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BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2010 (PART II)
February 9, 2010
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. Proudly Celebrating Black History Month
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In this, the second week of our month-long celebration of Black History Month 2010 we want to share some more thoughts and ideas about a people and an environment in which autonomy is valued and decision making leads to achieving goals. It is a month in which we will definitely continue to be affected by the horrific disaster in Haiti. Coupled with mourning and grief we hope the commonalities of interest and humanity will bring us closer together. We also hope that in 2010 we can use the lessons of the past to re-build our future. And as we celebrate another Black History Month, as African Americans, we should keep in mind is that we can no longer afford to keep burning bridges we should be crossing.
One obvious bridge that is apparent in 2010 is the toll bridge over troubled waters. The one that connects the formats. And with these crossings, the waters become less troubled, the toll has been eliminated and musical history continues to be made. Beyonce just captured six awards at the recent Grammy Awards. That is a first for a female artist let alone an African-American female. These historical events are beginning to tear away a lot of the barriers used to categorize our music.
As A Result
Next we want to take a brief look at some other historical trends and the reasons for their change. First, new media choices have caused a change in audience. Radio's audience has gotten smaller and they listen for shorter spans of time. Why is this? To better understand today's audiences, we need to remember that we're the only group in history raised during an era of continuous technological and social change. We never really got a chance to catch a breath, so we became a generation that figured the only way to get through this entire quagmire was to continue to experiment, to try new things, to find new music. The reason behind all this is if you don't try new ways of doing things, you're going to get stale and stall.
Today, in 2010, urban music and radio are still experimenting, still looking for that newest thing. Urban music in all its forms, is enjoying a popularity surge. It's probably at the peak of visibility, enjoying an unprecedented presence not just in radio airplay and sales, but also in movies on television and commercials. It continues to overshadow other popular music forms.
As we go forward, we must continue to allow all the music in. This includes the blues that spawned R&B, Jazz, Gospel and all the other forms which we now see imploding, including Neo-Soul and Smooth jazz.
Bring Together
Yes, black music in all its forms is growing. Despite that growth and the fact that demographics are aging and changing, we're probably still not getting enough 25-39 year olds to reinvigorate the format. Research shows that close to 18% of today's urban radio listeners may be "closet urban listeners." They simply will not admit they listen to our music or our radio stations. This is the basis for "phantom cume." And one of the good things that Arbitron's electronic measurement provides. Under PPM, if a person is listening and wearing a meter, they don't have to admit listening to a station. The meter will detect the encoded signal and the station gets the credit. But let's go back and examine the reason for some of these closet listeners. Are they ashamed of or embarrassed by the fact that they listen to and like some urban music? Perhaps. For most it's because they want to present an image that they've outgrown the music their children or younger brothers and sisters listen to. To get them back we've got to make them proud of our music and its history. Then, when they finally realize our music and stations are happening, and it's what most of their friends listen to, they won't care nor be reluctant to say they listen. We'll get them back.
But wait, maybe it isn't just that black music is happening, perhaps some folks just got tired of some of the mindless meandering that was going down in other formats. Maybe it was the experimentation and substitution that attracted them to black music.
Some historians will say that black music is in a cycle, but the situation isn't really cyclical. It's spiral. You've got a highly experimental demographic with new listeners willing to give it a try. The musical movement is one ultimately driven by optimism coupled with new media choices.
Growth & Reason
The swarm of new media choices has forced another non-musical, historical movement to surface in 2010. This one is a demand for America to rise up and defeat the twin evils of bigotry and segregation. However, it is also a demand fueled by faith in God and a devotion to the principles of equality and liberty upon which this nation was founded. It is a demand made with the certainty that America will honor its promise and live up to the "true meaning of her creed."
Too many of us are indifferent, insensitive and even uncaring to take notice of the disadvantaged among us. I believe we cannot make real progress toward justice and fairness until we move to a much better treatment of our youth, especially young African-American males. Does the fact that in 2010 these young males are caught up in the criminal justice system and more of them are there than are in college mean anything? What does that say for the direction in which our society is moving? Surely a much more accurate appraisal of our commitment to race aligned economic opportunity can be made by ascertaining the extent to which African-Americans, workers and all, are proportionately retained in the face of increasing competition with minorities at home and outsourcing abroad, despite the current economy.
While the rehabilitation and redirection of the young black male is not the sole responsibility of any one group in our society, young black males must learn to help themselves and to help each other. But the same must be said for all privileged Americans. Our society as a whole and the fate of the least among us are inextricably woven together. Our entire social system bears a special responsibility for the current failure, not merely for the ills, but for the failure of our society and the problems that we continue to face.
The Economy
It is not America's slave policy, even before it was a nation that sealed its fate and made these young blacks pariahs of the land. It was a national economy that withheld from them the opportunities to train for better jobs requiring technical skills and special responsibilities that modern America could provide. In depriving them of this opportunity, the nation deprived itself of much needed manpower and condemned this group that had played such a valiant role in building the nation to the lowest possible place in the social order. We became a burden and a drag on the progress and well being of the nation. It was national policy, after all, that permitted the citizens of this country to badger these young people, goad and humiliate them to the point that they could not be easily reached. But all young African-Americans can be reached through legislation, good will, understanding and compassion. The true test of an advanced society is not in how many respected and self-respecting loyal citizens it can produce. The success of such a venture is a measure of success of our national impasse. When opportunity knows no boundaries, success knows no limits.
Stripping away all of the pre-analysis, post-analysis, overlong speeches filled with applause lines, empty promises, disinterested congressmen and perfunctory nods in the direction of bi-partisanship that have come to symbolize so much of our national news, the vision offered by President Obama is one filled with a similar faith in America's founding principles. A belief in American strength and a demand for American leadership.
We are indeed living in historic times. Our nation is in a time of testing. We are engaged in a very real battle of blood and ideology with an enemy that embraces a culture of death. Islamic fascists are intent on imposing a totalitarian government on the people of the Middle East and the rest of the world and determined to bring weapons of mass destruction to bear on the people of America in order to achieve their ends.
Education & Moving Forward
We are engaged in an economic contest with China that demands we improve the education of our children and train American workers for the technology jobs that will drive the world economy. Domestically, we are challenged with balancing entitlement spending with our commitment to the poor and elderly, expanding opportunities for ownership to all citizens while nurturing the American entrepreneurial spirit. Ultimately, our success hinges on national unity, resolve and, most of all, American leadership.
I am certain that many who have committed their lives to the uplift of all people came to "a point of choosing." There is little doubt that in quiet moments they asked themselves "should I go on?" And, "can I lay this burden down?" As we are constantly reminded, we must march forward because we have been called to leadership in a time of consequence.
There are still too many African-Americans in prison, too many kids aggrandizing the thug life and way too many of us doing far too little with the opportunities others have earned for us.
These consequences should serve to remind us to guard against life's surprises. Since early slave times, we have learned that knowledge combined with faith, determination, dignity and grace can help us to shape history instead of being shaped by history. We have to stop letting politics obfuscate our accomplishments. And we have to stop burning bridges we should be crossing. Word.
Next Week Part III Looking Forward & Glancing Back
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