By IsisWisdom
I was reading a post from Dr. Boyce Watkins about how he noticed that when he wanted to point out the facts on the Tom Joyner morning show concerning the Heather Ellis case, Tom was very short and pretty much attempted to deflect the real problem at hand concerning her case which is Wal-Mart.
Probably because Wal-Mart is one of Tom’s biggest sponsors for his radio show. The thing that is so disturbing to me is that I can’t really say that I’m mad at Tom. I mean after all he worked hard to get to where he is today and he is very successful. I will say what price do you pay to continue to maintain your success? Is it worth a human life that is at risk? I have always really wanted to know and understand the major gap of why media outlets ran by blacks would only talk about certain issues to a point and then it really dawned on me.
When I see how the music is being played on the radio on a repetitive basis, black radio hosts deflecting in major serious cases, lack of truth getting out there to the public as it should, bad production with predominant black owned media outlets or lack of shows that show substance it would make one wonder is this a conspiracy?
Not only is this seen in this realm but also very much in hip-hop. Let’s take XXL for instance, at one point time XXl should have been called the Interscope magazine. When 50cent was on top of his game with G-unit, they were on their covers 6 times out the year. Leaving very little room for any artist in the south to get any kind of major recognition. When Benzino, former owner of the source came out and pointed out these facts, nobody wanted to acknowledge it from him, due to his own ego getting in the way, with his differences he had with Eminem.
Clearly mainstream corporate influenced media is very questionable these days right on down to our own community activist. The people that we look up to and listen to every morning and support. African Americans have always had a history of supporting, but I’m not sure if they really know exactly what they are supporting. Let me give you an excerpt of what Dr. Boyce was saying that is going on with the Heather Ellis case.
“I think poor Tom got real nervous when he realized that Walmart can easily be implicated in this situation. Walmart is one of his most significant corporate sponsors, and no one bites the daddy who feeds them. The problem, however, is that it was a Walmart employee who refused to serve Heather, a Walmart employee who called the police, and several Walmart employees on the affidavits filed in the case. Additionally, my assistant Shauntay told me that Walmart employees as far as Memphis have been told not to even speak on the case, and according to Heather’s parents, all of the Walmart employees involved in this incident have been transferred out of the store.
Some have called for an all-out boycott of Walmart, but I have asked that Walmart use its influence to make this situation go away. We all know they could probably do it if they chose to do so. If you’d like to write a letter or make a call to Walmart on this issue, please click here.
I must confess that I’ve rarely been this serious about anything in my entire life. We have received word from the Justice Department that this is NOT a safe place for us to go. They do not feel that the rally is going to be peaceful, and there is a great deal of KKK activity in the area. Town officials are anticipating our arrival and the Justice Department has also informed us that the city police have stated that they are not going to guarantee our safety. Additionally, Walmart has threatened to tow every single car in their parking lot that does not have a tag for Dunklin County. To say that this is a hostile environment would be an understatement.
There have been other interesting developments in the case: Heather’s original prosecutor, Stephen Sokoloff, has resigned from the case in response to public pressure. However, the new prosecutor, Morley Swingle, has a picture of a Confederate flag on the cover of his book. I am not sure if a man could be expected to fairly prosecute a Jewish citizen if he had a Swastika on the cover of his book, but I guess for black folks, the rules always change”.
Now based on that alone at what point do the African American leaders or so called known radio personalities or people in the public eye step up and say ok enough is enough? While this man may not know Heather Ellis, the disconnection from us as a whole would have lead us to believe that it’s really nobody that we personally care about. She is not my family so why should I risk my millions for her? But the truth of the matter is what this does is send out a strong message to African Americans that we are completely disconnected from each other as a collective and were subconsciously fooled in to believing it can never happen to us or touch us on a personal level. Corporate America has a strong message to all African Americans in the lane of success and it goes something like this: “To you the African Slave, we run you, you said that you wanted to have my home, we gave you A mini mansion. You said that you wanted to have my car and we gave you a Rolls Royce. You said that you no longer wanted to financially struggle and we gave you a multi-million dollar a year budget in corporate sponsorships and endorsements.
The stipulation is,you can’t talk about any wrong doing that we do, no matter the involvement we may have or how unfair we treat one of your own. You see we own all of you, we fund the money to the private prisons and we also fund those judges, and police departments. Whether or not you realize or not you are the same slave that Heather Ellis is except you live in what I gave you in comfort, and as long as you are on my payroll or lap I own you. So you just continue to play along ya hear?
While you may be getting on a bus like Negroes did back in the 1960′s with Dr King. We are at a critical stage of forceful liberation. We prayed and and things got much worse because, religion taught us that we have to forgive our oppressors so they just keep being proactive and doing what they do best. I just want to know at what point do we become proactive like them?
So there you have it the ugly truth about the role of corporate sponsored driven media and it’s effects on African Americans. To hear the Tom Joyner interview with Dr Boyce and Roland Martin listen below.
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