Posted Date: July 2, 2008

“What Black Men Think”: Film Called New “Roots” Movement

By Robyn H. Jimenez
Special to the NNPA from the Dallas Examiner

   DALLAS (NNPA)—“More than 100 years ago, Harriet Tubman was quoted as saying that: ‘If I could have convinced more slaves that they really were slaves, I could have freed thousands more.’ As you sit there in awe and wonder, questioning your ancestors’ inability to be aware of the tragedy of their own circumstance, this I tell you and I tell you to be true, that 100 years from now, your descendents will look upon you with the same distain, questioning, how could you have let this happen? How could you have bought into the false castigation that keeps you from one another?” said Janks Morton. “You sit idly by and watch your media distort your images. You know that the government stratifies you. You know that the Black leadership exploits you. And you chose to do nothing. Or maybe, you don’t know. After today, there shall be no more excuses…because after today, you will know.
   “Of ten of you, five shall choose to do nothing,” he continued. “Three shall not understand or comprehend this message. One of you will be so enraged that you will protest in the streets. One of you will grasp and begin to do something to affect that change. My question moving forward is which one are you?”
    Morton lives just blocks away from the nation’s capital. He says that it has given him the opportunity to see the best and worse of the Black community. And after years of observation, he felt passionate that it was time to send a wake-up call to all African- Americans. He took his one-man production team to the streets to interview Black leaders and community citizens.
   “It really is a testimony for where we are today. Five years ago this movie couldn’t happen with just one person,” said Morton. Though the quality of the film won’t reveal it, the project was completed in only nine months, a labor of love for his community.
    Morton’s film, What Black Men Think, focuses on the way Blacks treat each other, how the African-American community thinks of itself, how it feeds off of the stereotypes and how it reacts to negativity. But most importantly, the film discusses the changes that are needed.
   “I want the restoration of Black relationships. What I want is for the reconnection to happen,” said Morton stating that Blacks have the highest divorce rates, highest over-40-years-old singles rates, the lowest marriage rates and the highest-out-of-wedlock birth rates. “As a matter of fact, in the last 40 years, Blacks have almost turned their back on one another.”
    In a ‘man-on-the-street’ survey, several Black men and women were asked what they thought of each other.
    The men said that Black women are selfish, shallow, gold diggers, with attitude problems and multiple babies, who think that their being disrespectful is sexy.
    The women said that Black men are thuggish, disrespectful liars, ignorant players, who don’t work and don’t take care of their multiple babies.
    Morton said that through the 1960s, there was a message that was put into the minds of African-Americans. The message was political, philosophical and spiritual ideology. It was incorporated into the community. But it was not congruent with what the community subscribed to before the '60s.
   “We had high standards; we were more independent and not waiting for a hand out from the government. We believed in education,” said one woman on the film.
    Blacks, according to the film, are the truest Americans. Throughout the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans kept their dignity and walked with pride. But they also had respect for each other.

   The Black community as a whole had to have a higher standard in order to question the injustice of the government. But somewhere along the line, “things got tipped over.
    But what happened to get us off track?
do it,” because each person was the judge of their own morality.
The film said that the Black community has allowed itself to define itself by social status, job, house, car, trophy wife, etc…after centuries of being oppressed. And those that don’t obtain that status are considered less than. What this does is give Black people permission to look down on one another in order to lift themselves up. And that only hides the underlying issues of self-doubt and low self-worth.
   “If you beat a people down for 350 years and then all of a sudden say ‘things are a lot more okay than they used to be, you are free to compete,’ then of course, people are going to be scared. The identity does not allow you to get up and make the most of yourself as easy as you might think,” said Dr. John McWhorter, Columnist New York Sun/Senior Fellow Manhattan Institute and author of Losing the Race.
    Morton posed another question to the community, asking, “Are there more Black men in jail or in college?”
    An overwhelming majority of African- Americans answered that there were more Black men in jail than in college. When interviewing groups of teenagers and children, most of them either shrugged it off as a way of life or laughed at the answers given.
    Morton said that the answer lies in understanding where the numbers came from. The research that has been conducted was done so with the purpose of making sure it comes out a certain way. But, that’s not actual research.
    He first looked at the typical age range for both. The average Black male in college is 18 to 24 years old. The average Black man in jail is between 15 and 55 years old. “This is truly an apples to oranges question. But to be fair to all the people that we asked the question of, let’s just look at the sheer numbers, regardless of age,” he said.
    He added up the total of men in prison and those in jail. They totaled 801,995, as reported by the Bureau of Justice and Statistics in 2005. However, the Department of Education reported 846,000 men in college that same year. So, there are truly more Black men in college than those incarcerated.

TO READ THE REST OF THIS STORY, SUBSCRIBE WITH US TODAY, CALL US @ 757-543-6531 OR CLICK THE LINK BELOW AND FILL OUT THE FORM AND MAIL IT IN TO US.  GET THE WHOLE STORY WITH THE NEW JOURNAL AND GUIDE.

 

Click Here to Subscribe to the New Journal and Guide.