Selling-Out our Black Planet | Re: Apollo Amateur Night in NYC

Submitted by Agnes Johnson
[Originally Posted December 14th, 2008 on Black Planet]

I don't know whether to scream or cry but I certainly will not make accommodations and accept what I witnessed at Apollo Amateur Night this past Wednesday. That evening's show made the reality of Harlem's sale ever more painful.

What do you sell after you have sold the land, sold the culture, sold the history? Now do you sell the children and their options for their future? We are now selling the very stage and platform that was made for US to rise from. I know the memory of the Apollo hasn't been erased yet because it is still used in the promo for the theater but it was a lie that night. All the great black talent toughed it out before an audience that knew Black Greatness since they all lived in a society that repeatedly gave no value to their talent and their history. It was not about cronyism. It was not about filling the theatre with your family members. If you had the talent you were recognized.

On December Wednesday 2008, I sat in an audience, very small but mostly of white Europeans and Asian faces and a few black. Most of the black faces in the audience were the ushers. I had come to support a young brother who came to do Spoken Word as a conscious hip hop performer. As the show began, it had the feeling of an auction block. Something seemed so out of place. The audience had to first be guided through how to be an audience but not just any audience, an audience of the Apollo. Okay, this is what you must do when you give away your culture. Then the show began.

A young black girl took the stage and you know being 1st up has its pressures. She proved that she belonged on that stage. Then a second melanin sister took the stage and she sang. I mean she "SANG". And finally comes a little white girl and she did an imitation of Alicia Keys with very little talent. The choice then for the winners of the Youth was among these 3 girls. The audience was to choose. Guess who won and went on to the next level and guess who went home? What also is part of the picture is the fact that the 3rd little girl had the front of the house packed with her family from Westchester. I was transported back to 1950.

I know the Apollo has to deal with the audience that comes in but what I was thinking was what must be going on in the heads of the two black girls who had the talent but couldn't make it past the white audience. Here they could not feel the embrace of their community, a validation of their talent because that had been sold. Imagine if our great performers of the past had to transport their families to the Apollo to propel them to a win.

The show continued and as Black Men took to the stage it became unbearable to sit still while White Men booed them. Yes, the audience had been educated that they can do that here now. As the young man, we came to support, took to the stage, he touched the stump of the tree and began. A group of white boys began to boo. The young man stayed on course with his words in testiment to the poetry of Tupac and the glow of Stevie. A white man near us with his arm around a Black girl started to boo, but had his head buried down low as if to shield himself from exposure. At that point I had to jump up and say "Hell No". My love of my people in and out of Harlem could not just sit and let Europeans come into Harlem and be so audacious and I could not let the Apollo forget what the Apollo stood for.

I did stop the show and I did stand and scream in the aisle that "This is not the Apollo, this is America 1950." "We have been sold out for the price of a ticket". The Black security and ushers who worked for the theater did surround me and remove me from the theater but I wanted to go willingly because I had enough. The managers told me this is a different day. Things are a-changin they said while on the stage the MC told the crowd I was just some drunk lady from the neighborhood. If WE don't keep the Apollo and hold it to our hearts then this is what you get. Some of the young who spoke to me said many of them don't know the history and so that is why. But I don't buy it. If the Japanese and Scandinavians come knowing what the Apollo stands for then WE have to stop holding on to our ignorance like it is a badge of protection.

The Apollo must recognize what is happening and must make plans for addressing this. When the chips are down do we Sell Out? Our elders taught us to be community in times of strife. Harmony.. What came back to me from the MC to many of the uneducated workers "I got mine, you get yours...change is a comin". I saw who was losing there. Who pays if we accommodate or sleep now? Are we like a crackhead mother who has run out of chips so she puts her baby on the table? So until the Apollo theater can address this, I call on all Black and Brown talent to withhold your talent from that stage. Walk away and do not ask for recognition from an audience that cannot connect with your talent but can find their feet to stand for an imitation of you. Tell the Apollo to reclaim itself.