Gil Scott-Heron Spells Out Why “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”

Con­sid­er the influ­ence of tele­vi­sion, even in the dig­i­tal age. Con­sid­er the pow­er that net­works like Fox and CNN con­tin­ue to wield over that neb­u­lous thing called pub­lic opin­ion; the con­tin­ued dom­i­nance of NBC and CBS. These giants don’t real­ly inform so much as sell pack­aged ide­o­log­i­cal con­tent paid for and approved by cor­po­rate spon­sors. There’s real­ly no need to update poet and musi­cian Gil Scott-Heron’s rad­i­cal, 1971 clas­sic “The Rev­o­lu­tion Will Not Be Tele­vised,” unless we want­ed to change the names. His voice still speaks direct­ly to the moment we live in.

We exist on a con­tin­u­um of con­di­tions that have wors­ened since the late 1960s—despite promis­es and appear­ances to the contrary—until they have become intol­er­a­ble. Scott-Heron wrote and sang about those con­di­tions since his fiery 1970 debut.

“Dubbed the ‘God­fa­ther of Rap,’” notes Brook­lyn Rail in a 2007 inter­view, “Scott-Heron has become a ubiq­ui­tous and prac­ti­cal­ly de rigueur influ­ence for every­one from hip hop­pers and indie rock­ers to aging literati and dyed-in-the-wool aca­d­e­mics.”

One might think Scott-Heron’s clas­sic spo­ken-word tes­ta­ment “The Rev­o­lu­tion Will Not Be Tele­vised” speaks for itself by now, but it still cre­ates con­fu­sion in part because peo­ple still mis­con­strue the nature of the medi­um. Why can’t you sit at home and watch jour­nal­ists cov­er protests and revolts on TV? If you think you’re see­ing “the Rev­o­lu­tion” instead of curat­ed, maybe spu­ri­ous, con­tent designed to tell a sto­ry and gin up views, you’re fool­ing your­self.

But Scott-Heron also had some­thing else in mind—you can’t see the rev­o­lu­tion on TV because you can’t see it at all. As he says above in a 1990s inter­view:

The first change that takes place is in your mind. You have to change your mind before you change the way you live and the way you move. The thing that’s going to change peo­ple is some­thing that nobody will ever be able to cap­ture on film. It’s just some­thing that you see and you’ll think, “Oh I’m on the wrong page,” or “I’m on I’m on the right page but the wrong note. And I’ve got to get in sync with every­one else to find out what’s hap­pen­ing in this coun­try.”

If we real­ize we’re out of sync with what’s real­ly hap­pen­ing, we can­not find out more on tele­vi­sion. The infor­ma­tion is where the bat­tles are being fought, at street lev­el, and in the mech­a­nisms of the legal process. “I think that the Black Amer­i­cans are the only real die-hard Amer­i­cans here,” Scott-Heron goes on, “because we’re the only ones who’ve car­ried the process through the process…. We’re the ones who marched… we’re the ones who tried to go through the courts. Being born Amer­i­can didn’t seem to mat­ter.” It still doesn’t, as we see in the killings of George Floyd and Bre­on­na Tay­lor and so many before them, and in the griev­ous injuries and deaths from uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, mil­i­tary-grade police esca­la­tions nation­wide since.

Scott-Heron asked us to ques­tion the nar­ra­tives. “How do they know?” he sang in “There’s a War Going On” at Wood­stock 94, above. How do the self-appoint­ed guardians of infor­ma­tion know what’s real­ly going on? Tele­vi­sion spreads igno­rance and mis­in­for­ma­tion, as does radio and, of course, social media. This much we should know. But we’ve mis­in­ter­pret­ed “The Rev­o­lu­tion Will Not Be Tele­vised” if we think it’s real­ly about mass media, Scott-Heron always main­tained. Before we can engage mean­ing­ful­ly with cur­rent events, a rev­o­lu­tion­ary change must hap­pen from the inside out. No one’s broad­cast­ing the truths we first, most need to hear.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Gil Scott-Heron, God­fa­ther of Rap, Rest in Peace

Nina Simone’s Live Per­for­mances of Her Poignant Civ­il Rights Protest Songs

How Nina Simone Became Hip Hop’s “Secret Weapon”: From Lau­ryn Hill to Jay Z and Kanye West

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness


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Comments (5)
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  • DON KING says:

    REVOLUTION HAS TO TAKE PLACE IN ONE’S MIND AND AS A WHOLE IT WILL SHAKE AND WAKE UP A BELIEF THAT BEEN BELIEVED ALL THESE YEARS.…THERE ARE SO MANY LIES THAT HAS DOMINATED OUR SOCIETY FOR SO LONG THAT EACH CHILD THAT IS BORN GROW UP WITH THIS MINDSET BELIEVING,EMBRACING AND LIVING THIS LIE.….THIS LIE IM TALKING ABOUT IS THE BELIEF THAT IM WHOLE AND YOU’RE LESS THAN HALF …YOU CAN SEE,FEEL AND TASTE IT IN YOUR EVERY WAKING MOMENT WHEN YOU WALK DOWN THE STREET.RACISM IS A DISEASE THAT WONT GO AWAY UNTIL WE AS A WHOLE WASH THAT DEEP SINFUL STAIN OUT OF OUR MIND..ITS A HUMAN BEING CHALLENGE..RE-EDUCATE OURSELVES,GOING BACK TO SCHOOL SO GOD CAN TEACH US HOW TO RID OURSELVES OF THAT “PANDEMIC” IN OUR MINDS…

  • Manuel Mesias says:

    @manumesias

    Allow me to update this Poem. I wrote this.

    The Rev­o­lu­tion will not be tele­vised

    ///

    The Rev­o­lu­tion will be Stream­ing Live — XXI

    They will tell you to stay home, broth­er
    They will tell y’all shouldn’t plug in, tune on, drop out
    They will try to make you lose your­self in Hip-Hop
    And ask for a beer dur­ing your time breaks, because
    The rev­o­lu­tion will be Stream­ing Live
    The rev­o­lu­tion will be Stream­ing Live
    The rev­o­lu­tion will be made by YOU
    Using Apple and Huawei, Twit­ter or Tor
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will be Stream­ing Live pic­tures of Trump blow­ing
    And lead­ing a charge by Lin­coln, Mal­colm X and George Floyd
    To Wendy’s in a fan­cy Soho shop­ping mall
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will be Stream­ing Live
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will be Stream­ing Live brought to you by Tik­tok K‑Pop war­riors
    And will star Snoop Dogg, Bil­lie Eil­ish or Seth Rogen
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will wear a face masks for Covid-19
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will get rid of the old think­ing
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will be make you feel stronger, because
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will be Stream­ing Live, Broth­er
    There will be pic­tures of you and Kaeper­nick
    Kneel­ing down in front of a shop­ping cart stop­ping a loot­ing down the block
    Or try­ing to release anger on a Col­or TV or a van­dal­ized Ambu­lance
    Fox will declare vic­to­ry, fake news they say
    But at every time and every­where
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will be Stream­ing Live
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will show pigs shoot­ing broth­ers with instant replay
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will be Stream­ing Live, pigs shoot­ing peo­ple on Insta­gram
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will show pic­tures of Kobe
    As a reminder of how intense this year has been
    There will be slow motions frames and live debate with Don Lemon
    Talk­ing about #Black­lives­mat­ters and red cap sup­port­ers
    And the things some anony­mous peo­ple exposed to the mass­es
    “The Kar­dashi­ans”, “Net­flix”, and The last sea­son of G.O.T
    Will no longer be so damn rel­e­vant
    And woman will lead the heal­ing of soci­ety
    On search for a bet­ter tomor­row
    Because black peo­ple will be on the streets look­ing for a brighter day
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will be Stream­ing Live
    There will be high­lights on the eleven o’clock news
    And pic­tures of hairy armed women lib­er­a­tionist
    And Michelle Oba­ma blow­ing her nose
    The theme song will be writ­ten by Jay‑Z and Tom Morel­lo
    And sung by Lady Gaga, Bad Bun­ny, and Green Day
    Miley Cyrus and BTS
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will be Stream­ing Live
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will be always Live
    Dur­ing the encounter with the white tor­na­do,
    White light­ning or white suprema­cists
    You will not have to wor­ry about an ele­phant in the room
    A tiger in the sep­tic tank or the scarce of toi­let paper
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will be bet­ter with adblock­er
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will clash Trolls and Hack­ers and Influ­encers
    The Rev­o­lu­tion put you in the dri­ver seat
    The rev­o­lu­tion will be Stream­ing Live
    Will be Stream­ing Live
    Will be Stream­ing Live
    Will be Stream­ing Live
    The Rev­o­lu­tion will have Hash­tags, broth­ers
    The rev­o­lu­tion will be Stream­ing Live

    Wrote by: Manuel Mesias Incia­rte

  • Margarita Hughes says:

    But Scott-Heron also had some­thing else in mind—you can’t see the rev­o­lu­tion on TV because you can’t see it at all. As he says above in a 1990s inter­view:

    The first change that takes place is in your mind. You have to change your mind before you change the way you live and the way you move. The thing that’s going to change peo­ple is some­thing that nobody will ever be able to cap­ture on film. It’s just some­thing that you see and you’ll think, “Oh I’m on the wrong page,” or “I’m on I’m on the right page but the wrong note. And I’ve got to get in sync with every­one else to find out what’s hap­pen­ing in this coun­try.

    If we real­ize we’re out of sync with what’s real­ly hap­pen­ing, we can­not find out more on tele­vi­sion.

    I agree and its along the same lines as Don King.

    ‘What is it in us that seeks the truth? Is it our minds or is it our hearts?’ — Quote from A Time To Kill.

    As for the pan­dem­ic, we dont know the killer of COVID 19, but we know the killer of this virus and STILL no vac­cine. We need to acknowl­edge insti­tu­tion­al racism before we can deal with it.

    Edu­ca­tion edu­ca­tion edu­ca­tion from nurs­ery age onwards, and not just a tick box exer­cise. Wake Up Every­body Harold Melvin And The Blue Notes

    RIP Mr Floyd. My thoughts are with his fam­i­ly and the l was going to say, the insur­mount­able amount of oth­er fam­i­lies.
    But you shall over­come. We HAVE to, we as human­i­ty have to.

  • Adrian Miranda says:

    WOW — dope remix…

  • Adrián Miranda says:

    Nice remix, Manuel.

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