In 1988 legendary rap group Public Enemy released one of my favorite songs called “She Watch Channel Zero”. In it, there is this line, “2, 7, 5, 4, 8 she watched she said All added up to zero – and nothing in her head – She turns and turns and she hopes the soaps – Are for real, she learns that it ain’t true – nope – But she won’t survive and rather die in a lie -Fall a fool for some dude on a tube.” Today, in America, with the Constitution guaranteeing us all the freedom to be our best and greatest, with all of the latest technologies at our fingertips unlike any generation before, many of us willfully are like that woman in the song desiring to watch and listen to channels and frequencies that provides no education on substantive issues or benefits outside of entertainment – Channel Zero – it provides literally nothing intellectually. Nothing is provided to make one’s life financially, spiritually, or personally better, outside of momentary mental escape. Now do not get me wrong, I like to zone out, watch something that is just for entertainment and to mentally escape every now and then. And just as with any tool, as all sources of information mediums are, we can choose to use it for our good and the betterment of our life. Or we can choose a tool ill-purposefully and to our own destruction. It comes down to choice.
Over the past 12 plus years, in particular, as I watch what is going on in the streets, what programming is coming through the televisions, radios, and the internet, I am stunned at what is accepted as truth and reality through those platforms, without any personal investigation, and what is actually true. Many simply have completely unplugged from gathering any information from t.v news and many just don’t watch, listen to, or read any news at all. Pew Research revealed that in 2020 NBC News garnered the most viewers amongst the traditional Big Three, CBS, ABC, & NBC, with NBC 6.5 million. That is out of a nation of over 300 million. In 2018, Pew revealed that most Americans overwhelmingly prefer to get our news from the t.v, rather than read it. It has long been folklore that if you want to keep something from the black community, put it in a book. But, what happens when that general apathetic attitude to read our own information, to not acid test information that someone else is putting in front of our face, and give more validity to information that is presented over the popular news media platforms just because it is the most popular narrative without any personal fact-check, even when it goes totally opposite of our natural instincts and becomes the status quo?
We have witnessed a black African-American get elected to the Presidency of the United States twice who stated in his semi-biographical book that he prescribed to the Marxist ideology. But, if you only got your information from traditional news sources, or no sources at all, this most relative information about the man leading and representing America was totally unknown. And even though his actions openly displayed hostility to traditional American ways and culture, particularly on the international stage, many of us refused to acknowledge the truth. They are who I refer to as the intellectually uninitiated – those who just refuse to take the initiative to learn or know better for themselves.
In 2016, following eight years of a President Obama who was presented by the traditional news and the ever-expanding social media complex as a virtual reincarnation of JFK and Camelot, came the election of President Donald Trump whose name was persona non grata upon his declaration to become a candidate. Unlike any other time in my recollection has the national traditional news, entertainment, tech complex, as well as the political opposition Party, declared a sitting duly elected President of the United States as their sworn enemy to be politically and personally destroyed at all cost. And the intellectually uninitiated just ate that narrative up hook, line, and sinker. This was all opposite of the reality that President Trump will undoubtedly go down in American history as one of the most effective and productive U.S Presidents ever.
Today, Americans have very much come to resemble the Borg, from Star Trek, and the zombies from the movie The Night of the Living Dead regarding the matter of the coronavirus-19. Too many of us get fed off of information from the traditional news sources and social media complex and they spread that to their friends, family, and anyone who are intellectually uninitiated like themselves who refuse to accept the truth that in no other time in human history has a virus been stopped by people attempting to hide from it or by wearing a porous, non-sealable mask. No other time in history would the notion that healthy people would be the source of “vaccinated” people contracting the virus be generally accepted as fact, outside of periods such as The Salem Witch Hunt. And because so many Americans choose to get information regarding this virus from counter-informative propaganda sources, many of us believe it to be completely intelligent to walk around outside wearing a porous, non-sealable mask in order to prevent the transmission of the virus. In fact, many have turned the wearing of masks a talisman symbol, a fashion statement, and have even assaulted and killed others who hadn’t accepted their version of reality. All of this hysteria and fear totally ignores the fact that the coronavirus-19 kills less than 3% of anyone who is affected – those who have a severely compromised immune system or are in bad health or over the age of 60. Period! But sadly, even when presented with these irrefutable truths, their mental conditioning and programming just won’t allow them to accept it. And many of us who choose to be zombies go right back to watching and listening to the very false information sources that are designed to make us feel overstimulated with happy-juice, in entertainment and sports, or fear, in news and distorted views of the world, to feel more comfortable existing in a lie blinding us to what is available to us by living in the Truth. The fact is, people are easier to control with the stimulation of pleasure and fear. Many people take comfort today in being led, controlled, and told what to do and to do. It is the seeking of truth, boldly asking questions, and seeking the Light, that can lead us from the darkness. It is called freedom.
