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Episode #1916
Stripping the Color Line, Part 2
Brown: Natalie Bullock Brown, host
Chadderton: Matty Lazo Chadderton, director for Hispanic Latino affairs in the office of the President Pro Tem, North Carolina Senate
Jackson: Damien Ty Jackson, author of The Hip Hop Tree: Essays, Seeds and Thoughts
Irvin: Nat Irvin, founder and president of Future Focus 20/20, Babcock Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University
Brown: In the second two parts of Henry Louis Gates's America, Beyond the Color Line, Gates examines that gap that exists between the black middle class and the black poor. Tonight we'll hear from North Carolina scholars to understand the gap between blacks, Hispanics, and white America. And find out what progressive strategies may close that gap as we tackle the 21st century. Stay with us for Black Issues Forum, next.
Voiceover: This program was made possible by contributions to UNC-TV from viewers like you. Thank you.
[THEME MUSIC]
Brown: Good evening and welcome to Black Issues Forum. I'm Natalie Bullock Brown. Harvard scholar, Dr. Henry Louis Gates's straightforward documentary, America, Beyond the Color Line, talks to successful African Americans in business, politics and entertainment about the tremendous influence on American culture, but notes that there remains a huge gap between the black middle class and the black poor. Tonight we ask scholars and experts in North Carolina how this progress and influence compute in terms of minority progress as a whole, and what strategies in thinking will be necessary to close the gaps between races and classes in our state. I'd like to welcome tonight's panel: Matty Lazo Chadderton, director for Hispanic Latino affairs in the office of the President Pro Tem, North Carolina Senate; also Damien Ty Jackson, an award-winning freelance journalist and author of the recently published anthology, The Hip Hop Tree: Seeds, Essays and Thoughts; and Nat Irvin, founder and president of Future Focus 20/20, a center in the Babcock Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University, where Dr. Irvin also serves as executive professor of future studies and as assistant dean for MBA student development. Welcome to all of you.
SEVERAL: Thank you, good to meet you.
Brown: I'd like to start off with Nat. Have the barriers to success changed for African Americans?
Irvin: Are you kidding? Absolutely. You know, I'm 52 years old, and even in my lifetime, I can reflect on the fact that the experience of being black in America has radically changed, and if you were to look at it over the last 300 or so years, yeah, we're talking about a country where it was illegal for black people to vote. We were basically, we're talking about moving from a transition from slavery to being disenfranchised legally, to having the complete economic and judicial system stacked against you, to the point of where we are now which is looking at a black American that has made a transition from survival to thrive-all. So we're in a very completely different world now, and what I think of our great challenges is first of all, to recognize that the world has changed and that our barriers have changed. I think one of the things that we think about when we think about barriers often, would be that the structural problems that resulted from racism, some remnants of which still exist today. I don't think those are our major challenges. I think the fundamental difference that we have to experience and understand as black America, the challenge for the next generation is to begin to see themselves in a very different world, that the world itself has changed socially, politically, economically, technologically, environmentally. It is not the same world that I grew up in. And so what we've got to do is we've got to begin to adjust to the way that we think about our world. For example, when we talk about competition, the competition that my children or children who are coming after me, is more likely than not that they're not sitting next to, they don't know who their competition is; competition is global. So the world in which, when you think about barriers to success now, it is not just the students who live in North Carolina or in surrounding areas; these are students from India, from China, from Russia, from South Africa, from all over. So the barriers to success now have moved from just a regional and local environment to a much more global competitive environment.
Brown: Matty, let me ask you, how do Hispanics, in light of what Nat said, fit into the changes that have occurred, and also what sort of barriers does the Hispanic community face, in terms of progress and success?
Chadderton: Well I think it's looking at a history, in North Carolina, the Hispanic population, we are very new. It's a non-traditional population. So there are two-folded, I would say, _____ challenge besides the language. For me, I would say sometimes I say that the language is never a barrier, it's all about attitude. So first, here in the state, for 17 years, but it is a process of acculturation. If you are less than five years and still you have a little bit more work to do in order to acculturate to your new home. And regarding history, for instance, in other states the Hispanic populations in states as Texas, California, New Mexico; it's quite different because they are for generations, forever. So the phenomenon with the Hispanic population in North Carolina is quite different. And the other hunt, it's an advantage because we are learning, and our responsibility of Hispanic person and as a member of the North Carolina community, is learning, you know, history like Nat has said before, but people to people, reading to wonderful books and looking at the legacy, that civil rights movement in 1964, and voting rights, the 1965, has left to us. So we have to live up to the challenge. I mean, it's a very interesting moment for Hispanics and brothers of the African American community, Native American nation, American community, and white also.
Brown: Damien, tell me, just in terms of African American and Hispanic culture even, I think as definitely in the past several decades or so, African Americans have great influenced, and Hispanics more and more in this past decade, influenced the world of entertainment, music, film, sports, electronic media. Have these communities fully exploited their increased presence and influence in these arenas, do you think?
Jackson: I don't think so. I think what has happened is that we definitely get still a similar but a more current or contemporary stereotype that comes across, and although there have been great strides that have been made in the areas of media and entertainment, unfortunately I think a lot of those pictures are very, very much slanted. And I think you only have to talk to people in Hollywood to find that out, and they'll tell you themselves about how, yeah, there are certain examples of people within Latin and African American communities who are making a lot of money individually, in the entertainment field. However, I think that very obviously the exception as opposed to the _____, and now ___ talking about things like the folks behind the cameras and the folks who are writing the scripts and the screenplays and the very real barriers they still have to face to try to get into the game. So on one aspect, I think, which very much mirrors American society, individuals have been allowed or empowered to do things that perhaps in the civil rights era, before the civil rights era, who weren't allowed to do, but as a collective we still face a lot of these same barriers, and those barriers have changed, as Matty said, but the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Brown: Well Nat, let me come back to you and ask, do you think that African Americans or Hispanic Americans or any minority group, the individuals within those groups need to be responsible for the whole, need to feel as though they are responsible for the progress of the whole.
Irvin: Gosh, Natalie, that's such a great question. I remember giving a talk at the University of Indiana about three years ago, a bunch of us grown folks, faculty talking about the future of black America, and we're going on and on, faculty, you know, and there are some students there, and suddenly this one kid goes, "Dr. Irvin, what do you mean by 'we'?" Right, and he just stopped the group, because suddenly, you know, you start to recognize that there are many different blacks within this collective we call black, and one of the challenges we face as black America, and is really just driving some of us who are of age, this extraordinary angst, the why don't you have some affiliation, some affinity, why don't you have some sense as you're making those videos? Don't you have some sense of where we've come from? Why is it that you would actually want to pimp black women in a video when you get an opportunity to promote an image of black people? You know, that dynamic of generations in a generational struggle, we're struggling with that, and also the sense that as we go further into the future there is a sense that each generation gets further and further away from what it is that brought us to the points where we are now. Now, I am optimistic however, because as we go toward the future, I do believe, and I'm starting to meet a lot of young people who have a very strong sense of the historical struggle, they are starting to tell their story, not necessarily through Hollywood, but thankfully because of technology there will be a lot of different ways to tell your story. So whereas right now, there is one way of looking at, in the sense that we have this sort of disconnect between one generation and another, and in fact we do especially when you look at major media, but there are other kinds of conversations that are going on that are a lot more powerful. I'm looking forward to reading your book, Damien, because I'm sure that it will reflect some of the connection that these voices, that sometimes you've heard of, sometimes you've not, but you will hear about it. Because 50% of black America was born after 1964. Now you just think going forward, 90% of all of the growth in the American population between now and 2050 will be minorities-90%.
Brown: Hmm, that is interesting to think about. And Matty, what do you experience in the Hispanic community, is there the same sort of intergenerational disconnect that Nat was talking about?
Chadderton: I would say that the most important value in the Hispanic community, as in other communities, are the education and family. So I was talking with you, I just came back from a trip, these parties rather, are all the generations: the grandparents, the aunts and uncles, and the nieces and grandchildren, etc., etc. So I really want to believe that there still is a communication among generations. But I was seeing, I was talking before also, it is important to understand that in the Hispanic community there is an ethnicity and it's part of, I believe, in only one race, that this the human race. There are different races; I mean, there is diversity within diversity. With black Latinos; we have native American Latinos; we have Asian Latinos, and white Latinos; so that diversity within diversity, bringing up to the table a very interesting challenge to the Hispanic community and other communities, because it is the open communication among generations, and I do that and my family in my community, but of course if I am an immigrant-in fact, I am-for me, my experience in acculturation is going to be completely different that my two children that they were born here. So they have the same rules but like not saying it, is the connection that we have to gather or to sit among generations, and going a little bit out, I was in Alabama, in Birmingham, four years ago. I went to the Institute of Civil Rights, and I learned so much at that time. But I learned and I have to stop every time that I was learning, because I have to meditate and recoup after the emotional moment. And at the very end, it was a wonderful closing, because it an international donation, like Nat was saying. We are not alone here, no Hispanic community alone. But the African American community and the other communities, and we have to be together. And I'm learning, my best mentors I could say, Sue Mc_____ if you're there, Tonya Williams. You know, they have told me about history and from the African American community in North Carolina, and in the world. Because remember, coming from Peru and we have we black, Puerto Rican population.
Brown: Yes, well there sounds like there are a lot of parallels between the African American community and the Hispanic community, and Damien, I'm interested in what Matty is saying about, she has these mentors basically that are African American; what about coalition building and the sharing of culture between the African American and the Hispanic community; why is there not more of that, what can we do to cultivate that?
Jackson: Well I would say firstly that, of course, it's essential, and I would say there's probably a lot more of it than all of us recognize going on. That goes back to a media question. And especially one of my areas is the hip hop community. There's a lot of that going on, there always has been a lot of that going on within the hip hop community, from the very start. Hip hop is very much an art form which was brought about by both blacks and Latinos. But I would also say that Matty brings up a very good point in terms of us working together, us necessarily working together as groups, and also these kind of artificial barriers put up between us, and I'll give you an example: when the recent census came out there was this push-big media push, press push-to say that there's these two different groups of people, and now these people, the people that have been Latinos, are taking over in terms of their numbers, as opposed to this group of people being blacks. And of course as you know, those are very much overlapping categories. So that whole artificial approach to putting these firm borders around those categories, is both inappropriate and counterproductive, and I think the folks who are responsible for doing that, kind of probably knew that. But I would say that, yes, in terms of your question, we have to work together, we always have worked together and we will continue to work together.
Brown: Well, why don't we know that, why is that we are not maybe as aware as we should be that there are these coalitions, there is this sharing that's going on between the African American and Hispanic community. Nat, do you have any thoughts?
Irvin: Well, I think the point of what Damien just said, the term Hispanic is still a fairly recent term. And America still has to put groups. I mean, it's so much easier to say, when you say Latino...I mean, goodness knows, the differences, the diversity within the Latino community. And that is so wide as almost to be meaningless. We lived in Texas for a number of years, as Matty was describing earlier, there's such a varied difference between "the Hispanic community" and Texas, South Texas as opposed to Dallas as opposed to North Carolina. And then of course if we go to Miami or if you were to go to Los Angeles and you're just talking to very different kinds of people. So it's sort of a convenient term. But also I think too, in terms of working together, people are working together. They will work together around things that are of common interest: education, immigration, people will work together. When we talk about opportunities, employment opportunities; people work together when they have common interests. And I think that part of what, when you're in a political season, we tend to use language that tends to make it simpler to talk about one group versus another. But in fact, there's a lot, and I think the point of younger people, for example, I think about my oldest son who's fluent in Spanish, and his girlfriend is fluent in Spanish as well, they have friends who are across, and in fact, his tribe is very well mixed up, of blacks and whites and Latinos, Asian.
Brown: When you say "tribe"-
Irvin: His tribe, his friends, his groups, people. I mean, I'm of another age, right? But his group, his running buddies, whatever. They do, they represent multi-cultural aspects of not only America, but the globe.
Brown: Well Matty, I like what Nat said much earlier about, we've made this move from survival to thrive-all. And it seems to me that African Americans and Hispanics, we have a lot to learn about how much we possibly need each other; do you agree with that?
Chadderton: Absolutely, but there, I agree also with Damien, to say that the media is so important in order to portray the degree of things that are going on. For instance, we have been working with the North Carolina NAACP, and then part of the Martin Luther King Center board. It is friendship we have to build, not only a relationship, because business or other endeavors; but friendship, you know, be comfortable. Like when I was invited by you, I felt very enthusiastic and honored because oh, wow, and let me think about the following, the national movement that now is the big brown majority. The big brown majority is formed in African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, Asian Americans and Native American. It is a mass, and maybe because I'm coming from an older, I mean, I'm the oldest in the family, I have a responsibility to really show or to inform or to teach the young generation that yes, we can, si se puede. We can work together. And right now, very interesting about the hip hop book-
[LAUGHTER]
Brown: Very good.
Chadderton: -and it's going to be a learning. My grandmother used to say, mi___lita, that the best school besides university if course, is the life. When you meet people, like today, and I'm enchanting because I'm, you know, so eager to read about this new group that I'm finding today.
Brown: Well Matty, you know, I appreciate the sentiment that you're expressing. I think in general, and Damien, I want to ask you this question, it seems that African Americans and Hispanic Americans or Hispanics in general who are in America, we often are very suspicious, very distant from each other because of the way that we are portrayed in the media, the notions that we have about each other. What can we do to sort of break those barriers?
Jackson: Well, one, I would say, stop believing the media and everything you see in the media, and that comes from a person who worked for the media. And I'm a journalist, but I would say, I think in a very real sense, Matty and Nat both touched upon it, it's about coalition building. It's about common interests as well, about having a place at the table. I think that there are certain interests, obviously the drivers being the economic, be they social, be they political; we have got to coalesce around issues which we have in common. I don't know any group of people who's ever been on the face of this earth who hasn't tried to advance their own interests and be at the table, and if those interests are common, then hopefully they have found ways of working together. And the civil rights, of course, era, was made because of that kind of coalition building. So of course we have to do that. We also have to be very realistic and very aware of forces which a lot of the economic forces in terms of not buying into what's been told to us in terms of people taking other people's jobs and because that's obviously a point of perceived tension, and it's not that those tensions aren't real, there are some of those tensions that obviously are real, but in terms of putting them in proper perspective and realizing that who ultimately benefits in the end if we are "fighting over scraps" or fighting over positions on the economic ladder, as opposed to trying to pull together and make our total situation better.
Irvin: Well, I'd like to comment on this, because I think that the point there is this: that adults behave in a certain way because of learned attitudes, etc., etc. The key thing for us I think, was we talk about the future of this country, the future of relationships between blacks and Latinos, is we have to pay attention-particularly black folks. We have to pay attention to the way that we describe other minority groups. I am sensing some developing problems between blacks and Latinos in terms of young people that I don't think black people are honest enough about addressing. And I think I see this in schools where the Latino kids who are new to the schools, and I'm not going to just say all black kids are the ones who are being the aggressors here, but I'm simply pointing out, as a black male, and as a parent of three black kids, and knowing other members of a Latino community, that I don't think that we as-that our community is addressing enough what I think on some developing tensions between black and Latino, young people. And that we need to be cognizant of what has been done to us and not do it to immigrants as well. ____ have to be a tension to that, something that you have to just guard against in all cases.
Brown: Matty, I'm going to give you the last word. How do we, since we live in a global community, that our borders are much broader than we often realize, how do we get Hispanics and African Americans to understand that and to look at ourselves in a broader context?
Chadderton: Well I think we have to go back to the teaching of Martin Luther King, Jr.: open communication, and begin to love and begin to not take it for granted, certain things that you know, people in the civil rights movement in the 1960s have done, not only for African American, but for every person in American. He was good not only for the African American population. It was good for all America. So I think there are already efforts, like achievement gap conference. We're in this together. I mean, how we can keep-you know, it's not what you're doing for yourself but what you are doing for your community. But my community is the Hispanic community, but is the North Carolinian community that embraces all the races-well, I would say the human race, you know. So I think we have to begin a different level, like Nat and Damien have said, from the very young people. But I think if we begin gatherings and openings as the media, as you are doing today in this Black Issues Forum, I think we are going to be successful and have-language is not going to be a barrier, we can break that. It is all about attitude, and education also. It does not matter that if we speak the language or not. Remember that the proficiency in a second language is going to take three to ten years. But let's talk about the universal language, and this moment is how we can strive and how we can work together.
Brown: Thank you. Thank you so much to all of you. I appreciate your input. And I'd like to thank, again, our guests Matty Lazo Chadderton, Damien Jackson, and Nat Irvin for joining us this evening. If you'd like a transcript of tonight's show and information on our guests, please visit us online at www.unctv.org/bif. You can also call us on the BIF line at 919-549-7167. Join us each and every Friday night at 9:30 for more stimulating discussion. For Black Issues Forum, I'm Natalie Bullock Brown reminding you to be encouraged, no matter what. Good night.
[THEME MUSIC]
Voiceover: This program was made possible by contributions to UNC-TV from viewers like you. Thank you.
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