The Story You Didn’t See

The hottest ticket in town last Friday was for “A Conversation with Stephen Colbert” at the John F. Kennedy, Jr. Forum. Across campus, a different kind of conversation was taking place. Television and radio talk-show host Tavis Smiley spoke about the state of black America before an older, mostly African American audience in Ames Courtroom at Harvard Law School.

Both Smiley and Colbert have their own late-night TV shows, but “The Tavis Smiley Show,” which airs on PBS (WGBH/Channels 2 and 44 locally), bears little resemblance to Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.” Smiley specializes in conducting wide-ranging interviews with interesting people—both famous and not so famous—while Colbert specializes in skewering politicians and the right-wing pundits upon whom his character is based. It’s no wonder that Colbert drew a larger college crowd on Friday.

Smiley may not be as famous or as funny as Colbert, but he’s just as relevant. This newspaper published a 1000-word web update on Friday about Colbert’s appearance and ran the story on the front page of Monday’s paper. Unfortunately, the Smiley event was overlooked. Thus, I offer my own account below.

In his opening remarks, Smiley spoke eloquently about the importance of asking why things are the way they are. He quoted Socrates (“the unexamined life is not worth living”) and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who he said had the greatest influence on his life. Then he introduced Princeton professor Cornel R. West ’74.

West strode to the podium in his black suit and tightly-wrapped neck scarf and expounded on the contributions that “brother Tavis” has made to the dialogue about race in America. One such contribution, he said, is a book that Smiley put together called “The Covenant with Black America.” Published earlier this year and known simply as “The Covenant,” the book is a collection of essays by African American experts in various fields—including medicine, education, and technology—about the challenges and opportunities for African Americans in the 21st century.

The powerful essays, taken together, represent a comprehensive course of action for improving the economic, social, and political conditions for all black Americans. In the introduction to “The Covenant,” Smiley writes, “Now is the time to stop talking about our pain and to start talking about our plan.”

Recent events involving black citizens and the police underscore the need for a document like “The Covenant.” Last week, a 23-year-old unarmed man was killed when plainclothes police officers fired 50 rounds at his car as he left his bachelor party at a strip club in Queens, N.Y. The man, Sean Bell, was supposed to be married the day he was shot.

Last month, officers in a crime-ridden neighborhood in Atlanta killed an 88-year-old woman while serving a “no-knock” warrant in search of drugs. The investigation is ongoing, but it looks like the police had the wrong house. A confidential informant publicly revealed that the police told him to lie about buying drugs from that location after the shooting had occurred.

In an episode that is only now receiving international media attention, an officer of the Tempe Police Department in Arizona pulled over two black men last August for throwing garbage out of the car window and said he would dismiss the ticket if they performed a rap for him “about the dangers of littering.” The men complied.

Smiley didn’t mention any of these incidents in his talk. He didn’t have to. “The Covenant” already addresses these types of problems.

One of the most important chapters in the book is “Covenant IV: Fostering Accountable Community-Centered Policing.” It contains facts about racial profiling (over 10 percent of black drivers were searched or had their vehicle searched during a traffic stop in 2002, compared to 3.5 percent of white drivers, according to a survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics) and police brutality (about 84 percent of the over 4000 acts of police violence against African Americans in 2001 were committed by white officers, according to a study by the International Association of Chiefs of Police).

Then the chapter lays out concrete steps that citizens and elected officials can take to decrease tensions between the police and the communities they serve. For example, it recommends that individuals get to know the officers who patrol their neighborhoods and that police forces “adequately train all officers in cultural sensitivity, racial profiling, and excessive force policies.” “The Covenant” is so valuable because it is filled with these kinds of practical strategies.

Colbert ended his appearance at the Forum with a concession. “Well, I think we’ve all learned enough here today,” he said. “Consider this your graduation ceremony. Students of the Kennedy School of Government, you are free to go!” Back in Ames Courtroom, Smiley’s message was a bit more pragmatic. “When you make black America better,” he said, “you make all of America better.”

Sometimes, instead of a few belly laughs, what we really need is a reality check.

Andrew C. Esensten ’07 is a literature and African American studies concentrator in Adams House. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.