Independent Thinking

To CNN

Re: Black In America Program

I'd like to thank you for helping to once again solidify black stereotypes and dividing our nation. What it really means to be black in America is simply to be an individual and to be accepted as such. It's what I want and honestly, every time I hear the commercial for your program I cringe because you are giving others or have given others the power to speak for me.

Isn't that what freedom is all about: to have the ability to speak for yourself --At bare minimum? I think that enough Americans, black and white (to name only two), have died for me to have those rights and you take my voice away by asking a few celebrities and others to speak out, like we have all had the same experiences.

My experience is hardly the same as Vanessa Williams’ or Spike Lee’s yet, I too am an artist. Both are more successful than most, they’ve gotten the opportunity to express their art, gotten paid for it and yet they are still angry. Could it be a more personal, more human impetus that drives Mr. Lee’s anger and not the disparity and marginalization of black people?


Being a better human being is something we should "all" strive for not just being a better black man or woman, which seems to me, a bit basic and outdated at best.

The question, you really should have asked is what does being black in America mean to you?

Next time do a show on what it means to be American and include everyone.