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Tavis Smiley’s State of the Black Union: Getting ready, hashing it out

By Carmen D. on Thursday, February 26th, 2009, 10:03 am Comments

In getting ready for my role as blogger panelist at “Tavis Smiley’s State of the Black Union” this Saturday, I’ve just participated in one of the most frank, wide ranging and invigorating conversations on the state of ‘Black America’ that I can remember having. As a guest on my friend Kevin Ross‘ Blogtalkradio show, I hashed it out, no holds barred, with Kevin and fellow blogger Lenny McAllister – both black Republicans.

Listen to the Kevin Ross show on Blogtalkradio.

Kevin, Lenny and I will be blogger panelists on ‘Tavis Smiley’s State of the Black Union’ broadcast live by C-SPAN and C-Span radio all day Saturday and taking place here in Los Angeles this year. Here’s the schedule:

Panel I – 8am PST/11am EST (2.5 hours) — C-Span

Panel II – 1:30pm PST/4:30pm (2 hours) — C-Span

Blogger’s Panel – 4:30pm PST/7:30pm EST (1 hour) — Viewable ONLY online (www.tavistalks.com)

The theme for this 10th Anniversary symposium is “Accountable: Making America As Good As Its Promise,” a mammoth but essential task at a time when policy changes are being enacted at the speed of sound. I am reading a copy of Smiley’s accompanying book ‘Accountable: Making America As Good As Its Promise’ And I can tell you this book provides detailed information and extremely helpful checklists that can be used as tools to track progress on government promises and to grade the success of these proposals. Each chapter also includes checklists to track the individual reader’s participation in making our society better.

Which brings me back to the discussion on Kevin’s Blogtalkradio show. In case you haven’t noticed, there is a dearth of people of color on talk radio. As Kevin points out in his essay ‘Talk Radio: The New Bastion of Racial Segregation’ the Los Angeles talk radio landscape is all white. Let’s be very clear, I oppose the ‘Fairness Doctrine’, I believe it has no place in a free society. However, I do think it is important to pay attention to the changing landscape of who is interpreting events impacting our lives and to come up with ways (like BlogTalkRadio, blogs, social networks) to insure that there is great diversity in the ideas communicated throughout our nation.

Listen to the Kevin Ross show on Blogtalkradio.

I hope you will tune into C-SPAN this Saturday

  • Robert F. Merrill
    Hello, As a retired elementary and middle school teacher forever exasperated by and cringing over the highly ungrammatical manner America's youth, even at the college level, generally seem to express themselves, I was keenly interested to hear comments by some panelists at the 10th State of the Black Union Congress celebrating and promoting what I see as a shift in favor, emphasis, and appreciation towards the value of articulacy on the part of blacks. I hope this perceived shift is detected and pursued by today's youth.
  • Yobachi
    Wow, nice move to pull the invite to be on that panel.

    Is it in on video or podcast anywhere on the internet.

    I didn't even know they had the SBU this weekend. Were there any Dick Gregory moments like last year?
  • Hey Yobachi! Yes. I feel very honored to have been invited to participate in the discussions a Bloggers Panel panelist. The entire SOBU EXCEPT for the Bloggers Panel is on C-Span's website right now. The Bloggers' Panel was to be streamed live on TavisTalks.com but the system crashed. I've been promised that the stream will go live at Tavistalks.com sometime today. I look forward to seeing it myself.

    I would love to hear your feedback. Cheers!
  • I didn't know you were goign to be on a panel, i would have promoted it. I went to watch it ont he site, but didn't see a link to it. Do you have the direct link.
  • Hey Gina! You are a doll...and a powerful one at that! ;) The livestream crashed because they didn't have enough bandwidth for all the people who tried to watch. From sometime today (Monday) until Friday, I've been told that the stream will be available on www.tavistalks.com.

    Can't wait 'til Blogging While Brown this year.
  • Listened to the show. VERY interesting. So many thoughts, so little space and time to expound. I can't wait to see you on the panel tomorrow. I will be watching! Congrats, sister!
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