This past August The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy paper entitled The Impact of Racism on Child and Adolescent Health. In it they present a Statement of the Problem: "Racism is a “system of structuring opportunity and assigning value based on the social interpretation of how one looks (which is what we call 'race’) that unfairly disadvantages some individuals and communities, unfairly
advantages other individuals and communities, and saps the strength of the whole society through the waste of human resources.”

The key word in that 'statement' is system. All of us regardless of how we think or act individually inhabit a system that perpetuates racism and "white" supremacy. And because we inhabit this system there are consequences, both individually and collectively..

More from the report: "Recognizing that racism has significant adverse effects on the individual who receives, commits, and observes racism,[emphasis added] substantial investments in dismantling structural racism are required to facilitate the societal shifts necessary for optimal development of children in the United States."

While this report is focused on the impact that structural racism has upon children, we know that, the child is the father of the man. The report puts it this way, “The stress generated by experiences of racism may start through maternal exposures while in utero and continue after birth with the potential to create toxic stress. This transforms how the brain and body respond to stress, resulting in short- and long-term health impacts on achievement and mental and physical health. We see the manifestations of this stress as preterm births and low birthweights in newborns to subsequent development of heart disease, diabetes and depression as children become adults.” In other words the effects of Living in America has lifelong, detrimental consequences for a healthy mind and body.

And not just "black" bodies. The report describes racism as a "socially transmitted disease" effecting the entire population. Racism and the myth of  "white" supremacy, the lie of "black" inferiority was used to justify the enslavement of African peoples. While enslavement ended the lie remains. It is up to Black Media to develop and disseminate stories that #DEFYTHELIE!

In that vane I'm re-posting two Blog entries from 2013 (see below).

STORIES
July 21, 2013  /  Walter Gavin
What makes us human is our ability to tell stories. It is through stories that we learn who we are and where we fit in to the rest of our society. For many of us we never question the stories told to us because the people telling those stories are in our eyes trusted, parents, teachers, clergy. Of course we sometimes may never know the motivation of the storyteller. But if we hear a certain story repeated over and over by people we respect we come over time to believe these stories even when from our own experience, know them to be false. 

Separating fact from fiction is what is required of all discerning adults of any society. That can require enormous effort on our part. It's easier just to adopt someone else's version regarding some thing or someone as opposed to our own independent investigation.
 
Historians tell us stories about this, that and the other thing about past events. But how do we know for sure any of it is true? We have to always look at the source of the information, peruse a variety of sources and come to our own conclusion. We have to take everything we think we know about anything that is not our direct experience with a "grain of salt." In other words make up our own story. 

Art and artists are all about making things up. About presenting possible alternatives to established narratives and seeing the world through their own filter and presenting that view to the world. It is their truth. Just as one's interpretation of "reality" is one's own truth. "Beauty," it is often said is in the eye of the beholder. That is true of life itself. We manufacture our own reality through the stories we see and the stories we tell our selves.

NU WORLD FOCUS
November 19, 2013  /  Walter Gavin
Maverick - a lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates... Synonyms: nonconformist, individualist; free thinker; loner, lone wolf. 

What we collectively think of as ‘Hollywood’ today was actually started by what could only be termed as a group of entrepreneurial mavericks. Certainly that was the case in 1919. “In fact, the idea was common sense, and that is why it has never gone away. It ought to be possible for a collective of film-makers to share a marketing operation and keep a bigger share of the profits. It ought to work well enough to enable them to tell their stories without undue external interference,” quoting from an article in The Guardian by David Thomson on the 90th anniversary of United Artists in 2009.

I've always wondered why a group of A-list “black” stars and directors have never come together to tell their stories? Only during the era of ‘Jim Crow’ where theatrical exhibition was segregated by “race” did Oscar Michaux and the Lincoln Film Company produce and distribute films dealing with all aspects of life and culture from a “black” point of view.

'Hollywood' itself has been called a "factory" and a "plantation" among other things. Dissatisfaction with the then studio system led to the independent United Artists, founded by the likes of Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin who wanted to control their own stories. Genre films like Westerns or 'Film Noir' always have a subtext that has to be looked at not just taken at face value. Is their purpose to enlighten, inform, entertain, and inspire, or just to titillate? Ultimately it is called show business for a reason. The question is 'black Hollywood' ready willing or able to create its own United Artists. And control its own stories from inception through distribution?

"Every day we are bombarded with movies and television shows in which white faces, white families, white marriages are plugged as the "default" experience... and no one would say that these films are about race. No one would say, 'Oh, that's an all-white cast. It must be about what it means to be white in America.' No one." But that is the point. The movies and TV shows the writer refers to in the quote from a Huffington Post piece about The Best Man Holiday does just that, tells us -"...what it means to be white in America." Privileged. That is always the subtext. Everyone takes that for granted. It's only when the protagonists are people of color that that becomes what the movie is about. It is still very difficult because of our collective history for folks to get past the exterior and the supposed meaning of that exterior. We still too often, particularly in the media, "judge the book by the cover."

Some black A-Listers have their own production companies primarily to produce their own vehicles like Will Smith's Overbrook Films, then there's Tyler Perry Productions or CoadeBlack Films which come under the the Lionsgate banner. But where is the version of Bruckheimer Productions, The Weinstein Company, or Dreamworks, SKG that controls financing, production and distribution of its own product and brand over multiple production platforms and distribution channels?

Ava DuVernay, producer, director, writer insists "...a larger problem is at the studio level. While a black filmmaker can scrap together support for a film with a modest budget, securing the support of a major distributor or financier has proven far more challenging." Hollywood tends to see films which feature African Americans and other "minorities" as protagonists except for those few A-listers as "niche" films for niche audiences. Of course the idea of something that at first appeals only to a small portion of the population then becoming a world-wide phenomenon can be seen in the history of American popular music which has its roots in Blues, Jazz and R&B.

As some are now suggesting with the release of theatrical features, Fruitvale Station, The Butler, 12 Years a Slave, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Best Man Holiday may just be the tip of the iceberg representing a renaissance of sorts that may be in the works around the “black experience” throughout the Diaspora. “At the Toronto film festival in September, the producer Harvey Weinstein, a Barack Obama supporter who has released three recent movies with ­African-American protagonists, said that the sheer quantity of these movies is in itself a sign of racial progress. It’s a ‘renaissance’ he attributes to what he calls ‘the Obama effect’, so says columnist Frank Rich.

The question however is who controls the product? Tyler Perry Productions and CodeBlack Films are affiliated with Lionsgate. Where is the equivalent of DreamWorks, SKG or The Weinstein Company that brings together stars, writers, producers, directors and craftspeople to create product that deals with every aspect of human existence, but from a black perspective? Like those mini-majors develop and control the process from inception through distribution. 

The audience is certainly there as Americans of African descent have a consumer buying power of more than a trillion dollars, are the most avid TV watchers, attend movies with more regularity, and have a greater impact and influence on trends in popular culture so says the latest survey by Nielsen on the African American market.

The NU World focus holds that from that African American base the concentric circles move outward on a global scale not unlike the way Hip Hop has become a global phenomenon. The model exists. Is it the old bugaboo, of closed mindedness which continues to get in the way?