If you listen to WBAI, even sporadically, you have heard The Gary Null Show,which airs weekdays at noon, and—more than likely some of the infomercials that offer his products and services.
Quite frankly, although he brings the station more money during the fund drives than most other hucksters, I see Mr. Null's association as a mixed blessing. His health products may well perform as advertised and I'm sure his DVDs and books are splendid, but he has been on the station for decades and his success there opened the door for a veritable parade of dubious "doctors" and quacks. The problem with that is to a large extent the mission drift it introduced. One of the salient features of Pacifica stations was the absence of commercial advertising and the free speech that it made possible. You will hear Michael Haskins and other stooges repeatedly use the "non commercial" tag as a major reason for donating money, but that in itself is a deception. When you hear hour upon hour, week upon week of pitching everything from cure-all drops of water to pirated pop recordings and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, you are not listening to the kind of enlightened, intelligent broadcasting that Pacifica's founders had in mind. You are, in fact, being fed commercials for over-priced merchandise that you may or may not ever receive.
You will hear mention of that on Mr. Null's show from time to time, even though he himself is a part of that problem. Which brings me to the reason for this post.
Besides the shows heard on WBAI, Mr. Null runs his own internet radio operation, PRN (Progressive Radio Network), which offers a wide-ranging schedule of shows devoted to progressive discussion, good music, and utter nonsense (Kathy Davis), etc. On Tuesday, September 22, 2015, Mr. Null devoted his Progressive Commentary Hour to a discussion of the crisis currently faced by Pacifica and WBAI. His guests were Janet Coleman, a long-time WBAI producer/host and Board member, and Steve Brown, a close friend of his who currently also serves on the WBAI Local Station Board.
I thought you might find this discussion interesting—it certainly is pertinent—so here it is in its entirety.
I found Reese’s perceptions to be some of the clearest, simplest, and most truly perceptive I’ve yet heard with respect to Pacifica and its member stations – sharp, solid, realistic, truly thoughtful, connected to the founding ideals, and deeply idealistic – her thoughts, it seems to me, make quite clear that there is in fact no way free of the present stasis, stagnation, and impending collapse. A frank conversation between Reese and Proffitt would be quite the thing to hear.
ReplyDelete~ ‘indigo’
Agree re Summer. It's plain to see why they didn't think she was a keeper, as it were. A huge flag went up when they, without explanation, cancelled her firing of Reimers.
DeleteYes, a dialogue between Summer and Proffitt would have to be interesting.
You must be fucking kidding me! What a load of self-serving bullshit. Null loses all credibility with his praise of his friend Samori Marxman, the slime that initiated what is going on now. Marxman complaining about anti-semetic programming? He was the one who ramped it up like never before!
ReplyDelete"Bernie Maddox"? Yeah, I'm taking Null's financial expertise seriously when he can't even get Bernie Madoff's name right.
Hey, sexual harassment everywhere. Can you say satanic panic? It's the same line as the 1980s. All accusations with no names or evidence. Sure,over 150(!) victims sexually abused at Pacifica. I'm waiting for the next set of accusations about the secret rooms and rituals, underground tunnels, etc. What's next? The McMartins are behind it all? Will Geraldo do a special? Give me a break. There has been physical abuse at Pacifica, but not to the level Null describes. This is fear inducing bullshit, which smells of Hufnagel (was that her name?) and Ed Manfredonia type accusations, especially the organized crime accusation. Did this unnamed whistle blower write a book called Michelle Remembers? I'm only surprised he didn't tell us how Heavy Metal was so evil.
He has an enormous amount of material he's saving for when subpoenaed? Hey, guess what? You're withholding evidence of criminal activity and have a responsibility to report it NOW. You won't expose it because you don't have it. You're full of shit, Gary Null.
People aren't getting Null's premiums? In other words, Null isn't getting his money for selling these premiums to stations, and he's not happy about that. What Null doesn't tell us is how he has known this for years. How much you want to bet Null's extendomercials will be part of the next WBAI beg-a-thon? Let's hear him come on his show on WBAI and tell WBAI not to run them. Yeah, right.
Coleman and Brown are part of the problem. Coleman has no place talking about programming, since she can't raise crap without doing a snake oil extendomercial. Publicity is the problem? OK, Brown. Let's spend money we don't have have advertising on buses, which costs thousands of Dollars. Unpaid pledges are a problem? What are you going to do? Sue people over them? People like Coleman and Brown should do us all a favor and retire from their positions in protest. Oh, but then they wouldn't have their royal Pacifica titles.
Hire professional fundraisers? And how are you going to pay them when so few listeners listen to the crap WBAI puts on and don't fork over any more money? Democracy Now should forgive the debt Paifica has with them? For what? Providing a show to them? If Pacifica didn't want the debt, they should have stopped running the show years ago and accruing said debt.
Premiums should be vetted? OK, Null. Let's have a medical panel vet your premiums. HAHAHA!
Summer Reese is a nut. End of story. Tell her to go occupy a religious tent revival or Scientology meeting or something.
Null has gone from the gutter to the sewer. The sad part is many of his cultists will buy this Stuff.
Ultimately, I think this is a smear meant to push Null's agenda among his faction, using the tactic of equating Pacifica and WBAI to serious world problems of the past. It's classic fear inducement by simile.
Seriously, Chris. This audio is the biggest load of crap I think I have heard yet from any Pacifican. Can you believe it's me saying this?
The guy who has a hobby (one of many) of slamming Pacifica and WBAI? However, this tripe is just on an insane level with Geoff Brady and his sexual demons.
SDL
Fundamentally you can't follow what audiences want when it comes to improving the cultural sensibility or taste of the public. That's just stupid. The public good requires a challenge to the very apathy that is driving people away, ironically. You can't give them what they want. That's the mass media. How to give them bad medicine that taste good is the real issue of elite medicine. High culture rather than low is to many people boring, too difficult given how their tastes were formed by commercial manipulation and escapism. High culture demands that an audience use its intelligence, think for itself. Mass media requires you to pander and deceive. Food coloring and flavoring makes you want to buy artificial products rather than eat raw rough food. Packaging. Intellectual honesty cannot support commercial sensibility.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure it has very much to do with talent or quality. The media landscape is changing. A station went from playing sixties rock and roll to only playing 70s and 80s. Why shouldn't the young hear music from the sixties and fifties and earlier? Demographics. Advertisers want the 25 to the 35 year old. The irony of giving them what they want is like Ancient Aliens on the history channel badly argued and poorly evidenced claims. The mainstream jumped on conspiracy and psychic phenomenon too to make money just like BAI. You want to give them what is best for them by hook or crook. The mobs malleability is partly to blame for this not necessarily hosts you don't like.
What I don't understand is if listeners had a chance to vote the bums out with a show of numbers why didn't people return to get the opportunity to vote the bums out? Was it because they no longer believed in the station to begin with so they dumped it for NPR and other middle of the road stations, everyone jumping on the greed wagon of the 80s and 90s--If you don't believe in democracy on the local level what do you believe? Nobody wants democracy when they are voted out. Or if the unwashed mob gets a say so. What happened in Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood is a perfect example of how democracy can work against itself and end up being usurped by a dictatorship. True public/gov. funding of some sort for non-commercial programming would be best if BAI cannot support itself but that's unlikely. As to complaints against the pitching it seems some alternative media are constantly asking for support, Truthdig and Counterpunch and others. So why not BAI if others do it online. I find your blog very informative but I don't really agree with this idea that it's the programming.
Thank you for adding your well-thought-out, fresh viewpoint and giving us all something to think about.
DeleteI realize that I have a tendency to stress the inferior programming as a major factor fueling the audience exodus. I still believe it is a major source of the decay, but these bad shows did not materialize on their own, someone had to give them the initial nod and someone is to blame for their unjustifiable longevity. Berthold Reimers happens to be in the director's chair at the moment, but there were many others before him, and there is the Pacifica Board—probably more dysfunctional and destructive than ever.
It is a conflation of ills that has gone far beyond any point of return to intelligent, meaningful programming. Yes, the landscape has changed and it will continue to do so, but there is absolutely no reason why WBAI couldn't keep up with and even look ahead of those changes. Granted, it can not renew itself as long as mindless, agenda-driven fossils call the shots. WBAI needs people who see the community as represented by a broad spectrum of people, their interests, and cultures. What we have is small-minded dilettantes seeking personal satisfaction (and, in some cases, money) at the expense of those who once looked to WBAI for intellectual nourishment and something to spark creative thought.
The only reason why constant pitching is necessary lies in the fact that the product is flawed and outdated; the only reason it is flawed and outdates is because WBAI has been stagnated by idiots. That this has happened in a city that attracts genius and visionaries is simply amazing.
I have to tally disagree with Anonymous here. We're not talking about medicine or someone's subjective view of high culture being forced down anyone's throat. We're talking about radio stations, which are recieved on radio (as well as other aparatii) and can be tuned in or out a one's will. The idea that you are going to somehow force people to listen is best left for North Korea, where radios are made to be capable of only tuning government stations. People have a right to listen to what they choose to, even if it is crap, like commercial radio, religious programming or WBAI.
Delete"A station went from playing sixties rock and roll to only playing 70s and 80s. Why shouldn't the young hear music from the sixties and fifties and earlier?" You forgot Scott Shannon. WCBS chnged from "oldies" to "greatest hits" and has been #1 or #2 in the ratings since then. Commercial radio has a perfect right to look at demographics and to make judgements accordingly. I have a perfect right to not listen to commercial radio, which I never really have because it sucks.
"I'm not sure it has very much to do with talent or quality. " and "You want to give them what is best for them by hook or crook. The mobs malleability is partly to blame for this not necessarily hosts you don't like." And who decides what you are going to force on the peasants? You? Now the peasants are partly to blame because they don't like hearing crap? Naughty ex-WBAI listeners! Sorry to tell you, but the exodus from Pacifica and WBAI is ALL about lousy programming, self-serving scumbag hosts and nepotism/corruption.
"What I don't understand is if listeners had a chance to vote the bums out with a show of numbers why didn't people return to get the opportunity to vote the bums out?" Because in order to vote you must give WBAI $25(?) per year, which supports the crap they do, since their "elections" are corrupt, if they even happen at all. The "unwashed mob," as you so call them, are the more intelligent people who had enough of the myopic trash that inhabits 388 Atlantic Avenue.
" True public/gov. funding of some sort for non-commercial programming would be best if BAI cannot support itself but that's unlikely." So, the public is supposed to pay so a handful of people can have their little hobby station on the air? No, the public shouldn't have to ay for it. let the listeners who want it pay. If they can't, tough luck. And add to that how Pacifica couldn't even be bothered to file some simple paperwork to get about $2,000,000 FREE from the CPB. Pacifica couldn't even be bothered.
"I find your blog very informative but I don't really agree with this idea that it's the programming. " You obviously know nothing about he history of WBAI/Pacifica nor lived through it. We're talking radio, whose one offering is their programming. If people stop listening, it is because of the programming. It is ALL about the lousy programming.
SDL
SDL, I would agree that self-righteously force feeding people what they don't want is not very democratic. But if the commercial industry says Beethoven is culturally irrelevant, isn't popular? What do we do to save that music. How do we present it to the public to get them to appreciate it if listeners won't support that show or listeners won't support it if it's on a station like WBAI? Some things ought to be respected and appreciated for their cultural value alone. They need to be educated to appreciate Beethoven, Chopin? We can't say that's what the public wants and leave it at that. So I don't agree much with judging shows by popular contests, though believe me I could suggest changes too for what I don't like. By hook or crook how do we get people to care? Forcing isn't very pleasant, I hear, so I agree with you there. I was thinking of some subtlety in the process. I thought that popular shows supported shows that were worthy but didn't get much funding. It's a hard problem to solve. On the rock music I was thinking of a station in the state I live in. I don't think they play any Sixties or Fifties oldies anymore.
DeleteAs to not knowing about WBAI I edited out a comment on Null about Samori to keep my comments short. What I wrote: Samori could've given time to other hosts or even invited someone from the outside to rebut White and or his guests on Emanations for anti-Semitic remarks if he was bothered by it as Null suggested. The pro Palestine rhetoric with no criticism of African dictators and Africa's own problems emanated a lot from that show. I was never satisfied with the pan-Americanism and explanations for why Africa was messed up. I don't think you can blame it all on colonialism or post-colonialism.
As to funding sources, I've commented elsewhere to Brown and others that they should try to get rich people donations to help bail out the station rather than seek funding among poorer, worn out listeners. Why there are no new Lew Hills is shocking to me. But we live in greedy times so I shouldn't be shocked.
ReplyDeleteWhy should rich people, who don't listen to Pacifica stations, give any money to Pacifica? Giving money to Pacifica is supporting corruption, in the least, and supporting criminal activity, potentially. The idea that the rich should support someone's irrelevant pet project is wrong, especially when there are serious charities out there that can use the money for better things, like feeding people, helping animals, defending liberties, etc.
DeleteSDL
Yes, with all the extraordinary artists WBAI used to attract, creative people whose initial success was helped along by time spent before a WBAI microphone, it is a measure of management's ineptitude that there have not been major fund-raising concerts and performances.
DeleteThere was a time when people appreciated the ladder WBAI gave them—many reached back to help the station, but now they don't even tune in. Many of the stars whose recorded endorsements are aired with regularity are either deceased or unaware of the drastic, embarrassing downgrade that has occurred.
I bet there is a Lew Hill out there, someone who could resurrect WBAI to meet the old standards in a fresh form that speaks to today's culture and intellect. Rap, revenge, retribution and reparations is not going to make it, as we are seeing.
Why should rich people, who don't listen to Pacifica stations, give any money to Pacifica? Giving money to Pacifica is supporting corruption, in the least, and supporting criminal activity, potentially. The idea that the rich should support someone's irrelevant pet project is wrong, especially when there are serious charities out there that can use the money for better things, like feeding people, helping animals, defending liberties, etc.
DeleteSDL
When I was appointed manager of WBAI, I went on the air live, told the listeners what I thought of the programming and how I intended to change it. I also solicited ideas and criticisms.
DeleteExplaining that major changes could not occur overnight, I suggested that listeners listen carefully and donate if they liked the way it was going--in other words, I did not urge them to grab their wallet and put a part of its content in the mail... first make sure that we are doing something worth supporting.
Many did not follow my suggestion, they just donated in anticipation. We did not let them down, the program schedule changed as soon as the Folio listing allowed it to be done seamlessly.
And we offered only better programs... No "thank you gifts", no cures, books or yoga lessons. People tuned in because we offered them great radio... If they tuned out, it was because we didn't...
I should say Chris, that I have my own differences of opinion with the programming. Here is an example. Hour of the Wolf shouldn't be the only science fiction show on the station. Yet Jim does such a great job preserving a tradition and history. I'd keep his show and add another for authors not in his orbit or taste. I think of a magazine format with an editorial board but I don't believe in slashing programs. I believe old timers should be given some sort of reunion day broadcast week or month. I hated when hosts I like disappeared, vanished down a memory hole. One minute they are asking for support, gaining funds and then in the next, they're gone. I don't believe people should behave like their enemies--what's the difference if they behave as inhumanely as their enemies? I never believe in gagging hosts either. So I wasn't for Summer's tactics of achieving her ends the way she did. I'm not saying I have the answers. Your standards are pretty high and I can respect them.
DeleteI think having people come in with a script or some idea of what they want to do would greatly improve the station. Rotating programs. But some shows are worthy simply because of their cultural, historical value. Of course you're right to want to change things and programs shouldn't last forever. How to get there? I agree that if Fass is losing it, he should be helped to retire. His is a sorry fate indeed with the stray cats and the astrologer. But didn't he say once that they'd have to pry the mike from his cold dead hands? Was it Bob that said that? Maybe during some coup attempt?
"but there is absolutely no reason why WBAI couldn't keep up with and even look ahead of those changes."
DeleteI agree. I think radio stations like BAI should continue despite the internet or with the internet...I don't think it should end in this horrible farce that you've been describing and mocking. It seems like the human condition, though. Everywhere we turn, there is corruption of the sort taking place at BAI--in governments and corporations world wide. You did show that Hill himself thought of selling off the station at one point, so BAI might never have been and may still end up being sold off or lost after an interesting if weird run as a phenomenon. It was meant to be then...
"Because in order to vote you must give WBAI $25(?) per year, which supports the crap they do, since their "elections" are corrupt, if they even happen at all. The "unwashed mob," as you so call them, are the more intelligent people who had enough of the myopic trash that inhabits 388 Atlantic Avenue."
DeleteNo, SDL, I beg to differ with you here, as a tactic they could've flooded the station with opposition listeners at that level. Your side didn't have the numbers to wage that fight. They didn't care to get down and dirty with such people? Not to go to meetings? Not to outnumber them? Not to out vote them? All right. Maybe they gave up as you say. But they no longer needed or wanted it. I don't quite know why. Maybe they didn't want to involve themselves in something that would've led to more racism and antisemitism or involved them in getting labeled with those tar brushes.
Hook or crook is not the right choice of words actually, maybe short of dishonesty and other corrupt methods.
ReplyDeleteChris, if you are worried about anything I said about Emanations, you can censor that.
ReplyDeleteSummer said she wanted to have a conversation about the nature of the network, for example, developing new voices and pilot series, discussing who gets paid and why. These are great ideas and points of discussion. But, Summer says, she couldn’t do that because every aspect of Pacifica (shows, talent, salaries) is a somebody’s point of privilege, often long-standing.
ReplyDeleteOf course, making such a point in the presence of “Dr.” Gary Null, Steve Brown, and Janet Coleman constitutes irony of clinical severity, as it would have been had Dan Seigel and Bernard White… or Amy Goodman… had been interviewing her. The three-ring bloodsucking circus – the Null $et for Neurotic Homeshoppers, the Seigel/JUC $ect of Factionoids, and the Award-Winning Amy Goodman’s Award-Winning Hypocrisy Now!… all while talentless and self-absorbed hacks ride the waves from whichever direction they come, holding onto their shows and sinecures for decades at a stretch, some of them trust-fund babies, some of them low-rent hustlers, some of them listener-members throwing their annual $25 peanuts into the cages to keep the show going.
I keep thinking the curtain is bound to fall on the festival of scam, but perhaps the FBI allows the show to go on as an ISIS-like honeypot to attract socially awkward dissenters to keep tabs on the potentially dangerous. Question: do you think the factions have the same FBI handler, or do you think a couple of junior handlers use Pacifica as a running-bet contest of sorts (“Ha, Bruce, my side’s suing the Siegel crew for brazen incompetence!” “No fair, Preston, I’ll have to get one of my JUCers to cry racism and counter-sue!” “Hahaha, let’s get lunch!”)…
Wow - BAI as a government honeypot. I love that idea!
DeleteMy theory was that Null was floating the station (the huckster is for sure wealthy), but I like this even better.
And they do seem to have survived on-air longer than should have been possible. Hummm.
We don't ask students to vote on the curriculum do we, SDL? I think the public sensibility has to change. But I admit it's an age old problem in terms of the arts and the sociology of audiences. And then we have the critics. If we let audiences decide before a performance or after? It's trial and error but the model of entertainment for journalism, history, politics...is it really supposed to be entertaining in the sense of mainstream media news etc? Interesting but not entertaining. I used the wrong phrase there and that perhaps confused you...I never liked By Any Means Necessary as slogan. Since I like Doowop music I can't be an elitist. I don't think I am actually. But I like all sorts of music because when young neither peer pressure nor my parents influenced my taste in music. Just rolling up and down the dial I discovered all sorts of music and then BAI. I wish young people could experience that, discovering the old and not finding it old but something new and interesting. So as I kid I wasn't listening to what my peers liked. I suppose there were other kids like me.
ReplyDeleteI was actually responded to Null suggesting the same thing that programming be based on what listeners want to hear or will support instead of what the editor or programmer think is best. I suppose it will always be a gamble. Right now the internet is a minority based system of appeals to different groups and interests.
The public sensibility is ever changing, just maybe not in the direction you and/or I may like. That's why white suits and disco have faded away, etc.
DeleteWhat model? Are you saying there is is only one means of delivering a message related to journalism, history, politics? Why does there need to be any model at all? And why can't it be entertaining, if the presenter decides to deliver it that way. Trying to force things into models destroys creativity. Before you answer, watch The History of English in 10 Minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3ZJuCbklqg
Now that was very entertaining and educational at the same time, and would probably keep peoples' attention longer than a dry exposition.
However, why are you equating radio with anything else? There is no connection. You're being extremely Aristotelian in your thinking by trying to apply a myopic set of narrow rules to very diverse topics and institutions.
Anyway, elitism has nothing to do with listening to doowop but your general attitude. So far I wouldn't call you elitist but pedantic.
"So as I kid I wasn't listening to what my peers liked. I suppose there were other kids like me." Yes, me. In fact, One of my nicknames in life was Mr. Eclectic.I was always a non-mainstreamer (as I call regular people).
Listen, in radio, you throw something out there and see if it swims or sinks. There is no such thing as an important program if five people are listening and it has no effect on even the local community. In the case of a non-commercial station like WBAI, a show should, at the very least, be able to garner enough listener financial support that it pays for the electric it uses to broadcast.
SDL
Students don't get to totally decide, even if some are electives and even the specialized courses in college? Should they?
ReplyDeleteSDL, advertisers spend a lot of money to influence public choices, guide them, tempt them, appeal to them, they use models and methods, techniques to understand and even co-opt cultural trends in fashion etc, and pander to our need to escape. They say they hire teens to watch trends among their peers. I would agree with you that's not their responsibility alone like some great conspiracy. Much of what we like is convenience. I don't have to wait to get home to talk to beloved. I can chat, text as much as time will allow. We let it happen. Yet it's not just a matter of simply following the lead of masses of people. Disco has a history as much as fashion. So what types of influence would necessitate models or methods of communication. If a sponsor is sponsoring a show specifically to market a product, his concerns becomes social as well as financial if not personal to keep his job. Well, I don't want to offend this or that group. We see this clearly with PC. As soon as someone does something in the private sphere that effects a brand, the company immediately distances themselves in an outrageous act of cowardice: the person hasn't been convicted or tried legally yet they panic. That is the fear of mobs right there. And such celebrities often have already signed contracts against the company being liable for their personal foibles and crimes. You wish just once a company would show some balls regarding former clients. And mostly for fear of losing revenue rather than on any principle muchless loyalty. Other citizens, other people influence other people. In the case of advertisers, they influence people by various appeals. So models are necessary at least in terms of alternative radio that is contending with mainstream programming. I don't think you want BAI to reflect what is out there already. There wouldn't be any need for it then.
ReplyDeleteBy the way I enjoyed shows like the Daily Show, Colbert and this blog. I've grown a bit tired of the Daily Show and Colbert, though. This blog however is much more than just satire. Such satire is certainly amusing and informative. With the Daily Show, however, one worries that audience will laugh at this awful black comedy and do nothing except laugh. What would stimulate action is released in laughter and the acceptance of we're all doomed. Dr. Strangelove. It's hopeless. Comedy's catharsis. It's funny you say pedantic because I wonder if scholars and artist should run BAI over political activists, since activists always have an ax to grind. People snark and laugh in blogs, tweets, comments everything. Well, in all things there should be some moderation.
Let me say this about shows like Emanations and Elombe's Afrikaleidoscope
ReplyDeleteBlackness, Pan-Africanism is the Frankenstein monster of Eurocentricism and racism. The whole bogus science that was constructed by white academics. Blacks in the past before the civil rights era, I suspect, were more inclined to assimilate into the norms of American culture if only racism didn't work against them. Blacks are one of the most denigrated people on the earth if you study the images and so on and media depictions of them. Is it any wonder they would buy into an illusion representing them, beaten into their brains. Blackness. I'm not against reparations but it is unlikely and so a waste of time because of the way things are now. Reparations should've taken place during Reconstruction. And Reconstruction from the little I've read, failed or wasn't followed through to the bitter end. In some respects it is may have been better if whites were really willing to accept Separate But Equal rather than the halfhearted acceptance of blacks. Blacks were right to suspect it would be separate and still unequal. Because if the facts are true blacks in many respects now conditions are more segregated than ever and still unequal. The gains basically were for the middle classes, professionals, entertainers, sports figures, to some degree, though that hasn't been perfect either when a black professor is arrested being mistaken for a burglar in his own house in a university suburb.
During and after the radical era and blacks adopting a counter racism, accepting the stigma of race imposed on them, as a sign, a mark of Cain, something to be proud of, along with ethnic attitudes, folkculture and values, black activist rejected assimilation in the dominate intellectual culture of white America, which was a big mistake intellectually, coming as it did just as the New Deal boom time was ending economic opportunities. BAI got caught up in that struggle. What they call the culture wars as well. The open mindedness and liberalism of the sixties threw the door open to identity politics of various sorts, sexual, racial, religious, while advertisers gave in and decided to target these segments, yet still trying in films to promote the American Dream, at least after some of the challenges to it in the 70s. Then the rightward turn in the 80s to the present. Yes, work hard and success will come to you no matter where you come from.
It seems to me educated black activists and intellectuals are conflicted about their education or class privileges. After all we don't have white intellectuals whose family were poor promoting crude Klan type whiteness in a similar way as many too black ethnicity as racial concept. Of course whites don't have to since whiteness is some form of invisibility until class signals are triggered. In this sense class and race are conflated perceptions of alienated black intellectuals. Whites must appreciate the stigma of blackness imposed on blacks by history. Imagine if white skin was reviled as black skins were. At some point the Irish were reviled as well. And of course the Jewish people. And the Saxons had a beef with Celtic peoples and the poor landless whites, but the skins of blacks was often more problematical than what these marginalized white peoples faced to a degree which is not easily understood now perhaps. It's just rabid. So whenever you are confronted by black racism you must keep this in mind. It's the Frankenstein monster of White Supremacy in its heyday.