Dear Dr Boyce Watkins - The Loss Of The Black Press From The Hands Of The Black Community Was Seen In The Content Of The Printed Pages Long Before Evidence Showed Up On The Ownership Papers

Dr. Boyce: Ebony’s Sale Is Latest Black Media Ownership Giveaway

Dear Dr Boyce Watkins:

I guess it goes without saying that your ideology and perspective on certain key issues differs from mine.
It should be understood that only our favored methodology is different while our desired outcomes are likely exactly the same.

To you the sale of shares of Johnson Publishing is a loss for the 'Black Community' because of its storied history as the purveyor of news about and into "the Black Community".

For me - as a long time consumer of the news from these sources - I have detected the loss of these once grand publications several years ago.  As I grew more clear about my personal believes and then collected more data about the environment around them I noted that the editorial bias in these main-line Black magazines were increasingly out of alignment with my own views.   I began to allow my subscriptions to these magazines laps.  When I had the choice to check boxes for a new collection of discounted magazine subscriptions I began to support magazines that were more compatible with my interests and which didn't have content that scratched my sensibilities.

• The imagery that the Ebony magazine that I read 3 years ago as I was in the basement of a family friend in which I was made to believe that "hand guns with feet" affixed to them are running down the streets of our communities, killing Black people.  We must stop the....................GUNS from killing Black people - so said Ebony.
• In the present edition of Ebony they focus on the present condition of the city of Detroit.  As faithful progressives their choose to provide evidence of the hope that exists today and the plan of action for a better future.   Unlike the framework that we would likely hear about the pre-Civil Rights South - Ebony did not see fit to do an expose' on the forces which converged to motivate the Black population to exit the city to find a more favorable place to live elsewhere.  If the results are the same - A mass Black exodus - then why aren't these forces treated equally - especially when the forces in Detroit enjoyed mass popular appeal by Black people when they were chosen to lead the local institutions?  If Ebony is intent on ensuring that this will never happen again - shouldn't they be willing to be more transparent in their analysis of how it all happened?

To be sure, Dr Watkins - of course it is ME who is the outlier with respect to the bulk of the Black community.    I am not so sure that me being "different" is equal to me being "wrong". 

People confuse "popularity" as denoting evidence of truth and correctness.   In truth it often indicates complicity, with a sufficient group of people providing the circular reference about their affirmations to make it an "accepted truth".

In our community at this time we are in need of a major shake up.  That which has been massively agreed upon has far too often not proven to be the fix that we were sold on the front end.  With the dutiful Black press providing the "circular reference" that I spoke of above - the impression that we have indeed received a fix for our community - or that which they line up as the focus of our future struggle is perpetuated in every edition.

The Importance Of The Black Press

Though I still need to convert this "Black Establishment" picture into a model of "The Black Racial Services Machine" - please make note of the entity that I place as supreme over all others - THE BLACK PRESS.

This one institution has the power to bring all others in check.
They are the one who have the video tape recordings of he PROMISES made to the Black Community about the benefit that we will receive if we invest our valued assets into their respective containers.   When the Black Press loses its consciousness of its purpose and instead of checking these other entities - it become a MARKETING MACHINE, providing cover, allowing the dysfunction to be perpetuated - then, in my opinion - the "ownership" of the Black Press from a financial standpoint is irrelevant to compromised state that is detectable in its content.

Compromises for short term advantage has proven catastrophic for the long term position of the Black press.   

Dr Watkins - have you thought ahead yet as to what will be necessary to repair the relationship between the Tom Joyner clique and the Tavis Smiley clique after Obama leaves the scene?

Of course the answer is that the INSTITUTIONS IN BLACK AMERICA will need to be rechristened, made to recommit to their original purpose of representing the permanent interests of the Black community.  Reporting the truth about our community when others slander us.   In my view, however, external slander and internal misrepresentation as part of a protection racket are the same violations.  Both lack veracity in their reference to the real world within.

More important than your long term desire for the Johnson family to retrieve all shares of the company back into their hands needs to be the quest for them and an other entity that claims the mantle of "Black Press" to restore their commitment to transparency and integrity in their reporting about our community.  The majority of them are merely ideological operatives fused to the "American Political Domain".