"Black on Black" (1968; journalism professor Joe Saltzman)

all cities have this particular residential area in Detroit they call it Black Bottom and Cleveland they call it Euclid Avenue disappear one of them feel Central Avenue and Philadelphia they called it South Street in New York City they call it Harlem drop down below the cotton curtain call in Atlanta they called it buttermilk bottom but then you come out with where's the best in San Francisco they called it Fillmore district in Los Banos they used to call it watts they changed the name though I'm gonna leave it a guy with the hair envy save my money and get every time low and bring it back to tobacco row bring that over and I'll build a town I'll be proud to show and keep the name - Becker oh there's a hole tobacco rule can be any any black Negro ghetto in America whenever a brother leaves once if he going to another what he's really just going from one ghetto to another in that particular city he's going to the ghetto and he knows this that's where his people are this is where his intentions are and this is where you know he's gonna go because every city has its own Tobacco Road the apartment houses are there's a lot of apartment house there even housing project there are a lot of housing projects and the majority of the people are a state a county or what have you very few people own anything there's there's very little ownership here on houses it uh has a lot of light digging Lots a lot of empty houses that'll run down and the reason why is for the the landlord the landowners are other reasons why it's not the people is the people that own the property just don't care enough to keep the property up when a house gets real run now is usually are condemned it is a condemned and boarded up and efficiently is tore down after is torn bout it's just a vacant lot dirt field or grass grows weeds no one knows who owns the property the landlords and moved off and just forgotten about it and it's just there no one know who belongs to no one cares really when whenever whatever white people come down into our community after they evolve seen a newsreel or if there is something being is half Melanie or like if they just see a magazine on the on the on the ghetto first thing they do is they'll come down here with their cameras and this would be more like a Disneyland tour or an ox berry farm tour it has a whole lot of railroad tracks the trains coming any hour of the night anytime you feel like coming and the community's got so used to seeing the railroad tracks and trains that they forget they even their industry is just run over it it's a it has a lot of industry but the profits off the industry do not go into the community the ghetto has more liquor stores than they have Baptist churches there's a liquor store on every corner in the ghetto practically and the liquor stores and sleek the greatest amount of pain to the community soul is a all to the ghetto soul is all together the ghetto itself is sometimes known as soul feel o soul town whenever I leave a ghetto when I go into Hollywood or some of the white town that's around I feel like I'm out of my world I feel very lonesome I feel like I'm the only black person alive I feel like it's another world you know it's I don't see a change that I'm accustomed to I don't see the things that I just like I'm just a newborn person in another world but when I'm coming back on the freeway I'm on the freeway and I'm coming back to the ghetto I get off the Santa Monica freeway it on to the harbor when I get on to the Harbor Freeway my eyes are steady toward the ghetto I know there's nothing my mind went home that's all it's nothing that at home and when I feel myself coming back to the ghetto or when I feel like I'm in a ghetto or I'm gonna I'll scare to the ghetto I get a very warm feeling I feel secure I feel safe I feel like I'm I'm warning again I black I'm back where I belong back to my people talking about the back row row this broadcast reflects much but not all of what it is to be black in many cities in America the people appearing on this program are residents of South Central Los Angeles the alberto-culver company makers of vo5 hairdressing new dawn and other fine products has relinquished its normal commercial messages to present this program a person can be proud to be black to me black is a beautiful color and within this block you have so many different groovy shades of brown and tans and what happened black people have finally come about this means of being proud to be black a feeling of being practice black the word black itself has become an upstanding word and we can we accept it town the word black as of one time we we didn't accept that because white America made everything black seem file black angels black live everything black to us was you know it was taboo there was no good but now we have become a gained knowledge of ourselves and black is part of us this is known as identity being identified as black this is the reasons for the naturals and the afro-american style that we have picked up and that we have gained knowledge so if this is was our customs and to identify with oneself he must be known as black you are black you are black man you are black woman you are black child it's no they were asked to trouble with black people they don't know who they are you know and so but black is all black people back to be black it is it's beautiful I believe because we will people have to learn to live with with hardships that it's always been inflicted upon us and when we see a honking out you know in our neighborhood it's uh it's something that there's no better days because we didn't been brought brought up around nothing but black and this is all we wanna be around is black and I'm gonna hungry come on is that it it obsessed obsessed out there it's just like if we went out on a set when we get out there around about your views we feel we feel lost man we feel like we know all the person in the world and the minute we get back to the black ghetto and we feel at home again we feel like like we're king like like we can do what we want to so black it is truly a beautiful feeling you know if you if you appreciate the term black but if you don't then might not you know if you weren't on the top don't want to be be black or being somebody else you would never feeling that I do and the most of the black brothers do but black being itself is a beautiful thing there if I could go and come again I think I would come back into black to be black and living this society is more like looking through a magazine and seeing another world you know when you look to a magazine you don't see your world you don't see my world you see another world you see a world of happiness you see a world of everything is even-steven you know this is what you see me looking a magazine took to to be black as to uh-oh I have to worry about everything you gotta worry about are you gonna be here tomorrow this is what's happening you know and you live from one day to the other you have to be aware of around you all the time and you you don't trust no white man and any white man comes up to you you're gonna look at him and check him out very close see what he's like it's uh to uh be it's to be different and dress man it's the foot sole with everything you do because soul is part of being black and in the ghetto it's so anything you do concern there white boy whatever you do concern that white boy you got to be twice as good you got to be twice whatever you do whenever you have to confront that white man you got to be twice as good if it's corner court or if there's getting drafted to the army or whatever is gonna happen to you anywhere in life you got to be trying to do it that way for it and you got to show it and uh it's a feeling of uh you know of like opening up a book man from the beginning to the end from birth to death that's what it's like it's like going through a book because every day is something you know it's something that you know could happen anything can happen to you man cuz you know I mean like why did you just say oh okay anybody who got 60 Chevy's they ain't no good you got to give him up you know he passed a law then you can do man you know if you pass a law right now they every black man had to go to a concentration camp it wouldn't be nothing that could be said he passed it you know if he say all blue chip stamps are no good throwing away they no good so so it to be back is to just sit back and just take it easy man as easy as it go as the way it is man you got to be on your toes all the time whenever I look around my room I see things that I like things that are part of my world my bag the way I believe you know you know everything up there please you know apart everything up there please depart everything you see in my room plays a part of my world it's what I what I like and what I like to do and how I believe and even the clothing the clothing or the the shoes you happen to see or whatever if it's just a little piece of paper with a phone number on it it all is this my world when I walk into that room I walk her to another world when I walk her to my room I walk into what I believe I feel very comfortable there and I feel like I can fill my eyes you know how to look over my shoulder I don't have any pictures of any particular young lady anything like that I have a young lady up and she's a black woman that was in played in Playboy and she's the only black woman playboy has ever had I have a picture of me when I was a baby and the reason I have that picture of me is because I love me and this is the only thing I write his own or something that I can write you say his mind and that's my life and uh this is me from the get-go i'ma start me this is the original me so soul is it's um it's in us and we're born with it and it's something that we respect most highly we respect so tightly before we respect anything respect so soul is uh it's a way a person talks the way a person walks it can be the way a person carries itself it can be it everything that a black man so so is respected and it's uh more or less something that's high it's very very high and no one is supposed to disrespect so so is a smaller less a language is a way of communicating from one brother to another because only brothers how so why people imitate it they did they try to copy it but it's here it's here with the black people and and and what makes this man what really burns us up as when white people don't respect it see when white people don't respect this so we get very angry this is what makes its most mad because they don't want to stand it for one thing and they they they don't even know it exists today I miss it's invisible it's something that they can't even see they don't even know it's there and then they ask questions why why this and why that if they understand so they know the answer to a lot of why's you you feel so see you you don't just you don't just wake up one morning not to be into you know why I have so you don't do that see is it's just that it's there in you it's there it's nothing that you know you can control it's nothing that uh you just pick up from habit you don't pick it up from anybody is there in you and then it's up to you to develop it to what extent you ever want to develop it to some brothers don't develop it at all some villages let it Lake and it'll just be there and some brothers develop it as far as they can and some dollars were just have so and they have something to go along with that so like sense and they know how to put it you know to a projective soul in the right direction but soul has you know it has many many phases to it you know even even the women have soul it's um not just confined to the man and the reason why white people don't have is because they're just not in that in that bag man they just they just don't have it that's all it is to it they copy it they imitated they try everything they do every any possible way to get this soul down they'll try it they'll they'll try to sing with soul they'll try to dress with soul but it's just that you know just that for your bottle man you can tell it's not for real its fake when we're playing each player puts his whole heart into it you know we all express our souls in different different ways one two player go up on a solo by yourself and wrestle just my back I'm up that's where he gets a feel in addition espresso soul to troubles no for everybody to hear and this is one thing that we say that our black school enjoy more the crude music than ah and why it's because because we put all our soul and tore because this is a way to express ourselves in a way that we might not be able to say it you know through speech but through music we'll be able to say it that's me on the backside of Congress they need to prove they call me the killer in China red you know God I do lead the group and drive hard as I can to make them push and make sounds come on look better a person's nickname is it is a name that gets you away from that slave name is the name to take you away from that name that society calls you a nickname can be determined by how much soul a person has or how person carries himself so your person smiles all the time well you would call him smiley or a person who has a large feet would be known as foot or a person who has a smooth conversation he always has a something to say where he would cause him to narrator these are how your nicknames come along Oh and again they could just come by the name he originally has say his last name was wolf well you fight would call him Wolfman a fellow who's uh say he's a fellow who's very quick thinker and he's a extremely dark dark fellow and uh but he's also easygoing he's real light and say he's always a here the rest of the group where you would name him fast black my so-called Negroes whatever you want to call there are main trouble is that they don't know who they are see this is this is what one of their main troubles are they don't know who they are they have been split up into so many different races and they being called so many names the older generation they don't know who they are they don't identify with themselves whatsoever and they're lost they may be called a number of things any name just about any naming said [ __ ] or maybe in some cages you can call a [ __ ] would be accepted colored well colored it gives me the impression that this white man was just trying to you know hang a tag on this man because when you look at something you say it's color that mean it's filled in with something that's it's you know it's not the original thing and it just been filled in like somebody's been drinking chocolate milk or so you know colored the younger generation only accepts one that's black that's identifying with oneself with one's people like people were Naturals to identify with themselves to be free to wear the hair the way it's supposed to be this is the way the hair is supposed to be this is the way a person was born and this is the way he should die with his hair now so he shouldn't die with with curls or hot combs in his hair after he's lived his life his hair has never been that his hair has never been original the way it was when he was born when a black baby is born his hair is not pressed it's not curled it's nice its natural it's not supposed to be conditioned is is the way a person should end his life with his true identity of knowing who he is they have built time when the so-called Negro was ashamed we looked and he used every method in the book is to try to emulate the whites they straighten the hair they processed it they used weirdest creams and they did every possible way to eradicate the original style in his original customs and that Satan got our signal we're 'no sleekly possibly since the riot in 65 get started somewhere in this vicinity there's a certain awareness is come upon the black man or the negro whichever is preferred Easter I'm proud of the way I look and I'm gonna be Who I am regardless and my hair is my business and I like the way I look and we've done everything to beautify it the natural is a style that is strictly negroid style and mr. hair that makes a difference that's the one thing that we have that other people can't have like so we're going through justifier calls and be proud of who we are and how we're i have in the style do everything we can to beautify it theirselves types of naturals there's a excessively long report or there's the African or natural there the Americanized naturalist there's a moderate natural and the natural in-between that wears his hair in any lifting you want as long as it's kept clean and is not slick down or processed and kept clean and well room you've wear short natural even down to a cold virus style that's where excessively close to show the complete shape of the heel but the main feature bottle natural is cleanliness it radiates a certain desire to want to be clean I used to wear my hair pressed and curled and I walked that way until I was about 18 and then I began to wear our natural at the time I wore Natura because Nia was a fan you know like the mini dress that came out and I got tired of the natural and I started to get my hair pressed again and I walked for a while and I couldn't stall it I couldn't do anything with it so I started wearing the natural and I felt myself you know something came out to say I wanted to wear my hair like this and because this is the way I came in the world I didn't come in here with the Preston curl you know I came in here with it nappy just like it is a black beautiful hair you know and I'm black so I've been wearing a natural now for almost two years and my friends the ones that women naturally feel the same way I do or can't express their self a little bit different but I have a few bourgeois friends that are still trying to be somebody else and what some people call the Caucasian and what some people call the honky they're still trying to be like those people well I don't consider myself are trying to be like a white woman I only wear my hair the way I do because that's the style that I like I'm a negro and I am proud of it as far as a wife is in the Sun I wouldn't want to be like them because the good Lord made me the way I am and that's the way I like it Preston your hair is just like combing your hair or if the comb is wrong I have been getting my hair pressed and curl for a long time so I have really gotten used to it it gives your hair I think more body it takes about 45 minutes to get a shampoo press and curl I go at least twice a month and I give my hair shampoo and dry and she press it and kill it install it I have a number of friends that were natural and and on some of them they do look nice it all depends on how they keep them up first me I don't like natural just like clothes and it all depends on the person and their taste I picked the style I think it's becoming to myself and what I like I wear I don't like natural especially on myself my mother she doesn't like it at all she's a little old fashioned and she was like it all she thinks I just feel get my hair pressed my son he's wearing a natural now because it's something that I should get him you know used to in a way because something to let him know the best him and nobody else's hairdo is not his and that's the way I feel about a natural as myself planner because it's me it's naturally me the way it is now Negroes have had to do with what they've had so long till I think they have it's just part of their cooking where they have always had to improvise a Pacific soul food dinner chitlins hog maws like eyed peas mustard greens okra and cornbread a very large glass no dessert a very large piece of peach cobbler and type of food that we that I was raised on was green cornbread salt pork in the green black-eyed peas out of the garden well all the dish will come out of the garden and children in the wintertime when they would kill a whole bag balm and Oh baked sweet potatoes that was is we call it soul food now and that was the beginning of my cooking and as I grew up I would watch my mother fix various dishes you know and I would learn as far as the relative peace is concerned we are I didn't know what recipes were I just learned to watching my mother you see the greens are growing wild yeah while bringing here mustard greens you have different varieties of greens and all these had to be determined which were good and which ones were not good sweet potato pies rice pudding of peach cobbler all these things were will not even thought about white people went y'all back people came along and took these things and made delicacies out of them say if a slave was in the field and he ran across a feel of say sweet potatoes he could uh he would look at this and he way wonder if he could eat it because lack alcohol he got the leftovers and when he looked at this sweet potato heap I would say well I could take this home and try to make something out of it after 400 years of experimenting with a sweet potato naturally you're gonna come out with something and this is what happened as far as as far as Chileans are concerned Chileans word were derived way back when we were slaves and safe instance if the white slave master had a slaughter the hall and he gave he cut the ham and the bacon and all all the you know good meat that they ate been offered this hall and say he threw the the guts away of this hall did good that's what they were known as den and if a slave woman happened to see this garbage laying around well she was asked was flights lady masked before and that but he'd give it to her and she would take this back to her Shack and she would cook it she would put her touch to it she would just put that soul in there they would make it taste like a delicacy you have to be very careful with children's when you clean them you have to clean them to take very caring cleaning them clean them very good make sure that all the you know the hell the chance to have that hair from the Hong Kong they make sure all that's all and I wash them and I clean them up put them in the pot salt pepper cut an onion up and them and well we always cook by ten pounds because the whole family come over and have children well all the black people they like stuff like children home safely neck ball hog head fixed loop and mountain oysters this is this is something that the old people like man and as young as younger brothers and sisters we only dig be you know because just whining doing them but is it it's it's all dead meat man you can't even kill a hog man can't poison him you know that's the only animal you can't poison in the world take the hall from the old people matter just like trying to take the country out of them and that's impossible you know because they were mostly raised in the country man they they wouldn't repel against anything you know there was more or less the hey boy yes sir you know we're not that we're not that race more you know we were almost a separate race man I'm gonna come down to food another thing we are in color and believes some beliefs but I'm gonna come down to the food to take a bit home with a man who'd be just like taking in life I go to the white neighborhoods to do most of my shopping now because I find out that in the black community the vegetables the fruits and even the canned goods is much different than what they are in the white neighborhood in the white neighborhood the vegetables are fresh crisps nice in the black neighborhood they are dry they are not fresh the canned goods are bent all old soul food is high and I enable it because that's why most people buy but I don't buy because I like to save money I like to they know where mine is going second names are by panel to of soul food safe about to chitlin ten pound and maybe in here they're not real good and then I don't buy in a moment once I get bit out on by anything else I go out of the neighborhood we get in an old card and we tick tick way out somewhere where we can find something that's a better quality food some of the cans in the black community are rusted you don't find that in the white community the meat in the black community the prices are higher the needs are not fresh and the quality is they put so much in a package until you're not really able to buy what you want have to buy a large amount in order to even buy the meat in the black community now for instance uh a merchant in this neighborhood will sell them from product maybe for a dime or nickel more in the Negro neighborhood where in the white community he'll sell it for a nickel or a dime less and this I do know for a fact is true for instance if there's a piece of furniture and that the low-income family have long fall and suddenly someone comes along and say well now I'll fix it where you can get it so you give me ten blue chip stamp books you will call that the downpayment well the average summer has ten a blue chip stamp book because it gets stamped everywhere so you just turn in this ten blue chips tell books and then you take the next five years on the paper on twenty five dollar piece of furniture so economically this is the same situation I'll see to it the attitude is I'll see to it that she don't get out of it so if I can't get you in the cotton field I'll get you in the furniture store and it's one reason I'll tell you I say while the white man is a snake in the grass the white man I'll train you for any kind of job that he wants you to do he'll train you for any kind of job that the white woman a man will not do I don't care what it is that the white person won't do if you if the black person don't know how to do it the white man is willing to train you no matter how much time how much money he have to spend to do it because he know the white man a woman is not gonna come in and do it but he won't train you for the better jobs he'll be save his better jobs his best paying jobs for the flight well I know I've had jobs and different places before I get started working where I'm working at now and I had asked my boss once I was working in a linen supply and I asked my manager could I go in the office and he said well I'll see you know so I said okay fine he says later on I asked him again about the job so he said well they didn't have any openings in the office so this was fine which I knew was wrong because that's why I had asked for the job I knew it was an opening there so a few days later here is this all white girl her hair is straight if personally if I had a business she couldn't even enter the doors it was left up to me so she gets the job so the white man he feels as though he would rather have a white woman regardless to what she looks like whether she's ugly or fat or skinny whatever he'd rather have her because she's white then to hire a decent clean intelligent Negro girl I finished high school at the age of 17 and at this time I was qualified so I thought for a job in the world so at this particular time I had gotten hit saw the job then I went down to apply for it so when I got there I passed the physical had a new written examination so the guy and he couldn't find anything wrong with my test he tells me he says well I don't think that she would enjoy working in this office where they're all white people in this experience hit me with such a blow because at 70 my thinking the world is in the palm of my hand you know so I don't remember telling the day how I left that office it hit me with just that heart of a blow I go and when I do come to my senses I'm sitting on the bus stop and the guy on the bus opens the door and he says lady what's wrong with you it was just that obvious that something had really upset at me you know so I walk home in the days after I get off the bus and when I get here all I could do was cry I just cry someone else was speaking to the living in the ghetto is the crowdedness the poor leaves nowhere to go nothing to do no jobs worrying about whether or not you're gonna live today for tomorrow like waiting alone waiting on the bus man you be on the bus stop boy you be on the bus stop about hours old man invalid time one of your father's beaten came by and you've been and got a ride but the old people man they business to tell all day trying to lift all of us if you if you on a bus stop waiting on a bus you physical is never going to get there and you keep looking now if you see if you can get see one I order of the color of that bus to see if it's anywhere in the distance to count how many blocks it is down and when you see it you hoping it's the right bus and over there red bus is just one bus it have to make its rounds around and come back and if you get there just as a league you have to wait till it makes its all around so couple for you to come back and pick you up but if you don't have a car you can't even begin to move you have to have an automobile before you can even think about getting into a job or getting to find a job or getting anywhere in child a car started abandoned or you have to have transportation and a fellow will worry if his car breaks down on him well he doesn't have any money to put it in this job but he thinks so what he has to do he has to do what he called a shade tree mechanic or shade tree mechanic is a mechanical doesn't have anything but a pair of pliers a 9/16 and a screwdriver and maybe a coat hanger to wire anything up there happens to be Lutz our car is something that you can just buy on any used-car lot a car is a common car off the assembly line but this is not considered as a ride arise something luxurious whenever a black man has a ride he has more let's say just fit the word say it's alright he doesn't have to get up under the hood and mess with the distributor or the carburetor he doesn't have to do nothing but forget in it and write write would be a new car 68 Eldorado 68 Riviera or something of that nature it wouldn't be no junk and it wouldn't be nothing that was way back it wouldn't be no more than two or three years off it would be something new all he has to do is get in there and turn the key and when he goes down the street he doesn't feel a bump in the road everything is smooth smooth the young younger generation figures that they ought to be able to put their car the way they want to put it this is the generation that's uh more demanding figures the autorun the other covering themselves instead of just white society covering their cars are low they're mostly in the younger generation they're mostly teenagers your lowriders this car is different this car is different because it's low and maybe it may have some different color paint job some flashing paint child he's a distinguished from everybody else he's noticeable so he he catches a lot of harassment by the police but the white boys can little ride all day long all of them down the street and the police won't say nothing but when the police comes to the ghetto and see the little rider it's always a ticket it is hard to keep your license because you're watched so closely by the police anything that you happen to do the police is right there leak net this is where most of the laws are broken because on account of economical reasons why they are broken they're not broken because the people I've included water break a guy can't come out and he can't say well oh well oh I can do this not to do that no he got think John Clinton's caught by that cross street tomorrow morning it might smoke like hell well it might add one wielding one wheel on one wheel on but John gonna try to go to wake in that car Eddie huh then he won't weary drives down the corner and forth into LAPD busted why because John got one wheel off one we don't but they were stop and think how much money John making John making him down in the quarter down a half a dollar six an hour so how can John afford to put a towel on the car honking John can afford to get a better car this is almost impossible to go without getting the ticket and I'll give you energy because to the police arrest or so much till they don't find something you know they'll pull us over there check out brakes they check our tire they're Cioffi to blow check our windshield wiper and then in brake lights and they check out dimmer switch to say about bright lights and they look like that any kind of hazard man anything that can to give us a ticket when a cop stops you he's gonna take you out for warrants if there are no warrants he's gonna come back to your car he's gonna check out everything on that car if he can't find anything in that aspect of a car and there's no warrants and there's nothing wrong with you you're not worth anything everything is clean he's gonna be very upset majority of our others do have records man because we uh would get picked up on the weekend go to jail and we might have a job and uh and and they'll release you any time they want to own money man we shoot Monday morning on Monday night to tell you your father's ashes where you been you know you got a job to do you know you go back and tell them you're gonna incarcerated for for the weekend and uh the first thing you do is gonna fly and lay you off and then the next thing you know you don't have a child you know not working nowhere and there and then yeah there you are back on the streets again you got to do something a black man is forever looking over his shoulder because actually anything we do this consider is wrong and police's point of view so we have to watch ourselves very carefully whenever I see a police car I get that feel you know you for self-defense just feeling like it I feel like that is the enemy that is the one and fix the pain black-on-black will continue in a moment on K NXT Los Angeles black on black is being brought to you by the alberto-culver company the broadcast continues now without commercial interruption a lot of people livin in the ghetto that are pretty well taken care of financially just because they live in a ghetto don't mean that they can't afford nice furniture just because they live in the ghetto doesn't mean that they can't drive a nice car a lot of people they have homes and these ghettos that they're nice homes they they started from nothing they've added on they're put to it and they didn't build their homes up and actually they don't want to need this I'm only 24 I bought my home two years ago and 22 I have two kids my husband he works I work and the majority of my friends are not doing as well as I am because you have to be able to manage in order to have anything but you have to want to want something in order to have it I wanted to have been home I wanted to have kids I wanted to have everything that it took to make a life for myself and I struggled and I had I got a husband did wanted the same thing and this is why we're so far ahead it takes two and to pull you know one can't do it by themselves personally uh when I enjoy living in the ghetto I really do I enjoy I would much rather live in the ghetto than live on the hill and look down on the ghetto I moved in the project because the house that I was living in was what large enough for my family so we had to move into the project I don't live here because I want to and don't live because I like it I live in here because I have to you don't have no privacy in the project it's no privacy you just lived in a unit everybody knows everything you're the one doing this it's not private at all I watch you watch you move over your clothes off and I hang mine up where they wet or dry you can't even sit out on the lawn somebody come along and spit where you sitting actually anything in the project you don't call your own because the people the project they have not gonna do it if you don't answer it immediately I take the key in water I don't need some time I'm gonna just move out right now and just but I know I have to stay until I can find something that can go but nowadays everybody's for themselves is they call it now it's a dog-eat-dog world and this just don't have to be I have 13 children and my husband is the father of all of them but we have so many others in my neighborhood all around me I have nine children every child of a different father one woman have seven and neither of us have the same father all of them have a different father maybe you have a one that the father brings something over to him maybe one of the father's love this child and he'll come over and this makes the other tune feel left out because the man is coming over the sea here comes daddy and he's only got a bag for Susie why is this mama well he's not your father well where where's my father why don't he bring me something then let's get out of the house and stop talking to me I think it's very rare to have both parents both original parents in the home nowadays in time because things just like I say during that time things were so hard when I was a kid that most fathers would just desert the mother or they were having babies so fast and they didn't know how to stop until the father would just get disgusted and just up and leave that was the only thing he knew to do if a man is in the house if a man's in the house she can't get stay deep so this man he has to go he leaves voluntarily it had nothing between him and his wife he leaves voluntarily for all elements for his kids and for his wife to survive he's and then the state will support as long as he's not bad the black man has never really been known to own a family he's not really a UH an upstanding figure in the home for me kicked OC because he is uh oh yes or some cheat job paying nothing and in which his wife could go out and make twice as much if she happened to get out there started working so we black people have never really own the family and this pattern has just been carrying on through history we do have families in South LA with the mother and the father and all and a lot of times she probably wouldn't know it because the father had been depressed so bad over a period of time that uh he's just not even noticed yes he has been maybe his worth all his life man he's tired you know and he just kind of kept it just and he's got older he just lays around you know I'm taking it easy because life has just did him so wrong he's been through so much you know by him being black he just meant to so much and when he gets old managed to his mind is just so pile up but this he doesn't he doesn't you know he's not together of an image and he's just there and nobody never knows he's there at the time the black women feel that the black men is not men anymore because they have lost the identity you know what I'm talking about you take over a black man if he can't afford to go down to the store and buy all a quart of milk that makes a man feel like he's not normal man for black man come in and his wife feel that he can't go buy her a decent dress that takes some something from that man it's like you were anybody else but few say me but this is what the black people have to continue it this takes some of the dignity from a man I had to help supplement my husband Sarah he didn't make enough money first to get along and most of the time he was out of a job he was on our employment he couldn't get a job he tried he would go to various places and because he didn't have the experience of uh you know the dearest jobs that they had open well they the white man wouldn't hire doing those times that my mother had to work also I like to help my father and times were pretty roughed in because um my mother would have to leave early in the morning and she didn't come in until late in the evening and my father likewise it took quite a deal of away from my children left my children alone I wasn't able to pay a babysitter my mother she would come over sometime and look after the children but she was sick half at the time so she couldn't afford to come over so that made me have to leave my children home alone she wasn't aware that I needed food to eat at school I guess she I don't know what it was but anyway she would leave me a nickel or a dime or something like this so at lunchtime I felt embarrassed because at that time during school everybody had to sit down and eat and then at then they would play or even you ate in the cafeteria one or the other so with me not having any food at all I would sit at the table and the kids would laugh at me so to prevent this I would go in the refrigerator and take off the hard butter then put it on bread and wrap it up and put it in the bag take it to school and this at lunchtime I would unwrap and eat she would come home and afternoon no mother no father because we both were still at work and as she grew up and become a young lady she began to tell me how she missed me and how much she wanted me at home and how much she wished that I was able to stay home and do the things for her that a parent should do for their children and that made me feel very bad I knew that they were having a hard time I was always conscious of my mother than my father struggling you know in order to to have a better life if the white man would stop and realize and think that the black man feels the same about his wife as he feel about his I think it would be a better understanding to the black man don't want his wife to get up and go to work every morning and punch a time card right along with him he wants his wife home just like the white man want his wife at home because a father represents the law in the home and a mother represents love in a home you take when a child come in and he's hurt a bruised something he goes to mama but when he come in and he has a problem he goes to Daddy you know because he figured that it is the symbol of law that is a symbol he come to Daddy because daddy can keep him and I don't think it's good that a mother have to get out and worry and leave her children at home it makes bad children it caused some cheering to go astray it called it's too much freedom whereas there is a girl in the home because illegitimate pregnancy in the home from the girl on the girl and just any number of things that it caused when a parent has to go out and leave four children at home by themselves I had quite a few girlfriends while I was going to school in junior high and in high school get pregnant and have to drop out of school a few weeks or maybe a month before graduation or either they get pregnant they don't even go back to school because once they have a baby they feel that they're grown either they feel that they're grown or they feel that they don't have the time to get back to school and try to learn something many young girls and in our neighborhood get caught like that it's it's I think it's because of the lack of understanding with the parents a lack of security they don't they can't come to the parents and talk things over with them and the pair don't take time to talk to them so I think it's a like a communication and they don't have a church background I don't have anyone to talk to there were many reasons why girls became pregnant before they graduated family problems in the home are either just giving with the wrong crowd and thinking that crowd was what what was happening and they in turn kept going out with this crowd until somebody would either go to jail or a girl wouldn't become a pregnant and whoever the father was he was still in the crowd so the crowd moves on the girl is in turn left there with the child and her mother then rejecting her because she they're saying that she didn't really think and it all stems from one minor which is a factor that should even be there and that's unemployment of the father and this in turn brings on all of this other well shall we say disease or infection that that inhabits the Negro community this is all just from that the white man won't employ the Negro and all he wants it's a decent living even if it's cleaning floors he wants just to make an honest dollar which is awfully hard to do life life on the streets for a black individual is entirely different from a wagon individual because life on the street in the ghetto is always it can be very deadly you know because certain things have to be aware of the main target of life on the street is money this is the main target of life on the street you you are this is where a little you're hustling more or less comes in trade the big fight because you learn how to hustle at a young age because there is there isn't too much money in the home hustling is a means of support of making money of getting what you want there are no job ain't no jobs down here at all so a man has to hustle if a brother didn't hopefully start for brother 24 years old and he's married he has to hustle if they ain't no job he got kids he you know he got bills to be paid he's trying to make it and ain't no job you know I wouldn't know what this is white power structure expecting the jewel you know it's got to make some money that's all there is to it see even when you're at a young age you know well you learn how to do different things that'll get your money it's not just going to a store or stealing or anything like that that's not a hustler nice things can be sure we can be shooting dice it can be playing cards it can be nearly pimping man you can hustle radios you can hustle TVs you can hustle soda water bottles a household there's anything that's gonna bring some money a hustle a hustler must hustle 24 hours a day there is no rest period in hustle he seems very very so long a pool hustler he's a he's a your most common type of hustler a pool hustler a pool hustler hangs around pool all the time that's the second home if one pool isn't isn't crowded enough or he can't get a game in one pool he'd go to the Knicks but he must keep going till he gets a game the pimp part of his hostility there's a 24-hour hustle 24 hours a day he's a very clean you dressed clean and neat dressing person well-groomed easygoing gets along with everybody always has a little money in his pocket but then you have some pimps who not only pimp women but they've come to public you know if you gave a man a five a five a five dollar bill and ask for change and he gave you change for a 5 you turn around and say well I gave you a 10 if he fell forward and said oh he gave me a chant well I'm sorry my mistake this is pimping a puppet and when your husband is your eyes are going to jail or 75 out of 100 it when you're hustling us most of the time seeing that we live in this kind of society everything must be what power structure cars legal and and hustling is not legal you know unless you can get the legal hustle Church is this it's a hustle itself it's a it's a way of hustling on the people in fact it's a damn good hustle you know and as a matter of fact he might even be the biggest hustle of all you find a Baptist minister that that's just thought if not well anything is served as a church let him kill in any places guy's house anyhow God Thomas so a church can be anything we just so happens that they went on a Main Street maybe or Main Street where there once was a store and I his in a store anymore well they can leash this building out and he can become a church with a few changes and add a cross to it and put the name what we have a church thank you so exuberant and so exalted praise alone I just take Rydell over this after such a short time praise the Lord we look for with the sunday certainly is important day in my life plus their cell church all day long from 910 until around P and then come back and go back at 6:30 until around 11:00 and then I have a full day Sunday's the only fool day I have I think church is meant an awful lot to me it's kept me out of trouble I've never been in jail I've never had to be stopped about interface just knowing about church and knowing about the Word of God it's been my whole life since I've been grown just meant everything it's been my mother when I mother wasn't around the father just I think it made me all rounds to stage different than other people if I didn't believe in God if I wasn't a strong believe in God as I am I don't think that I could survive down here on earth with the conditions like they are and the main thing is living and getting along with the white man it's a problem here you have to really be a believer you have to pray you have to egg God for your strength your courage and everything to get along with the white man because if it wasn't for God I don't think I could survive we thank God for these young people because as you know there are so many other places they could be and so me not a thing they could be doing but they chose to be in the house of the Lord today and truly we thank God for their well meant to my family that I prayed bring all the world all my children up in the ticked and it's men I lied to them I've never had one to go to jail never had one in juvenile think knowing what it is and being taught the right way kept them out of anything they know if anything anybody tell them if they already know it because I've taught it to them and then had the teachings of the church behind me I do believe in God in fact I know there is a God I was raised in the church for my child I had to go or else as a kid and this has helped me tremendously in my grown-up things and it also helped me to understand that the white man because if without the church I do I don't think I'd be able to sit and understand his ways and understand his actions when I was little my mother sent me to church you know I went to church to God she would dress me up I even had a soup that I just go to church you know this was church every Sunday was a sacred day nothing else you do want Samer go to church well Church it to me was I didn't like it I didn't like sitting up in a hot room for hours doesn't there but just fella had to say who was jabbing all the time I knew he was jamming and as I got older I had big ideas I saw through this fellow up there you know now I believe in myself I believe anything is gonna be accomplished it's gonna be myself I could sit down and pray all night for a job I can sit down pray all night for anything that I happen to want and praying ain't gonna get you nothing ain't gonna bring you nothing when you when you look up on the walls in the church well what you see is is this white man and you don't see anybody that that identifies with black people this man has blue eyes here blond hair he's his white man this is what you see and this is the way America has made it you know this is the way America has made their God to be like them you know like white people but this is why peoples God so not his foes identified with him I don't need Jesus because Jesus haven't done anything for me if he had done something for me he would have created us all equal you wouldn't put our people where we wouldn't have to be struggling for something all the time and begging and asking for somebody to give us something he was everywhere the Jesus how come you know he even make everybody one color how come you got our people begging how come you got our people they had our people in slavery for most of the time see that's why I believe that it's know Jesus it's know Jesus Jesus some that the white man a little black man to believe in and and now that the black people are now aggressing the way they are they know who they are and they all know that their God and I think that I am God fact I know I'm God because God is somebody that can do what he wants to do and I'm going to do what I want to do as far as God is concerned um God can be you God I feel as though God is me if anybody's gonna do anything it's gonna be me God ain't gonna do nothing you know you may had a time of death if it's time for your time man you're gonna die you know it ain't no offensive but survive if it's your turn you're going if any bad luck hit you it's just bad luck it's no you know like you committed a sin so on so it's gonna happen it's no I don't believe it's any of that I believe if anything is gonna happen it's gonna happen and uh this uh god man this is this is a way you know it certainly seems like to me it's a way of scaring the people you know if you tell somebody you know but like yeah you do wrong gonna die or burn forever you know it's catcon thing I'll burn forever you know he's kind of believing this guy you know it's a way of just taking a person's mind man and doing things to it you know and I just don't believe in Oh God I think anything's gonna happen if any wheels are gonna turn or I'm gonna move up in the position in life I'm gonna do it myself and when I die I'm did rebuke that cancer tumor in the name of Jesus we've got to battle awesome let your glory be revealed you wonders manifested in Jesus name we pray thank God a man seed man you know a child which is aging and he starts asking a lot of questions and I gotta tell you each instead of me asking questions about why was there air I got the wondering why was my surroundings so different why did I only see white kids on TV I come with no black kids on TV you know why was you know the white guys always a good guy I never could figure it out I always wonder why did television always make a fool out of other races and why was the white man always looked upon as top dog why was he always the one that no one could criticize or no one fits touch he was always a Supreme Being in the image of television or in the magazine or where else he happened to appear he was always to the king the top man when I was little Lord the only white man that I ever saw they ever came to my house with either the insurance man or the police a white man never came to my house just to come he became to collect some money or they take somebody to jail and he says what molded my wine and the way I believe you today black people feel very harsh about white people they're not like us they just you know they don't rank too high although we see one we watch him we always watch the white man forever because this is the man who is a threat to us this is the man who wants to enslave the world practically if he thought he could and whenever we see them or whenever we come in contact with him we try to be twice as good because this is what it's kind of day we got to be twice as good see because we know him but he doesn't know us we know him very well we know how to identify him you know how to think in the way he would think and how he feels about us we know this he so whenever we see one we kind of be on guard there's no great love for him and there is no sympathy for him and nothing he's the devil and that's it the evil one you know when I see a white person a white man or white woman the first thing I'll start thinking what do that person that white person won from me because I feel in the back of my mind that they don't mean me any good they never held me at me any good so why should I believe that they mean me any good not there have been times that I wouldn't have a white person in my home and it hasn't been two very long ago because a white man is a funny thing he can eat a laugh and talk with you today or this minute and the next thing you know he cuts your throat and I don't mean with a knife I mean with words with anything he can hurt you with but he'll make you think that he's your friend and all the while he's making you trying to make you believe that he's your friend he's the worst any meant you could have the meeting took so much from the white man until now on the wheel we feel that it it's got to be a change so we always have to be on the end of asking so now we're gonna take if you can't get we didn't ask long enough my generation it's fed up with it I mean what good is it to do I mean to be a man if you got to beg for something you know if you're a man you're supposed to go out and get it and so I feel like we'll go out and get it if we ought to fight to do it we're gonna do it and if it take giving up my life for my people I'll do it because we don't have anything to lose from the get-go we black me had nothing and never will have nothing so if it calls from my life that I'm really man give it up it's time for the black man to try and better their condition and show the white man that they are just it's just much as the white man and that they can get his first the white man is given opportunity but but not in a violent way we have to find our own houses our own storefronts we had to find out our old neighborhood in other words to get the white people the majority white power structure to pay attention to what we was after all right we got some attention I agree we got so much it but the next time it's gonna be the white people that's gonna come be bent down this right things not necessary it don't have to be I don't know what the answer is is yet but I know that's riding and burning and stealing and looting is not the answer the reason why things will be done to bloodshed is because this has seemed to be the only thing that makes the power structure move as violence the youth knows that they will die they are aware of this as a matter of fact they are expected to die first because they are the warders America teaches you not to be violent but America the very foundation of America is built on violence miracle America has sent violence all as long as it has existed they have been in some kind of violence violence was the birth of the country the Rockets red glare the bombs bursting in air we Americans love America you're part of America and we must be a part of America and idea of it is that's our fight to be a part of America if thanks don't change we'll have to make him change before and this is the belief that black people out younger the younger generation has it's not gonna be anything where this is the good white one this is the bad white boy it's gonna be more or less white against black no his fans and buts about it my hair is woolly my back is strong strong enough to take pain inflicted again and again what do they call me my name is Sarah my name's Sarah and Sarah my skin is yellow my hair is long between two worlds I do belong my father was rich and white lost my mother late one night what do they call me my name my skin is tan my hair is fine my hips in by view my mouth like little girl am I anyone who has money to buy what do they call me my name is sweeping this broadcast has reflected much but not all of what it is to be black in many cities in America the people appearing are residents of South Central Los Angeles the alberto-culver company makers of vo5 hairdressing new dawn and other fine products has relinquished its normal commercial messages to present this program

Channel: USC Annenberg

Views: 170,531

Rating: 4.8065934 out of 5

Keywords: USC, University of Southern California, USC Annenberg School for Communication, ethnicity, african-american, documentary

Id: 6eJ6AlzC4X4

Length: 87min 20sec (5240 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 28 2008