The Law According to Robert Johnson

Former BET and current Charlotte Bobcats owner Robert L. Johnson has long known that the best defense is a good offense. Anyone who observed him a few years ago here at the Gaylord Hotel during a Black Enterprise conference turning the tables on those who dared question BET’s programming content knows he clearly understands that idea. Johnson’s explanation was a simple declaration that “We’re not trying to be PBS or appeal to Ivy League intellectuals.” That reflects his complete understanding of how to exploit the constant fear some African-Americans have of being deemed not part of the so-called “masses.”

Michael Vick’s Media Treatment: Unreasonable and No Doubt

Michael Vick once looked like the future of the quarterback position in the National Football League. Today he is on borrowed time, his career and reputation in ruins. The 19-page federal indictment brought against him for various dog fighting charges, among them one for conspiracy that allows the government to charge Vick for various offenses even if he were neither at the site nor had direct knowledge of the events, is devastating. This isn’t a bumbling Cook County prosecutor’s office walking around afraid to press a case against R. Kelly for five plus years, nor some publicity-seeking type up for re-election trying to ride headlines back into office.

Instead, this is the federal government waging a case against a high-profile athlete, easily the most visible Atlanta Falcon,  and someone who just a few short years ago was widely seen as “the face of the NFL.” Now a state prosecutor who only last week said he didn’t think there was enough evidence to proceed is talking about bringing state indictments against Vick on top of the federal charges. You can also bet the government has already cut deals with witnesses willing to testify against Vick to lessen their own time behind bars.

People who rail about innocent until proven guilty like Stephen A. Smith on ESPN radio Thursday are both right and irrelevant. Vick’s guilt or innocence must be proven in court in order to convict him of a crime. No such indicator is necessary for corporate America to declare him persona non grata, or the Atlanta Falcons to send him on his way. The good folks at PETA also aren’t interested in waiting for a trial. They’ve already started protest marches at Falcon headquarters demanding Vick be cut from the team or at least suspended.

Quite frankly the deck is stacked against Michael Vick. He put himself in this position by, at minimum, dealing with questionable types and not monitoring what was happening on property he owned. Whether he engaged directly in the training of dogs for fighting, or aided in the malicious and brutal destruction of animals who lost, has to be proven and at this point remains just an allegation. But listening to the hordes at EPSN and on sports-talk radio, many people aren’t willing to wait for a trial. They want him disciplined, and right away.

This is what happens when you have an NFL  commissioner who says publicly he doesn’t care about due process, and will  take action solely on the basis of charges and/or past problems. The overwhelming attitude of sports fans is it’s long been time for a crackdown on excessive athletic misconduct. Such concerns as the presumption of innocence have given way to a lock-em-up and throw-away-the-key mentality that sees people immediately assume an indictment means guilt. Michael Vick at this point is guilty only of extreme bad judgment in terms of association and fiscal choices, but that won’t save him in an era where supposedly objective media types decide guilt or innocence in 10-minute monologues between commercials.

Ron Wynn

Isaiah Returns

Seems that reports of Isaiah Washington’s career death have been greatly exaggerated. AP reports he returns to series television with a recurring role planned for NBC’s remake of the old Bionic Woman TV series. I for one thought that with all the accusations and back and forth following his being let go by ABC, his career was pretty much over. However, looks like NBC hopes to draw viewers, rubberneckers and controversy freaks to it’s new series with the addition of Washington.

Questions of his talent should not be in dispute. According to Ben Silverman, NBC co-chair, it was Washington’s reputation for talent, rather than controversy, that got him his new job. The job talks began not long after he was fired. Well, for Washington’s sake, I hope it works out, lessons learned, etc.

Inside Gary Sheffield

The reactions to recent remarks by baseball player Gary Sheffield and film maker Spike Lee are reminders that outspoken Black men will frequently trigger unreasonable and hysterical responses to their comments from people who often haven’t even completely read them or tried to understand what was said. Both Sheffield and Lee are being called among other things racist and unpatriotic for their statements regarding Major League Baseball and American foreign policy.

Patrick Milligan’s Book on Film maker Oscar Micheaux

Patrick Milligan’s exceptional new book Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only, The Life of America’s First Great Black Filmmaker (HC) should be mandatory reading for everyone remotely concerned with African-American culture and history, as well as that of American film. Despite growing up and spending his entire life in an era where state-sanctioned racism was at its height, Micheaux still produced and directed 27 silent films and 16 sound productions. He wrote, produced and directed a film before Charlie Chaplin did, and he often took his films from place to place physically. Micheaux refused to acknowledge defeat, and wouldn’t accept the images he saw on screen of docile, ignorant and lazy Black people as the only ones that society at large would know.

Being Beyonce

I was all set to write about Beyonce Knowles for the Scene this week only to have the assignment snatched from under me. Well, that gives me room to expand my thoughts.

Beyonce’s handlers are master star makers. It appears her father’s influence seems to have waned in recent years, so I don’t know who is to blame, whether producer David Foster or an army of highly paid Hollywood automatrons. Still, they’ve managed to turn a moderately talented R&B singer into an all-entertainment diva of Diana Ross proportions. She’s got this schizophrenic mega personality going, hip-hop hag, polished Hollywood star, and staid, virtuous role model all at once.

Nobody Wins With Isaiah Washington Gone

There are three big losers in the Grey’s Anatomy fiasco. The first is Isaiah Washington, whose constant appearances and interviews continually erode his credibility because each time something new and different seems to emerge. While he’s consistent with the insistence that he’s the victim of a double standard (a reasonably fair proposition given the long list of on the set misbehavior from all types of male and female actors over the decades) he keeps making changes to the story behind his dismissal. On Larry King Live there was suddenly the entrance of a lengthy tale involving Patrick Dempsey that talked about perennial tardiness, an incident of disrespect involving a Teamsters member during a trip, and Washington’s own perception that he’d failed as a leader. None of this surfaced in the extensive interview that Washington gave to Newsweek’s Alison Samuels featured in an exclusive online piece.