In Black America; Dr. William Cox

name. From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. I don't believe there's anyone here who doesn't realize that we are facing a very serious crisis among black males, not only in education but in employment and virtually every facet of American life.

I'm sure that many of the principal speakers in workshop presenters have already touched upon some of these concerns and have left no doubt that we are indeed in crisis. If I could slightly modify Dr. Ford's campus theme, I believe I would add the word young. The crisis of young black males in higher education because as you are aware so often the problems for many black males begins in boyhood, it is early stages of black male development that we must address if we are to salvage what some already have dismissed as a doom generation. Dr. William E. Cox, president and co-founder of Cox, Matthews, and Associates Incorporated. No one would argue the power of the media in this country or for that matter in any other country. But what has happened in this country is that the media has given out false images of African Americans.

As president and managing editor of the eight-year-old by monthly National News magazine, black issues in higher education, Dr. Cox is attempting to set the record straight in the area of higher education. Dr. Cox's magazine is received by every college and university in this country as well as a multitude of individuals, professional associations, corporations, and military installations. I'm Johnny O'Hanston, Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. This week, media managed image of black males with Dr. William E. Cox in Black America. Several years ago, when Frank Matthews and I decided to publish black issues in higher education, we understood the void and honest, accurate information about black society.

We understood how important it was to dismiss or discuss the concerns of black America and abroad human context. We knew that if this nation's education system was ever to begin to address what ails our community, it first had to realize that we were not merely a population of former slaves, that we were not some species of super-affiletic delinquent buffoons who sow purpose. And this society was to entertain white folks and keep undertakers, judges, and jealous away from the unemployment lines. We knew that. According to a study conducted by Louis B. Geying, Jr., an assistant professor of education at Transylvania University, most black male high school students have positive attitudes about academic achievement.

The study of five Jackson, Mississippi area high schools with different academic environments found that black males had a good attitude towards school. But for the most part, African-American males are having a tough go of it, especially young African-American males. When it's heard about the Angle and Flustration Young African-American males are experiencing, they are destroying themselves in record numbers. An African-American male has a 1 in 21 chance of being murdered before his 25th birthday, and homicide is the leading cause of death for African-American males 15 to 24 years of age. Last fall, the 7th National Higher Education Conference on Black Student Retention was hailed in Las Vegas to address the crisis confronting our young black men. The media has a lot to do with how we see ourselves and how others see us. Over the years, that picture has not been accurate. Dr. William E. Cox is attempting to present a more accurate portrayal of African-American life in this country through black issues in higher education.

Dr. Cox brought his vision on the crisis that African-American males are facing in this society. His address before the 7th National Higher Education Conference on Black Student Retention focused on media-managed image of black males, Dr. William E. Cox. The dropout rate among black boys is astronomical. And yes, our males are more likely to enroll in the state pen than in Penn State. And yes, drugs, alcohol, and violence are snatching up for too many of our young men. And we don't attempt to put a happy face on these glumb realities in fact, we had black issues is responsible for raising these concerns to a new level of American consciousness. But to present in isolation these snippets of the condition of black males, as the mainstream media have done, serves only to justify the failure of the American education system to educate our black male youngsters, who could blame schools for not graduation of

population of black boys who would rather sell high-profit drugs or took brutish and stupid to benefit from an education who could blame them. After all, this nation is spending more money on education than ever before. And the problems steadily intensify, therefore the problems must be with the black males, right? We're not entirely. You see, you and I know there is no excuse for the multitude of black boys who are written off by this society. So where does white American gains this knowledge of African Americans? Ironically, the people who know so little about us are self-appointed griots of the black experience. With Anglo image makers spaying daily photo sprays of handcuffed black men's, banners headline, decline, the rape, or yet another white woman by group of angry black savages, and the regular television news bite announcing, drug tough walls leave three youth dead in

DC, News 8.6. Is it any one of that the education system views our youngsters with such disdain? I don't quite remember, but I don't remember where I heard it, but fear has been described as false education accepted as reality. Fear, false education accepted as reality. The media have been, and to a large extent, continues to be the major source of mass education. There are also the promulgators of fear. They're largely responsible for the negative images of the black male that go mostly unchallenged. The negative stereotypes are such a viscerious part of our universe that eons and the legal slavery, justification for emotional, spiritual, social, and economic bondage remain a mainstay of our society. The images created to uphold an often immoral, unjust America, have been afforded the type of authenticity that makes it increasingly difficult to counter the fear that we face.

A most recent series of events in Dubuque hour presents us with a startling example of the harm brought by these media-managed images. Apparently, the wisdom of trying to colorize the city of Dubuque was met with violent reactions from some residents. Crosses were burns, and demonstrations were held. Dubuque is a city of 58,000 people, all that 331 are black. In the school system, there is one black elementary principal. At Dubuque Senior High School, there are 1,400 students, 10 of those students are black. At that school, there are no black teachers, no black counselors, no blacks in any position of authority. Students' questions were unable to identify Rosa Parks, Ralph Abernacke of Charles Drew.

They could identify, guess who, David Duke. Moreover, they freely and almost proudly acknowledge that they, and I quote, did not want to go to school with any blacks to know about them. We see them on the news every day, unquote. So we must be acutely aware that news reports are joined by television programs, radio shows, advertising, and the movie industry, and explaining black behavior, and explaining goals, establishing goals for our youth, and setting the limits of attainment for African Americans. Now, how effective have these images been? Well, I contend that the animalistic images of black males are largely to blame for the fact that black boys are more than twice as likely as a white counterparts to be suspended from schools, a place in classes for the mentally retarded.

I believe that many of the white judges who have had very little contact with black men's outside of the courtroom see them the way the media portrays them, a threat to society. I believe that if the police officers and prosecutors, who serve as that we pay, would debunk the media images and realize that black Americans are more likely to be victims than anyone else, they would be less abusive. In believing, it's no accident the George Bush was able to coast to a presidential victory on the winds of fear stirred up the scare that liven hell out of a white populace. That pretty much found in, I'm the president's black boogeyman named Willie Harden Palpable. The president's analysts, being as deaf and race politics as they were, knew full well that the white masses were vulnerable to such an attack. Because for generations, the American mass media had softened them up, so all the Ed Water and the gang had to do was move in for the kill.

Do caucus was pathetic? There's no way he could compete with that type of media image that had been displayed by the Republican Party during the last presidential election. And I would argue that it's not only these images of viciousness that lower exercise to expectation of the black males, but those images coupled with the steady representation of black males, only as comics are superhuman athletics or athletes, and give you a good example, Kansas City Chief running back Christian Akari, the Nigerian nightmare. Philadelphia former 76th Senator Derrick Dawkins, Chocolate Thunder, University of Maryland Trackstar, Renaldo Neomire, Schietz, these representations limit the scope of black potentialality. Unfortunately, confining the parameters of expectation for black achievements often result in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You can ask the average Senator Blackboard, what he wants to be when he grows up, and see dozen to question the list of typical response of basketball, a football player, a rap artist, or perhaps even a lover. And those responses shouldn't come as no surprise, because those who manage the image of black males in this society have done an efficient job, so an efficient job of letting young men know what they can be, or more honestly, what they can't be. The steady cartoon of black males in newspapers and magazines, television and movies and billboards and other types of advertisements are more potent than many people realize. And you can't imagine how potent a 30-second commercial is, and forming and shaping images. If Amos and Andy and Aunt Yamammer and Stephen Fletcher were part of the Regulant Television

program today, many of us have screened blood and murder. Now, wouldn't we? Well, I'm here to tell you that there's still part of our regular program, despite what men of us believe, on-screen evolution have been as dramatic as we would like to think. I challenge anybody in this room to identify, most of the black television shows where the characters are on a mission to make white folks laugh, name me one. Where are the black folks you and I know? The ones who get up and go to work every day. The ones who come home and hook their wife and their kids. The ones who grieve over the loss of a loved one. The ones who are struggling to make a positive difference in society. Where are they? Of course, we laugh, but isn't it about time we demand another expression, but besides a grand or laugh, we move from the mis-terror images of the turn of the century to the

so-called black-sportation films of the early sevenies to the knee-slap and imbecilic sitcoms of the late sevenies and eighties and early eighties such as Sanford and Son, and that's my mama in good times, and what's happening? The Jefferson and the list goes on and on and on. When George Jefferson was on the screen, I was always bothered by the fact that even George, even with George, they gave him money, they gave him an uptown apartment, they even gave him a maid, but they refused to give him the most important criterion for success. And that was intelligence. He was a richest jackass in town. And ironically, he was the only bigot in the neighborhood. Now I can clearly remember my own exposure to the paint for images of blacks as a very, very young boy.

It would be time for the Amos and Anne to show. He was a favorite of my parents, so why would I want to listen and learn? They liked it, so it was funny. You had the buffan and the black woman to put them in that place. Some of you are too young to remember, but we're talking about Amos and Anne, we're talking about Miss Alpha. But as time went on, that medium-managed image became less and less funny to me. They were right back to the Ministry of Images of yesterday with shows like Iraq and in the living color. And with the never-season-third of distant disco drums and half-naked, nubian rappers. Whenever I start to think about, to talk about in the living color in particular, I get challenged by people who argue that the shows produces a black, the actors and writers a black, that there are some positive messages that conform and that white folks have similar programs where they spoof themselves.

Well, let me tell you folks, blacks also had acting roles and mystery shows. And during the same period, there were white acts in which the actors spoof white society. Still the negative images of black folks complete with black face and exaggerated futures whereover women, on in living color, the most powerful images are of Omano and a third dress up like a crown. Those are the most powerful images that we have on in living color. But the real issue here, the real issue is one of balance. And that's what we don't have. This is, again, the slapstick and degenerate images of black men oppose an isolation. And that's our biggest problem. We're so limited. I got news for you. The subliminal injections of such messages is what a detached white society has nursed on.

And they serve as no motivation or no motivated for young black men. For the little white boys, on the other hand, the media have served them as the very best system and the ego booster that you can imagine. They grow up believing that they can be heads of states, or CEOs, or tycoons, bankers, lawyers, scientists, generals. And for those really ambitious white boys, they can be a 15-year-old medical doctor. They can fly faster than a speeding bullet, a man of spaceship, and save the universe from imminent destruction. They can transform into a crime-fighting Batman. They can replace agents as masters of the martial arts, or they can become Native Americans and dance with wolves, a resurface in five consecutive bouts to hook the butts off of every black, every way content on the planet. But why should we expect anything different? In my books, this white society has done a brilliant job of managing the images that are important to them.

They manage the images that are important to them. Of course, there are news shows that news reports of white people involved in improprieties. And there was aggressive coverage of George Bob, just as there was aggressive coverage of Clarence Thomas, and sure there are whites portrayed in less than flour in a comedic rose on television. But as the managers, white America has seen that there is a calabanum and how they are portrayed. For example, if a white artist is disgusted or offended by the images of a foul-masted caustic albunding, they can change the channel. And they can watch themselves portrayed more comfortably in one of the many happy television programs. Black folks don't even have one of our programmers a day on the major networks. But what are you going to turn to? The exaltation of white males and the castration of the black counterparts has given us, well, actually has been as calculated as having Turkey for next week's Thanksgiving dinner.

It's that calculated. And now granted, overt racism is no longer prevalent like it was a few decades ago. But today's media images of black men still emphasize the pathology of black behavior. Drugs, gangs, crime violence, poverty, illiteracy, teen pregnancy, to the complete exclusion of what many black folks see as normal everyday life. Obviously, the bottom line is, who's in control? Who runs and owns the media outlets? Who's doing the managing? Naturally these questions are important to me. And as I said earlier, we at Black Issues and Higher Education got sick and tired of letting those outside of our community define the black experience.

Just imagine the image of Jews in this society if a neo-NASA majority control their imagery. What if England was commissioned with the responsibility of explaining their Irish experience? How about if the Africaners were the sole commentators of the Black South African experience? Thank you, get the message. I'm the first to argue that we as black parents and educators must accept the greatest responsibility of what happens in our community. But I submit that part of that responsibility is actually challenging the constant bombardment of subliminal images that suggest black males are somehow incapable of being educated. Every day, the average American is exposed to roughly 2,000 television messages. By the time a child reaches the age of 18, he or she has been exposed to more than 356,000

television commercials and public services announcements. This is according to Dr. Marilyn Kern Foxworth, who is a professor of journalism at Texas A in University. But guess what? And you can hack those numbers up for black children because a recent news and study found that black households viewed 72 hours of television during an average week. Now that's 49 percent more than all of the households. Considering the fact that blacks comprise a miniscule proportion of television management, one answer would be to exercise our economic cloud, to push for fair representation in the front office. And we do have economic cloud. There was a time in the not-too-distant past when we used that cloud quite effectively. And today, well, African American comprised less than 13 percent of the U.S. population, we spend about $822 million a day on goods and services sold in this country.

$822 million a day, that's a lot of money. And we ought to do a lot better than we're doing with it right now. And I can also tell you from looking at the numbers of letters we get at black issues that we are a bit too complacent. Americans often slip up on the black community because we are remiss when it comes to forcing our concerns. We know we have a problem, but we don't talk about them. We don't say anything. We don't do anything. We do not let the public know what the service. We don't even know, let the public know the things that we like. So African Americans need to write more letters. We need to file more complaints with the Federal Communication Commission, more complaints with the network offices, more complaint with the local meeting outlets in our own communities.

If we are not pleased, if we're pleased, if you're pleased, we don't have to do nothing. But if we're not pleased, we need to start complaining. We need to let people know. The problem is that even when we know we have problems, that we tend to keep right on watching television, we tend to keep right on listening to the radio, we tend to keep on reading that same newspaper, no matter how much it offends us. Another obvious solution would be to unglue the remote control from our children's hand and replaceable for book, and ideally a book that includes African Americans and other people of color as part of the total experience. While the insensitive decisions newspaper often make about what pitches to run and where to place a story, and how heavy a hit launch would be, we must insist that more of the decision makers of African Americans.

Only 170 of the nation's 7,400 newspapers are black on, 170 out of 7,400. And only a fraction of the 150,000 public relations practitioners in this country are black. In 1991, we are less than a decade away from the target date set by the American Society and Newspaper editors to have minority employment in the media proportional to the nation's minority population. Now the numbers show that progress has been slow toward reaching this goal. Today, minorities make up less than 9% of the nation's journalists, and that's when I say minorities. I'm not talking about black folks, I'm talking about minorities, and if you break it down among ethnic groups, it's going to be even smaller. Of America's 1,600 daily newspapers, there are only 10 publishers of color, 10 out of 1,600

daily. Minors just comprise only 5.8% of management jobs in newsrooms. But in spite of that, there really is some encourage and news coming from our colleges and universities. Communications is a four fastest-growing discipline for black students. Out of the 11 disciplines that blacks have increased their proportion of representation in, communications ranks third. And the number of blacks with baccalaureate degrees and communications more than double in the past 10 years, 1,500 and 1,700 and 1,700 to over 3,000 in 1987. So there's reason for some type of hope. At the risk of sounding this, if I'm tuned my own horn, the fact that we are accepting

responsibilities for how blacks, as well as other people of color, are portrayed in the press, is what keeps black issues one of the most respective and sought-after publications of his kind. A grown audience are not only blacks, but whites as well as other racial and ethnic groups that come to appreciate what it is we're trying to do. And the honest is, on all concerned individuals, to press the mainstream press to provide similar insight, we're going to have to take up the responsibility of effect and change. Since black issues have come on the scene, we have seen our competitors take a more sensitive look at what has happened in our education. And I'm sure that many of you have recognized how we have set a new standard in reporting our minority education concerns. If you too demand, and I emphasize, demand that the media you patronize provide a more balance, a more honest and a more humane perspective of the total human experience, you will

make the counter-difference necessary to affect the way young black men fare in the classroom. Dr. William E. Cox, President and co-founder of Cox, Matthews, and Associates, Incorporated. If you have a question and comment regarding this program, write us. Remember views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or the University of Texas at Austin. I would like to acknowledge Florida and M. University and Dr. Kanita A. Ford for their assistance in the production of this program. Until we have the opportunity again for In Black America's technical producer, Cliff Hargrove, I'm John E. Johansson, Jr., please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America cassettes. Longhorn Radio Network, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. That's In Black America cassettes.

Longhorn Radio Network, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. From the Center for Telecommunication Services, the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn Radio Network. I'm John E. Johansson, Jr., join me this week on in Black America. Several years ago, when Frank Matthews and I decided to publish Black Issues in higher education, we understood the boy and honest, accurate information about Black society. Community-managed images of the Black male with Dr. William E. Cox this week on in Black America.