Page found the Williams speech both "energizing and troubling".
Since I’m not a regular viewer of “Grey’s Anatomy,” I didn’t know who the actor Jesse Williams was until his eloquent rants about the state of race in America popped up in viral internet videos.
Now he’s hit the big time. He’s been widely hailed and covered for his “courage” and “speaking truth to power” in an eloquent speech he delivered after accepting the Humanitarian Award at the BET Awards on Sunday night.
It’s a stirring speech, a bracing indication of Williams’ theatrical talents, multimedia commentaries and community activism.
It was also a heartwarming speech. The Chicago-born Williams began with thanks to his parents, as cameras turned to his white mother and black father — stirring symbols of a new era of racial harmony.
He also paused to salute “black women in particular who have spent their lifetimes dedicated to nurturing everyone before themselves. We can and will do better for you.” Big applause for that, deservedly so.
But from there I found his speech to be both energizing and troubling. High energy with inadequate direction to it is always troubling.
Williams has credited his biracial background with enabling him to witness America’s racial tribulations from both sides. Great. Unfortunately, only one side was expressed in his speech. Guess which one?
“Now, what we’ve been doing is looking at the data and we know that police somehow manage to de-escalate, disarm and not kill white people every day,” he said sarcastically, touching off big whoops with the crowd.
That’s a worthwhile point to make. I’ve made it myself after high-profile police killings and will do it again, if necessary.
But as an African-American who has listened to more speeches than you can shake a police baton at, I know that it does not take much courage to tell a mostly black audience that their biggest problem is white racism.
That’s about as challenging as telling a Donald Trump rally that their biggest problem is undocumented immigrants. (If only life was that easy, folks.)
Real courage would have led Williams to say a few words to his show-biz audience and colleagues about the cultural decay and ethnic apartheid that America’s own entertainment industry has promoted.
We need to talk about police brutality, job discrimination and shrinking educational opportunities. But we also need to talk about black folks killing each other, belittling the value of education and promoting the N-word in hip-hop media.
Yeah, I said it. I know that too many white conservatives have used black-on-black crime as an excuse to ignore such problems as police misconduct, even when the abuses are caught on video. I hear it all the time.
I also hear cynical conservatives attack BET, which stands for Black Entertainment Television, as self-segregation. “Why isn’t there a White Entertainment Television?” goes the sarcastic right-wing cliche.
There is, folks. It’s called ABC, NBC, CBS, etc., etc. Failure to see that obvious reality explains why our nation’s racial divide persists, despite our hard-won victories.
Williams did hold black entertainers accountable at one point, berating those who pray for lucrative product endorsements to “get paid for brands on our bodies.”
But to go further with black self-criticism might well have exposed Williams to the criticism that some black intellectuals like to make about President Barack Obama whenever he strikes a similar balance in his speeches to black audiences. Folks, dialogue has to go both ways.
Instead, Williams rebuked critics even before he has been criticized. “If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression,” he said. “If you have no interest in equal rights for black people, then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down.”
That’s a sharp message to the trolls out there. Not surprisingly, the audience loved it. But it also reminded me of the anti-intellectualism that I have witnessed sometimes in campus discussions, where criticism is silenced in the interest of “safe spaces” for students of color.
I fully understand the need for students to gravitate to comfort zones as they become accustomed to the unfamiliar environment of a college campus. But we also need to encourage students to get out of their comfort zones and deal directly with the world of diversity for which university life is supposed to prepare them.
(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
