One from the Vault 2017: Mob Therapy and the destruction of the African American sense of family

Many Americans watch reality shows but if you are in the Bluff long enough you are living a reality show except there aren’t any cameras (that you know of except police and security cameras) and you are not making any money. Just last week there were three incidents in the Bluff community that would have made Oprah, Dr. Phil and Iyanla (in no particular order Iyanla) salivate. They would feel like “it would be a good show to get inside your heads and see your past and pain and why you act the way you act”. It would make a good show or episode.

There is an Oprah/Dr. Phil/Iyanla side of the commoditization of American social dysfunction and there are the Maury Povich, Steve Wilkos and Bill Cunningham sides that are not even making pretenses to heal the situation and are simply being exploitative. People fight and hoot each other down on these shows. A composite mob that executes immediate justice by shouting down the ‘combatants’ on stage before the lights and cameras; passing judgment on them by calling them fat, ugly, absurd, etc. if the mob in the TV audience has determined that is what they deserve. This mob mentality of dispensing immediate condemnation and justice so frequent in American society it was echoed in the Donald Trump campaign too. At one time in America Democracy (with a capital D) and Mob justice were not seen as the same thing, now they are. My first sensibilities of this nihilistic trend in White American politics was the famous political rally where the conservative crowd when asked whether or not a man needing treatment should die because he didn’t have insurance chanted “let him die, let him die”. At the time I didn’t know working middle class Black America would get in on the fun.   

50 years from now I can imagine the Black people of that day will look back at the African American presence in the 2017 postmodern media from an Academic perspective. An enterprising African American studies professor at Morehouse in the year 2067 will show his wards a clip from a talk show circa 2016 as a teaching point about early 21st century African American culture. It will be the Maury Povich, Steve Wilko or Bill Cunningham’s show. There are baby mamas and potential baby mamas depending on the outcome of pending lie detector and DNA tests. In the clip shown to Morehouse class Steve Wilko, a white man is standing between a young Black man and his present baby mama on one side and on the other side there is his other baby mama and her new baby daddy. The two sides are standing up arguing and Wilko is in between them arms splayed wide trying to keep the two baby mamas apart. The old baby mama is being restrained by her present or most recent baby daddy. One of the reasons the old baby daddy is upset is because his daughter calls the new baby daddy – Daddy. Notwithstanding how long he plans to or realistically thinks he can be around, the new baby daddy encourages the child to call him Daddy and is proud of the fact because it makes the previous baby daddy look bad, i.e. disses him. 

Periodically in the clip they physically fight on stage and when they are not at each other’s throats they are hurling the most mean spirited and completely untactful insults at one another. They are calling each other things and making allegations about things that common sense should tell you that you should not talk about your child’s parent that way in public for the child’s sake. In this Black Images in the Media (1990-2020) class where this clip is being shown, the professor will end the clip and not comment. Then he or she will say “I want you to do an essay titled ‘What is Wrong Here?’. Even today, without 50 years of hindsight these talk shows are so wrong. But in 50 years those Black people will look back on it like we look at Amos n Andy, Steppin Fetchit and minstrelsy today.

The ubiquitous nature of it and how much of daytime television is filled with such programming will shock Black people 50 years from now in this class at Morehouse 2067. The assumption will be made that this must have appealed to Black people and to some degree whites too that this type of programming and the frequency of Blacks on it is so significant. It is on day in and day out; chairs flying, raucous portrayals of the lives of the urban Black poor (the white poor as well-because of course white folk are no longer racist) live and in color on big screen TVs in homes all over America. Technology has shrunk the size of TV’s to the thickness of a cell phone and while the quantity of programming has increased a thousand fold, I have my doubts as to how much the quality of television programming has increased. 50 years from now these students will wonder how we present post-modern Black people didn’t recognize the insidious minstrelsy and derogatory nature of these programs and how we and Al Sharpton could have tolerated such a thing. 

One of those students of the future’s essay will include a passage on the state of the Black family in post-modernity as evidenced by the Talk Show clip and how these types of familial situations were caused by very real problems that needed attention. That problem is 70% out of wedlock births and the dynamics of all these sexual relationships going around that produce babies and perhaps even have something to do with HIV infection rates and other rates of sexually transmitted diseases. The guests (guests-what an irony) being exploited on these talk shows are going through real issues; how do we all live together after the fact of all of these mixed sexual relationships and their effects on our children’s home, school and community lives? Of course any adult knows that in the best of situations family life can be really messy. Even without confused and mixed up paternities and other relationship baggage families are prone to a kind of messiness. These are very real situations in Black urban life and the silence of the Black church, the silence of traditional civil rights era organizations and the silence of Black elected officials is deafening! These are very serious situations in urban communities all over America and apparently the only venue there is for these persons to “work it out in” is a Talk Show where fighting is encouraged and rude insults from the audience is applauded. It takes health insurance, financial wherewithal and transportation wherewithal to get help from actual family therapists and counselors or even in some senses the Church. In lieu of Black folk having access to those things lets just throw them on a talk show for “Mob Therapy” which more often than not is a treatment plan of insults and mockery. Audience members don’t know the real situations of the guests. They are given stereotypical caricatures of real people and then the white host encourages them to offer “helpful advice” disguised as insults and ridiculous criticisms like “you are too fat, too ugly and too ignorant to talk about someone else”. The audience members should ask themselves why they were dumb enough to buy (or desire tickets) to a show where the entirety of the show is devoted to someone you think is so “dumb” and “ugly” that you can’t wait for your opportunity to stand up and insult them on national television. What joy do you take in insulting them or does it give you a sense of satisfaction to criticize people whose levels of dysfunction are or seem to be greater than yours? These families need practical help. They need lots of therapy (if you’re only going to acknowledge the secular route) and maybe even more importantly they need Jesus (religion generally); instead we make them the star attraction in at best a three ring circus; at worst a freak show.

Another student’s essay will examine the political dimensions of the Talk Show clip. He or she will ask why there is a white man host and is that perhaps symbolic of something? Could they not find a Black host to deal with these urban Negroid problems? Or is it a political statement from the white mainstream to have a white host, hosting Black pathology? Is that not symbolic of the way white America views our community? In his campaign Donald Trump asked what Black people have to lose in supporting him considering that (our) schools are messed up and our communities are filled with violence. Are white folk showing the world “what they have to deal with”? Is this white people silently answering questions many in the international community have about why Black people still are 2^nd class citizens in post-modern America? Is this white people saying “it is not our fault this is why their communities are so violent and we must police the hell out of them and lock them up in droves”? See how they fight at the drop of a hat on television…they do this all the time that’s why WE have so many police in their communities and schools and why we can’t hire enough police for them. Is this the white man saying “they cannot control themselves; I the white man have to be the authority and stand between them keeping them from ripping each other’s heads off on national television over some bullshit”? “If I wasn’t stepping between them, judging between them, these niggers would be at each others throats. Is the white man circa 2017 not saying to the world “look, this is why I must rule them and be the authority; see they need me to keep them from killing each other”? You can guess what chaos would ensue if they were really free or if we GAVE them real freedom. Of course the next obvious conclusion for white people and people of other races watching Black people on television like this is “God forbid people like this ever became the head of me or ever moved next door to me”? These shows are a quite insidious way to reinforce white supremacy. I hear the naysayers saying “but white folk are on these shows too”? Of course, but it’s not a political statement to mock white people. Considering the past 500 years of North American history we have been mocked the whole time. But this new quiet mocking due to the political consequences of mocking us overtly (the rise of PC Culture) is different. White folk used to put on Blackface to mock us. Then they paid us to act how they would ‘act’ like us in Black face. And now white folk use money to simply select Black people to put on TV or lift up who are good at performing the stereotypical, caricatured narrative of Black dysfunction and pathology and for money we willfully, freely and purposefully do it. That is also my take on why white folk loved the movie ‘Precious’ too.