0:01 Please help yourself to a calendar at
0:10 I would now like to introduce the
0:12 director of the Anacostia Museum, Mr.
0:14 Steven Nuome,
0:16 to introduce our keynote speaker. Stephen,
0:30 good afternoon. Here we are 68 years
0:32 after Cottage Gy Woodson decided that
0:35 there should be some annual observance
0:37 of African and African-American
0:40 contributions to our society.
0:42 Here we are today in one auditorium of
0:45 the venerable Smithsonian Institution
0:49 celebrating. And across the way at the
0:52 National Museum of American History,
0:55 there's a conference that looks at the
0:57 current of the spirit in the African diaspora.
0:59 diaspora.
1:01 And the Smithsonian itself has made
1:03 history by appointing an African-American
1:05 African-American
1:08 to head the National Museum of American History.
1:23 Today's speaker is
1:25 someone that we should all be familiar
1:27 with and many of us probably are if we
1:30 watch television because we saw his name
1:32 roll against in the credits for the
1:36 Cosby Show and for A Different World.
1:39 But his contributions go much further
1:42 than that. and his work is something
1:44 that should be familiar to any of us who
1:46 have the responsibility
1:50 of raising or educating
1:53 African-American children. And that
1:58 means any of us who work in a museum.
2:01 Dr. Fusant is a clinical professor of
2:03 psychiatry and faculty associate dean of
2:05 student affairs at Harvard Medical School.
2:06 School.
2:08 He's the author of Why Blacks Kill
2:10 Blacks and a co-author of Black Child
2:13 Care, which was revised and issued again
2:16 in 1992 under the title Raising Black Children.
2:18 Children.
2:20 He's written a number of articles for
2:23 magazines, both professional and lay.
2:25 He's an expert on race relations in
2:29 America, the dynamics of prejudice, and
2:32 issues of diversity in our increasingly
2:35 multicultural society.
2:37 In addition, he is active in consulting
2:40 on media images and on a wide range of
2:42 social issues.
2:45 He is very very concerned with media
2:48 images and issues regarding portrayal of
2:52 children and changing families. He is a
2:55 strong proponent of nonviolent parenting
2:59 and parent and education.
3:01 But he's not just a psychiatrist and a doctor.
3:03 doctor.
3:04 He's been involved. He's been an
3:08 activist. He was there marching
3:11 along with Andrew Young and Jesse
3:14 Jackson and Dr. King.
3:18 He provided medical care to civil rights
3:21 workers in the deep south.
3:23 So, we have someone who is taking that
3:26 activism and that concern
3:29 to help us raise a
3:32 new and better generation so that the
3:35 black future and America's future would
3:38 be brighter. I'm proud to present to you
3:56 Uh thank you very much uh for inviting
4:01 me to uh speak with you uh uh today. Uh
4:05 I really enjoyed the opening numbers uh
4:07 which will serve as counterpoint
4:11 uh to my discussion about u uh uh pop
4:13 culture and consumerism here in the
4:15 United States. But I couldn't help
4:18 wondering while I was listening to uh
4:21 Mosart and and Hayen
4:25 uh what the pop culture was back then.
4:28 Uh was that pop culture?
4:31 Uh what were the regular ordinary folks
4:34 doing and what were they singing? The
4:36 other thing I thought that came to my
4:38 mind was
4:41 100 and200 years from now what will we
4:45 be playing from this era?
4:48 See what will we be playing? What will
4:52 be the classical music?
4:56 Will they be playing Dellon?
5:01 You see, will will jazz survive
5:03 200 years from now? Will the blues survive?
5:14 I think those are kind of interesting
5:16 thoughts, you know, as kind of culture
5:20 evolves and some of our concern now, uh,
5:23 particularly with pop culture. And I
5:31 in its in its impact is so much more
5:34 enormous than any pop culture could have
5:37 been back in the 19th century or the
5:40 18th century, any other time because we
5:43 have better mechanisms for spreading the
5:46 word and information systems and
5:49 communication through radio, through
5:52 television, through uh records that we
5:56 never had before. This is all relatively
5:58 recent, isn't it? In terms of the
6:01 history of the world that we have this
6:05 type of enormous bombardment,
6:08 whether we kind of like it or not, of
6:11 popular culture coming into our homes.
6:14 It is impossible to talk about the
6:18 family any longer without talking about
6:20 the presence of television because
6:22 television has become part of the family.
6:24 family.
6:26 It become part has become part of the
6:30 the educational system and children
6:33 watch more television than they spend
6:35 time in school.
6:37 They may watch more television than they
6:39 spend time talking to their parents or
6:42 their brothers and and and sisters.
6:46 The average television set is on 7 hours
6:49 and a half each day in America. Seven
6:50 and a half hours. You know who watch
6:59 Women 55 and over.
7:02 Average about six hours and a half of
7:05 television watching per day. The second
7:09 group are men 55 and over. One of the
7:11 the groups that watches television the
7:15 least are teenage girls
7:18 averaging about 3 hours. Now many of you
7:21 may not believe that from uh what you
7:24 see your children uh doing but let me
7:27 just get into some some issues because I
7:30 don't have uh a lot of time.
7:35 I think one of the issues for us is
7:38 what effect popular culture and media
7:41 have on the population as a whole and
7:43 what effect does it have on different
7:46 segments of the population who may be
7:49 more or less vulnerable because of their
7:51 ethnic status, their social economic
7:53 status. It's not, you know, people say,
7:55 well, if the media is so bad and putting
7:57 out bad messages, why isn't it making
8:01 everybody kind of uh uh uh uh, you know,
8:02 messed up or having difficulty? Is
8:04 because different groups are more
8:07 vulnerable to whatever you put out there
8:09 on the media, whatever you're doing
8:11 that's negative, it will affect people
8:13 depending on their susceptibility to
8:16 whatever the message may be, u depending
8:19 on their place in society. And right now
8:22 I think we're kind of in the midst of of
8:26 of a society where you know the the the
8:29 the people on kind of freedom of speech
8:32 side and kind of have a anything goes
8:35 type of attitude that is if if if if you
8:38 can if you can do it as this freedom to
8:41 do it and not much concern about the
8:42 effects of whatever they're doing. In
8:44 other words, there's very little
8:47 restraint. In fact, Anything Goes was
8:49 the title of a song by Guns and Roses a
8:51 number of years ago ago. One of the
8:54 first groups was a white group to really
8:56 get out there with a lot of profane
8:58 lyrics. That was a group that started a
9:00 white group that was using the word
9:03 in their in their songs way back
9:06 in in the in the late um in the late
9:09 80s. But let me tell you how the the
9:11 particularly the record industry and
9:13 some of television other people their
9:17 attitudes uh about this and where they
9:19 they mislead and they don't show a sense
9:22 of responsibility and they hoodwink us.
9:25 Now a good example of their hoodwinking
9:27 us and we're all falling for it under
9:29 the banner of of freedom of speech and
9:31 and don't censor us is this business
9:35 around uh music that is profane and
Chrome Extension