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• Archived Blog Post

  Date / Time: 11/18/2007 9:06 PM UTC

  Minister Paul Scott said that DJs, radio host should stay in thier place and not try to be activist.
  

  The Rise of Radio Revolutionaries:
  
  March on Washington 2007
  
  Min. Paul Scott
  
  "We need to raise up our readership so that our
  children can grow up and freely lead without readin' a
  script.
  
  KRS from X-Clan's "Speak the Truth"
  
  The other day I was listening to Malcolm X's classic
  speech "Message to the Grassroots" and his critique
  (OK, diss) of the "Big Six" Civil Rights Leaders after
  the 1963 March on Washington.
  
  http://www.american rhetoric. com/speeches/ malcolmxgrassroo ts.htm
  
  I wonder what Bro. Malcolm would say about the March
  on Washington 2007 ?
  
  "Oh, I'll tell you, Brothers and Sisters. They were
  gathered to do some damage. They wanted some action!
  Yes! They wanted change, not tomorrow, not next week
  but today! But just as soon as the crowd was about to
  get busy and really take care of business, some DJ
  yelled for Juan D to play some old Hip Hop record and
  the whole crowd stopped marchin' and started doin' the
  'crank dat souldier boy.' I'll tell you, you've been
  had, tricked, bamboozled.. ."
  
  Don't get me wrong. I ain't mad at anyone takin' a
  stand against injustice, miseducation or even why gas
  is so darn high. But anytime that entertainers get
  thrust to the front of the black leadership line. I
  have to ask some questions.
  
  Now, I never claimed to be a straight A student in
  school but even I know the difference between a radio
  host and a revolutionary.
  
  This is not to say that you can't be both. Local radio
  hosts were often the catalyst for change in
  communities across the country. They saw it as their
  civic duty to wake the people up with information as
  soon as their alarm clocks went off at 6AM. There are
  many stories about radio hosts who have sacrificed
  their jobs and risked their lives by bringin' on
  guests or discussing topics that were too hot to
  handle.
  
  But that was an era long gone, before the corporate
  take over of local radio, as thoroughly broken down by
  Glen Ford's article at
  http://www.blackage ndareport. com
  
  I know this ain't 1969, the height of the Black Power
  Movement, when black folks were gettin' their heads
  cracked on a daily basis and many of us are too young
  to remember that period. So, the point of reference I
  am using is the Hip Hop version of the Black Power
  Movement 1988-1992. That is the closest, in the last
  20 years, that entertainment and activism have come
  together for collective change.
  
  Now some may argue (and rightly so, in some cases)
  that all that period produced was a bunch of paranoid
  black folks who were too scared to go to protest
  rallies because they thought that government
  satellites would beam death rays down from space and
  vaporize them. Or a bunch of middle class Buppies who
  "used to be conscious" in college who now justify
  their comfortable, apolitical, corporate lives by
  endlessly talking about "The Spook that Sat By the
  Door."
  
  But that ain't everybody. Some are still fighting the
  fight like the "Cease the Fire" Movement.
  
  http://www.myspace. com/freeallpolit icalprisoners
  
  What is most disturbing is when this new commercial
  radio radicalism (which came as a direct result of the
  powers- that -be realizing that black internet
  bloggers could put heat on racists like Don Imus
  without "Civil Rights" leaders) takes the place of
  grassroots community based activism.
  
  According to Kenneth O'Reilly in his book "Black
  Americans: the FBI Files," in 1966 Atty General
  Nicolas Katzenback wanted to create a militant but
  peaceful organization which could compete with SNCC
  around the same time the organization was becoming
  pro-black under the leadership of Kwame Ture (Stokely
  Carmichael)and then Jamil Al-Amin.
  
  Kinda like revolution-lite.
  
  Now am I suggesting that the radio hosts should should
  arm the marchers with machine guns and swear them in
  as members of the Black Panther Party ?
  
  No.
  
  But the key is to play your role. Stay in you lane.
  As as George Clinton would say "Don't fake tha Funk."
  (Shout out to the Ol' School"
  
  I just don't think that a DJ who won't even break
  format to play "Behind Enemy Lines" by Dead Prez will
  be the first one to toss a Molotov cocktail. Maybe
  that is why many of them spend more time assuring
  their corporate sponsors that a demonstration will be
  "nonviolent" than they do explaining to the people why
  they are marching.
  
  We all know that there is a line of demarcation that
  entertainers dare not cross. A place where DJ's fear
  to tread: a land of taboo topics and banned
  Afrocentric scholars and researchers. They know that
  just beyond that line of demarcation is where the
  "real" fight begins.
  
  And they know that they have crossed that line when
  they begin to raise the collective consciousness of
  their millions of listeners and their corporate
  sponsors begin pulling commercials.
  
  When you have millions of listeners that don't know
  who George and Jonathan Jackson are and think that
  COINTELPRO is the new cell phone that Verizon has
  coming out next month , therein lies the problem.
  
  Until we replace the "Joke of the Day" with the "Fred
  Hampton Speech of the Day," no matter how many marches
  we have,to quote Chairman Fred we will be left with:
  
  "Answers that don't answer, explanations that don't
  explain and conclusions that don't conclude."
  
  For more information on the Books or Bullets Movement
  go to http://www.booksorb ullets.com
  
  Min. Paul Scott's blog is
  http://www.nowarnin gshotsfired. com He can be reached
  at (919) 451-8283 info@nowarningshots fired.com
  
  
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