Discuss race honestly? No, we’ ll stick to our prejudices

[Aptrgangr]

Discuss race honestly? No, we’ ll stick to our prejudices

Let’s not cynically dismiss the importance of black role models

Clive Davis

It’s all too easy to strike a pious note when talking about the importance of role models. There’s always a temptation for media commentators to fall into the trap of overestimating the influence our industry exerts on society at large.
Life moves to its own mysterious rhythms. The United States has seen a stunning transformation in the way African-Americans are portrayed in the media. Stepin Fetchit, the movie stereotype of the servile, simple black man, and “coloured” people in general, have been shown the door, Oprah Winfrey is a stupendously wealthy goddess of the small screen, and one of Homer Simpson’s drinking buddies is a black guy called Carl. Yet the level of violence in inner-city ghettos has shown a marked reluctance to pay any heed to these well-meaning changes.

So it’s easy to see why some will react cynically to the new Department for Communities report. Written by the independent Reach project, the report calls for renewed efforts to create more positive influences for black teenagers who are at risk of being drawn into our ever-burgeoning network of street gangs. It wants to shift the focus “from rap stars, sports personalities and celebrities to successful businessmen, lawyers and doctors”. “Role models” is one of those limp phrases that reek of dreary, well-intentioned social services seminars. Besides, all the role models in the world won’t make any difference if our city streets are patrolled by police officers who are too busy filling in forms in order to catch offenders. Nor will they be much use if the average child in Peckham has no hope of ever finding a decent job or going to school without being stabbed.

If the authors of the report really think one reform will change everything, then they are obviously doomed to disappointment. But let’s assume they are more more sophisticated than that. Hazel Blears, in any case, doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who has much time for politically correct bromides. What really bedevils any debate about race, culture and crime, here and in the US, is that many participants are happy to stay in their trenches.

So, to many on the Right, it is all a question of family discipline or the lack of it, while the default position of too many commentators on the Left is that it every problem can be wished away by the correct economic package. And a small but influential cohort of black commentators still plays the racism card as if nothing at all has changed in British society in the past 40 years. I remember being bored rigid by the “We’re British and we’re here to stay” mantra at black media gatherings 20-odd years ago. It’s depressing to find some people still echoing that line, as if white prejudice were all that mattered.
This is one of those subjects where the idea that a multitude of factors may be at work is very hard for some folk to digest. When I wrote a couple of articles expressing my view that, besides promoting some less than helpful attitudes to, er, social interaction, rap is the dullest and most overrated music on the planet, it wasn’t long before I received outraged e-mails accusing me of being a racist white multimillionaire. The correspondents had confused me with the Clive Davis, record mogul of advanced years, who foisted Whitney Houston on the world and who appears as a sugar daddy on American Idol. More to the point, I was accused of ignoring the role that social deprivation plays in fostering all sorts of pathologies.

Now, I’m as aware as anyone else that it’s the society, stupid. I simply assumed that we were free to discuss other factors that have led to social meltdown on Britain’s estates. Pop music has always played a part in stirring up the hormones of the young and carefree of all classes and persuasions: in the 1930s, a few social scientists were hard at work researching the connection between swing rhythms and juvenile erotic urges. (“Jazz” was originally a synonym for sex.)

What is surely different is that, thanks to technology and unbridled corporate muscle, hip-hop exerts a greater influence on the tastes and attitudes of its target audience — which, incidentally, grows younger by the year. Besides, the mores of mainstream society in the 1930s, as hypocritical as they may seem to us, provided a much stronger counterweight. To most of us denizens of hedonistic, debt-laden 21st-century Britain (I’m every bit as guilty as the rest) the Protestant work ethic is increasingly seen as something connected with the number of exercises that Ian Paisley does at the gym.
Fortunately, there is a new wave of black commentators who are willing to discuss the undiscussable. The columnist turned academic Tony Sewell was among the first to express some unfashionable home truths about the connection between the collapse of family networks, the role of the music industry and the rise of street violence. More recently, the West London community worker Shaun Bailey has proved that it is possible to be black, streetwise and a Conservative supporter. (That Labour has long enjoyed a near-monopoly on the race issue has helped nobody, least of all Labour voters.) In the US, the Rev Al Sharpton, a man who has built a career on opportunistic race-baiting, has finally redeemed himself with a campaign against the worst excesses of the hip-hoppers.

There is still a long way to go. Talking about a monolithic community seems increasingly self-defeating at a time when divisions between people of African and Afro-Caribbean descent are growing more intense. And as the number of mixed-race Britons (such as myself) expands, what constitutes “blackness” is increasingly hard to define.

And finally, more and more people may start to wonder whether a culture that makes such a fetish of machismo is worth celebrating quite so uncritically. A beleaguered minority of youth workers, church leaders and single parents needs help, not condescension from those of us who praise “vibrant”, multicultural Britain, but do our best to avoid living in it.

Discuss race honestly? No, we’ ll stick to our prejudices | Clive Davis - Times Online

Comments

Anybody sucessfull isn't drawing attention to their ethnicity because they wouldn't be sucessful if it was a factor they considered.
P.S. The best way to deal with prejudice is lots of interbreeding. I've done my bit.
Quijote, Marbella,


it could just be that 'black' culture does not lend itself particularly well to upward mobility, stability, or foresight. In the same way the German and Japanese cultures tend to rank highly in obedience, perhaps black cultures tend to rank low in obedience but high in risk appetite or low intelligence.

it could be that these traits are due to oppression from the white man. but why dont Asians and Orientals suffer in the same way?

Is it possible that black men, who commit 95% of all violent crime, are just born that way?

Finally, am i being racist, or just having a Darkus Howe moment?
Rowley, london,

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

I have the impression that blacks are portrayed in the American popular culture (movies, music, muzac) somewhat stereotypically. There are several types of blacks, almost every movie hero of dark skin fits into one of them.

But again, this is not only characteristical of the blacks. Indeed, the entire modern mass-"culture" seems to be revolving around several fixed types of people, each of them being characterised by certain typical behaviour and attitude towards life.

[Berrocscir]

I read this news story in the UK newspapers, one of which listed the names of black role models that they wished black british youth would look up to including MP David Lammy and athlete Linford Christie. What struck me is why do black youth need exclusively black role models, why can't they have white heroes?

Imagine the uproar if white youth were encouraged to adopt only white role models.

[bombadillo]

Originally Posted by Plethon

But again, this is not only characteristical of the blacks. Indeed, the entire modern mass-"culture" seems to be revolving around several fixed types of people, each of them being characterised by certain typical behaviour and attitude towards life.

Yes, this is a key function of mass culture: a finite number of character types, problem situations, "relationships," and attitudes. It is seen in its most egregious fashion in the US, which is literally drenched in media coverage. Authenticity and individuality become difficult unless one makes a conscious attempt to remain aloof from the media circus. Brushing race differences under the rug is just one of many tasks undertaken.

[Kernunnos]

Originally Posted by Berrocscir

I read this news story in the UK newspapers, one of which listed the names of black role models that they wished black british youth would look up to including MP David Lammy and athlete Linford Christie. What struck me is why do black youth need exclusively black role models, why can't they have white heroes?

Imagine the uproar if white youth were encouraged to adopt only white role models.

Race is part of identity. the monstrosity of the multicultural experiment lies also in this fact, in the denial of such simple truth that our ancestors knew well for centuries.

[Berrocscir]

Point taken. What I mean is it's as if the liberal establishment are encouraging racial separation by suggesting only black role models for black youth - separartion is something that they would strongly condemn, but by putting up racial barriers like this, this is, in effect what they are doing. Blacks are allowed to feel pride in their race - but woe betide whites!