White America, there is a bigger world out there

Despite living nearly all of my 37 years in Texas, I've never been an avid reader of Texas Monthly. Sure, it's the top-selling magazine devoted to the Lone Star State, but being a native Black Texan, it's rare that I will find a consistent number of stories about my history and culture.

In fact, only a handful of African Americans have ever made the cover in the state that has an impressive roster of prominent Black Texans.

So it was a surprise when I perused the newsstand during a flight delay at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and saw a headline on the August 2006 issue of the magazine, titled, "T.D. Jakes, Thou Art Loosed" by William Martin (The cover story of the issue was the 40th anniversary of Charles Whitman's murderous sniper spree atop the University of Texas bell tower, a story that has been told countless times).

So I picked up the magazine and went straight to the table of contents and read this: "American Idol - Although many people haven't heard of him, Bishop T.D. Jakes is one of the most famous - and richest preachers in the country. Whence cometh this man?"

I was already shaking my head.

So I turned to page 122 and read the opening graph by Martin, who recounts a 1998 conversation he had with a reporter with the New York Times, who called to inquire about Jakes. Martin professed to not know who Jakes was, and noted that the reporter said Jakes was "not well known among experts who follow rising evangelists."

Now my blood is boiling.

He then admitted that despite Jakes adorning the cover of Time magazine twice amazingly, he hasn't been on the cover of Texas Monthly - many "Anglos" have never heard of him, probably only seeing him as another prominent "Black preacher."

Let's just cut to the chase: it bothers me intensely that, as a Black man in America, I'm expected to know prominent white folks, yet when it comes to my people, whites have absolutely no clue.

Don't think that I'm calling Martin or the Times' reporter a racist. I'm not. It's just that by 1998, Jakes was pasturing a massive church in Dallas, was seen on the Trinity Broadcasting Network by millions, was packing out arenas across the nation, had national best-selling books, but for two prominent white reporters, he was an unknown commodity, a nobody.

But in the course of my career, I have seen this countless times.

When the singer Selena was shot and killed, there were no plans by my paper at the time, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, to send any reporters down to cover the story. But after pressing a white editor to consult with our Hispanic staffers, he got religion and made the call.

Thank goodness. Only 70,000 people showed up to a memorial service the next day. That was followed by a massive service at the Forum in Los Angeles and People magazine put out a special edition.

When the singer Aaliyah was killed in a plane crash in 2002, the New York Post's Rod Dreher wrote a pathetic column questioning her music, even suggesting that she wasn't worth the horse drawn carriage her family planned to use for her funeral because traffic would have to be diverted. I slammed him on the website I ran at the time, BlackAmericaWeb.com, and tried to explain to the world that she was a beloved figure by millions.

The point is that there are individuals who are doing remarkable things in this world, yet it's insensitive for us to dismiss them just because we don't know them. Sure, I didn't know about Selena, but at least I made the effort to understand her background and why her story would be important to tell.

I live in two worlds - one Black, one white. I have to know who Garth Brooks, Paris Hilton or the Backstreet Boys are, but if you ask the average white cat who Frankie Beverly and Maze is, they will give you a big, "Huh?" The only Blacks they may "know" of are Michael Jordan or Oprah, who have long sense graduated from Blackdom and are safely ensconced in mainstream America.

See, Black folks must achieve "cross over" status in order to "make it big," which simply means that white folks know and accept them. Otherwise, they are nothing more than a high-profile person trapped in a "Black world."

As whites become the minority in America, my suggestion to them is to leave your safe world and venture into the unknown. Learn about people you know nothing about. Experience a world that is foreign to you.

If we're the great melting pot as we tell everyone, then let's act like it.

[Author Affiliation]

Roland S. Martin is executive editor of the Chicago Defender. His columns are syndicated nationwide by Creators Syndicate. He can be reached at rmartin@chicagodefender.com or (312) 225-2400, ext. 130.