Black Music Month: Soul Train

Black music means all things to our community; at least the way I see it. It dictates the rhythm of our soul. I have said many times that “our story is the greatest story ever told”. We, as a people, have had the fortitude to make something out of nothing. Yes, and I know that is an understatement – but so true.

I cannot pay homage to Black Music Month without giving credit to Soul Train and to Don Cornelius who made something possible at a time when it was impossible. Lest remember that just a few years earlier black music was not allowed to be played on radio. Let me remind you it was called "Race Music" segregated like the rest of America.

I left for Vietnam in 1969. At that time, our representation on television as it related to African American’s was basically nonexistent. Of course, there was the buffoonery and unrealistic representations of who they wanted us to appear to the world. When I returned, a year and a half later, I was changed as a young man so was the world left behind. Thanks in large part to a Saturday afternoon television show called “Soul Train”. 

The host of this groundbreaking show Don Cornelius was a tall always stylishly dress. He was an enigmatic mélange of ambition, vision and begrudging affection who unlike most old school show biz impresarios. African American’s knew that Soul Train’s rival American Bandstand did very little for the artist or our community or did provide joy within our souls. Mr. Cornelius had the vision to create the hippest trip on television and dare I say in America. 

Soul Train was not just a great American story of triumph over travail; it was a hallowed symbol to the African American community. Soul Train changed the world through its outstanding reflections of our pride and talent. The show shined a light, a bright light, on the African American culture through great music while showcasing the performers who in many cases had no other national platform. This included the known, unknown, and obscure literally making stars of them overnight. Soul Train was the powerful vehicle and it became the longest running syndicated show on television, a black history fact to remember.

Watching Soul Train made you instantly cool, no matter if you were black, white or otherwise. Where else could you learn the latest dances, hippest fashions, and the next best way to rock that Afro and what products you had to have to keep it looking good? The legendary Soul Train Line was essential viewing. Can you remember those parties you attend on the Saturday night after watching the show where you used the moves to do your own Soul Train line? It could be said that it raised your “Cool IQ”. Soul Train was a window into a world rarely seen by the world. 

When Mr. Cornelius signed off on February 1, 2012, it was a tragic end to a long running iconic figure in American music. In remembrance of the creator’s legendary roll; I wish him love, peace and soul. May his soul Rest In Peace! And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective!

  "Just a Season"

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 AMAZON

Whitesplaining

I have the utmost respect for Mr. Clarence Page of the Tribune's editorial board for his lifelong mission to express truth through his words. Mr. Page wrote an article on his blogs  this week that impressed me greatly. He made me aware of a new word coined as a result of Sen. Rand Paul's news-making speech at historically black Howard University.

I hope Mr. Page will appreciate my sharing his words for your empowerment. Thank you Sir:

Within hours after, Sen. Rand Paul's news-making speech at historically black Howard University someone posted this new definition on the user-driven Urban Dictionary website of an awkward-sounding but quite timely verb: "whitesplain":
"The act of a caucasian (sic) person explaining to audiences of color the true nature of racism," says the entry; "a caucasian (sic again) person explaining sociopolitical events and/or history to audiences of color as though they are ignorant children ...."

Whitesplaining appears significantly to be derived from "mansplaining," which first appeared in a thoughtful, hilarious 2008 Los Angeles Times essay by Rebecca Solnit titled "Men Who Explain Things."

Urban Dictionary now defines mansplaining as "condescending, inaccurate explanations delivered with rock-solid confidence of rightness and that slimy certainty that of course he is right, because he is the man in this conversation." I am guessing that a woman wrote that definition. Message received.

Anyway, as an example of how whitesplaining should be used, consider Urban Dictionary: "U.S. Sen. Rand Paul whitesplained to students at Howard University," it says, "that a black Republican founded the NAACP."

Indeed, even Paul looked surprised at Howard when, after he asked if anyone knew that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had been founded by Republicans, his audience responded with a resoundingly impatient "Yes!"

"We know our history," one student shouted. Unfortunately, Paul didn't. He had to be prompted from the audience with the name of Massachusetts Republican Edward Brooke, the first African-American to be elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote — and Paul still mangled it twice as "Edwin Brooks."

Worse, he expounded at length on the historically incorrect narrative that conservatives often give, that blacks left the party of Abraham Lincoln to follow Franklin D. Roosevelt's promise of "unlimited federal assistance," while Republicans only have the "less tangible ... promise of equalizing opportunity through free markets."

Yet, even if you buy that oversimplified view of history, as conservatives with selective memory often do, Paul completely omitted a much more important sea change, the seismic racial realignment that followed President Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 Civil Rights Act.

In fact, Republican nominees continued to receive sizable black support; 39 percent to Dwight Eisenhower in his 1956 re-election, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and 32 percent to his vice president, Richard Nixon, in 1960.

But after conservatives nominated Sen. Barry Goldwater, who voted against the civil rights bill, to oppose Johnson in 1964, LBJ won 94 percent of the black vote. No Republican presidential candidate has received more than 15 percent of the black vote since.

Widening the divide was the "Southern strategy" with which Republicans mined racial backlash to win white votes, first in the South, then nationwide. Some Republicans, like former party chairmen Ken Mehlman and Michael Steele, have been quite candid and contrite in denouncing such tactics, only to be shouted down by whitesplainers in the Grand Old Party's right wing.

In fact, "rightsplainers" more aptly describes Paul's selective view of GOP history, including his own. When he was questioned about his 2010 interviews with the Louisville Courier-Journal and on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show in which he criticized part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Paul denied the charge. "I've never wavered in my support for civil rights or the Civil Rights Act," he said at Howard.

Yet, as videos posted on various websites show, he wavered a lot. He opposed the part of the act that banned discrimination in restaurants, hotels and other privately owned public accommodations.

True to his libertarian beliefs, Paul used the old argument that the magic of the marketplace would prevent merchants from turning away business. But, as an African-American who is old enough to remember having to sleep in the family car on long trips — in the South and the North — after being turned away repeatedly from hotels and restaurants, I have a sharply different view.

But mere ignorance does not deter the rightsplainers. They just keep on talking.

I could not have said it better! And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…

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The Facade of the American Dream

This video is a true depiction of the African American Diaspora explaining how America removed Africans from their country of origin. Working them to death as slaves to build a nation through brainwashing and terror to make believe they are inferior in every aspect. Moreover, this video will cause you to, hopefully, see our world through our eyes.

You can take my life but you cannot take my soul. And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…

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