FORWARDEVER MEDIA CENTER
Writer Alex
Haley writing The Autobiography of Malcolm X with Brother Malcolm.
"The
media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make
the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power.
Because they control the minds of the masses."
- Malcolm X
Mission
The Forwardever Media Center is 100% committed to providing unconventional writing workshops and media literacy training to "at-risk" Black youth, particularly males, ages 14 through 24. Working in partnership with The Mentoring Center in Oakland, CA., the Center's writing workshops, website internship, and film forums, help students develop critical thinking skills and discover their creative talents. We recruit youth for our programs from the California Youth Authority (the state's largest prison for youth) as well as from universities and high schools. This cross-pollination of young minds creates dynamic shared experiences.
Programs
Whatchusay Cinema–A monthly film forum hosted at schools or community centers in Northern California that explores issues such as race, class, gender, and society. Students are joined by a panel of activists, educators, athletes, entrepreneurs, etc. to rate the films and convene roundtable discussions about corresponding relevant issues in society. For info about film screenings and schedules contact: cheo@whatchusay.com
Writing Workshops–We offer intensive seminars in journalism, creative writing, cultural criticism, new media, film production, etc. These seminars are taught at the center, located at 1224 Preservation Park, Oakland, CA, 94612. They are also available on location, at schools, community and detention centers, churches, etc. For info about class schedules contact: cheo@whatchusay.com
Internships–Whatchusay.com offers competitive internships to young writers who have clearly demonstrated a passion for the craft of writing or media production. The 3-month internship covers news writing and reporting, feature writing, creative writing, media literacy and new media. Working in partnership with community based organizations, universities and international and national media outlets, we produce a pipeline of informed journalists of color who will go on to create their own independent media organizations or work for major media organizations.
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Bluenotes: We Gotta Do Better. Indeed We Do
By Maya Pope-Chappell
In another attempt to mask the buffoonish depiction of African Americans as comedy, BET premiered We Gotta Do Better, hosted by Charlie Murphy as part of the networks new line up on July 25th. Formally titled Hot Ghetto Mess, after the spin-off of the popular website, the network changed the name of the show because they wanted to highlight the shows real intent, which is to offer social commentary in a context that sparks dialogue, debate, and most importantly, change, so says BETs spokeswoman Jeanine Liburd to the Associated Press.
Although the six-episode series claims to examine the good, the bad, and the ugly of Black popular culture and address social and cultural issues through video clips, photos, music, and person-on-the-street interviews, it falls short of this mission, merely glorifying ignorant behavior and promoting offensive stereotypes of mostly Black people. As if to say, 'we're an equal opportunity offender,' the show did portray a redneck Olympic event complete with country white folks plopping around in mud.
The only aspect of the show that can be deemed as remotely addressing social and cultural issues is when the show goes Street Walkin, where a correspondent asks random people on the street, questions ranging from, Who is Barack Obama? to How many Blacks are on the Supreme Court? The show was then wrapped up with a montage of Black leaders and progressives including Nelson Mandela and Shirley Chisholm and Charlie Murphy stating, Honor their memory by not being a Hot Ghetto Mess.
If the point of the show is to really examine the portrayal of African Americans and create a dialogue, why not show the video clips and have a panel of everyday people, political and social figures have an open and honest discussion of whats being shown? Is intelligent conversation not considered entertaining? Instead, BET -- the low-budget regurgitation of MTVs formatted shows -- settles for a brainless attempt at combating Hot Ghetto Mess and displaying it to a national audience.
If BET wants to show a Hot Ghetto Mess, they don't need to look far. Just show clips from the top 10 videos plastered on 106 & Park, images from College Hill, especially the very first season, or look to its cousin station MTV and VH1 to make it an equal opportunity offender and display clips of Flavor of Love, Jackass, or Wildboys.
Im sick of BETs socially irresponsible programming and the sacrificed image of my people in the name of a tired laugh. Thats why Dave Chappelle walked away from a 50 million contract with Comedy Central. Tell Charlie Murphy to drop the Hot Ghetto Mess and do the same!
Posted on August 16, 2007 9:00 PM
Comments (1)
I have watched "We Gotta Do Better" a couple of times, but never really saw the point. I fear Maya is right in believing this is just one further opportunity to portray us all as buffoons -- with our consent. One can only shake one's head at the apparent lack of common knowledge amonst the masses. Where are they finding these people? Unfortunately, they could probably come from my neighborhood. Clearly, we need to educate ourselves. Kudos to the person or group who can come up with realistic solutions to the problems of poor early education, disinterest in reading, nonchalance on the part of young parents, and more.
Posted by A. L. "Toni" Anderson | August 21, 2007 8:57 PM
Posted on August 21, 2007 20:57