MANSFIELD: Hats Off to Harry Belafonte

(As a matter of full disclosure I’m a contributing writer for The Daily Beast.)

While Mr. Belafonte’s harsh words no doubt caused a firestorm of controversy on Martha’s Vineyard as the season came to an end and all of the wealthy, upper-class blacks who summer there were making preparations to rush back to their sinecures at Ivy League universities or their posh Manhattan digs, his remarks are long, long overdue.

Certainly there will be cries of “washing dirty linen in public” emanating from some quarters, but our “dirty linen” is publicly washed every time a gangbanger whips out a gun and kills another youth… and all we do is hold another candlelight vigil where speakers make demands and preachers pray over it. Sorry, gangbangers don’t, as a rule, attend church, adhere to any religion, or do much praying… other than for a shiny pistol and a fatter bankroll.

Personally lacking the sterling credentials and towering stature of Mr. Belafonte, I’ve for years held off writing just such a piece… as much as I’ve been tempted to. Not out of fear of any consequences, but because I could hear those I’d be directing it at ask me, “And just who the hell are you to criticize what we do or don’t do?” And they’d be right… I simply don’t have the standing to take the wealthy to task.

But Mr. Belafonte, because he’s one of them, can pose such questions; indeed, he can pose any questions he likes to the African-American community. No living American of color is more qualified, possesses more gravitas, and has paid more dues that entitle him to speak out than the 85-year-old civil rights giant. And like the old E.F. Hutton commercial said… when Mr. Belafonte talks, people listen. And I’m literally on the verge of doing somersaults now that he has finally spoken out.

For those of you who might need a refresher course, Harry Belafonte earned his right to speak out on such matters facing down snarling police dogs and baton-wielding storm troopers on the streets of Birmingham and Selma, Alabama, as he — along with Marlon Brando, Dick Gregory and others — put his life on the line to march with Dr. King to forever change America. All of his life he’s lived out his beliefs and commitments. When Dr. King was assassinated it was Belafonte that financially supported his widow and children for a time, until monies started coming in from the estate the slain civil rights leader had created via his writings.

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“Progress in human affairs is more often a pull than a push, surging forward of the exceptional man, and the lifting of his duller brethren slowly and painfully to his vantage-ground,” wrote W.E.B Du Bois in his 1903 book, The Souls of Black Folk. Belafonte is simply saying that too many African-Americans with the wherewithal to help uplift the race have been lax in this regard… very lax. For some reason we have not developed enough of a philanthropic strain within our race… and this failing makes us look like children. Perhaps it’s because this wealth is so new to us… not centuries old as in some cultures and ethnicities. Help me, I’m looking for answers here.

Rather than reach back, too many blacks in good financial circumstances just love reaching forward to host fundraisers to send other wealthy blacks’ children off to law school. How is that helping? Certainly we need to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities, but the need is greatest among the poor and can be more life-altering if initiated at the beginning of life. Programs like Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone have, over the last two decades, proven that lives can be changed if intervention begins at birth. His success rate is in the 89 percentile — that’s how many of his 13,000-plus kids go off to college.

Of course some wealthy blacks do engage in philanthropic endeavors: Some are well-meaning and do an excellent job; some are simply self-aggrandizing; and others are simply tax write-offs. But for anyone who sincerely wants to help and doesn’t quite know how, they should go ask an expert… they need to ask Geoffrey Canada what they should be doing with their money. There should create Harlem Children Zone-type programs all over the country, and if we really want to stem America’s slide into oblivion and irrelevancy we need to institute them now. Our country quite simply can no longer afford to support such a vast underclass… a suffering group which pulls the entire body politic down and hold us all back.

Still other blacks like to do just enough to give themselves (they think) the right to caustically criticize — like Bill Cosby, who just loves to blame the victims of American racism for their shortcomings. In his version of the trope it’s simply their laziness and slough that keeps the poor mired in poverty. He, and others of his ilk, simply love to scream at functionally illiterate parents that they should read to their children. But this illiteracy goes back generation after generation… all the way to the doors of slave cabins… where it was against the law to teach someone to read.

Cosby frequently faults those who don’t have the education, skills, talent, or grit to improve their lot in life — but rarely, if ever, will you hear him speak about the racist conditions that created and perpetrate the crime and poverty in inner-city communities. And never, ever will you hear him criticize other wealthy blacks for their failings and shortcomings in terms of assisting their brethren.

Show me a picture of Bill Cosby on the frontline with Dr. King — or participating in any other civil rights action during the ’60s for that matter — and I’ll eat it. He was a no-show.

The Daily Beast article reads: When asked recently about African-American artists and social responsibility he saw little reason to bite his tongue. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter last month, Belafonte was quoted saying this: “I think one of the greatest abuses of this modern time is that we have had such high-profile artists, powerful celebrities. But they have turned their back on social responsibility. That goes for Jay-Z and Beyoncé, for example. Give me Bruce Springsteen, and now you’re talking. I really think he is black.”

Of course fans of the couple rushed to their support by naming some of the charitable things Beyoncé has done over the years, but in comparison to what she could be doing she needs to just take the tongue-lashing as bravely as she can, and take solace that Mr. Belafonte was not speaking exclusively about her and her husband. They were only used as examples… he was talking about (and to) the thousands of wealthy, selfish American blacks… and for good reason: They could and should be doing more — much more.

How, in Heaven’s name, can we African-Americans expect folks of goodwill (who happen to be of other races) to rush to aid our race when the vast majority of those blacks among us who have the ability to really help are doing so very little — and in some cases nothing — to aid their own race?

Read the article, and from the bottom of my heart I sincerely thank you for it, Mr. Belafonte.

And just in case anyone is wondering what I’m doing on a personal level to help… I don’t just talk the talk, I also walk the walk. I’m not wealthy, but anyone who cares to can join me as I take my message of reentry into prisons around the state, or you come out and work with the men from Oriana House (a nearby halfway house) who assist me in tending The Vineyards of Château Hough as they learn viticulture skills that hopefully will one day lead to meaningful employment.

[Image: Jonathan Short / AP Photos]

From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.