By Brian M. Boyce
TERRE HAUTE — The black community needs to develop more leaders and rely less on entertainers to fill those roles, award-winning social activist and political commentator Jeff Johnson told students Saturday at Indiana State University’s Black Leadership Conference.
Johnson, a journalist and commentator for the BET Network, addressed a room full of students in ISU Dede I as keynote speaker for the event. And he made it clear throughout the speech he wasn’t there to entertain. In fact, he’s tired of public speakers who “fake the funk” by hyping people up just for the sake of a show.
Johnson addressed what he described as a national “leadership crisis” clogging up the works from top to bottom.
“This generation, in many cases, does not know what leadership is,” he said bluntly, spreading blame across the board.
The public is attempting to fill that vacuum with celebrities and entertainers who, Johnson said, might be great artists, but are woefully unfit social strategists. Becoming a professional athlete or producing a hit album does not mean a “purple cloud” descends upon them, enshrining them with leadership ability, he said. In many cases, the entertainers were never called to be leaders and never claimed to be capable of leading in the first place.
Citing hip hop star Lil Wayne as a great artist whose music he likes, Johnson explained that much of his appeal comes from the fact that he appears constantly “medicated” with a cup in his hand. That might appeal to a group of youth who likewise want to escape into altered reality, but the very thing that makes his work marketable simultaneously damages his leadership potential.
Later in the presentation he said, “we develop these boys and girls to become brands, not men and women.”
Meanwhile, traditional engines of black leaders such as the church and civic groups are likewise falling into dysfunction. Johnson decried the hypocrisy of churches failing to address the moral ills of its membership, noting many churches are more interested in building elaborate facilities and generating money.
“Most Christians I know are punks in that respect,” he said of worshipping an all-powerful God while claiming they can’t fight drugs and alcohol within their own congregation.
And politically, the lack of vision and strategy is apparent.
Johnson said “most black voters gave their vote away” in the 2008 presidential election which saw Barack Obama become the nation’s first black commander-in-chief. Simply voting for Obama because he’s black is hardly strategy, Johnson said, asking that if after his term in office, nothing more has been achieved than having a black man in office, then what was the gain?
“That’s not even what he wants,” he said.
Johnson was also critical of the black community’s dismissal of former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who served under President George W. Bush. The fact that she served under Bush nixed her in the minds of many blacks, he said. But when Johnson was in Liberia for the inauguration of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female head of state and that country’s first elected female president, the loudest applause came for Rice. People in Africa realized her accomplishments as a black woman in America, while back home, many simply saw her as a member of the Bush cabinet.
The overall paradigm of political leadership in America is in desperate need of change, he said. “The biggest joke in this country is the two-party system. It’s a one-party system that’s schizophrenic,” he said to laughter. But even the language of American politics is dysfunctional, he pointed out, noting the sheer number of “third parties” present. How can the Libertarian, Green and Independent parties all be “third parties” unless there are really only two in existence, he asked, noting the Republicans and Democrats ultimately aren’t all that different in function.
“But the question is, who’s going to lead?” he asked.
Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.
