On Monday night, Tavis Smiley’s convening “We Count! The Black Agenda is the American Agenda” aired on CSpan. What? You missed it?  Well about 50 percent of folks I know didn’t tune in because they think Tavis is The Game of politics and does anything possible to start beef and get attention. Another 48 percent tuned in with their snark meter set to 10. I’m worried that we’ve fashioned Tavis such a “hater” in the Black community we’re missing some important discussions that were happening around the table and outside of that room.

Smiley convened a number of black intellectual and political leaders to discuss the question of a Black agenda given that the President of the United State is Black. The discussion unfortunately featured the same, if not very similar folks, to the ones that Smiley has brought together to discuss Black issues in the past. But if you weren’t watching or paying careful attention you missed the new and valuable policy discussions which occurred in between guests’ alliteration and attempts at rousing the crowd. To my surprise, the conversation repeatedly came back to the central issue of addressing Obama’s policy decisions, maintaining accountability, as well as solidarity with the first African-American President.

One such example was, Angela Glover Blackwell of PolicyLink pointing out a laundry list of initiatives that matched with The Covenant’s areas of concern that benefited Black people, typically because they are concentrated on urban communities. Even still, she was challenged by Former Chicago Alderman Dorothy Tillman who highlighted that nearly all Black cities like Gary, Indiana are getting left out the fold. More in-depth conversations about what Obama is doing and how he can extend his work are necessary and are happening. I’m just afraid too many of use put on our “hater blockers” and didn’t see the event for its hope, not its hate.

TAGS: CSpan, TAVIS SMILEY, We Count! The Black Agenda is the American Agenda