Date Published: January 5, 2021
Publisher: Phoenix Publishing Corporation
This book chronicles the effects of long term systemic and institutional racism. Using South-Central Los Angeles as an example, the book chronicles the forty-year process of attempting to provide technology and the effect of the lack of ability to access technology. The extensively documented case has shown that the denial of civil rights and technology would lead to the inevitable results that have occurred. This book deals with the cause and effect of the refusal by the City of Los Angeles to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against the City. The ruling identified the City’s attempts to limit technology in the poorest areas of the City as a civil rights violation. The complicity of major Black politicians is also explored.
In the 1980’s and 1990’s, before the growth of the internet, cable television was the newest technology available throughout the United States and the world. It would dramatically change America’s use of the television and related industries. The denial would serve to provide long-term negative consequences within the community including education, poor health, crime and gangs that have run rampant over the last four decades within South-Cental Los Angeles.
THE BLIND WATCHMAN
A media that it does not control creates the issues and
images of Black America. Since Black America does not control the issues we
also do not control the solutions. Those that ultimately control the images
that are displayed in all news, music and entertainment are responsible for the
value systems that are established within the Black community. Black
politicians have been responsible for assuring the lack of participation in the
national media system of America. The failure of black leadership is at the
core of the failings within the Black community.
In Black America there are no entities watching the elected
officials that were elected by Black voters to local, state or federal
positions. Our ability to access and control media, print or electronic, has
never developed relative to our percentage of the general population in the
United States. The willingness of the government, both local and federal, to
prohibit the development of modern media resources, as guaranteed by the First
Amendment, leaves Black America with little knowledge about the activities of
elected officials and the political process. This is what it means to be
powerless.
In our modern society the relationship between media and
government threatens the public's belief in the independence of the media from
the government. The billions of dollars that are spent in political campaigns
in various media clearly have an influence over the information that is
provided to the public. The media is blinded by profits.
How can we control the results if we do not control the
resources that are necessary to make the results possible? Specifically the
absence of control or involvement with major electronic media has destroyed any
ability of Black America to establish values and trust within their own
communities.
When someone other than yourself controls the view of
yourself then you must question that view. If the view, even though it is
incorrect, is force-fed to you enough you will start to believe the view and
react accordingly. Every white person who expresses some fear of a black person
is not a racist. Their view and understanding of Black America is also obtained
from a flawed media picture.
News media is no longer a public service as it was over the
many years through newspapers and network television but rather has become a
profit center for multinational corporations that have taken control over the
media with the assistance of government. In exchange media offers protection from
disclosure of the true activities of elected officials. This control is to the detriment of the
common citizen.
The ability to access information regarding the activities
of government and elected officials is one of the most important elements,
historically, of the news media. The integrity of the media is paramount in its
job as watchman over the activities of a
government that may seek to exceed its authority. The First Amendment to the
Constitution was created so that that media would not be in the limits and
control of government. No constitutional
rights can be preserved if the First Amendment is lost.
The US Supreme Court decided the case of Preferred
Communications vs the City of Los Angeles in the spring of 1986. The Court,
unanimously, decided that the city's method of awarding only one franchise in a
given area was a violation of the First Amendment. Despite the ruling, the
City, during the Bradley administration, refused to comply with the Court's
decision and allow more than one franchise. The ability to defy the Supreme
Court and deny the citizens of South Central their rights has served to assure
the citizens of South Central that they will be forever a different class of
citizen whose constitutional rights are only valid if allowed by the City of
Los Angeles. The 14 year history of this case is detailed in the book
"Anatomy of a Hustle: Cable Comes to South Central LA".
George Washington emphasized the importance of the First
Amendment when he said, "If freedom
of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like a sheep to
slaughter". We are all witnesses that extreme incarceration levels and the
murder rate of Black youth are leading a defenseless Black America to slaughter.
Those who control the media and put information on the air
determine what is news and what is merely throw away information that is not
worthy of the minds of America. The
lives of Black America are obviously part of the throw away.
He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, but moved shortly thereafter with his family to New York City. He attended Northern Arizona University with the assistance of a baseball scholarship. In the late 1970s, after getting his CPA license, he relocated from a large international accounting firm in San Francisco to a major international investment banking firm in Beverly Hills.
His first book is titled “Anatomy of a Hustle: Cable Comes to South Central Los Angeles” (2012). This is his second book.
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