Tavis Smiley has become an emerging voice for Black Americans. He is respected in mainstream media sources, and once a Black voice has gained momentum in the mainstream, they tend to render an image of Blacks to the rest of society. The image of Blacks Smiley is projecting seems to be one mirrored by the current image with little change.

The list below is one that Smiley suggests that Blacks follow in order to better themselves and to better assimilate with American society. In rebuttal to his suggestions, Afromerica will redirect the Black mind away from what he suggest by giving alternative ways of thinking and living in America.

21 Things African Americans Should Do According to Tavis Smiley

Smiley - 1) Register to vote, or shut up!
Afromerica - 1) If anyone pays taxes and manages to stay out of jail, they have just as much right to say and speak what they will. Why register your name in a system that protects the rights and wishes of the rich and continually ignore the needs of the poor?

Smiley - 2) Take all that money out of those stocking caps, in cans, mattresses, and floorboards and invest money in something. For starters, invest in the food you eat and clothes you wear.
Afromerica - 2) This is an out-of-date stereotype that should be thrown away. People are required to have direct deposit and bank accounts in today's cashless society and many do; ignore this insult. As a national spokes person, instead of talking down to the bottom, start from the top and suggest that Black doctors and manufacturers start marketing to their own communities and not "where the money is," in the white communities.

Smiley - 3) Learn another language. Ebonics does not count.
Afromerica - 3) Another insult pulled from the white book of insults. Why must we perfect the King's English just to make whites happy? They seem to accept the broken English of foreigners when approving bank loans. We are not of the Euro sock and breed. If they do not like the way we talk, make them adapt to us.

Smiley - 4) Stop using the "N" word in the year 2005, especially since Merriam-Webster has announced it isn't changing the definition.
Afromerica - 4) Again, grow some testicles and go to the top with this one Smiley. Talk to Black movie stars and comedians who make light of the "nigger" and Sambo image. As far as Webster is concerned, does this not raise a flag as to the racial injustice we face in America? How does this have anything to do with what Blacks are doing?

Smiley - 5) Buy something each week from a black vendor.
Afromerica - 5) On this we agree.

Smiley - 6) Stop blaming white folk for 98% of your problems, while giving them 100% of your money.
Afromerica - 6) Referring back to number 5, if there were enough Black vendors who specialized in everything we need, this would be no problem. Furthermore, whites have 98% of the wealth so any complaints are legitimate until we have our own wealth. Mr. Smiley, stop using catch phrases and myths about our people to help undermine them.

Smiley - 7) Subscribe to Ebony, JET, Black Enterprise, Essence. Then subscribe to one of the three weeklies: Time, Newsweek, or US News and World Report. After we read about what's going on in our world, how about knowing what's going on in theirs? It is, after all, your world.
Afromerica - 7) Subscribe to the world of conspicuous consumption? We think not. These periodicals are nothing more than fantasy worlds created by boochie Blacks who were slighted by their white mentors after they gave them all their money to attend their schools and work in their businesses. And why support Black businesses that feed us white concepts and have no originality of their own? Time, Newsweek, and any other weekly is nothing more than an extension of cable TV, which is the essence of bias and lies. How about us acknowledging reality, writing about it and publishing the truth for our people to read.

Smiley - 8) Stop walking past each other and not speaking.
Afromerica - 8) Where do you socialize? Obviously not the hood. The only Blacks who do this are Blacks who are outnumbered by whites. When one Black face reaches their destination of success and another Black comes in, they must avoid each other in order not to seem too Black. This happens in your world, not ours.

Smiley - 9) Be on time for something ... anything!
Afromerica - 9) Another stereotype. This can happen to anyone. There are white folks who are lazy, late, sorry, shiftless and whatever else they have attributed to Black folks. Open your mind and see reality.

Smiley - 10) Get an annual check up; herbs do not cure everything!
Afromerica - 10) An annual check up from whom, the HIV/AIDS injecting doctor? Though this may seem paranoid, some people just simply do not trust doctors and western medicine. There are ways to heal thyself without the use of drugs. Herbs and prayer do heal.

Smiley - 11) In all thy ways acknowledge Him (GOD) and He shall direct thy path." And prioritize this as #1.
Afromerica - 11) Cannot argue with scripture.

Smiley - 12) Stop being jealous of one another, learn to look past the material things and see the person for who they are.
Afromerica - 12) Jealousy does destroy unity. Blacks are no more jealousy of one another than the white man is of Blacks as a whole. Jealousy stems from the "keep up with the Jones" syndrome, which comes from material wantonness, which comes from the idea of success in a capitalist society. Maybe you should dig deeper into the psyche of this society and not criticize the actions of an individual people.

Smiley - 13) Get involved in at least one charitable or voluntary community service.
Afromerica - 13) Why? Unless it is a Black community group in your own locality. National groups are pandering idiots that waste the dues-payer's money and get nothing accomplished. Start in your own community.

Smiley - 14) Say a prayer for someone beside yourself.
Afromerica - 14) This observation is mere assumption. Who says we do not?

Smiley - 15) Hug your child/spouse/parent today.
Afromerica - 15) Noble suggestion, but again, mere assumption that we do not.

Smiley - 16) LOVE ONE ANOTHER!
Afromerica - 16) Expound on that. What is love? What measures a person's love for another? Put in simpler terms, care about what is going on with your neighbor (next door, down the street).

Smiley - 17) Learn to Let Go and Let God.
Afromerica - 17) Catch Phrase (Not written anywhere in the Bible).

Smiley - 18) Stop talking about it, and be about it.
Afromerica - 18) And you are? All you are doing is feeding Blacks what the oppressor wants with these suggestions. It runs deeper than just doing, it is a matter of what people think and believe, and then they can do differently. As long as we believe in this system and its definitions, laws, acts, and policies, we can never "be about it."

Smiley - 19) Let GOD order your steps instead of the world.
Afromerica - 19) We must first know God and in which direction he wants and as long as our so-called Black church leaders practice the act of capitalist Christianity, we can never get away from the world. Again, go to the top with this one.

Smiley - 20) P.U.S.H.!! Pray Until Something Happens!
Afromerica - 20) Acronyms never solved a problem. However, the concept of prayer has to be carefully crafted. You cannot pray for anything, you have to have a just and workable goal in mind. Example, you cannot pray you get rich because troubles come with money. You have to pray that money does not corrupt you.

Smiley - 21) In all that you do, get understanding, (turn off the TV, and open a book). Don't just read this, DO IT and encourage others Take nothing for granted. Tell people what they mean to you - TODAY!!!!!!
Afromerica -21) Respectable suggestion, but how about suggesting the books to read and explaining to Black America why television is bad.

The above list of suggestions by Smiley to Black America is considerable things in need of redirection away from mainstream thinking. America and her ideologies about life are not ones that the Black mind need adapt simply because it places us in the very position we are in today. If we continue to think along these same lines, in 50 years, someone else will be writing exactly what Afromerica has just written.

© 2005 by CR Hamilton