Tavis Smiley’s Pathetic Paranoia and Increasing Irrelevance

[jaysunb]

The job of the artist, the activist and the journalist is to engage in uncomfortable analysis. If they don’t then all they’re feeding the masses is a steady diet of nothing but comfort food. There is no intellectual nourishment in always entertaining people.

Then there’s Tavis Smiley. The self-appointed President of Black America who has been both a race hustler and a shameless corporate shill even as he prowls the country on a “poverty tour” designed for no other reason than to try to embarrass the twice-elected President of the United States.

Not that is has. Lately nobody seems to notice Tavis and his stunts. His pandering for press attention has reached Lindsay Lohan levels of desperation. For a minute it was fun to watch Smiley babble how he was going to hold Barack Obama “accountable.” It became clear Smiley really desired Obama to be accountable to him.

http://jeffwinbush.com/2013/05/31/tavis-smileys-pathetic-paranoia-and-increasing-irrelevance/

YES !!!

[Archaic]

1. I don't really agree with the author.

"no other reason than to try to embarrass the twice-elected President..."

I wouldn't lump him in with other people who just got mad about stuff. There's a lot of psychos that only got mad about government spending and waste when Bush left office. Some of it political, some no doubt race, but if you weren't mad about gov't waste in 2000-2007, I don't think you get to be upset now.

I've watched Mr. Smiley's show for a while now, and while silly some times, I find it interesting. When he has people on to discuss income inequality and similar topics, he definitely gives it to the President. But I think it's from a sense of disappointment rather than to show him up.

I can't think of any other person that has a show with as wide a potential audience as Tavis Smiley that discusses topics like this. You'll never hear about poverty on any other channel. Some say the word, but then talk about a bunch of celebrity political drivel. They don't know it, and they haven't seen it. I think Mr. Smiley gets it and honestly wants to see some action on it.

Is Mr. Smiley perfect? Of course not. But I don't think he deserves that kind of rant when he is actually talking about something important and the lack of any focus whatsoever in 4+ years on a strategy to resolve our income inequality issues. If he was mad at the President for the reasons Fox News or CNN or the corporate media are, he'd be irrelevant. But he's not the one complaining about salutes or badly delivered phrases in a speech. He's complaining about the obscenity of hunger and homelessness in a country that has millionaires that don't go to jail because it could hurt their business. (http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/no-jail-for-hit-and-run-driver-who-plowed-into-cyclist)

One other thing... The author placed a photo of Dr. West, and Mr. Smiley and referred to them as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, and I just don't think that's fair. They aren't asking any more of the President than they wanted from his predecessors. But his predecessors didn't campaign on issues of inequality.