Yesterday, CNN's Ali Velshi had a guest on who just went on and on more than he should have. Ali had on a big-name guest: Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. Because the other guest was so long winded, Mayor Nutter didn't get to say much at all.
So using Twitter, I suggested to Ali that the person did just that: went on and on and on.
Now I never said anything against Ali himself, but on Twitter he decided to be nasty. Here's the exchange if you didn't see it:
@zennie62 Zennie Abraham
@AliVelshi Hey that Michael guy on the City Fiscal Segment went on 35 seconds longer than necessary. #longwinded
And to repeat myself, but rather than send a tweet that was in agreement or providing some insight, Ali shot back with this tweet:
@AliVelshi Ali Velshi
@zennie62 did anyone ask you to be the timekeeper?
Now, that was below the belt,
so I called him on it in this video, and to explain that bad online behavior will see the light of day, and in the form of new content. That is, i social media, Ali Velshi is going to be judged and communicated to as much as he judges and communicates to us.
But it's apparent Ali wants some kind of negative exchange for some said reason. Moreover, it's obvious he doesn't get that he's helping me to create new content. This is his latest tweet:
@zennie62 excellent to see your self-righteousness continue. You've always been smarter - & a bigger attention-seeker - than the rest of us.
Now that's totally hilarious coming from a guy we see on television! LOL! I had to
tweet that one back, so I did, but in a friendly way, not attacking him in the way he's attacked me.
Well,
not exactly:
@AliVelshi "You've always been smarter - & a bigger attention-seeker - than the rest of us."... This YOU say? LMAO!
Yeah. Think about it. A national TV guy, who was just in
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, and bragged about it on the air, says that I'm a bigger attention-seeker? And he's in the media business, right?
I will be the first to tell you that, yes, I do seek attention as it's part of the media business, and, heck, it's me. Everything in terms of measuring success in media comes from that.
What is the measure of TV ratings, website unique visitors, and other factors but the taking of the temperature of one thing: how much attention one is drawing. Logically, that applies to Ali, who's job depends on ratings, er, people paying attention to him.
If he thinks I'm smarter than he is, perhaps that's why he's starting a feud with me.
(Well, I should note that CNN's ratings have improved dramatically since the ouster of Keith Olbermann from MSNBC. That, combined with CNN's excellent coverage of the Egypt Protests, have improved its ratings performance. But Fox News is still kicking tail.)
But then it's all about attention, isn't it? That, and jobs - media jobs in this case.
I have to note this Ali - Zennie (in no way like Ali - Foreman or Ali - Frazier) Feud in the context of Ali Velshi's recent comments on black unemployment. Two days ago on
CNN Live, Ali speculated that perhaps there should be some kind of special program aimed at blacks because of the higher unemployment rate.
Think about that, in the context of this feud. I'm a person, black, who believes that anyone, but especially young African Americans and women, should be confident and assertive, and start their own businesses. Go out, work hard,
believe in yourself, and hustle. To do that, to gain sponsors and clients and make computer programs, can't happen without that person believing they're the best S-O-B out there, and willing to say so.
Now think again. That kind of black person wouldn't need a lot of "help" or "special programs," right? Why? Because they would be the same kind of threat that Ali is apparently afraid of: the smart black guy or gal.
I'm not "pulling the race card" here - I hate the term - but calling attention to an issue Ali wandered into with good intentions, but not thinking the whole deal through to its conclusion.
Then, in his attack on me, Velshi is revealing something worth bringing to your "attention" and that's
some of the seeds of black underemployment and unemployment.
Yes, racism is a massive problem, but so is an overall national attitude that's waning but still exists, helped along by folks like Ali, which says that a black person should not be ambitious or seek the same levels of success that a white or light-skined person seeks. It's always said that "no one likes a smart black guy," and while that's not true for younger people, there are Americans who hold this idea in their heads, and some of them are black, too.
But what if we as a country didn't have that hang-up at all? I think it would move the needle of black unemployment down a good two or three percent.
But here's the deal: it would also cause unemployment rates for whites and other people of color to increase, and perhaps by the same amount.
So now, I can see why Ali attacked me, and that does go back to the debate I had with him where I cleaned his clock: a smart black guy is an issue for him -
a threat. I certainly hope this doesn't speak for CNN, but let's go with that for a bit.
I often wonder why CNN has black guest on its talk panels, but doesn't let them say anything? When I was a guest on
CNN's Roland Martin Debates in 2007, I noticed that as the show on the YouTubers was progressing.
So, not wanting to be a part of CNN's bad habits, I chimed in with a comment on one occasion, when it was apparent that Martin, who's black, was skipping over me. (And not by his doing but, I think, because his producers said "focus on that girl and that person, not him.") After the show, I vowed that if I was ever on CNN again, that would never happen.
I got my wish.
On the
second occasion, a conversation on the first Presidential Debate, where I was flown in to New York City, I basically saw a "time-opening" and took it, and to make a point about what I call the "internationalization of American Defense spending." Here's the video:
Yep. I planned that.
And I did so to counter CNN's habit of letting black's just come on as window dressing. That's something my mother observed in the case of Mayor Nutter and Ali. "He's probably doing that because that Mayor's black," she said. I tried to talk her out of it, but with this feud we're having I'm wondering if there's something to that.
I think so.
See, Ali's cool with having a talk where blacks speak on BLACK ISSUES, but if it's an interracial panel, he's lean toward the white person.
I'll bet they don't do that at Fox News!
Maybe that's one more reason, aside from their employment of lovely, smart, leggy blonde women, that Fox News is still besting CNN in television ratings. Fox has no problem having a smart black man, Juan Williams, as one of its key, outspoken pundits. That says more for Fox than for Juan's previous employer, NPR.
Where's CNN's Juan Williams? It could come from anyone in CNN's current stable, from Don Lemon, who's well-spoken and would make an excellent pundit, to Frederica Whitfield, who works on Saturdays, and to CNN's Sara Sidner in India, who I know has a lot of interesting views to share.
My Mom, who I'm visiting, said I should "leave this alone." She comes from a time when black men were lynched and beaten for anything from looking at a white girl to being outspoken. Her thinking is expressed, in one way or another, by many African Americans, and I get that.
But if we held that belief and let it stop all of us, there would have never been a President Barack Obama.
That brings me, to close this, to 2006.
I officially got on the Barack Train on December 6, 2006 when I joined the website BarackObama.com, made a contribution, and set up my own profile page. Then I became an advocate for the Senator From Illinois. And during that effort most blacks were behind the idea of Hillary Clinton For President, and to a degree because many African Americans said that whites would not vote for a black man.
I asserted that many did not understand how much America had changed. How much the emergence of Hip Hop music formed a new, interracial culture that was hungry for change and willing to make it happen. Then, as Barack won primary after primary, you could see the change in African Americans and over a short period of time. The "crab barrel" was pushed over - that habit of one person, in this case black, bringing down another person, in this case black, because they didn't want that person to succeed. That was pushed aside for Obama.
Now, we have a smart black guy as President.
I don't think CNN or America as a whole has issues with smart black guys and gals - some people do, but not all people. And maybe who does is Ali, but I hope I'm wrong.
Maybe he just wants attention.
Stay tuned.
