His Punch Line Smarts

Bomani Armah heads to an open-mike night at Sankofa Books. When his "Read a Book" parody went over viewers' heads, he found himself in over his. (By Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)

The video first aired on BET's "Rap City" and "The 5ive" in June and made its way onto the network's popular "106 & Park" show in July. It wasn't long before a sizzling debate began. What exactly was "Read a Book"? An unusual public service announcement designed to reach young hip-hop fans who don't read? Another ill-advised programming effort by BET (see "Hot Ghetto Mess") that was bound to backfire?

"Read a Book" has been viewed more than 1.8 million times on YouTube, according to the site. (Armah says that number is actually more like 3 million because Viacom, which owns the rights to the video, had many of the original posts of it removed.) Dillihay and Armah, who both have been on TV and radio defending "Read a Book," maintain the divide over their work is mostly generational. "When a 50-year-old woman says, 'Oh, this is horrible,' I frankly don't care. It's not for you," says Dillihay, who is 30.

"Read a Book" does have some prominent supporters.

"It's brilliant satire," says Michael Eric Dyson, a Georgetown University professor who has written widely about hip-hop. He sees the video as a kind of "carrier pigeon for an edifying message." He offers a quick jab at the critics. "Here's the ugly reality: Many of the black leaders and others who criticize this attempt to get black kids to read a book haven't read many books themselves."

Perhaps a broader question is: What constitutes acceptable behavior? Comedian Eddie Griffin was surprised to discover his microphone had been turned off in the midst of a routine that had become both vulgar and tasteless to the organizers of the 14th annual Black Enterprise/Pepsi Golf & Tennis Challenge, held in Miami in September. Seizing the mike, after a steamed Griffin departed the stage, the magazine's founder, Earl Graves, explained to the audience that "the man's going to get paid, but we can't tolerate this," according to Richard Prince's media blog, Journal-isms. Graves was rewarded with a standing ovation.

What Graves did may reflect a growing desire within black communities to police cultural expression. Activists, for instance, have mounted weekend protests at the home of BET President and CEO Debra Lee over the quality of the network's programming.

"Black identity right now is so precarious," says Yale sociologist Elijah Anderson, one of the nation's foremost experts on black urban life. "You'd like to think that we as a people are so strong that we can withstand any kind of puff, so to speak. In a fair world, one would presume to be able to say what you want to say. But it isn't a fair world, and that's what I think about."

If there is hypersensitivity among blacks about their images in the popular culture, its roots can be found in a history of racist portrayals that have helped shape how black life has been viewed by much of the world. The most denigrating depictions of blacks often had the sanction of the nation's top leaders.

President Woodrow Wilson, for example, hosted a private White House screening of D.W. Griffith's 1915 epic "The Birth of a Nation," an explicitly racist film in which blacks were portrayed as buffoons with outsize sex drives. The Ku Klux Klan later used the film as a recruitment tool.

In combating such vile characterizations of themselves, blacks have often focused on "putting the best foot forward," as Anderson describes it. "Historically, it's always been there," he says, "this concern with propriety, presenting yourself well, giving white society no reason to hold you back."

It's ironic that some of the "Read a Book" lyrics -- "brush yo' teeth," "wear deodorant" -- hark back to the late-19th-century prescriptions Booker T. Washington offered for the betterment of the race. Personal hygiene -- "the gospel of the toothbrush," he called it -- was essential to black self-improvement, Washington thought. But this is 2007, and some find such lyrics and their accompanying video imagery -- a tree wilts as a smelly black man walks by -- absurd and humiliating.

Is lack of Speed Stick usage a cutting-edge issue in black communities? A concern even worthy of satire? Armah knows he is on shaky ground with some of the lyrics, but says he was trying to stick with the formula: make the song as ridiculous as possible to imitate the ridiculousness of many rap songs. He enlisted teenagers to plug in lyrics that they thought would work -- and also be funny -- to drive home the point of positive behavior, and they came up with "brush yo' teeth" and "wear deodorant."