We have experienced recently the silencing of what is called Caribbean Radio and the ‘leased time producers’ left in a quandary with the sale of WVIP, a radio station which carries Caribbean programming.
A community must have a voice, and that voice must be owned and controlled by the community. That is the issue at hand, as we see in this particular situation where the individual producers are now without a platform for their music, events and products.
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It has been a model of `leased time’ that has carried with it for a long time, the inerrant danger of the inability to sustain itself and to really serve the needs of the community. The need for a community voice, community media, was recognized almost 200 years ago by a Jamaican John Brown Russwurm and an African American, Reverend Samuel Cornish, suggesting that it was time for Black people to come together and have their own voice.
And it was the theme of that, that for too long, others have spoken for us as a people and now we wish to plead our own cause. That has been the anthem of the struggle for Black freedom and Black voice and community voice over those two centuries.
It was in 1914 that Marcus Garvey published Freedom: The Negro World, documenting, inspiring articles and advocating for the voice of Black people to take charge of their destiny, to have their own voice, to control their own media. and to be able to determine their own destiny. This has translated itself into all levels of media.
In particular, in the New York area, the Caribbean population grew and expanded its impact and influence. There was no real connecting, community-owned media. It was at this time that Carib News was founded to fill that voice, to fill that void, to provide a voice that pleaded our own cause, a voice that spoke to the needs of our community, a voice that is and of the community, owned and directed by the community.
On the issue of Black radio, in 1970, Percy Sutton and a number of Black investors bought the radio station WLIB specifically to talk to the issues of Black people, to give them a voice. It provided an opportunity at that time for an understanding of the Caribbean American population and its potential as a market.
The Jamaica Progressive League, whose president at the time was Carl Rodney, grasped the opportunity and worked with the Suttons to plea the need for the Black voice to include the Caribbean American community not only plead the need, but demonstrated its value. And so it was through that effort that Caribbean programming came to WLIB and the Caribbean community had a radio voice.
Not owned by Caribbean Americans, but at least owned by Blacks and had investors who were Caribbean American. So it was a wide opening for the Caribbean American population to have a radio voice in New York. And it was through the instrumentality, the work, most of it free work, to demonstrate the value of the Caribbean American community, so much so that even when there was a need for immigration work to be done to allow for producers, announcers from the Caribbean, to be a part of the WLIB team, the Progressive League was in a position to sponsor. So the need for Black Caribbean radio was pushed, developed, and expanded even then. And the community became more focused, and more robust.
And around that time also, WWRL provided another Black radio outreach that was available to the Caribbean community on a limited basis, but nonetheless available. This interest in Caribbean radio spilled over into leased time operations. There were individual producers with leased time from various radio stations to promote their events and their products and had a lucrative but limited exposure to what the community meant, needed, and was capable of, but nonetheless, it was an outlet that had value and was available.
Several attempts were made to bring together these various producers to form collaborations, and coalitions, and in fact, look at a business model that would be more sustainable than just the ongoing leasing of time. Here again, Carl Rodney was involved in trying to pull it together.
Individual producers from WPAT, WNWK, who are primarily Caribbean-directed, form companies that would be viable and focused and even more profitable if we could have a Caribbean-themed and focused programming across all platforms.
The barrier, of course, was the individual interests of the producers, the satisfaction of owning their own radio niche, and the inability to see what a strong, across-the-board radio programming would have been and of certainly the glory of ownership.
It was always felt that ownership of a radio product was the goal. Again, when WLIB became available and a business model that included business persons, investors from the Caribbean, some of the largest companies, and investors from the U. S. came together to find a way to acquire WLIB, and the independent producers were invited in to contemplate the owning of the station. They’d probably have to give up some of their own individual approaches, but we would have had a program director, we’d have had advertising managers, we would have had a program flow across the entire platform that would attract corporate advertisers and function with a strong board that will support the community.
While the business person were keen and ready to go, the producers of the various programs were reluctant to give up on their lease time niche, their lease time programming to come into a structured Caribbean owned radio. And so we have had a history of attempts being made and not fully brought to fruition.
And this is not pointing fingers because people operate in their own best self-interest.
It points to the need for coming together as a people to build our own institutions, to own our own operation, and to be able to have a voice and a say in our community, its direction, its development, and its empowerment. So it’s really a learning experience that if we are going to really strive, grow, and be impactful, is that we might have to give up some individual control to a larger effort need to come to that as a people.
We need to find the formula to have our institutions owned and controlled by our people, you can bet there are people there who will exploit us as a community, who will imitate themselves as value to our community. But are in fact only using our community as a hustle. We have to be mindful of that. It exists today. We have to be mindful of what is referred to by academicians as mercenaries who will work for the man in a way of disguising true intention. And this is the most dangerous when it comes to media, because as Garvey says, we must free our mind and we can’t free our mind if people control what we read, hear, and see. And so it’s no small matter. And it’s no casual complaint. It’s probably the time now when there are a number of options, from commercial radio, to community radio, from internet radio, satellite radio, to have a platform that speak for, speak to, and is controlled and owned by Caribbean Americans.
This is a learning point, and one that we hope the community will grow stronger for, as we look to solve the issue of who will speak for us. Where will our voice be and how can we own our and build our institutions free from imitation, interference and exploitation from outside groups, even when they look like us.
We Must Own Our Voice to be Heard!
