Critics and Clowns

As season 3 of the Boondocks marshes on, there has been a wide range of reaction to the episodes thus far. I personally like what I've seen but can admit that something is off or at least seems to be missing from the previous 2 seasons. I do think at times the show seems to be more action then witty satire but not to a point that I can't enjoy. Others i know have much stronger views and that's cool.

My only question is why don't we apply these same standards a course the broad entertainment wise. We really do seem to pick and choice who can be low brow and ignorant vs who must entertain us with a certain degree of dignity.

I came across a blog expressing this similar view and felt I'd share it with y'all. Take a few mins. to read this and let me know what you think.

Hold Boondocks and similar vehicles to the fire, but while we’re doing that we need to hold all of our mainstream messengers of and to the black community to the fire as well.

Black folk love to talk about what our elite voices are or are not talking about. I personally took Rev. Jesse Jackson and other older leaders in the black community to task (with all due deference and respect) due to what I perceived as being out of touch with what the young black community needs and wants. Hell was raised when Bill Cosby criticized black parenting practices and lower class black folk back in 2004 and again in a book in 2007. We tend to get riled up when our thought leaders and scholars aren’t meeting our standards. But we’re usually disagreeing with the substance of the message, not the intent. We know they have our best interests at heart, even if personal gain and opportunity (Rev. Al Sharpton) may be perceived as more important than societal progress.

We should be questioning the intent of other messengers to and of our community as well though. Why don’t we criticize and analyze the actual messages in Hip Hop and R&B songs? Why don’t we argue that substance, and why doesn’t it rile us up? Why don’t we analyze and critique the quality and substance of black television and movie messages more? It seems as if the standard has dropped so low for the messages that are conveyed via our music and reality shows, that we don’t even think to call it to task anymore. Its just what we expect, and it doesn’t even cause debate. The closest we’ve gotten as of late was questioning the substance of Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3 lyrics, but that was mainly because of an intense infatuation with the Illuminati and Jay-Z’s possible connections to that and devil-worshipping. When Frankie and Neffe are given an even more ghetto spinoff of an already ghetto reality show, we don’t even bat an eye. It seems like Flavor Flav and Ray-J have gotten a combined 27 shows from VH1, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a lot of coonin’, shuckin’, and jiving (not to mention begging, crying, and casual sex).

The Entire Piece can be read here....