This show (“The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer”) desensitized the pain and devastating suffering of (Chattel) slavery. It’s absolutely unacceptable.
— Pastor Ron Wright of the Emmanuel AME church in L.A.
Well, we did it...sort of. It’s off the air...for now, and it’s about time. After 83 years of silent suffering under a relentlessly racist Hollywood Hustle, across the U.S. many Afrikan Americans are demonstrating their righteous rage. Though “The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer” did run for three weeks, our demonstrations, letters, and sponsor-pressures forced the producing United Paramount Network to “bench” the show for November. ALTHOUGH, NET OFFICIALS SAY THEY’LL BRING BACK THE SITCOM AT A LATER DATE. What is happening should excite you because there’s been no national Afri-centric challenge to Hollywood’s Anglo-centric Hype since its 1915 release of “The Clansman.” This racist southern celebration of Chattel Slavery and the Civil Wars’ 50th anniversary was renamed “The Birth of a Nation” for its national release to Anglo American audiences who largely loved it; didn’t understand Afrikan American anger at it; and have just named it one of “Hollywood’s Best 100 films.” Lead by a then brand new Black organization—the NAACP—marches were organized, a censorship campaign against the film was launched, film showings were disrupted, and (importantly) the issue of Racist Cinema was raised to the national level.
Since this, though, we’ve been kept quiet about Racist Cinema. This, in spite of such recent Media Violence as “The Gods must Be Crazy,” and “Airplane.” In each, viewers are invited to laugh as Continental Afrikan rural residents try to interpret a Coke bottle (in the former) and an Anglo American woman’s Tupperware party demonstration (in the latter). Much preceded these. We have been slandered in film since the inception of motion pictures—from Thomas Edison’s “Watermelon Contest” in 1899 to “Prize Fight In Coon Town,” “Gone With The Wind,” “Dancing Nig,” “Superfly;” and now comes “The Secret Diary Of Desmond Pfeiffer.” PARAMOUNT insists the show does not feature negative images nor does it find humor in (Chattel) slavery. YET, in one of the shows pressure-pulled by Marching Blacks, Pfeiffer (with his feet up while relaxing in the kitchen) is told: “The slaves haven’t been freed yet, Desmond, get your feet off that table.” Another scene showed two Britons riding horse back from two Afrikan Men HANGING by their necks from a tree. One tells the other: “The only thing better than eating warm chestnuts is watching a body take its last breath and urinate.” So much for taking U.P.N. at their word. So much for U.P.N. humor.
On Sept. 09, 1998 the Black United Front—Seattle (BUF) called for a complete boycott of U.P.N.—SPONSORS—PARAMOUNT and BLOCKBUSTER. That 1) the show was made and 2) its producers still snub their noses at Afrikan Americans saying: “We have nothing to feel bad about and we’re not going to feel bad about it...They can march up and down the street all they want to,” is reason enough to boycott. But a close look at Hollywood’s racist history shows these companies as leaders of the industry-wide denigration of Black people for profit. While the Mass Media industry’s record of hiring People of Color wouldn’t be acceptable by ANY Affirmative Action program, from 1988–1997 BLOCKBUSTER’S affiliate, PARAMOUNT—both owned by VIACOM—was especially poor at it. We make up 14% of America's population, We’re 25% of all movie revenues and are 30% of all movie-goers. But Paramount cast Afrikan Americans in just 5.1% of all rolls, released the fewest films by Black Directors and had the lowest percentage of films involving Directors of Color in general.
Referring to Racist Hollywood is referring to an organization of organizations—a White United Front—of consistently callous, massively manipulative writers, directors, producers, production assistants, actors, and unionized laborers. Of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ members, 3.9% are Afrikan American, while only about 2.5% of both the Writers and Directors Guilds are Us. We are also LESS THAN 2% OF LOCAL 44, the Set Decorators and Property Masters Union. (People; 03/18/96)
Since “the aftermath of (Chattel) Slavery, during Reconstruction in the U.S.—the late 1800s and early 1900s—THE IMAGE of the African suffered under a systematic assault of visual propaganda, at the hands of American whites...It was during this period that a Euro-American controlled media began its long career as one of the most effective weapons used to ensure the exploitation and dependency of people of African decent.” With the making and re-making of deformed Afrikan images including “Steppin’ Fetchit,” “Sambo,” “Beullah,” “Amos&Andy,” “Safire,” and “Superfly,” “...Hollywood took over the image-making business, and not only could black people in America be lampooned in this way but also Africans on the Continent.” (Ani; 1994) Says Emily Mann, artistic Director of the McCarter Theater in New Jersey: “The consequence of exclusion by the film industry is Cultural Apartheid...a lot of racist images are made unconsciously, and whites just aren’t aware they’re doing it...” But Dr. Ani holds: “in a world controlled by white supremacy the objective of these (stereotypes) becomes clear. They are about the business of creating and sustaining images of others for the European that reinforce their perception of themselves as superiors relating to inferior beings.”
Viewed collectively, Anglo Americans do show a curious need to feel superior to People of Color. This would simply be pitiful if not for their tendency to degrade, deform, and destroy other people, thus imposing on them the inferior situation REQUIRED for Anglos to BE superior. All peoples have “Media”—a variety of methods of communicating cultural priorities and commitments. However, Anglo Americans have uniquely created an overwhelming Mass Media—globally distributed information via the overlapping technologies of TV, computers, magazines, movies, etc. “(T)he new media are closely interlinked and fused together, feeding data, images, and symbols back and forth to one another...(S)o ‘mere entertainment’ is no longer ‘mere’...the old lines between show business and politics, leisure and work, news and entertainment, are all crashing, and we are exposed to a hurricane of often fragmented images.” (Toffler; 1990) It’s time for some sanity.
Mind-manipulating visual images travel fastest to hundreds of millions TV Sets around the globe. For us who live in earth’s Morally-Underdeveloped-But-Economically-Developed-Countries, TV is our major source of information and conditioning. It is “the primary factor in all public (life) experience.” (Mander; 1978) As a U.S. based industry, “Media” is effectively unregulated. Yet children, for example, spend more time with TV’s—about 1500 minutes/wk—than with teachers—about 900 minutes/wk. For us to focus on “Miseducation” without also attending to “Mismediation” is to ignore changes in our time allocation since Bro. Woodson wrote his book. The Federal Commications Commission supervision does little more than assure that one Media Multinational doesn’t buy up the other seven, and prevent full frontal nudity from appearing on “free” TV during prime time. Importantly, let’s note that while sexist obscenities are restricted to separate channels and stores, racist obscenities are not. This, though far more death and destruction is attributable to racist than to sexist conduct.
MultiMedia Multinationals, EXCLUDING Newspapers and Radios, are valued well in excess of $154,000,000,000—a bit more than most of us could get from the bank today. We CAN challenge these through the existing Federal Communications Commission and through a not-yet-existing-but-essential Global Communications Commission. Our priorities include, but are not limited to: 1) Ethnic Population Proportionate Participation throughout the industry, both “on the screens” and “behind the scenes.” 2) Racist Censuring. If music can be censured for profanity; if videos can be censured for sex, then so too can Racist Media be monitored and labeled as such. 3) Entrepreneurial Activism. We must aggressively develop community-owned service and business organizations capably creating and distributing positive images with powerful messages of Truth, Righteousness, Balance, Good Order, and Love. We must also select the most obvious corporate offenders of these for exposure and reform.
We must continue to challenge VIACOM’s Media Violence against Afrikan Americans. In spite of their production and then deferment of “...Desmond,...” As one of the worlds most diversified and discriminatory Media Multinationals, U.P.N.—SPONSORS—PARAMOUNT/BLOCKBUSTER has:
What can you do?