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Yukio
Newbie Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 13
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 04, 2004 - 06:52 pm: | 
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last night and tonight(9pm), and perhaps for the rest of this week, henry(skip)louis gates is hosting program called beyond the colorline...last night they did interviews of the black middle class in atlanta and the poor and working class in chicago. tonight, they're doing the east coast and the west coast.... |
Troy
Regular Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 27
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - 10:18 pm: |
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It has been a while since the program aired. What did you think about it?
I experienced a range of emotions parts were very funny. I had no idea Samuel L. was so funny and Cheadle with his crazy self.
The prison segment was depressing -- particularly when they walked by the holding pen with those brother caged up like animals. The scene in Robert Taylor Houses was equally depressing.
It was interesting to hear the older guy, in Chicago, describe how the more established middle class black folks essentially ostracized the newly arrived country folks, fleeing for suburbia (is there a term for reverse gentrification?)
Lenora Fulani was informative and appears to be doing meaningful work.
The segment about Atlanta was mostly boring.
After it is all said and done what purpose did the program serve? Are white people more educated about Black people? Are Black eople more educated about each other. Were there any solutions offered for any of the problems described? Was it purely voyerism as entertainment?
On one level I feel like the program was a waste of resources. Resources which could have been put to better use to serve the community.
On the other hand the program gave viewers a glimpse on how a range of the Black community feels about a range of issues relating to race. Perhaps this program could server as a platform for additional discussion, more meaninful discussion.
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Yukio
Regular Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 50
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 01:40 am: |
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Hmmmmm....
I don't know, Troy(of course i do).
As far as the movie industry is concerned, i think that it is entertainment and folk tryin to make money, so it is a wrap for black actors and actresses, except samuel l denzel and a few others.
The prison part was not depressing, but infuriating....Also, I think that focusing on interviews, although he premised the segment with what the "right" and "left" think, paints the picture that black people are primarily responsible for their plight.
Also, the older brother is not quite correct about the history...the first migrants during the war, his parents, generation were also ostracized....this is nothing new....but he also talked about the industrial changes, not just that blacks fled the community for the suburbs, which was an important insight....
Lenora Fulani...hmmmm....i think her work is important, but i wish that she was more articulate...she said something like she was teaching kids how to be white....now that is ridiculous....the type of knowledge that these kids gained is racial, since white folks have been historically privilged, but it is not racial in the sense that it is not something that is "genetic," also it reaffirms that assumption that being black is uneducated....or white is right and black is wack....can't these kids learn these same skills w/o her calling white?
I liked the Atlanta segment...it demonstrated what black folk have said all along....that we never wanted to live with white folk; we just wanted resources that woudl improve our life chances....desegregation not integration
Well, think the program was primarily educational...i think we are quick to answer things without doing the research to understand the situation. I can't say that i learned much....there are solutions out there....but really, black folks problem is both particular to us and general to the US....racism is still here, but proverty is everywhere....and as long as this country refuses to address both local and global issues, then there isn't much that can happen....consider folks jobs are going elsewhere....towns are devastated because their town and/or city was organized by a particular industry....all of these real issues that are beyong what we do must be addressed along with out individual practices... |
Cynique
Veteran Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 59
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 03:45 pm: |
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I saw this program on PBS and I assumed that sociologists/anthropologist Skip Gates received a grant to produce something that would give insight into the ongoing black experience.
I do agree that the old black guy from Chicago was not totally accurate in his statements. The black middle class never deserted Chicago in great numbers. Its members actually expanded into the upscale neighborhoods that whites abandoned for the suburbs. |
Yukio
Veteran Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 52
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 04:07 pm: |
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gates teaches english and/or the humanities....he has no background in understanding the material experience of society... |
Cynique
Veteran Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 61
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 04:44 pm: |
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All black people are unofficial sociologists when it comes to the black experience. And since Gates heads up the black studies department at Harvard he should certainly have the intellectual expertise to apply the principles of sociology when evaluating his own ethnicity. Just because he didnt major in Sociology doesn't mean he couldn't have taken some elective courses in it. His profession as an English teacher is certainly not what his claim to fame is. |
Yukio
Veteran Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 53
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 05:36 pm: |
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Ok love. We have to agree to disagree. There are so many "black" experiences...consider region, time, politics atmosphere, etc...There is a real difference to the experiences Gates experienced in West Virginia in the 60s and 70s and the particular political (integrationist) politics he was fed and those of us that grew up in an urban broke azz projects in the 70s and 80s and the politics that some of us was fed(black nationalist).
If we consider this beyond the colorline and his series on Africa, it is clear that he comes from liberal, middle class American who happens to be black position.
Well, you have hit the nail on the head(is that how it is said?)...within the academy he is known both as an English scholar(teacher is something else) and as the person who reinvigorated Harvard's Afican AMerican studies program...since he was able to allure West, Appiah, Wilson, and others there....though some have left in the last few years(West and Appiah). At the head of the program, therefore, he has been one to edit and collect knowledge of the black world, or what we can call the black classics...though i don't if he'll engage fanon or Khrumah...and his positions on Du Bois are not the radical Du Bois that meaning of us know of....in other words, he is a real academic....but not necessarily an intellectual....and perhaps less willing to really engage in a thorough analysis of these issues....I mean what can poor people tell us besides what they experience? Or what can anyone tell us if they haven't studied something....consider, people still think there is a such think as "race" and then those that know try to confuse the reality of "race" with the real, material condition of racism..... |
Yukio
Veteran Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 54
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 05:39 pm: |
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oops i meant Nkrumah(Ghana) and neocolonialism....or stokely and hamilton and internal colonialism....the difference is that these people understand "sociology" and "race" as a global pheonomena...even Oliver COx....Gates' politics are very different from these people or as you would say, sociologists... |
Cynique
Veteran Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 62
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 11:21 pm: |
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Well, I really don't feel qualified to speak further on Skip Gates' ability to take a sociological perspective on the world at large. And I do think our sticking point is the term "sociology". When you make politics a part of the equation, then you end up getting a hyphenated word like "socio-political" and this blurs the lines too much. So, yes, we should agree to disagree. |
Yukio
Veteran Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 55
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 12:54 am: |
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gotcha....
I think I abuse the term politics, since I don't use it in the formal sense, ie political parties, political organizations, and voting, etc....When i use the term, i often mean liberal, conservative, radical, black nationalist, Pan Africanists, etc....
This, i think, is quite different from socio-political, which characterizes the analysis(focusing on the interactions and links between social and political categories) instead of the analysts' position(liberal or radical or feminists), though they are not mutually exclusive. |
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