Inside The Loop
Tavis Smiley's 'Stand' offers black men a rare media role
By: raechal (follow this member)
Fri, 05/29/2009 - 00:00
We've talked a lot about stereotypes of blacks, especially black women, in the mainstream media and entertainment during the last couple months at TheLoop21.com. This week, Tavis Smiley's new documentary film, Stand, offered a glimpse at the other side — black men.
It gave the kind of look at black men that you'd be hard-pressed to find in mainstream pop culture. Some of the most famous black thinkers, including Michael Eric Dyson, Cornel West, Eddie Glaude and Dick Gregory, joined Smiley on a road trip to Memphis, Tenn., the city where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 40 years before their journey.
On the way, they talked about music, a lot about music — check out the conversation below about Beyonce vs. Aretha Franklin — and about Barack Obama, who had just become the Democratic Party's nominee for president.
In case you missed the premiere of Stand on TV One, find out where you can catch it at the official Web site. I recommend it, especially for people looking for more than the usual, mainstream media take on black men.
Smiley and his friends faced some tough moments, especially when they watched Dyson and his brother, who's in jail, in an interview for CNN's Black in America series. The brothers answered Soledad O'Brien's question about why one of them was in a cell and the other was headed to a book signing by saying Michael Eric Dyson had been given the tools to create that future for himself, while his brother hadn't.
They questioned, honestly, whether Obama's approach to the 2008 presidential campaign — being a "post-racial" candidate and breaking out of the mold of leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who eagerly and often talk about race — was too much for too little in return.
Of course, the group also took on the subject of King and other leaders, leaders who were also black, but leaders first and foremost, and asked where blacks and this country should go from here.
As the National Urban League reported in 2007, black males are "disproportionately worse off than white men, on many levels." Those levels include education, incarceration, economics, health and more. According to the report, compared to white males:
- Black men are more than twice as likely to be unemployed and earn 75 percent as much a year
- Black men are more than seven times as likely to be incarcerated and their average jail sentences are 10 months longer
- Black men 15-34 are nine times more likely to die in a homicide and are almost seven times as likely to have AIDS
But Stand didn't dwell on the struggles, and it wasn't preachy. The movie was more like hanging out for a while with some guys who've been friends for a long time and respect each other's opinions, even if they don't always agree. The part where Dyson impersonated King made me laugh just like it did the men on the bus.
I'd like to see more films and shows like Stand, that allow us to see more black men in a role they're so rarely allowed to play — thinker, leader, sensitive family member and friend.
And no, the media frenzy surrounding President Obama is not enough. The coverage of one person, no matter your politics or your view of him, can't make up for the lack of positive images of black men everywhere else.
Raechal Leone is TheLoop21.com's senior editor. She writes the Inside The Loop blog.
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