Most black males will encounter a situation like Trayvon Martin’s maybe once or twice in their lives – when some lunatic is pointing a gun at them and presuming they are up to no good, said Toure, acclaimed writer, television personality and cultural critic.
“We need to be prepared to deal with that,” said Toure, who contributes to MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show and hosts FUSE’s Hip Hop Shop and On the Record. He is also a contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine.
Yesterday the special prosecutor announced that Martin’s killer George Zimmerman would finally face charges of second-degree murder.
But Toure warned the youth about less drastic examples of racism
“More often, you’re going to be dealing with other sorts of racism, such as the community – the world telling you that you are of lesser value, lesser worth, lesser intelligence and lesser importance. And how do we deal with that?”
Last week, Toure flew into St. Louis for two days from New York City specifically to address this question with the Gentlemen’s Club at Carnahan High School of the Future, a mentoring group for young black men. Club founder and Kwame Building Group CEO Tony Thompson sponsored Toure’s trip to talk with club members after following Toure on Twitter. Thompson then also arranged for Toure to speak at Webster University, St. Louis Community College and to a private group of African-American professionals.
Thompson said he wanted to show the youth an example of a young successful African-American man who uses social media to shape the conversation in the country around issues that highly affect them.
“I’m trying to get them motivated and keep them motivated and inspired,” Thompson said. “I was using Toure as a tool and opportunity to reach the kids. He did that for me.”
Recently Toure’s Twitter war with CNN’s Piers Morgan ended in a 15-minute showdown on air regarding Morgan’s interview with Robert Zimmerman, the brother of the man who shot Trayvon Martin. Toure argued that Morgan allowed Zimmerman to share misinformation with the public because he didn’t qualify Zimmerman’s responses. Toure also said that as a foreigner, Morgan didn’t understand how such an act would have destructive consequences on the country’s long-held racial divide. Morgan dismissed Toure’s comments as “rubbish.”
Although Toure has been one of the more vocal journalists regarding the Martin case, his visit to Carnahan was the first time Toure spoke to a group of black men in Trayvon Martin’s age group since the Martin case broke.
“I got a lot of input on how to deal with racism that we will or have witnessed in our lives,” said Carnahan senior Demetrius Cunningham. “What really stuck out to me was when he talked about putting yourself first and understanding who you are before you try to help someone else.”
Toure encouraged the students to have an uplifting self-image as one of the first defenses to racism. To explain this, he told the story about when he interviewed rapper Kanye West for Rolling Stone magazine.
Toure said he walked into West’s house and saw that he had a giant poster of himself on his wall. When Toure asked why he had a poster of himself, West replied, “I have to cheer for myself.”
“Kanye said you have to put yourself first,” said Imani Reid, a junior at Carnahan. “Once you treat yourself highly, other people will treat you highly as well. So that way when they try to put you down, you’ve already told yourself that you’re worthy.”
“Having that sort of vision of yourself, ‘I am brilliant, I am excellent,’ is really crucial for black Americans,” Toure said. “There’s a constant underestimation of black capability going on. If we are not first in saying that’s wrong, then we will fall prey to that.”
Reid said he was shocked to hear about all of the music artists Toure interviewed, including Jay-Z, Beyonce, Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Alicia Keys.
However, even though Toure is constantly around big names, he was comfortable to be around, said Carnahan junior Tey Hoskins.
“It didn’t seem like he was Toure from TV,’” Hoskins said. “No, it was like, ‘This is my guy Toure.’ He had a friendly character and great personality.”
When the group was talking about racial issues, the students asked him about a story that hurt him the most in his life. Hoskins said he was expecting Toure to “go in depth” with his story.
“He just said what we think is really hurting us – someone calling us the N-word – is not even touching the basis of racism in our world,” Hoskins said.
Toure told them that behind the scenes, someone could be discriminating against him because of his Facebook picture or other reasons, and he’ll never know it.
“He said the unknown might have been his worst encounter with racism,” Hoskins said. “That was really deep to me.”
