Mo' Tea Sir? Roland Martin invited Dr. Umar Johnson on his show to have a meaningless argument about nothing with kneegrows afraid to even just say the word "white supremacy/racism." [the word is not the actual thing -boo!]

Racial Shadow Boxing occurs when victims of racism (non-white people) are directly or indirectly, "assigned", bribed, coerced, and/or otherwise influenced, by the racists (white Supremacist), to speak or act to do harm to other victims of racism. White Supremacists oftentimes hide behind others whom they use as shadows of themselves. [MORE] 

Kneegrows who shadowbox in service of their racist masters most likely are from the Moteasuh Tribe. Dr. Blynd explains in FUNKTIONARY about such folk:

The Moteasuh Tribe - the miseducated coin-operated buck dancing, sole-shuffling, politically dis-appointed kneegrows who pander to Massah's agenda - Mo' Tea Sir? This tribe of sorry ass kneegrows follow the dictates and even orchestrates the marching bandits of racism white supremacy as spewed forth from the mouthpieces of political power within the borders of the Witches Castle. It's the Condi-Clarence-Powell complex - that is, those who do Massah's bidding as if you weren't kidding yourself that you were doing otherwise. Keep your eyes on the lies, the liars, and the disguise. (see McNegro). 

Niggativity - self destructive thought forms programmed as looped subroutines into the minds and subconscious of descendants of enslaved Africans by descendants of former slavemasters- source coded to induce thought patterns and resulting reactions that perpetuate the sense of self-hatred, self-ignorance, and self denial ultimately and effectively aborting, sabotaging and annihilating any concrete attempts of people of people of African descent to become a self determined people. 

Many in the Moteasuh tribe can be found in the so-called "Black media." Unfortunately much of the Black-con­trolled media are not fully supportive of Afrocentrism and are terrified about confronting reality [white supremacy]. Here, Roland Martin and his panel were angry with Dr. Umar and his alternative Afrocentric ideologies. Dr. Umar was met with pure niggativity. How dare he challenge the legitimacy of their masters?   

As explained by Dr. Amos Wilson

"One can safely describe the popular Black-controlled and -oriented media, dependent as it is on White ruling-elite licensing and largesse, as essentially integrationist, assimilationist, and accommodationist in orientation. As a media they are tied to and promote Americanism as much as the White media, even when they permit a harmless amount of Black radical political dialogue.

The Black Media: White Media in Black Face

The most popular Black media productions, e.g., Ebony, Emerge, Black Enterprise, Essence, Upscale, and other similar magazines; the Black radio stations and television programs which feature Black-oriented formats, have in large measure been victimized by their very success. For such success, dependent on White elite financing and underwritten by White elite advertising revenues, has made "success­ful Black media" extremely sensitive to Afrocentric ideology and even circumspect about "radical chic" Black-oriented ideology, i.e., ideology emphasizing Black identity and culture that is a bit critical of Eurocentrism, a bit left-of-center in its social and economic value orientations, but still within acceptable White liberal conversational domains. On the whole, the Black media are essentially a parochial establishment lacking vision and courage, craving White media acceptance and recognition. Specializing in racial ego massage, commiseration, complaints and victimization, they are of relatively low-educational value and provide little worthwhile leadership for the Afrikan American community. They are dark imitations of their white counterparts which set their reactionary agendas, news stories, editorials and features. Even though Afrocentrism is phenomenally increasing in the Afrikan American community and popular culture viz., rap music, the popularity of Afrocentic T-shirt art, Afrocentric personal dress and adornments, the demand for Afrocentric and Afrocentric-oriented multicultural education in the Afrikan American community, etc., one would be very hard-pressed to find any popular Afrikan American magazines, such as Ebony, or radio or television series which have produced in-depth, thoroughly descriptive explana­tions of the ideology and goals of Afrocentrism. Nor would one readily find a clear indication of an Afrocentric scholar, spokesperson, columnist or editor consistently or unrestrictedly published in their pages or hosting their programs. For, essentially, the current Black media establishment is still one with what it was when it received its most severe criticism by sociologist E. Franklin Frazier in his much-acclaimed book Black Bourgeoisie published in 1962.

The Negro press is not only one of the most successful business enterprises owned and controlled by Negroes; it is the chief medium of communication which creates and perpetuates the world of make-believe for the black bourgeoisie. Although the Negro press declares itself to be the spokesman for the Negro group as a whole, it repre­sents essentially the interests and outlook of the black bourgeoisie. Its demand for equality for the Negro in American life is concerned primarily with opportunities which will benefit the black bourgeoisie economically and enhance the social status of the Negro. The Negro press reveals the inferiority complex of the black bourgeoisie and provides a documentation of the attempts of this class to seek compensations for its hurt self-esteem and exclusion from American life. Its exaggerations concerning the economic well-being and cultural achievements of Negroes, its emphasis upon Negro "society" all tend to create a world of make-believe into which the black bourgeoisie can escape from its inferiority and inconsequence in American society.  [Emphasis added]

He then argued that "In reporting any recognition which the Negro may receive, the Negro press is not concerned with principles or values except where status, in a narrow sense, is concerned . . . the Negro press is not concerned with broader social and economic values." The contemporary Afrikan American press, except for its marked increase in size and composition, which now includes a much larger electronic, i.e., radio and television sector, maintains the essential character and purpose attributed to it by E. Franklin Frazier. The Afrikan American media establishment still "represents essentially the interests and outlook of the black bourgeoisie." In a number of ways it is even more bourgeois in outlook and interest than in the past. Until the decade of the '60s and '70s the major Black media, particularly some newspapers and magazines like Ebony, still expressed the character of the original Black press, that of organs of "Negro protest." Many publications following the traditions of the first Black papers in America, Freedom's Journal, North Star (later renamed Frederick Douglass'Paper), New York Age, and the Chicago Defender, were staunch defenders of the rights of Black Americans, exposed and fulminated against racial oppression and discrimination. The editorials of Ebony magazine regarding the civil rights struggles of the late '50s and '60s were outstanding. Their emphasis on the historical and contemporary achievements of Afrikan Americans served to enhance Black self-esteem and encourage continuing struggle against American apartheid.

The central ideological thrust of the Black print media was primarily assimilationist and integrationist in character. They struggled mightily against what was then called the "second-class" status of Black Americans and for full equality for Blacks in American society. The ideological thrust and the struggle for social equality manifested by the Black press were in accord with Black bourgeois interests and outlook as well as those of the Black masses, and were generally supported by the White liberal press and White liberal establishment. At the end of the Civil Rights era when most of the important Black bourgeois goals were nominally achieved — school and housing desegregation, affirmative action (which accelerated the movement of Black bourgeois professionals into previously exclusively White employment areas), expanded equal opportunity programs in many social and employment areas for Blacks, tokenism, national Black suffrage, and so forth — the Black bourgeois press and expanding electronic media establishment while still serving as the watchdogs for Black bourgeois interests and speaking for Black community interests, increasingly follows the party line of the liberal White American media establishment. The Afrikan American media establishment in essential ways more closely fits Frazier's character­ization of it today than in the late '50s and early '60s when his media critiques were first published.

The Black print media as exemplified by [TV-One, BET, etc] and other similar national publications fit Frazier's characteriza­tions "to a T." These publications along with their electronic media brethren are boringly innocuous, inoffensive and bland. Apparently frightened of provoking the disapproval of their national and multinational advertisers and of raising the ire of the White ruling establishment on whose favor they depend for survival, these media assiduously concern themselves with reporting the activities of Black celebrities, of the Black bourgeoisie, and with selling the products of White-owned manufacturers to Black customers. The Black media literally "deliver" the Black market to White merchants, their raison d'etre. The Black print media, especially the popular magazines which increasingly project the fashionable lives of Blacks "who have made it" in White society, are little more than fashion and consumer magazines. Their stock-in-trade is now fundamentally the same as White mass publications — celebrity features, male-female relations, career choices and opportunities, exercise and fitness features, self-help and pop psychology features. Controversial issues are superfi­cially treated when dealt with at rare instances and are carefully and inoffensively "balanced." They are careful not to take any editorial position which can be interpreted as Black nationalist or Afrocentric in orientation. The deeper issues and controversies involving Afrocentrism and Black nationalism, involving deep ethnic confronta­tions between the Black and non-Black communities are virtually ignored or dealt with so gingerly and benignly as to be devoid of any real substance while not revealing where the Black media themselves stand relative to such issues. Afrocentric and Black nationalist interpretations of events and ethnic reality are essentially excluded from the national Black print media and local and regional electronic media. The views of Black nationalist scholars and intellectuals as well as activists are rarely featured in the Black media except when they are the objects of White media attack or have aroused broad White social disapproval, or are engaged in some controversial struggle with the White powers-that-be. Some nationalists and activists are not interviewed or presented even under these circum­stances if their mere mention or presence may be interpreted by powerful Whites as representing Black media approval or support for their ideological orientation or social-political activism.

The Black media establishment is highly reactionary. Its agenda is generally set by the White media and ruling/corporate elite establishment. Once a Black person has evoked the full notice and approval or disapproval of the White media and ruling establishment, the Black media establishment compellingly presents him or her to their Black public. The Black media interaction with these noted or notorious persons or groups as defined by the White press or estab­lishment, usually lasts as long as White media focus is maintained on them. Consequently, the White press markedly still determines the visibility or invisibility, the esteem or lack thereof, of Black persons, groups and ideas in the Black media establishment. Rarely does the Black media raise a Black person, group or ideology to prominence based on the intrinsic nature of their relevance to the Black commu­nity and to Afrikan liberation without having received some signal from the White media.

Thus, the Black media in its reactionary fashion seconds the motions of the White media in excluding unpopular, anti-White supremacy, anti-Eurocentric, anti-capitalist, and other radical ideological approaches that may provide possibly promising, prag­matic solutions to problems faced by the Black community. They thereby help to deny the Black community innovative and creative alternatives to the failed, yet socially accepted, approaches advocated by the general media (including the Black and White media). In this sense the Black media enters into complicity with the White media against Afrikan liberation from White supremacy.

When expert opinion is sought by the Black media regarding problems facing the Black community, e.g., Black-on-Black violence, drug abuse, economic deprivation, etc., this establishment with its penchant for recognizing as expert only those Blacks so designated by the White media and educational establishments (or celebrities such as movie directors, actors, comedians and other erstwhile Black entertainment or media personalities) will publish the sayings or writings of these "experts" regardless of the fact that they generally express opinions of no real substance or relevance, or more often than not, express regressive and outdated approaches to problems. Typically, the Black media will treat the expositions of Black academics attached to prestigious White elite universities as holy writ without apparently considering the fact that such experts have eschewed any ideological perspectives and pragmatic solutions to problems in the Black community which would meet with the disapproval of their White colleagues and the White institutions for which they work. Their espousal of unorthodox ideologies and approaches would no doubt have precluded their employment by the White establishment institutions in the first place. Obviously, their solutions to problems confronting the Black community will fit within the range of acceptable White elite opinions. Their Black faces and positions in White institutions serve essentially to sanction White elite ideas and values which are antithetical to Black liberation and independence, to give these ideas authority and present them in ways which deceive the Black public into assuming that they operate in its interest when the opposite is true. Moreover, the ready access these White institution-supported Black experts have to the Black and White media, allows them to not only reinforce the ruling ideas of the dominant White elite but to literally block a fair hearing of unortho­dox, though often more realistic ideas of independent Black experts, activists and everyday citizens. Frazier succinctly summarizes the scope of the Black press thusly:

The lack of interest of the black bourgeoisie and its mouthpiece, the Negro press, in the broader issues facing the modern world is due to the fact that the Negro has developed no economic or social philosophy except the opportunistic philosophy that the black intelligentsia has evolved to justify its anomalous and insecure position. Of course, plain ignorance of the nature of the modern world and the revolution which is in progress accounts also for the outlook of the Negro press . .. They are generally careful, however, never to offend the black bourgeoisie nor to challenge white opinion on fundamental economic and political issues. In fact, except in regard to race relations, the columnists generally echo the conservative opinions and platitudes of the white world on crucial issues . . . By echoing the opinions of the white community the intellectual leaders of the black bourgeoisie hope to secure the approval and recognition of the white propertied classes with whom they seek identification.

The Black broadcast media is a major culprit in mesmerizing the Afrikan American community, particularly its youth, with stupefying, mind-numbing, retrograde music and DJ claptrap — music created and recorded by the lowest elements of its street culture and sold and distributed by White-owned, Japanese-owned record companies who have shown nothing but the nastiest contempt for the peoples whose music is the principal source of their fabulous wealth and power. In general, Black electronic media feed the mind-destroying, self-defeating addiction Blacks have for music, whether rap, jazz, hip-hop, or gospel. Black celebrity-driven electronic and print media saturate their audiences with Black bourgeois political nostrums and palliatives, hokey cliches and hopelessly wrongheaded prescriptions for Black social and economic advancement and liberation. Black reactionary media push the same corporate conglomerates as do the white media; and like the white media, virtually ignore, suppress, or invalidate more radical, alternative points of view, social, political, economic prescriptions and programs for Afrikan empowerment and liberation. Unlike the white media, however, the Black media does not see as one of their most important roles that of "creating visibility and thereby legitimacy" by raising from relative obscurity those persons, groups and organizations, those publications which speak directly and practically to the liberation of Afrikan peoples from the mental and physical bondage to white supremacy.

Relative to publication of books which target the Black American community, one need only look at the Black literary review sections of magazines like Black Enterprise, Ebony, Emerge, Essence, and literary quarterlies or supplements like the Quarterly Review of Black Books and the City Sun Literary Supplement to note that 99% of the books reviewed are by Black authors published by White-owned presses. Thus, not only is the white-owned book industry pedaled by the Black press, but the rather innocuous books — books edited according to the needs and standards of white supremacy, books specializing in victimology, self-pity, self-aggrandizing autobiogra­phies and inflated biographies of people who were or are famous because they achieved the condescending approval or reactionary disapproval of whites, books advocating solutions to Black problems which have long ago been demonstrated to be complete failures, harmful even — are routinely recommended to a gullible Black public. Books by both Black and white authors that have gained critical acclaim or propagandistic visibility in the white press, that have made the New York Times Best-sellers List are routinely reviewed, their authors lionized and interviewed regardless of their content or genuine social importance or relevance to the Afrikan American community and its critical struggle to survive. Authors and books which address this struggle and prescribe for its success, particularly if they run counter to the social and political status quo, are contrary to "acceptable" [read: white liberal] opinion and Black bourgeois interests, are ignored and actively suppressed by an obsequious Black media or a Black media which is gutless and lacking in vision. The publishing companies more likely to publish such books are the Black-owned publishing houses.

The Black Bourgeoisie - Black Political Establishment Alliance against Afrikan Liberation

Since Afrocentrism and the Afrocentric movement encompass Black nationalism, advocate an economic and social philosophy contrary to that of the ruling White establishment, are avowedly committed to the overthrow of White supremacy and to the develop­ment of Pan-Afrikanist solidarity and independence, all such orientations which are viewed with alarm by the White powers-that-be, it is obvious that the Black media as currently constituted will be of little direct value for achieving true Afrikan liberation. In fact, they may retard its progress in this regard. Consequently, the Afrocentric movement and the movement to develop authentic Afrikan Power at home and abroad must continue to develop alternative means of its own to reach the Afrikan masses. The ideological struggle for Afrikan Power will therefore involve ideological struggle against not only the White media establishment but also the Black media establishment. The latter establishment must be subverted by various means into serving the power interests of the Afrikan community or its political and ideological voice and clout must be muted by a more vigorous, relevant and practical Afrikan-centered media-ideological process. Whatever pressure the Black liberation movement can bring to bear against the Black media establishment in order to reach the masses of Afrikan Americans must be applied.

The sociopolitical role played by the Black media establishment must become the object of scholarly and utilitarian analysis and critique. A thoroughgoing critique of the Black press has been too long delayed since Frazier's critique. The relationship of the Black media establishment with the Black political establishment should be the focus of intense critical analysis from the nationalist and Afrocentric perspective. For as Frazier so pointedly noted, the orientation of the Black political establishment is at one with that of the Black bour­geois media establishment and with the Black bourgeoisie as a whole. He observed that:

SINCE THE BLACK bourgeoisie is composed chiefly of white-collar workers and since its small business enterprises are insignificant in the American economy, the black bourgeoisie wields no political power as a class in American societj⁷. Nor does the black bourgeoisie exercise any significant power within the Negro community as an employer of labor ... In the political life of the American society the Negro political leaders, who have always had a middle-class outlook, follow an opportunistic policy. They attempt to accommodate the demands of Negroes for better economic and social conditions to their personal interests which are tied up with the political machines, which in turn are geared to the interests of the white propertied classes.

The Black media-political establishment alliance can best be seen in its almost uncritical and very adulatory support for Black politi­cians. The Black media lionizes Black incumbents without critical examinations of their records and supports Black candidates for political office essentially on the basis of their Blackness (generally as long as they are not Republicans). The Black press makes little or no demands on Black politicians while it constantly parades them before the Black community as role models, regardless of their success or lack of it in advancing the interests of the community. The achieve­ments of Black politicians, no matter how dubious, are often pre­sented by the Black press as vicarious achievements of the Black community as a whole. Black incumbents are given ready access to Black media outlets to massage the Black community, to maintain their public persona, and to rationalize their very frequent failures to provide the Black community with responsive and effective political leadership. Thus, they keep their opposition out of the media limelight and the community is cajoled into re-electing a political establishment whose accomplishments are meager when not plainly regressive.

Except in the case of a crisis such as that created by the Depression when the Negro masses changed their political affiliation, the Negro politician may even mobilize the masses to vote against their economic interests. In his role as leader, the Negro politician attempts to accommodate the demands of the Negro masses to his personal interests which are tied up with the political machines. He may secure the appointment of a few middle-class Negroes to positions in the municipal government. But when it comes to the fundamental interests of the Negro masses as regards employment, housing, and health, his position is determined by the political machine which represents the propertied classes of the white community.

The Black media establishment's gung-ho, indiscriminate support of Black politicians and the White male elite-dominated American political system is most clearly exposed during elections when it beats the drums to get Black voters to the polls to elect Black officials. This establishment strives strenuously to convince the Black electorate that every conceivable problem which confronts it can be resolved through voting heavily for Black and friendly White politicians. The Black media is ever quick to remind the Black electorate of the historical struggles necessary to achieve their right to vote. It indicts the community for its electoral apathy and seeks to evoke guilt feelings in those who do not participate in the electoral process — making such ritualistic participation emblematic of democracy and first-class citizenship. This is of special interest when it is realized that very few, if any, of the major political, economic and social goals achieved by Black America, including the Voting Rights Act, were accomplished through Black voting prowess. The ballot box has been a relatively impotent weapon in the achievement of major victories by the Black community. Suddenly vigorous protest and direct-action legal suits and extralegal processes such as boycotts, sit-ins, and the like, which were used so effectively by the community to achieve its sociopolitical ends and to fight injustice and oppression, have fallen far behind the election of Black politicians to achieve the same ends. The mystery of the Black media establishment's complicity with this type of political fraud — the electing of politicians to a bankrupt political system dominated by the ruling corporate elite whose values and aims are inimical to the cause of Black liberation; the election of Black politicians who are but pawns of the White Democratic Party machine and who seek to have the Black community identify its communal interest with the politicians' personal interests; the election of politicians who in no way are interested in developing a program for the economic emancipation and empowerment of the Black community, and who are not committed to the final overthrow of White supremacy, becomes clear when we recognize their bourgeois interests.

The realization that the Black owners of the major Black media outlets have been financed by White funding sources, are supported by White advertisers, have gained access to their media properties through special dispensations, provisos, set-asides and affirmative action programs promulgated by the two political parties, especially the Democratic Party; the realization that the holding of political office or high appointive positions in government and the private sector on the part of a large and influential segment of the Black bourgeoisie, that their social standing in the Black community was achieved and is maintained by their ties to the Democratic Party and the American electoral system — make it obvious as to why this Black social class seeks to convince the larger Black community that voting is the end-all and be-all of Black liberation. Consequently, the Black community is spared a true, realistic and thorough education as to how the American political system really works by the Black media establishment. It is not informed as to how the system is subverted by the White corporate elite; as to how the process of governance is almost unrelated to the electoral process and electing of politicians; as to how an economically powerless people are almost invariably a politically powerless people as well. The Black commu­nity is misled by electoral mumbo-jumbo and antiquated, ethereal political theory into placing all its hopes for survival, security and liberation in the hands of politicians who are as powerless as the community they represent. Because of their personal and career ties to the White American political system, electoral processes and political parties, Black politicians, along with their Black media supporters are almost instinctively opposed to an independent, nationalistic political and economic movement. This is particularly the case when those movements rival their own leadership and influence in the Black community, and when they cannot control or squash them at the behest of their White political and party bosses.

Thus, if the Afrikan American community is to achieve truly substantial power in America it must rid itself of the leadership and influence of the Black political-media alliance as it exists today. The stranglehold on Black opinion by bourgeois publications such as Ebony, Essence, Jet, Emerge, Black Enterprise, EM, Upscale, Class magazines and the like by electronic media outlets like BET, Ebony-Jet Showcase, Tony Brown's Journal, must be successfully chal­lenged by the nationalist and Afrocentric movements.

To a good extent the popularity of Afrocentrism and Black nationalism at this time in the Black community attests to the effectiveness of the Black nationalist Afrocentric ideological thrust. The effectiveness of the ideological tactics of the Afrocentric movement is also attested to by the over-reaction and vigorous ideological counterattacks and preemptive strikes of the White media, White academic and political establishments. However, the ideological struggle by the Afrocentric movement is far from won. It is currently at near-deadlock with its White establishment oppo­nents and their fifth column Black "neo-con" lackeys. This means that the Afrocentric campaign must increase in its intensity and scope. Such an increase involves: [MORE]