By Jocelyn Jackson Williams | OBSERVER Columnist
When I was in junior high, my parents sat me down and had me watch a documentary on PBS called “Eyes on the Prize” which documents the Civil Rights Movement. It was while watching it that I learned about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Black people in Alabama stopped riding the segregated public transportation system for a year. It was extremely inconvenient. Some people rode a bike for miles to work. The community gathered together and created carpool systems so people could get to where they needed. They woke up earlier. They had to put plans in place to get from A to Z and help others do the same. This grassroots effort succeeded due to the individual choice each person made to inconvenience him or herself for the greater good.
The anti-Blackness that surrounded them was so palpable, it was a constant reminder of what needed to be done to resist white supremacy and affirm our humanity. The Civil Rights Era, steeped in belligerent anti-Blackness, is the birthplace of DEI.
In 1970, Gil Scott-Heron’s infamous poem “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” was released. Many people over the years have taken it to mean that we should not publicly speak of resistance efforts. And while there is merit to that thought, it misses the original point. In his own words, Scott-Heron explained how and where every revolution begins: “You have to change your mind first before you change the way you live and the way you move. So, when we said that the revolution will not be televised, we were saying that the thing that’s going to change people is something that no one will ever be able to capture on film. It will just be something that you see and all of a sudden you realize, I’m on the wrong page or I’m on the right page but I’m on the wrong note and I’ve got to get in sync with everyone else to understand what’s happening in this country.”
Rapper and Pulitzer Prize winner Kendrick Lamar references the poem in his Super Bowl Halftime Show. Right before we hear him say, “The revolution ‘bout to be televised,” we see imagery of a Black body in red after a Black body in blue after a Black body in white exit out of the same door of a car. The analogy is not lost on me that although it was not an Alabama bus, he chose a vehicle from his own generation to carry along a message: there is an inherent spirit that fuels our resistance. This same halftime show was inconvenient for some who complained that they were not entertained; according to them, the Super Bowl is about fireworks, bright lights and soaring heights. Using those metrics, his performance was a failure. Using the metrics of resistance, however, it was exactly what it needed to be. For those 13 minutes, the revolution was televised to get us to look inward and see for ourselves whether we are on the right page but the wrong note.
After the death of George Floyd, many people on social media used a black square to demonstrate the need for change. Many of us wondered if their stance was genuine or performative. Various companies around this time went public with DEI initiatives having an awareness that effective change does not take place in a homogenous power structure. Many of us wondered how long these initiatives would last. The reelection of Donald Trump gave us the answer as many companies publicly announced the rescinding of DEI efforts. What do Target, Walmart, and Amazon have in common? Convenience. They are one-stop shops with the click of a button on our phone or a quick run around the corner from our homes. While knowing the DEI rollbacks are a new notch on the belt of white supremacy, some of us have chosen to continue shopping in those spaces. Some want to support Black-owned businesses and there is an argument to be made (not in this particular column today, though) that access to these stores is crucial and hence, their success. However, what I fear some are not willing to admit is that they will not participate in a boycott because the cost of inconvenience is too high.
This is the revolution that cannot be televised. When presented with the opportunity to divest your dollars from companies that cannot or will not publicly take a stance for diversity, equity, and inclusion, what matters most to you? I believe the answer to that question lies in the state of your internal revolution — whether your heart is attuned to effecting change or avoiding discomfort.
I appreciate a social media post I saw the other day from a friend where she talked about the difference between inconvenient vs. impossible when being called to make changes that affect you personally. In this post, she said that it took her about three weeks to make all the switches away from the DEI rollback stores. From my experience, that timeframe is accurate. If you would like to engage in boycott efforts now (and not just a 40-day experiment), here are a few alternative options to get you started:
Blapp and Black Nile – These are just two of the shopping apps where you can find Black-owned businesses not only online but in your neighborhood as well.
Farmers Markets – Support your local farmers.
Spoutible – When bots were running rampant online, Christopher Bouzy created an account that monitored the rage baiting and disinformation that was being spread primarily on Twitter. Now he has created an online community called Spoutible where you can interact without the trolls.
Alternatives to Audible – Libby, the library app and Hoopla Digital are apps where you can get free audiobooks, ebooks, and magazines.
We would all like to live a life of relative ease and enjoyment, but life keeps on handing us alternatives to deal with. All the people who participated in the Montgomery Bus Boycott had to make a personal decision to inconvenience themselves for the sake of the greater good. Gil Scott-Heron wrote a poem to remind us that every demonstration of resistance first begins with an internal decision. Kendrick opened our eyes to resistance using imagery as his voice and then promptly told us to “turn this tv off.” The question we are left with as we turn inward to examine our own hearts in relation to this present revolution is, “Am I willing to change in order to effect change in the world around me?”