Saturday, February 28, 2009

Tha Artivist: The Revolution Won’t Be Televised But It Will Be Blogged, Podcasted & Broadcasted Online


"The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press." ~Ida B. Wells-Barnett

“Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.”

“To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”~Frederick Douglass

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”~Malcolm X

"Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think."

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."~Dr. Martin Luther King

"But now with the living conditions deteriorating, and with the sure knowledge that we are slated for destruction, we have been transformed into an implacable army of liberation."
~George Jackson

Many people in this age of technology and instant gratification use online resources such as networking websites (Facebook, MySpace, Ning), internet radio, Youtube.com, and blogs to communicate important knowledge/info to their circle of friends, family and relatives as well as to complete strangers. The internet has had a phenomenal impact on grassroots marketing and organizing just take the highly successful campaign of Pres. Barack Obama for example.

My goal is to show the audience how they too can effect progressive change on the worldwide web.

In my three plus years of blogging and podcasting I have demonstrated how one person can make a world of difference by utilizing their resources and talents effectively. My popular weekly internet radio podcast W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe averages almost 2,000 listeners a week. The reason I feel I have such a large audience in only two years of podcasting is because I am always at the forefront covering powerful stories/narratives on the human experience especially as it relates to people of color.

For example, I was one of the first people in the U.S. to interview some of the principles in which became known as the Jena 6 movement. I have also shed light on other cases and topics since then such as resurrecting the memory and legacy of jazz and music education great Jimmie Lunceford (http://www.jimmieluncefordjam.blogspot.com), bringing much needed attention to the continued military murder cover up of Pfc. LaVena Johnson as well as interviewing the leading history makers of our times including such charismatic personalities/icons as Dr. John Hope Franklin, former Congresswoman and Green Party Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, Civil Rights Legend Charles Evers (the brother of Medgar Evers), award winning investigative civil rights cold case journalist Jerry Mitchell, portrait artist Simmie Knox (the first Black person ever commissioned to do the official U.S. Presidential portrait-Bill Clinton) among others.

These podcasts have inspired many people to not only learn more about the subjects and topics my efforts have sought to cover, but it also inspired them to answer the clarion call for more citizen journalism and many folks are now blogging and podcasting because of my example. I am truly humbled that my efforts have been utilized as a source of empowerment to help people empower themselves through technology. There is so much work to be done because corporate media only reports less than 1% percent of the news actually going on in the world on a daily basis.

We must remember that what made the America Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s a very successful one was the fact the leaders understood the power of the media of their time as well as how to effectively utilize it. Whether it was using photos of a horribly disfigured Chicago youth (Emmett Till) to spark global outrage, a local community radio station DJ sending coded messages in music and commentary to empower the participants of a historic 381 consecutive days bus boycott in Montgomery, a widely published letter from a jail cell in Birmingham, the terrifying TV images of dogs and water hoses being doused on brave men, women and children during a peaceful protest, or a man of color proclaiming that he had a dream for us all from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the media played a prominent role in getting the people’s side of the story out to the masses. Now is the time to renew our commitment to this noteworthy cause and struggle. Yes We Can!!!


Remember The Revolution Won't Be Televised But It Will Be Blogged, Podcasted & Now Broadcasted Online!!!

Artastically, Communally & Revolutionarily Yours,

Tha Artivist
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Founder and Minister of Information
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe
http://www.youtube.com/weallbetv
http://www.weallbe.blogspot.com

~~~~~~

To see or rather "hear" how far W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio has come please listen to the first broadcast, Jan. 7, 2007:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2007/01/07/tha-artivist-presents


Also check out how good we were in "2008 a.k.a. The Year Of Citizen Radio":
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2009/01/we-all-be-news-radio-made-2008-year-of.html

~~~~~~
*Support W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio!!!*

The W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Needing Funds Drive For W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio Begins...
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/12/we-all-be-needing-funds-drive-for-we.html



W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Supporting W.E. A.L.L. B.E. News & Radio: Buy Art & Gear For 'The Cause' Today!!!
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2008/12/we-all-be-supporting-we-all-be-news.html

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank God for the internet!

With decreasing advertising dollars forcing nearly every media outlet to cut its staff, and the larger outlets already being controlled by few, I've long been concerned about the stories that are getting out, the quality of the stories, and from whose perspective they are being told. I'm thankful that there's a place for a voice like yours.

However, I'm still concerned about how the internet can help promote close mindedness. We have so many websites, blogs, and podcasts preaching to the choir and so few major media outlets willing to give a balanced or unique perspective that to have someone hear or read an opposing viewpoint and actually think about it is becoming more rare, and that's frightening.