Systemic racism in Hollywood

Cynthia McKinney denounces today at BAR how racist terminology is continuously used among the invariably white Hollywood managerial elite. But the real problem, as I see it, is not a matter of mere language, sometimes equivocal, but the racist practices that effectively work as a glass ceiling against African American managers and producers:

It is the contention of Leonard Rowe, perhaps the best-known and most successful of all Black concert promoters, that the regular use of these words by powerful Hollywood executives is a telling indicator of Hollywood's pervasively racist attitudes toward Blacks, an attitude that produced illegal trust-like business practices that essentially made Black concert promoters extinct.

How could these particular Hollywood executives do that?

According to music industry veterans, once a Black entertainer "crossed over" to a White audience, Black concert promoters were almost never allowed to promote that entertainer again. Moreover, according to Rowe, not once was a Black concert promoter allowed to promote a White entertainer. According to Rowe, this collusion to fix profits effectively denied the Black community the spin-off economy associated with concerts and concert promotions, and the multiplier effect of dollars turning over in the Black community.