( ENSPIRE Entertainment ) Fox Soul’s “The Mix” Discuss the Anniversary of the “March on Washington” and How the Black Community’s Anger is Viewed
ENSPIRE Contributor: Octavia Johnson
Fox Soul is a new streaming channel aimed towards African-American viewers. “The Mix” hosts, Romeo Miller, Zonnique Pullins, Jazz Anderson, Anton Peeples, and Jamie DuBose give insight to how they feel about Martin Luther King Jr.’s granddaughter’s speech on the “March On Washington” Anniversary. The hosts also talked about how people view anger within the black community.
The hosts start with the 12-year-old granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr., Yolanda Renee King, who gave her speech at the “March on Washington” event. In her speech, King pledged that her generation is the generation of change. In the clip, she said, “We are going to be the generation that calls for a halt in police brutality and gun violence, once and for all, now and forever; we going to be the generation that reserves climate change and saves our planet, once and for all, now and forever; we going to be the generation that ends poverty, here in America, the wealthiest nation on Earth, once and for all, now and forever.”
“Great challenges produce great leaders,” Miller said. The hosts showed inspiration for the young and educated activist. They even expressed how they never talked about politics at her age. Anderson discussed how, when she was younger, because of the area and environment she lived in, issues like systematic equality and racial poverty because it didn’t affect her a lot. As she got older, she went to an HBCU, and she started to learn more about those issues.
“It was really powerful to see someone so young standing on the steps where her grandfather stood 57 years previously, and delivering such a powerful message, but at the same time, it’s really sad because the fact of the matter is we have to have someone 57 years later stand on the same steps and echo the words of her grandfather to fight for equality/racial inequality and racial injustices is really hard to kind of swallow. It shows us that we have so much more work to do,” Peeples said when discussing how much King’s speech has impacted the current issues.
The hosts end the episode by talking about the recent Facebook special, Queen Latifah’s Change Together, where she talks with past and present activists to celebrate the Anniversary of the “March On Washington.” The powerful message from one of the activists discussed how “black people’s anger is constantly being criminalized.” Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter organization, spoke about how when black people get angry they are constantly shamed and demonized for being angry. “We need to understand that anger is a part of our toolbox, just like love is a part of our toolbox … I think rage can be constructive and then destructive,” Cullors said in the clip.
The episode ended with an insightful discussion. They discuss using anger as a way to make a change instead of going out to the protests for creating destruction “to have fun.” The hosts also agreed that “black people are allowed to be angry and upset.” “Us sitting quietly isn’t going to make change … the angrier we get, the more they’re like ‘Okay, okay, relax, what do you want, just relax,’ and it’s like, no, I won’t relax until I see change,” DuBose said.
