by Heather L. Lawton
“Slave Contracts” have been an urban legend for decades. The general idea is that black entertainers are told that once they sign their contracts, enhancing or advancing black communities economically, socially, or politically in any way is not an option. Is there any truth to this?
After 20 years, Oprah Winfrey closes the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls.
Winfrey opened the school in Africa in 2007, with critics asking why Africa and not America. The former daytime talk show host often stated that American children “seemed to demand consumer goods instead of showing a passion to learn.”
On this website, the prevailing belief is that “slave contracts” exist and prohibit black entertainers from paying it forward, and perhaps Winfrey wasn’t allowed to build a school for poor black children in America. There are no Jay-Z state-of-the-art elementary schools in Brooklyn, no Beyonce School for Performing Arts in her home state of Texas or where she resides in New York or California for black youth, no Michael Jackson, Prince, Whitney Houston, Babyface, Sammy Davis Jr. academies anywhere in urban areas, which makes the “slave” myth attractive to skeptics.
One thing we can be certain of is that Black people have worked extremely hard to keep those “slave contracts” intact. Black entertainers have a long history of bailing out nearly every corner of the industry when it needed saving: Black exploitation films extricated the film industry from its almost irreparable financial woes; Eddie Murphy almost single-handedly rescued Saturday Night Live from its failing ratings; Dr. Dre, with his 1992 hit album, The Chronic, saved Interscope Records when it was on the verge of “closing its doors;” Venus and Serena Williams breathed new life into a sport that was predominantly played by whites; Tiger Woods dazzled the sport of golf, once thought of as a game only played and wathced by old, white, retired men.
All of these accomplishments on the receipt, and the bill of success and power economically, academically, and politically, is collectively at zero for black people.
So, was Winfrey capitulating when she established her school in Africa instead of America? We may never know.
For more on this story, click here.
As always, I say to America,
You better get mad till you get f@ckin’ glad! I’m out!
AND IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME!!!
