If you believe the acclaimed director of “Do the Right Thing” and “Malcolm X,” an entire generation has been bamboozled by the gatekeepers of popular culture. But even if he's right, what can we do about it?

By Bianca Zaharescu
Gargoyle staff reporter
Posted Sunday, April 23, 2006, The OG, opinions

This past Wednesday, at 5:30 p.m., I was sitting on the steps of Foellinger Auditorium with my dad, waiting patiently for the “Evening with Spike Lee” to begin.

I knew the doors opened at 6:15, and I knew Spike Lee would be nowhere in sight until an hour after that, but I wanted good seats and somehow managed to convince my dad that it was imperative that we be among the first five people there (which we were).

We were also, a bit surprisingly, the only people not even close to being in their 20s. I was a bit disappointed that more U of I professors didn't show an interest in something I believed they should have. I also felt extremely young because there were no Uni students within my radius of sight, although I later heard that a few had been there.

But for the entire period of time between when Spike Lee stepped onto the stage and when he walked off, I had no complaints.

Instead of giving an overview of all the insightful points that Spike Lee made, I'm going to focus on one of his many trains of thought, the one that I found most engaging. It is a topic I often think about, so hearing someone else put my thoughts into words, especially in front of a capacity audience of almost 2,000 people, was just really awesome.

Here's how it all starts, in Spike's own words: “The gatekeepers are the people, a very small, selected few, who are the ones who decide what films get made and what don't.”

Right. Or, by the same token, what songs get played on the radio and what don't, what news gets out and what doesn't, what rappers get signed and what don't.

“Those are the positions of power,” Spike continued. “Not one person of color is in these gatekeeper positions.”

He cited the film “Soul Plane” and the TV series “Homeboys in Outer Space,” both of which were comedies whose humor stemmed from using racial stereotypes. “We weren't in the room,” he said, referring to the decision-making process that led to both projects being greenlighted.

“It becomes so sophisticated that now you don't even have to put on a black face to be a minstrel,” Spike said. “And they don't even know it.”

I personally thought this was a great way to put it. Realistically, though, it's comments like this that often have the effect of making many audience members question what is going on inside the speaker's head. Fittingly, Spike proceeded to explain himself.

“The majority of moviegoing people wanna see black people in roles where they're singing and dancing and cheesing and acting ignorant,” Spike stated.

Well, isn't that true? Maybe and hopefully not for you personally, but look at the spectrum of roles for black actors. I know I've noticed it before. It's really extremely disturbing once you stop and realize how nicely this setup fits to serve as a modern-day minstrel show.

But Spike didn't stop there.

“This infatuation with gangsta stuff,” he started. “It's very detrimental. Look at the imagery, the lyrical content. You could blame the artists, the record companies, because they're pushing this stuff, but … we gotta get out of this thing where you measure your masculinity by how many bullets you got in you, or how many people you've shot, or how many chains you're wearing.”

So once again, it all starts with the gatekeepers. But it all ends with us buying into it. “Us” as in everyone, including black people themselves — everyone who is willing to accept this oversimplified and twisted image of black culture and “black people” that the gatekeepers are molding for the world to feast on.

As Spike put it, “Young black kids, smart kids, fail class on purpose because if you speak correct English, you get good grades, you're not on the street corner, then you're not real, you're not down, you're not from the ghetto, and you're not black.”

We all have the impulse to find a culture we can identify with and call our own, and then to continuously try to make sure that we fit into whatever identity we believe that culture dictates of us.

“Peer pressure is terrible at that age,” Spike attested. “And it's not any easier to deal with for these young black kids; in fact it may be worse. No one wants to stick out, so the majority of people succumb to this.”

But as human as it is to want to fit in and be as “authentic” as possible — ironically, oftentimes “authentic” ends up meaning what the gatekeepers formulate it to mean, which is by definition not actually authentic — it's no less harmful.

“It's genocide when you have them doing this: when they equate intelligence with acting white, and ignorance with being black,” Spike said. “It's pushed by TV, music, music videos, and films. And it's deadly to the development of minds. More people got to stand up and say no to this.”

He gave us the example of a group of college girls who began listening to the lyrics of their favorite music and finally decided, “No matter how good the beat is, if the lyrics are saying bitch-whore, I'm not dancing to this.”

As Spike sees it, the start of the path toward solving this problem of racial confusion and stereotypes is straightforward enough.

“You have control over these things — you have power as a consumer,” he said. “Almost everything is marketed to your age group.”

The conclusion?

“I know it's cliché,” he told us seriously. “But it's gonna be you young, intelligent people in the audience who have to turn this thing around.”

So does he actually expect us to stop listening to what is basically all mainstream hip hop — in other words to just permanently turn off the radio?

Wait a second. All we want to do is to stop giving into the ignorant mess of what the gatekeepers — and by now, as a result, most Americans — say it means to be black. But in order to do that we have to forfeit our ability to choose when it comes to entertainment? Something's not right here.

Seriously, look at what the media are feeding us. It's not just music and movies that are tainted; all too often the news, many people's source of truth, is distorted as well. If you just stop and think about it, it becomes blatant how extensively the gatekeepers have really managed to spread their poison, how deeply they've managed to ingrain it in so many people's heads.

Now, be honest with yourself for a minute. How far have the gatekeepers managed to intrude into your own views and shape them?

This is scary indeed. Most people can't even tell that this is going on. So everyone's all up and getting degrees and volunteering and making-the-world-a-better-place, without even seeing that the gatekeepers are the ones who control the mindset, the culture.

And as long as they can keep screwing with the world's perception of more or less an entire race, we're not going to get very far at all.