reid, agreed to attend the gala award ceremony only if I promised not to get grumpy and start bemoaning the fact that few blacks would be involved in the event either as nominees or presenters. “After all,” she said, “this is cable and not everyone can get BET.” She shoved some antacid tablets in her cute little gold purse and pushed me toward the door.

Thanks to Sinbad, who co-hosted, the event began on an upbeat note. In all, only five blacks would come to the stage the entire evening. Daphne kept her hand near her purse ready to whip out an antacid in case she noticed the slightest change in my disposition.

They had just given an award to a cable system for its efforts to preserve films and old TV programs. As I watched a clip of some of the films chosen to be preserved, my mood began to sour. I whispered, “You’d think they would have tried to save at least one of Oscar Micheaux’s films. Hell, he made over 40.” She handed me an antacid.

The presenter continued to exalt the cause, “Movies reflect what we are, who we are ... they are a diary of American culture.” I leaned over to my wife and said, “He’s right and black folks are in deep trouble because little of what we are will make the cut.” Daphne dumped the rest of the antacids in my lap.

At that point, for some strange reason that would need a few hours’ couch time to explain, I began to think of Charles Dickens. His words began to materialize in my mind. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness

In his fable, “A Tale of Two Cities,” he revealed an atmosphere where the status quo and the viewpoint of the ruling class were generally accepted as eternal truth. Why I could remember this now and not years ago when I was in English lit is, as I said, a job for professionals.

I popped another antacid and let my mind drift deeper. Here we are, I thought, about to crash headlong into the 21st Century, and the distorted views of the dominant culture are accepted as eternal truth.

Nowhere is this more evident than with the accepted images of black folks as they are portrayed by the media. Rarely do I see anything remotely familiar to the richness and diversity that I knew as a child growing up in the all-black community in Norfolk, Va. In this energized environment, everything around me was black-owned or managed. That included our own newspaper, our own cab company, our own mom-and-pop grocery stores, our own savings and loan and six of our own movie theaters. Yes, segregation had forced us to cope, and that we did.

Thanks to the ‘60s Model Cities urban renewal program, it’s all gone now. They seemed to start with the black businesses first, and then the black-owned homes. However, they did manage to leave every low-income housing project that surrounded our community intact. Save those buildings, there is not one brick left standing in what was once known around the world as “Little New York.”

The same thing happened in Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Philadelphia, etc. In their places, the great Model Cities took the shape of Chicago’s Cabrini Green-type structures and, well, you know the rest. Under the guise of “saving” us, they destroyed the base of what we worked so hard to have: self-sufficiency.

Where is the visual legacy that reflects the lifestyle and the best of who we were as we toiled under the weight of segregation? During the ‘60s, if it weren’t for Bill Cosby and “I Spy” and Diahann Carroll’s “Julia,” the only other black faces I would have seen were carrying picket signs and being chased by bigots and police dogs, hardly an entertaining evening of TV viewing, unless of course, you were a bigot.

Things became a little more colorful, so to speak, when Flip Wilson took center stage and the nation was charmed by what the devil made him do. “Good Times,” despite the writers’ focus on one character, broke ground in exploring urban living. For a brief moment, there was optimism that blacks would have a stake in telling their story. It was an illusion.

We all had hoped that the ‘70s would give us an opportunity to create new concepts and explore broader views of who our people were. However, although we were seen on the screen in larger numbers than ever before, behind the cameras the view would cause you to go snowblind. Things had not changed.

Few of us emerged with even the most meager production commitment to develop the next wave of black programming. For those who have broken through, there is little room for missed opportunity. If a series created by us doesn’t hit the ground running, you had better be wearing a chute, because out the door you go. We seldom pogo from one series to another. For instance, why haven’t we seen the names Steve Duncan and L. Travis Clark reappear in TV credits? After all, didn’t the series co-created by them--”Tour of Duty”--provide some of TV’s finest hours?

Despite the denials of most people who control the creative strings, everything that finds its way onto our TV, or movie screen, is, quite simply, propaganda. Good or bad, fact or fiction, millions of people around the world now formulate their general opinions about people, places and things based on what is created by a few select individuals.

Others can debate the problems with--or the merits of--such a system, but personally I want in. Call me pushy, but I want a say as to how the culture of my people is viewed around the the world. You’ve had your fun, but I’m afraid it’s time to loosen up on the reins a little because your view of us has stepped way over the line.

I know many of you can converse in the latest lingo and you probably attend all the Laker games, but the stuff you develop and present as a depiction of life in black America pales in comparison to the real story. There are a million stories in the “Naked City” and the powerful saga of “Roots” was just one of them.

Like Dickens, I acknowledge that, in many ways, and for many black folks in the limelight, these are the best of times. I proudly sit in darkened theaters and watch Denzel, Wesley, Laurence and Whoopi play roles that traditionally would have gone to white actors.

In television there have been sparks of renewed hope. The attempt to redefine the black sitcom formula is still a goal for some. “Frank’s Place,” if I may be so bold as to say, had a brief streak of uniqueness and it owes its opportunity to the success of “The Cosby Show.” It’s ironic that while some of our most successful actors break racial barriers, few--save Spike--have been able to wield their power to bring to the screen some of the more gripping stories about their own people: the Buffalo Soldiers, Beckworth, the Tuskegee Airmen and on and on.

In the arena of power-brokering in the entertainment industry, these are indeed the worst of times. It’s a sad commentary that in a business known for its liberalism there is not one black person who can “green light” a single project via the major venues of TV networks or studios. Not one black person has come within fainting distance of true power in a town where power is the Holy Grail. There is not one person of color who can get a project made in this town without the customarily assigned overseer.

It is the age of wisdom and there are a number of black folk who have been “trodding on the wine press much too long.” It is time to share power with those who have earned the opportunity. How much more would a studio or network be with a talent as experienced as Suzanne de Passe at the helm?

What would black sitcoms be like if one of the fully qualified black network execs, who have been kept at a safe distance from any real control, actually had the opportunity to act on their gut instinct? I know for a fact that the story and production of “Race to Freedom: The Underground Railroad” was enriched because of the talents of many black folks who ordinarily don’t have a voice at every stage of a project’s genesis.

It’s time to prepare for the kind of environment that will carry over into the new millennium. I’m certainly not the only one who knows that the old ways have lost their effectiveness. The excuses for the lack of change no longer make any sense and now appear rude and mean-spirited.

It is the age of foolishness and the power elite of the entertainment industry needs to be more inclusive. What folly it is to believe that the true culture of a people can be told without the involvement of those very people at all stages of development.

How absurd to think that the sum total of millions of people can be trotted out each February and ignored the rest of the year.

It often pains me as I watch the images of a people who have given so much become reduced to and categorized by the constant stream of flickering TV news bites of black men in handcuffs ... or the crude sights and sounds of misogynous rap videos ... or a vulgar joke by modern-day minstrels. Like any other culture or race, these images are examples of a few who have lost hope ... those who will degrade their own for 30 pieces of silver ... those who would embrace caricature over character.

The true nature of my people can be defined by the fact that we are still here. We survived the “Black Holocaust,” which the dominant culture refers to as “slavery.” By whatever name, it was a horrific tragedy that saw more than 100 million of my ancestors taken in chains from their homeland with close to 50 million of them lost at sea during the Middle Passage. Brought to the Americas, they suffered under the most evil and inhumane conditions that lasted for more than 200 years. In spite of this, we’ve made and are still making historic contributions that benefit all of mankind.

Throughout this (short) month, as we celebrate the heritage of my people, know that we are aware that the struggle continues. The rules have changed and the new battle will be fought in the lanes of the information superhighway.

Come on, keepers of the diary of American culture, it’s time to consider the entire truth. The worst that could happen is that you might learn of the richness of my culture, whose depth is more than you have imagined. I know that this will challenge the view of us that is now portrayed by the dominant culture because I, too, have been watching superficial images peddled as eternal truths.

I would continue but I’m all out of antacids.