Discuss how Gil Scot-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” utilizes, plays with, or redefines “television” or “revolution” (or any other key term in it). Also discuss its significance as African American art/the civil rights movement
Overview
Even though “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” a famous spoken-word statement by Gil Scott-Heron, should be self-evident at this point, it nonetheless causes uncertainty, in part because people continue to misunderstand the nature of the medium. Why can’t you stay in your pajamas and watch TV news reports about riots and uprisings? You’re deluding yourself if you believe you’re witnessing “the Revolution” rather than carefully selected, maybe fake information made to present a narrative and attract viewers.
You can’t see the revolution on TV because you can’t see it at all, according to Scott-Heron, but he also had another point in mind. As he stated above in an interview from the 1990s:
Your mind is the first location that changes. Before you can alter how you think, live, or move, you must first alter how you feel. No one will ever be able to record the event on camera, but it’s going to transform lives. All you have to do is notice something and immediately think, “Oh, I’m on the wrong page,” or “I’m on the correct page but the wrong note.” And I need to catch up with everyone to learn what’s going on in our nation.
We are unable to watch television to learn more if we become aware that we are out of touch with reality. At the local level and within the framework of the legal system, the information is where the conflicts are being fought. Because we’re the only ones who have seen the process through to completion, I believe that Black Americans are the only true die-hard Americans present.
We are the ones that marched and attempted to use the legal system. American birthplace didn’t appear to matter. As seen by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others who came before them, as well as the tragic injuries and fatalities caused by unlawful military-grade police escalation tactics countrywide ever since, it still doesn’t.
