Antonio Moore [@tonetalks] brings L.A. back to Black History

By way of introduction, straight from his Twitter page: “Antonio Moore graduated from UCLA [and] Loyola Law School. He is [an] Emmy nominated producer of the documentary Crack in the System that aired on Al Jazeera.”

My way of introducing Antonio Moore is through this statement: the world-famous Nigerian musician Fela had to leave Africa and come to Los Angeles to learn about Africa. That North-American east-coast-based academic “of color” to this day might laugh at such a true statement. That is because there is a well-deserved, inherent disrespect for the West coast “of color” in general and Los Angeles in particular. Even as a Los Angeles native, I have been and will be guilty of this disrespect.

But what no assimilated dumb-ass can deny is that Los Angeles is known the world over for the place you come to establish the pinnacle of one’s success. That means Los Angeles natives have had the “privilege” of seeing up close and personal the intimate details of world-class white privilege. This is the leading reason why the Black and sane of us Angelenos appear so unappreciative or even “crazy” throughout the broke-ass, bootlicking world (and the world includes members of our own families). We are not impressed by cash-backed stunts novices think we are “too jealous” to see. So, when Mindy Kaling or some kid off Crenshaw by way of Senegal drops a new Tee Vee show we are not “pretending” to be unconcerned about their work. We are comparing their work from a vast back catalog of failed businesses that were based in Los Angeles.

Antonio Moore is on a first name basis with the Black billionaire, Byron Allen. I am sincerely unfazed. Here is the video from the tonetalks channel:</p> My previous use of ‘broke-ass’ is, again, not an ignorant statement. Almost every person of an African color, having lineage leading back to slavery is effectively a broke-ass. (Remember what ChuckD said kids? *Our status is the saddest* // *I don’t care where you at: Black*) Antonio Moore has the refined, astute data to back up this sweeping statement. The very informative [Yvette Carnell channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqD2av9L9M-AhXQhQE6JnjQ) ([BreakingBrown.com](http://breakingbrown.com/)) has the groundbreaking video, “[‘We Overstate the Value of Education for the Purpose of Economic Gain,’ Says Duke Professor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MdNsdvGdfU)”: I regard this video as groundbreaking—especially for those producers/journalists/artists that are younger than me—because the best kept secret of the post-Cosby 20^th century is the finances around faking-it-to-never-ever-be-making-it in the black world. This issue is very, *very* personal and I am *still* pleasantly astonished that Antonio Moore, Yvette Carnell *and* [Irami Osei-Frimpong](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDMfrKJQ2me8gp5j95TyGgg) are working hard to make this a mainstream talking point in the so-called middle-class or even upper-class black social sets. I point out these three (and there are others out there) because these three *do not* link their talking points up with any commercial products. These three are *not* making shopping-channel infomericals out of Black poverty.

Now, these three do ask for donations. I do not prefer this behavior. I would rather see gainfully employed groups of blacks funding voices like these behind the scenes. It would be a living, breathing demonstration of self determination in white-owned venue like YouTube.com (and every other mufukkin thing in the Black world). What my little “fantasy” (for too many Negroes) would demonstrate (especially for Black men) is that we are getting this message out in spite of the fact that we are working for “the man.” We would then not appear arguably hypocritical complaining about how broke-ass blacks are taking charity and then turn around and ask for charity. Deeper still, this would demonstrate publicly what I know privately, that authentic Black people can easily move between super-white-bread worlds and the deep hood without it looking like an episode of Shaft in Africa.

You see, kids, a few of us LAUSD kids in the 1970s were deliberately and systematically trained by radical Black teachers (mostly Black women, including my mother) to infiltrate higher education to get a “job” and send the “job” money back to the ’hood by choosing to live in the ’hood (which is now being gentrified by non-Black people from all over the United States and the broke-ass world). Too many of these Black women teachers from my past vastly underestimated the Reagan-era backlashes of the 1980s (featuring crack cocaine) and that is why a brother like me is sitting here writing this from a place of alienation and aspersions of “he crazy”…

So, when I say that these efforts by this young brother, Antonio Moore, is better than nothing, it is because I can imagine Black people doing way, way better. Because I saw us doing way, way better. It is my responsibility as an elder to respond to these efforts. So here are a few points that may not seem so “crazy” right about now:

Antonio Moore and Yvette Carnell are both dipping into the Booker T. Washington school of thought. The Black academics from the 1980s that trained me were overwhelmingly radical and Marxist and therefore often condescended to Booker T. Washington. We are so broke as a people that we should not make this mistake again. Booker T. Washington has something to offer contemporary Black people.
To remove ancient Africa from the African-American imagination is exactly like removing ancient Greece and Rome from the Euro-centric imagination. Both thefts will result in dumb-ass mufukkas. It is typical, American anti-intellectualism. I became an intellectual as a child a few blocks away from a dude selling crack on a street corner—so I don’t need to hear about blacks being “too broke” to care about ancient Africa.
To confuse or conflate contemporary, materialistic, Euro-centric, continental Africans with the universe-scale power of ancient African Deep Thought is a bitch move, lacking all “nuance.”
There is a deliberate underestimation of the role fucked up members of one’s black-ass family play in the undermining of Black wealth. You cannot turn around and ask donations from people whose families you’ve insulted so one may be motivated not to go into detail about this.Bottom line: being authentically Black in the media capital of the entire planet has its advantages. When I make a statement like, ‘In the late 1990s, after failing several times to develop strategic, Black partnerships, I surrendered and turned myself in to white corporate America,’ you will not laugh and say, “Bryan, you so crazy.” There is a reason why a glum, “negative,” non-ass-kissing Black person has lasted in the white American corporate world for so long (over two decades). And this “success” is due to the Black women that trained me (and my father)—but, again, authentically Black people know this get-a-job, American-dream shit is actually defeat.

There are deliberate, policy-level, strategic white reasons why you have never heard of Bryan Wilhite or any other Los Angeles native with my lineage, training and character (which most niggas regard as useless and crazy). I literally sat across the table from future-billionaire Dr. Dre (when he was in the World Class Wreckin’ Cru) in the Crenshaw offices of 1580 KDAY. Ava DuVernay interviewed my longtime childhood friend (also a product of Los-Angeles-based, Black-radical education) not by chance or accident. The white folks and their unwitting minions know exactly where we are and how to keep us here. It takes a nation of millions to hold us back. What Antonio Moore and his crew are trying to do is break-brown down these artificial walls for a new generation.

Antonio Moore [@tonetalks] brings L.A. back to Black History

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