Fail Up (18 page)

CHAPTER 13

THE DIVERSITY
IMPERATIVE

D
r. Martin Luther King, Jr., is the greatest American our nation has ever produced. I've said this many times and stand by that statement. Love was his only weapon. With it, he transformed a nation, transformed the world, and helped transform a poor, Black kid struggling to find his identity in the overwhelmingly white world of Kokomo, Indiana.

Before Dr. King influenced my life, Muhammad Ali helped me to cope. Giving white kids a verbal beat-down, like Ali, was my way of reconciling my race- and class-based insecurities.

When I was about 12, a deacon at my church decided to introduce me to this servant-leader via recorded speeches.

Ali's physical and verbal attributes captivated me, but Dr. King's unwavering commitment to the struggle of Black folk converted me to his cause. I interpreted his words about the Black/white divide in America as a reflection of my Black/white experiences in Indiana. I wanted to be like Dr. King; I wanted to be courageous and change the world. I clung to Ali, but with Dr. King as extra motivation, my beat-downs were now presented with a self-righteous justification.

I was mistaken.

Much later in life, I realized that my view was myopic. Dr. King's passionate words touched my heart, but my soul had yet to fully comprehend the fact that he was inspired by men whose skin color or culture did not match ours.

His influences included the clergyman Walter Rauschenbusch, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Mahatma Gandhi. His beliefs were cemented in the concepts of the Social Gospel, nonviolence, and human rights for the downtrodden. Dr. King came to operate under the umbrella of three basic principles, essentially:

Justice for all
Service to others
Love that liberates

We now live in the most multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic America ever, but evidence abounds that we are retreating from Dr. King's principles. Instead of making progress on the racial front, we're backsliding, becoming less tolerant, further entrenched in paranoid nativism, and more stubbornly embedded in class, race, and political divisions. Never mind that there's a Black man in the White House.

If this country is to truly thrive, it must honor its constitutional tenets of freedom and justice for all—regardless of skin color or class differences. In a globally connected, competitive world, it must shun its narcissistic tendency to stomp on the least of us.

Diversity is more than a hopeful goal; it is an imperative. This was the true message I had to absorb if I really planned to walk in the footsteps of America's King.

Not Just Black People

In college, as the solo Black member of Indiana University's debate team, my ongoing goal was to dominate through convincing, well-articulated, and passionate presentations. I made sure my arguments floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee; and—just like the famed, Atlanta-born, Baptist minister, I did my best to mesmerize my audiences.

My debate coach—white, conservative, and a solid supporter of Reaganomics—took a personal interest in me. One day, we became engaged in a deep conversation while on a long bus ride back to campus after a tournament. We hit on the hot button topics of politics, religion, and race. Her positions were conservative in nature while mine, of course, reflected Black, progressive liberalism. As our conversation came to an end, my coach offered these words of advice:

“You know, Tavis, it would be a mistake to limit yourself to the struggles of just Black people. It could be your starting point, like your hero Dr. King, but your message has the potential to be far more universal.”

Ironically, Mayor Allison, with whom I interned, said something similar to me during a moment of course correction. “You have so much to offer the American people, not just Black people,” she affirmed.

The words of both of these white women came through loud and clear, but I had to wrestle with their meanings. Both had proven themselves to be my supporters with my best interests at heart, but in my youth, I wasn't exactly sure how to process what they were saying to me. Was this a dis of my people or a diminishment of my love for them? Had I been cut and just didn't know it? Then again, perhaps I was simply too young and underexposed to the true depth of Dr. King to absorb the full meaning of their message.

My philosophical, social, and cultural evolution came after I left Indiana.

Race and Power

In his 1993 book,
Politics in Black and White: Race and Power
in Los Angeles
, author Raphael Sonenshein defined five-term Mayor Tom Bradley as “the most important political figure in Los Angeles in the last three decades.”

Through an internship, and later, as part of Bradley's staff, I was shoulder to shoulder with the icon who put together a coalition of Jewish, Black, Hispanic, and other liberal supporters who beat back racist opposition in 1973. He went on to build a city that was “proudly multicultural,” as
LA Times
writer Howard Blume noted.

When I ran for a city council seat in LA, I used Mayor Bradley's model. I didn't run on divisive racial politics, even though I firmly believed my opponent catered to her white constituents while largely ignoring the Black voters in the Crenshaw district. Although I didn't win the race, I came to really appreciate how the mayor's diversified approaches earned lifelong loyalty and empowered an entire city.

After leaving Mayor Bradley's office and slowly gaining access to larger and larger local radio audiences, I had the opportunity to partner with Ruben Navarrette, Jr. He later worked for the
San Diego Union-Tribune
and became one of the most widely syndicated Hispanic columnists in the country. But back in 1994, Ruben and I were just two 20-somethings co-hosting one of the country's first Black/ brown radio programs.

Initially, I was hesitant about our partnership. Number one: I was a solo guy; the idea of sharing the microphone with a co-host wasn't immediately appealing. Second: Like my debate coach, Ruben was more conservative in his views. I feared that, politically, our partnership wouldn't work. The only thing we really had in common was our youth, which won us the coveted cover spot on the
LA Times'
s
Calendar
magazine, “Talk Radio's Ne(X)t Generation.”

On the air five nights a week, Ruben and I were forced to wrestle with the Black/brown divide. At the time everyone was in an uproar about the vast numbers of Hispanics moving into LA. I was one of those voices speaking for Blacks who felt they were being crowded out by Latinos. Ruben didn't agree with me, but we learned to respectfully deal with our differences and elevate conversations beyond youthful emotion.

The show was short-lived, but in the time we spent together, I came to better appreciate the value of passionate, diverse dialogue; multiracial coalitions; and the importance of stepping outside the exclusive prism of my blackness. We may have held dramatically opposing political views, but when it came to unemployment, poverty, and prisons, Ruben and I were in total agreement—both Black and brown folk were catching hell.

Start Where You Are …

The advice of my debate coach and Mayor Allison took on more meaning as I rose in the public arena and my understanding of Dr. King's principles congealed. The struggles of Black people were Dr. King's starting point, but his message was absolutely universal.

As a twice-weekly commentator on the
Tom Joyner Morning
Show
and later as host of my own program on Black Entertainment Television (BET), my starting point was with Black audiences. But as I evolved, I went from the Blackest of Black media venues, Tom and BET, to the whitest of white media outlets—NPR and PBS.

The same sense of evolution applied to my decision in early 2010 not to host the annual State of the Black Union conference. For ten years, we had rare, high-caliber, and important conversations that were broadcast nationally on C-SPAN. But even before the election of Obama, that void had been filled by a variety of Black media platforms from talk radio shows to Websites to blogs. My role as convener of the symposia wasn't as necessary as it had been in prior years. So many other forums now have the chance to raise the issues that I've always championed and continue to care about. I now have the opportunity to take my passions into different arenas.

The space that so desperately needs the inclusion of voices and concerns like mine is that sphere of analysis dominated by the Sunday morning network news shows and cable networks like CNN, FOX News Channel, and MSNBC. Despite the overpopulation of news and information outlets, there is less and less ideological diversity in the media. So many of us are left out of these conversations. When we turn on cable television, for the most part, all we see, all day and all night, is all white.

In the most multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic America ever, mainstream media is at its best when it challenges folks to reexamine the assumptions they hold and expand their inventory of ideas. Mainstream media is at its worst when it fails to use its power to introduce Americans to one another—when it hesitates to build bridges across wide racial, cultural, ideological, and political gulfs.

This was the impetus behind the forum I hosted just days before the annual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. On January 13, 2011, I had the privilege to moderate “America's Next Chapter,” a nationally televised discussion in Washington, DC at George Washington University. The guest panelists were Arianna Huffington, founder of
The Huffington
Post
; John S. Chen, chairman of the Committee of 100; CNBC's Maria Bartiromo; David Frum, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush; Dana Milbank, political columnist for
The
Washington Post
; David Brody, chief political correspondent for CBN News; Maria Teresa Kumar, executive director/co-founder of Voto Latino; and, of course, my good friend Dr. Cornel West.

For three hours, Americans who tuned into C-SPAN, caught the rebroadcast on my PBS show, or streamed it online were treated to the kind of rich, diverse, racial, ethnic, political, and ideological viewpoints they would have rarely, if ever, seen on network or cable news programs. I was extremely proud of the outcome of the panel discussion and can only hope mainstream media heads noted the value of bringing diverse voices to the table to discuss issues that affect all Americans.

It's not that I have abandoned my commitment to the concerns of Black people. Hardly. Everywhere I go, I bring my whole self with me; which means everywhere I go, I bring my Blackness with me. My love for Black people will never, ever go away.

To the contrary, the evolution I describe is more about embracing the totality of Dr. King's message. He, too, started with a particular love for Black people but went on to propagate a universal love that embraced all humanity.

My love of humanity starts unapologetically with my people because I understand our struggle, which continues to this very day. But on the battlefield of race and class, injustice and exclusion, Black people are not exclusive targets.

It is the memory of Dr. King that encourages me to sound the clarion call for political accountability. Too many conversations revolve around the concerns of the rich and lucky or the so-called middle class. Few talk about the poor, the disenfranchised, or the underprivileged. The “haves” get attention, while the “have-nots” languish out of sight.

Too many Americans keep insisting that we must “take our country back.” They yearn for the “good ol' days,” forgetting (or ignoring) that those days weren't so good for red, Black, and brown folk. Others are boiling mad over immigration. It's a waste of energy. No fence, no wall, no amount of troops along the border will ever dim the constitutional promise of liberty, freedom, and opportunity for all. Let's face it: No one's going anywhere!

In 2010,
Forbes
magazine cited U.S. Census figures to make the argument that diversity needs to be a high priority in this country. By the year 2050, racial/ethnic minorities (Latinos at 30 percent, African Americans at 12 percent, and Asian Americans at 8 percent) will comprise 55 percent of America's working-age population. In a world where China and India are superpowers and the marketplace is global, we need to prepare a cadre of colorful emissaries to help this country remain relevant in the 21st century and beyond.

Dr. King's operational definition of love means that everyone is worthy—just because. It's not about titles, wealth, or skin color. LOVE means everyone is worthy—just because.

A similar theme was found in the 2005 editorial, “How the Civil Rights Movement affected U.S. immigration,” published by the Sound Vision Foundation, a nonprofit religious organization dedicated to producing constructive and educational Islamic media content.

Beginning with the familiar words, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” the commentary reads: “Until the 1960s, this famous inscription which is found on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor—the site where many immigrants arrived in America in the early 20th century—applied only to whites. But thanks to the country's Civil Rights Movement, among other factors, immigrants of all colors were welcomed into the country.”

This civil rights emphasis on human rights brought world attention to America's exclusion of all nonwhite immigrants, the commentary stresses. Discriminatory laws that restricted the freedoms of Black people also stifled the ambitions of darker-skinned immigrants, women, Hispanics, Asians, lesbians, gays, and transgendered; they served to choke off basic human rights for all Americans.

The Foundation elaborated, adding that “America's Muslims are enjoying the fruits of the struggle as well,” and “many of the Muslims who came to study, work, and later establish their families in this country could simply not have done so had U.S. immigration laws retained their discriminatory nature.”