Many people are writing about Anna Nicole Smith now. Of course we have always been writing about her and many of the celebrity fans watching Anna Nicole Smith. They say she achieve fame with few real accomplishments. But nevertheless she has the X factor. Plus she's the archetypal American star.
Many of us watched this new Marilyn Monroe like we watched the old Marilyn Monroe. Many of us delighted in her antics. The celebrity journalists in print and TV focussed many of us on Anna Nicole Smith. Of course, they could have told us about other Americans, but they wanted us to know about little Anna Nicole Smith. Many of us watched her and those connected to her self-destructing in front of us, and many self-destructing along with us, or just destructing, and we watched and watched and watched. Fascinated.
We certainly have nothing against Anna Nicole Smith. She, for many, represents the "American dream."
Many young girls from small towns have such dreams. Many young girls from big towns have such dreams. Many young girls from all over the world, especially young girls in poverty, have such dreams. Even young girls in plenty have such dreams. These are the American dreams.
I am of the generation of the great leaders. I shall call them that. The generation when we had other types of American dreams, along with these types. The Malcolm X generation. The Bob Dylan generation. The Cesar Chavez generation. The generation that thought they could "change the world." Some of our children are adopting African children, some of our children are investing in China and Africa, some of are children are saving the neo-slaves--again in Africa--the fishing children that the New York Times and Oprah have told many of us about. These new African slave children, being sold by their own parents to slave masters who are also parents. This is the new world.
Oprah says she has been to Africa many times. Good for Oprah. She gives standing ovations to white people going to Africa saving little African children and returning them to their slave-seller parents. Good for these white people.
However, I am not going to scapegoat these neo-slave seller parents. Yet.
But what do their children think about them and think about their society. They call this white woman "Mama." What do they call their own mamas? Do they call Oprah Mama?
What names do they call their African Papas.
I'm not going to scapegoat these Africans, these white mamas, or these Oprahs.
Let me continue my discussion of little Anna Nicole Smith.
I watched Marilyn Monroe self-destruct in front of me. I was a child. I watched how this nation delt with this "child." I watched how all these men dealt with Marilyn Monroe, including our famous president, and his famous brother, and a famous playwright and the famous American movie industry. I learned of the great Dorothy Dandridge. I watched all the colored stereotypes and archetypes, some making it famous, other self-destructing colored people. I watched Elvis self-destruct in front of me. Africans say he stole their music, but nevertheless Africans praised Elvis along with everybody else. An icon of the rock and roll generation. I was older when Elvis become Elvis, but still a child.
Certainly these are celebrities, and for me they don't compete with the great leaders. But we are a pop culture and these are our stars.
More people know the names of these stars than they know the names of Goethe or Einstein or....well, we have to make sure that these people become stars also to get to be known. We make them celebrities also.
There are many Goethes that we've never heard of because they are not stars.
There have been many Einsteins that we've never heard of because they are not stars.
Many of us watched as Malcolm X try to get people to stop his murder. Why destroy the great Malcolm X? Certainly this is a different quality of leadership. This is an archetypal leader.
And we had our songs about Martin King and John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. Martin, Bobby, and John and we sang our songs. We folks like to sing our folksongs.
Many of my generation have been destroyed, self-destructed, insane, discredited, destroyed and destroyed some more except for the so-called survivors and many of these people are....well, we know the story....and now we even continue to destroy and discredit them, like we can't get enough of this discreding and destroying each other and self-destructing. We just can't get enough of this.
We all strive to become stars like in the karaoke and then when we become stars people continue to destroy us and destroy us some more and sometimes we start destroying all of them and they destroy all of us some more and some of us try to be nice about it and some of us try to be mean about it and some us go into exile, all over the known and unknown world.
