'The Wire' Calls Out Destructive Culture

Show Unmasks 'New Black KKK' Role in Genocide
Alex Haley’s TV miniseries "Roots" set Nielsen Ratings records, won numerous awards and made the whole country take part in an uncomfortable-but-healthy conversation about race and racism.

For a lot of people, "Roots I" and "Roots II," released in 1977 and 1979, put the Black condition in context for the first time. It was largely a story about what institutionalized, white racism did to black folks and how one black family chose to fight it.

America, it seems, takes great satisfaction and perverse pleasure in watching black people battle systematic disenfranchisement imposed by white people.

We apparently have little interest in watching or learning about how black people participate in their own disenfranchisement.

Yes, this is AOL Sports, but I told you at the outset that Real Talk would stray into more important areas than sports. We want to be a vehicle for change, a place that sets the standard for honest, intelligent conversation about the issues that separate us.

Today I want to talk about my favorite TV show – "The Wire" – because it chronicles a self-imposed enslavement, and it’s being ignored by viewers and the Emmys. Worse, David Simon’s powerful HBO series about black youth caught in America’s war on drugs and our collective indifference to the bloodshed has sparked little healthy conversation.

"The Wire" details a genocide in poor black communities that in some ways is much sadder than anything in Haley’s epic. Roots focused on Kunta Kinte’s legacy of fighting back against the oppressor. The Wire meticulously details that political forces, black and white, work in conjunction with what I like to call the new Ku Klux Klan (black gangstas) to keep black youth uneducated, strung out, parent-less and unprepared for a life that doesn’t include prison bars and a same-sex life partner.

Like Haley’s Roots, Simon’s Wire, especially season 4, should be hailed on the cover of Time, analyzed on Nightline and discussed on Oprah’s couch.

Instead, we’re ignoring it because black people are embarrassed by it and still think the solution to our problems is the responsibility of a white daddy. White people are ignoring the discussion because they don’t want to appear racist and they don’t want the responsibility of fixing a problem they acknowledge white racism created but they know has a black-led-and-created solution.
It’s on us. Begging white people to give us jobs and wallowing in victimhood won’t stop black men from going to jail at an alarming rate or slow incredible divorce and child-illegitimacy rates or improve our performance in school.

If begging white people to take care of us worked, Jesse Jackson would be president and Michael Jackson would be the First Lady.

What will work is a sea of change in black American culture. We’ve lost our inner Kunta Kinte. Too many young (under 45) black men and women are on the payroll of the new Ku Klux Klan. Oh, Klan wages are high. A talented rapper can make a fortune sucking on the N-word like a Tic Tac at an onion buffet and promoting crack dealing to single black mothers. And TV networks are passing out phat contracts to black men and women willing to Flavor Flav and Nat X for dollars.

But just because I understand the temptation doesn’t mean the submission to it is any less repulsive. The white guys under the white hoods succumbed to the exact same temptations. There’s money and power in exploiting the poor, selling self-hate to black people and maintaining a permanent underclass.

What I don’t understand is why we’re disturbed by white Klansmen and unmoved by black ones.

It’s like we went back to the future and awakened to a world where black people are the oppressors of black people – call it “Black To The Future.” The KKK used to ride in the middle of the night, snatch strong black men from their families and beat and/or lynch them.

In episode 5 of "The Wire," David Simon illustrated how the new black KKK operates much like the traditional Klan, snatching strong black men in the middle of the night. Chris and Snoop, enforcers for drug kingpin Marlo Stansfield, strolled down a dark alley to recruit Michael Lee, a natural leader, a good kid who looks out for his little brother. Chris made the sales pitch. Snoop backed it up with some intimidating words. And then Chris handed Michael money.

We don’t yet know which direction Michael will go. The season is only half over, but Simon has foreshadowed the inevitability of Michael’s decision. His mother is strung out on crack or heroin. At age 14, he’s already responsible for his little brother. One of his best friends, Namond Brice, is being raised by a mother who is forcing him to become a dope dealer and a behind-bars father who was a pathological killer for the old drug kingpin Avon Barksdale. Michael’s other best friend, Randy Wagstaff, lives with a foster mother and is prone to making horrible decisions in pursuit of money.

If you watch "The Wire" and understand the reality that’s being depicted, you’re forced to wonder why black people tolerate the hip hop music that celebrates and glorifies the drug-dealing and anti-education culture.

We’re celebrating our own genocide!

We’re promoting a culture that is destroying us!

I can’t believe we’re not watching and talking about "The Wire." It’s the most important TV show about the condition of disenfranchised American blacks since "Roots."

As comforting as it is to blame our woes on white people, we must break that debilitating habit and deal with our own contributions to our murder, divorce, incarceration and illegitimacy rates and our collective failure in school.

They are not byproducts of skin color. They’re a byproduct of a culture of self-hate. No doubt institutionalized racism ignited the American black culture of self-hate. Only we can stop it.

Stopping it begins with standing against the black KKK, the people turning a profit by selling black buffoonery and criminality. Stopping it begins with recognizing we truly control our destiny.

Stopping it begins with having a real discussion about what we’re doing to ourselves. "The Wire" is putting it out there for everyone to see. Why ignore it?

By Jason Whitlock AOL
http://sports.aol.com/whitlock/_a/the-wire-calls-out-destructive-culture/20061013131409990001