Calypso Craziness

On January 14, Vanderbilt University was graced with a visit from calypso singer and social activist Harry Belafonte, a man Interim Chancellor Nick Zeppos called a “remarkable individual” who has “contributed much to humanity.” Beyond his marching with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his organization of the Freedom Rides and other Civil Rights-era events, the King of Calypso made an appearance on what Zeppos remarked was perhaps “the best episode of The Muppet Show.”

In all seriousness, Belafonte’s work as a civil rights activist may outshine his stellar accomplishments as an entertainer, and it was for this work that he was asked to speak at Vanderbilt as a part of the Martin Luther King Commemorative Series and the yearlong Chancellor’s Lecture Series. He focused on issues of race and oppression, but his astute identification of many of the problems American families face was paired with shaky, radical solutions that seem to place blame on America’s capitalist society.

The evening with Belafonte began in the basement of the Student Life Center, where a small press conference was held. Members of both school and local media waited patiently until Belafonte arrived a few minutes late. He fielded just a few questions, mostly pertaining to his opinion about nearby Fisk University’s recent financial woes. A question about his thoughts on Barack Obama as a presidential candidate elicited little reaction from Belafonte. He explained that while he liked the fact that Obama was a black candidate with a credible chance at winning a national election, he urged caution about getting too excited about a candidacy that might not produce the results blacks in America want and need. He cited the raised profile of Colin Powell in the 1990s as a similar situation, where an influential and successful African-American had the potential to become president. The potential ultimately fizzled out because, according to Belafonte, Powell’s politics turned its back on blacks in America.

Belafonte touched on this theme throughout the night, explaining “White America is always trying to extricate itself from guilt,” presumably for the wrongs of slavery and institutionalized racism. In his lecture later, he commented that blacks “continue to annoit those who are chosen to represent blacks” and are always disappointed. He spoke of both Powell and Condoleezza Rice in this manner, though it may be inferred from other comments that Belafonte refers to all leaders that symbolize some representation of blacks and end up failing to fulfill the obligation Belafonte deems necessary.

I asked him about similar, more controversial comments he made about Powell and Rice in 2002. While in an interview on a San Diego radio show, Belafonte referenced a Malcolm X quote by saying that Powell was like the house slave who served his master (President Bush) “according to the master’s purpose” and that if he “dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture.” I inquired if Belafonte believed that other black conservatives and Republicans were slaves in this sense and if the Civil Rights movement has failed them.

In an effort to clarify his comments, Belafonte responded that he had been speaking in metaphor to highlight his view that those blacks who are given the opportunity to ascend to the highest levels of, in the case, government, fail to provide the same opportunities for those blacks “in the field.” He went on to remark that America still “has a plantation mentality” and that we have never had a “solid debate on slavery,” failing to elaborate on what he meant by these statements. As for black Republicans, Belafonte commented that he had no problem with these people as a collective, but that “none of them have done anything to improve the rest of the black community.”

The improvement of the black community is a task Belafonte takes, I believe, genuinely to heart. In the forum held in the Student Life Center Ballroom after the press conference, he spent the majority of his allotted time discussing the problems and the solutions for blacks in America. Speaking about his recent work with increasing dialogue between gangs divided along racial lines, Belafonte implied that the discussion families have at the dinner table are influential in creating the American culture. That discussion, according to him, is oriented completely in the wrong direction.

Conservatives might find truth in his lament if Belafonte had not used this observation to leap into a soft tirade against the capitalist, “bourgeois,” and (without vocalizing it) white culture, a culture characterized by “greed” and “corporate chicanery.” He responded to the ideas that blacks have more opportunities than ever to integrate into the economy and culture by referring to such action as running back “into a burning house.” He encouraged young people to, instead, “be the firemen” in putting out the fire of greed and ambition that Belafonte sees as having a tight grip on the United States.

He praised radicalism as the only way to change society effectively, echoing the sentiments shared by actor Danny Glover and academic Cornel West, a noted socialist. The three men made the now-infamous meeting in 2006 with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, angering Americans who responded negatively to Belafonte’s claims that President Bush was a tyrant and a terrorist and that “millions of the American people…support [Chavez’s] revolution.” While Belafonte’s efforts in the Civil Rights movement have been emphasized well enough to mask his own dangerous radicalism, these and other outlandish statements reveal a desire for a swift socialist revolution.

What became evident and certainly frightening was the response from the attentive audience. While Belafonte’s rambling and often ridiculous calls for radical solution should have given those listening a reason to pause and consider his words, it seems that his civil rights credentials trump any radicalism found in his opinions. Those who applauded his calls for more programs and more conscience leaders failed to see the contradiction Belafonte posed. He proclaimed that “our institutions have failed” while calling for even more stringent left-wing policies, under the pretense that these benefit the black community.

Belafonte would do well to observe that the social programs and anti-capitalist views he espouses have failed blacks as well as all Americans. Rather than focusing on blacks or other races as members of their respective communities, perhaps he should look to promoting the value of the individual as an American and as a human.