MTV, Church and A Much Needed Education

My journey to New York City was long and arduous. I visited there once when I was a child. My family had taken a day trip from New Jersey, where we briefly lived before heading back to the good ol' South.

I distinctly remember that day. It was 1968, and NYC was famous with shocking images of hippies and protests on every TV screen in America. We ventured there to see it all in real life! For hicks like us, it might as well have been another planet. Our mouths were invitational hollows for flies.

Walking hand-in-hand with my Mother, I looked up at her and announced matter-of-factly, "I'm going to live here someday." She looked down at me, astonished. "You are? How do you know that?" "I just do," I shrugged. "I'm going to live here." I couldn't have known then that love and conviction would indeed bring me back, thirty years later. 

Two significant catalysts put me on the road to New York. The first—and most pressing at the time—was a desperate attempt to salvage an already doomed relationship. The second and ultimately more important reason was an instinctive knowledge that I needed to understand racism on a deeper level. If ever there was a perfect moment to immerse myself in a genuine melting pot, it was then—the late 90s, when I was 37 years old.

Those first weeks after I arrived delivered a blunt realization: for the first time in my all-white life, I was in the minority. The contrast was both startling and exhilarating. Everywhere I looked I saw people of every imaginable ethnicity and skin tone. I witnessed astonishing expressiveness and unfamiliar mannerisms. I heard new languages and accents. Titillating smells wafted from tiny, hole-in-the-wall restaurants while street carts offered authentic foods from lives and lands I knew nothing about. It was an eye-opening panorama pressed into one alluring, elegant, magnificent mess.

While exploring and attempting to acclimate to the city, I got lost on the subway more than once, each time fearing for my life. On one such occasion the train pulled into a terminal station, forcing everyone to exit. Disoriented and panicking, I was certain I was in imminent danger. A number of young Black men stood nearby, looking mischievous. What reason would Black teenagers possibly have for gathering on a subway platform except to cause trouble or terrorize a white person? (because all young Black men are up to no good…). Never mind that, as I later learned, there was a high school nearby.

Another time, I accidentally boarded a train heading in the opposite direction from my destination. I was headed toward Harlem, which my white Southern mind registered as a death sentence. As dusk descended, my blood pressure quickly rose. I was shaking from fright as I faltered with the sway of the doomed train. 

(Ozzy Ozbourne’s manic laughter echoes through the subway tunnel) 

Looking like a toddler just learning how to walk, I teetered up to a Black guy and asked him how to change trains to go in the other direction. His response was immediate—he began shaking too, a mirror to my obvious terror. As our eyes met, my past and present collided in a mind-altering epiphany. Every assumption and prejudice I'd carried suddenly fractured. It became affectingly clear that this man harbored no nefarious intentions toward me—a distressed, racist fellow passenger who needed help. With genuine compassion, he explained how to change trains, both of us still trembling.

After a series of botched interviews and temp assignments, the stars must have aligned in my favor.  I landed a job at MTV, working in special events. That whole adventure deserves its own story for another time. But there's a critical subplot that needs to be told. 

A few thousand employees occupied 54 floors of 1515 Broadway and 44th. Each floor had its own unique décor—some featured elegant modern design, others rocked Rock-n-Roll or Hip-Hop, and some sported Nickelodeon orange with dripping green slime. It was always fun to give friends and family a tour of the building— taking care to skip "The Fourth Floor…"

Accounting and payroll operations took place on the fourth floor. The first time I was tasked with running an errand down there from our glamorous upper floor, a fellow white colleague wittingly raised his eyebrows. "Going to the Four? Brace yourself," he warned.

“How come?” I said, unfazed despite my curiosity. 

“You’ll see,” he replied, looking back at his computer screen. 

I headed toward the elevator wondering what he might have meant. I descended 30 floors and stepped off at four. Initially, nothing seemed unusual. Then I pulled open a heavy glass door and stepped into an oven. The space was colorless, zero décor, suffocating and cramped. People were packed into tiny cubicles swimming in boxes and papers. The air was thick from warm bodies and microwaved food. It felt like the air conditioning was struggling to keep up. Passing the break room, I saw an overflowing garbage can. Meandering through the narrow maze, all I saw was a sea of Black faces. When I found the cubicle I was looking for, a woman looked up. "Can I help you?" she asked curtly, visibly overwhelmed by an excessive workload. I couldn't hide my shock as I surveyed the immediate area.

“Wow…” I said, trying to hide my discomfort. I just stood there blinking for a moment then looked back at her. 

 “Yeah, this is where actual work happens,” she replied with muted exasperation. It was an expression I recognized from living in the South.

“Doesn’t seem fair,” I responded, embarrassed in my white skin. 

“HA!” another voice piped loudly, invisible on the other side of the cubicle wall. In one syllable, her voice spoke generational volumes and rang with a mix of amusement and contempt.

Troubled, I quickly exchanged the work documents with the first woman and hurried back down the hall toward the elevator. "This is so fucking wrong," I muttered under my breath. My colleague had said "you'll see." I saw but I couldn't comprehend the glaring disparity. It should not have been that way. They should not have been relegated to such an unforgiving environment.

Back upstairs, I delivered the documents to my boss. She glanced up and thanked me for handling the errand. As she turned away from my potent gaze, she casually remarked, "Pretty rough, huh." It was a statement, not a question. I stood there frozen, staring at the back of her head, then out the window at the beautiful view of the Hudson River. As I walked out of her office, a flood of dark realization swept over me. 

By the time I’d arrived at MTV in late 1998, Hip Hop had achieved commercial dominance on the network. This was an important breakthrough given MTV's initial resistance to featuring Black artists, insisting that the network was "rock oriented." (Isn’t it ironic that Rock-n-Roll emerged from Black culture, and that it was a Black woman named Sister Rosetta Tharpe that pioneered the heavy guitar riffs that define rock music to this day?)*

In December 1983, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" debuted. When the album grew too titanic to ignore, MTV began airing other Black artists. Five years later, they launched "Yo! MTV Raps," which quickly became one of their most popular shows. Hip Hop soon dominated the network, with subsequent shows like MTV Jams, Direct Effect, and TRL, all pulling in millions in ad dollars.

It was another chapter from the same old story. The white power structure remains content to keep minorities out-of-sight, out-of-mind—until the potential for gobs of advertising revenue presents itself. Suddenly these same executives become entranced, hypnotized by dollar signs spinning in their eye sockets like jackpot symbols on a slot machine. The once impenetrable oak door to the executive suite swings open wide. A broad, toothy smile and sweeping gesture welcomes the artist to the plush leather chair to discuss business. Black expression abruptly turns into a hugely marketable product, becoming MTV's new darling.

"Well done, thou good and faithful servant!" You may pick up your check on the fourth floor... rather than toil in the heat.  You may work at the mansion... rather than the fields out back.

There is a term for this phenomenon developed by legal scholar Derrick Bell. A concept called Interest Convergence.** In a nutshell, Bell suggests that major advancements for Black Americans only occur when it serves the interests of white Americans—especially those in power. This is how it works:

Economic incentives: When racial progress can be monetized or creates economic opportunities for the white majority, it tends to gain wider acceptance.

Image management: When racial inequalities become a public relations problem, companies and institutions suddenly find motivation to address long standing issues.

Symbolic change: Changes that appear significant on the surface but don't fundamentally alter power structures remain the preferred solution for maintaining the status quo.

Conditional acceptance: Advancement for Black Americans is often permitted only on terms acceptable to the white majority, limiting true autonomy and self-determination.

And this, friends, is the crux as to why Critical Race Theory is being chased out of town. The less we know about these structural realities, the less we’re responsible for. 

I wish I could tell you that I raised hell at MTV and started a grassroots movement right there on Broadway. But I didn’t. Like so many white people, I needed to protect what was mine. I was a low-level employee and making waves would be too risky. Who would listen to me anyway? Despite the initial outrage I felt when I witnessed the great gulf between the haves and the have-nots in the workplace, I needed the comfort of my safe white bubble. To soothe my conscience I resorted to what a lot of guilt ridden white folks do. Freebies.

I had access to coveted MTV merchandise and soon made a habit of bringing goods to the fourth floor. Before long, many people there recognized me. This small gesture created a comforting illusion that I was making a difference. Maybe I was, in some pitiful, miniscule way—but not in any way that truly mattered or challenged the system.

Even with the stark reality of racial inequity in my face, I was still affected by the white washing Machine. I remember sitting in a meeting one day with high-level decision makers who were discussing MTV’s falling ratings and investors' frayed nerves. It was due to “poor programming” they said, programming that was no longer connecting with the wider (whiter?) audience. In my naivete I blurted out, “Ha, well I can tell you what the problem is!” smirking and looking around the room. I instantly realized my stupidity when every face turned toward me with a unified expression of “Seriously?” Of course they all knew what the “problem" was. They couldn’t go backwards without causing significant backlash. White people would have to find their Rock-n-Roll somewhere else.

While MTV taught me about systemic racism in corporate America, it was in an entirely different setting where I got a glimpse of what sincere racial reconciliation might look like. During my time at MTV, it was like I was living a double life. I was climbing the corporate ladder by day (perpetually slipping off the first rung to be honest) and a soul-searcher by night as an active member of New Life Fellowship, a large and thriving multi-racial church in Elmhurst, Queens.

New Life played a significant role in my education about race. If any place came dangerously close to getting it right, New Life did. The NLF community was a beautiful tapestry of people from nearly every part of the world. Some of the music played in the services integrated cultural fusion elements, though most of the worship music still featured gooey white-bread Christian rock. The potlucks were a transcendent, heavenly experience that delighted the taste buds. I could not have imagined a more perfect environment to open myself up to diverse cultures.

A striking, central feature of New Life was the cultivation of community “small groups.” Some churches with a similar practice call them care groups. Each week, we gathered in homes scattered throughout the boroughs—primarily Queens—to share meals, sing together, and discuss life through a spiritual lens. The idea is that small groups offer a much more intimate environment where genuine care is accessible. This takes pressure off the church staff that is typically too small to support an entire congregation. At New Life, I gained a whole new level of understanding about community. My only experience with church small groups had been gatherings of affluent white people in proper church attire, perched in fancy living rooms with nose-in-the-air piety. Those communities were based on the prosperity gospel. Your affluence served as evidence that God had blessed your obedient and superior stewardship.

Within New Life's community groups, people spoke with surprising candor about race and racial tensions. This openness created space for both lighthearted moments and difficult conversations. No diverse gathering of people exists in perfect harmony but I have many fond memories of us teasing and mimicking one another, laughing about how easily we would stereotype. When violence against minorities dominated headlines, we confronted rather than avoided these painful realities. When Sean Bell—an unarmed young Black man from Queens—was killed by police on his wedding day because of fatal assumptions (assumptions for which officers later received acquittal), we didn't run away. We all felt the grief when our pastor addressed the tragedy the following Sunday.

New Life's pastor frequently used creative approaches to difficult subjects. One particularly memorable Sunday, rather than delivering a traditional sermon, he assembled a panel from the congregation representing a variety of racial backgrounds. Each person shared their personal experiences and perspectives on race and culture with raw honesty. The powerful result left a lump in my throat and I suspect many experienced the same feeling. As a squirming white person witnessing this, I remember thinking to myself, "Holy shit...THIS... is what our country needs!"

I remained at NLF for a full decade. Toward the end of my time there, I found love when I met the person who would later become my spouse. When I eventually left there, I came away no longer tied to my white skin, no longer oblivious to my white ignorance.

We stayed in New York for about a year and a half after leaving the church, then packed our belongings and headed to North Carolina. Though somewhat aware of the state's racial challenges, I wasn't worried since we were moving to an area anchored by two major universities: UNC and Duke. Having navigated two radically different worlds in New York—both important to my education—I approached this new chapter with genuine openness. My perspective on race in America had been permanently changed.

The contrast between these two New York influences couldn't be more striking: one institution pursued profit through exploitation, while the other actively sought healing for centuries-old wounds. But, one step forward, two steps back, as the saying goes. Once settled in North Carolina, I unexpectedly discovered that I still had so much more to learn...

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*Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Youtube, Guitar Licks!) Please watch this video! I was stunned, especially since I'm a guitar player and had never heard of this lady. (sigh)

**Real Life Examples of Interest Convergence:

Economic incentives: When Nike embraced Colin Kaepernick as a spokesperson after his NFL protests against police brutality, they faced initial backlash but ultimately saw their stock rise and sales increase by 31% in the following quarter. Their support for racial justice aligned perfectly with their economic interests in appealing to younger, diverse consumers who represent their core market.

Image management: After George Floyd's murder sparked global protests in 2020, companies that had remained silent during previous incidents of racial violence suddenly issued statements about racial justice and made diversity pledges. Many corporations, including those with poor track records on diversity, invested in Black Lives Matter messaging while making minimal internal changes, suggesting their response was motivated primarily by public relations concerns.

Symbolic change: The renaming of schools and removal of Confederate monuments following the 2020 protests represented visible changes that many communities embraced. However, in cities like Richmond, Virginia, where Monument Avenue was transformed, these symbolic actions often happened without accompanying policy reforms to address ongoing inequities in school funding, housing access, or policing that continued to affect Black residents in those same communities.

Conditional acceptance: Code-switching in professional settings illustrates how advancement for Black Americans often comes with conditions. Studies show that Black employees who minimize references to race, adapt their speech patterns, or change their hairstyles to conform to white workplace norms are more likely to advance professionally. Success frequently depends on how well Black professionals can adapt to white expectations rather than workplaces adapting to embrace cultural differences.