September 24, 2014 By
Over the past few weeks Hard Knock Radio
has been doing a series of interviews focusing on the state of Black
media. Such a series would not be complete without getting some critical
insight from long time freedom fighter and media justice advocate Bob Law. He is one of the Godfathers of Black radio and has never wavered in using the airwaves as a tool for liberation.
In our conversation, he gives a serious history lesson not just on
the evolution of Black Radio and the role it has long played in the
Black Freedom Struggle, but he also talked to us about how there has
been an attempt to remove, silence and erase any institutional memory of
Black militant and radical thought. Law painstakingly details how that
has been happening and breaks down the reasons why.
Law pinpoints much of this removal with the release of the 1972 Harvard Report, officially known as ‘Study of the Soul Music Environment‘
. This was a white paper commissioned by Columbia Records and done by a
group of Harvard Business students on how to take over the Black
independent music scene. Clive Davis was the head of
Columbia at that time. Law details how that report coincided with other
attempts in film and TV to eradicate, marginalize and ridicule strident,
politicized Black voice in the music and entertainment industry.
During our discussion, we play an excerpt from a speech given to Black music industry executives by Minister Farrakhan in 1979 who makes note of this change. That speech is contrasted with a speech Martin Luther King
gave to a similar body of Black music industry folks in August 1967,
where he heaped praise on them and emphasized that there would be no
Civil Rights Movement had it not been for Black Radio. The organization
he spoke to at that time was called NATRA (National Association of Television and Radio Announcers)
During our interview Law details what took place after King gave that
speech. He explained that NATRA was destroyed by white industry
executives who were concerned about their growing power and political
influence. That destruction and silencing has never stopped.
This interview is a serious history lesson from a pioneering figure who really knows his stuff.
https://soundcloud.com/mrdaveyd/hkr-09-22-14-bob-law-the-history-of-black-radio-no-justice-no-profit
Here’s a couple of things to give more context to Bob Law’s remarks..
First is a video fo from ABC News with former FBI agents talking about
studying and destroying Black Culture.
The second is excerpts from that Dr King’s speech given to NATRA juxtaposed with Minister Farrakhan’s speech given 12 years later.
Below is an article Law recently penned called Up Above My Head I Hear Music In The Air. It his take on where Black radio is at right now
If one should desire to know if a kingdom is well governed, if its morals are good or bad, the quality
of it’s music will furnish the answer. — Confucius
Currently
the airwaves are filled with messages that are violently anti woman,
anti Black and in a real sense anti life itself. We are inundated with
lyrics, dialogue, and images, from music videos, song lyrics and DJ
comments that glorify violence while encouraging the degradation and
exploitation of women, to video games that require that you kill people
in order to stay in the game and move forward.
To understand our concern, perhaps it is helpful to understand the
emotional significance and influence of music. As noted musician David
Byrne has explained, music tells us things, social things, psychological
things, physical things about how we feel and perceive our bodies, and
it does it in a way that other art forms cannot. It is not only in the
lyrics as Byrne and others have pointed out, it is also the combination
of sounds, rhythms, and vocal textures that communicate in ways that
bypass the reasoning centers of the brain and go straight to our
emotions.
Poet Larry Neal, one of the architects of the Black Arts movement of
the 1960’s has said that our music has always been the most dominate
manifestation of what we are and how we feel. The best of it has always
operated at the very core of our lives. It is the music that can affirm
our highest possibilities. That may be precisely why the best of our
music is under siege.
It is also important to understand that in this society, music
conveys social status. Being associated with certain kinds of music can
increase your social standing, Consider the higher level of
sophistication associated with opera or classical music, or the level of
cool sophistication associated with the music of Coltrane, Monk and
Miles.
Some have suggested that while we may indeed like the music, often
what we really like is the company it puts us in. In this sense the
music creates a community or life style that is validated by the
acceptance of the music. It is the music that validates the “Gangsta”
Currently the airwaves are dominated by a body of music, images and
ideas that has established a code of behavior that denigrates women, and
encourages the murdering of Black people. It is a lifestyle where all
women are “Hoes” and “B—–s”. Consider this “gangsta” lyric. “I got a
shotgun, and heres the plot. Takin Niggas out with a flurry of buckshots
. Yeah I was gunnin and then you look, all you see is niggas runin”.
Music, images and dialogue that offers another view cant get
reasonable airplay. The airwaves are regulated by the FCC, a commission
that was established in 1934 to regulate in the public interest. When
George Bush installed Michel Powell as Chairman of the commission, in
2001, Powell said he did not know what in the public interest meant.
Since the 1996 telecommunications act which set the framework for
deregulation, the FCC has been reduced to pablum serving only to
sanction the acquisition of broadcast frequencies and license to the
mega media corporations which has resulted in the concentration of media
ownership into the hands of very few.
Under the major revisions of US telecommunications law, the first
since the 1930s, members of the general public no longer have “legal
standing” to challenge broadcast policy or to insure that the public
interest is served. Now it is the licensee (station owner) that controls
content.
Previously the station owners rented the airwaves, while the general
public owned the airwaves. That is no longer the case. None the less the
Federal Communications Commission is still directly responsible to
congress, and since Black media ownership is a major casualty of
deregulation, and since the diversity of opinion and ideas coming
directly from the Black experience in the world are being removed from
the marketplace of ideas, we have appealed to the Congressional Black
Caucus in general and the New York congressional delegation in
particular to urge congress to reexamine the current function and
effectiveness of the FCC.
Our first appeal to the CBC was December 6 2012, and in spite of
additional attempts to reach members of the CBC, to date congress
members, Evette Clark, Gregory Meeks and Hakeem Jeffries have freely
dismissed our appeals to them.
Perhaps if there is a link established between the murderous video
games and the young white boys who routinely walk onto a school campus
or shopping mall with automatic weapons and open fire, congress might
then act to reestablish some guidelines that would force broadcasters to
allow for input from the community in the effort to balance what is
being offered on Americas broadcast spectrum.
But as long as Black people, especially Black women are the primary
victims of this insidious violence, even the increasingly irrelevant
Black congressional leadership ignores us.
Franz Fannon is correct, “Ultimately a people get the government /
leadership they deserve” It is time to support the kind of leadership we
truly deserve.
written by Bob Law
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