Volume 4: White Devil Chapter 180 The Times Are Calling Me
Tavern, Mount Hope neighborhood, Warwick, Rhode Island.
The TV screen that had been hanging above the bar for many years has now turned into a hole. Through the hole, one can clearly see the remains of electronic components inside, crackling and flashing sparks from time to time.
The culprit, Wilson, the best employee of Hawke's Shipbreaking Yard for many years, blew up the TV screen with a shot, threw the shotgun to the bartender and bar owner Keith, and then stood in the middle of the bar, looking around at the drinkers who were all looking at him with clear, stupid and fearless eyes, opened his hands in confusion, and asked everyone: "What's wrong?"
"Well done Wilson!"
"Help Wilson get a glass of something fancy! It's my treat!"
"That's what I wanna do! Blow that guy's head off!"
In the bar, a group of rough white men applauded after their initial surprise.
"I'll give you a new TV, Keith, I swear, and I guarantee it 'll be more advanced and have a bigger screen than this second-hand one that was shot dead by an angry Wilson." Colin lowered his head, took out a cigarette, put it in his mouth and lit it, glanced at Jenny, the barmaid who was bending over to clean up the debris, and then said to Keith, who was hanging the shotgun back on the inner wall of the bar behind the bar, without sincerity.
After Keith put away his gun, he turned around and took a bottle of whiskey from the wine cabinet, poured Colin a glass and pushed it in front of him: "You have to understand, Colin, compensation is not the same as gift. You are compensating, not giving."
"Of course it was a gift. Everyone saw that it was Wilson who destroyed this TV that was older than you, not me. I did it out of kindness." Colin took the wine, shook his head, and insisted that his gift was generous.
"Why is Wilson going crazy? Because your baby son showed him a piece of shit, 'Nigger Boss'. This is what Tommy did. Are you sure he is your son? God, a nigger can actually beat up several strong white men? Don't joke, let that nigger come to my bar. I don't need several people, just me alone to send him to the hell for niggers." Keith handed the drink to Colin and was too lazy to talk to him anymore. He turned around and went about his business.
Colin sighed and drank the whiskey in one gulp. Then he walked to the telephone and called his son. "Tommy?"
"Dad, after watching the pilot episode, are everyone's emotions aroused?" Tommy asked with a smile on the other end of the phone.
"Very good. The film is 40 minutes long. For 40 minutes, there is no end to the swearing in the bar. In the end, when Wilson saw the ending of the episode where the black boss brought a black rogue lawyer and broke into the white territory by relying on legal loopholes, beat up the white man in self-defense, rescued a black girl and got away with it perfectly, he couldn't help but pick up Keith's shotgun and smashed the black man's face and the TV screen." Colin was holding a cigarette, his tone full of confusion:
"Son, you've almost made me a public enemy in the eyes of the neighbors in Mount Hope. I told them that my son Tommy had made a great TV show and invited them to appreciate your talent. Then, they saw that in your TV show, black people were as smart as humans. They even knew how to bring a lawyer and knew about legal loopholes... Damn it, we white people don't understand, how can black people understand?"
Tommy's voice was filled with a satisfied smile. "Very good, just as I expected. I had it tested internally on some small A-rated TV stations in Baltimore and Philadelphia that have a small black audience. The reaction was exactly the opposite of what you white people had. The black audience thought the show was amazing."
"Son, I'm pretty sure I saw you being taken out of your mother's belly by a white nurse. You had absolutely no chance of coming into contact with black people when you were born, so what on earth happened to you in California?" Colin exhaled smoke and said to Tommy, "And how could white people be as vicious and stupid as in that piece of shit you filmed? But some of the plots seem familiar to everyone."
"I don't know about the white elites, and I have no say in them, but I guarantee that the white people in that show are all prototypes of the characters I provided. Warwick is full of such white people, Dennis, Pam, Tommy, Colin, Tony, Wilson, Maureen, Hull..." Tommy heard his father asking, and said proudly, "I am paying tribute to everyone in my hometown."
"How did we in our hometown offend you, son, that you have to pay tribute to us in this way?" Colin asked in confusion after hearing Tommy say on the other end of the phone that he would pay tribute to everyone with details that were familiar to them:
"So the stupid son of the white villain who goes to the city hall gate every day to defecate is a tribute to Dennis? There's also an old guy with half his butt exposed, who thinks he's very charming but actually looks stupid and ugly, and who doesn't realize he's seducing women. His image comes from your dear father? Son, you really have a lot of respect for your father."
Tommy heard his father's words and comforted him, "Don't be like this. I love you and everyone else. That's fake. It's all to fool people and make money. You can play them another episode of "Looking for Daddy America" to liven up the atmosphere. I guarantee that this show is popular with both black and white people. Many white people will think it's funnier than talk shows."
"I love you, too. Because I love you, my advice to you is that if you have nothing to do in the next six months, it's best not to go back to Warwick, otherwise people will be unhappy with you and drag you to the alley to beat you up. You've brought shame to the Hawke family and the Hope Hill community. My God, you came from the whitest neighborhood, but you actually filmed a show that praising niggers. I'll try and show it to them when I get a new TV. Bye." Colin finished his nagging and hung up the phone.
Seeing that the other drinkers were looking at him, Colin smacked his lips in frustration, and then said:
"Tommy just said he was very sorry to show you all that crap, that he had the wrong tape delivered to you, and to apologize, he asked me to buy everyone a round of drinks on his behalf, as compensation for the spike in blood pressure after watching that episode of the show, and Wilson, you can enjoy two rounds."
"I was still thinking that Tommy couldn't be so excessive. It turns out that his worker sent the wrong videotape." Wilson heard Colin's explanation and nodded in realization: "I should have thought of it earlier. Your explanation has cancelled the suggestion I was about to make."
"What suggestions?" Colin walked over and sat down next to the other person and asked.
Wilson took a sip of wine and said, "I'll ask you and Tommy to go to a big hospital for a paternity test. I just said that he was black when he was born, but you kept painting Tommy's body with white paint to hide it."
…
"My dear old dad must be very disappointed with me. He just said goodbye when he hung up the phone, and he didn't even want to say Tommy or dear son." Tommy put down the phone, looked at Earl Rush on the other side and said with a smile: "The people in that place can't accept the plot of black people defeating white people."
Earl Rush was wearing a bright blue casual suit with a gold and white shirt underneath. He didn't wear a tie, but a thin gold chain. This made him look more lively and fashionable despite being a black man. He didn't agree with Tommy's words, but picked up a stack of documents and handed them to Tommy:
"This is relevant information from small A-grade TV stations that focus on black communities in cities such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, Miami, New York, and Chicago. They have also aired the pilot program we prepared on their TV stations. Many viewers have called them to ask when the official version will be online. They will like it, but the only problem is that they think the best way for both parties to cooperate is a JSA joint sales agreement, rather than the LAM local marketing agreement we hope for."
The two professional terms mentioned by Earl Rush are two of the common ways of cooperation used by various American television networks to expand their networks. There are some other agreement methods, but most TV stations will choose these two when joining television networks.
To put it simply, the JSA joint sales agreement means that BT TV station provides programs and the other party is responsible for broadcasting, and the profits earned are divided according to the negotiated ratio. This kind of agreement is generally a form of cooperation that only the top three TV stations in the local ratings insist on. For example, the small A-level TV stations mentioned in the information now propose to cooperate with BT TV station in the form of joint sales. It is obvious that in their eyes, although BT TV station has the money to produce its own programs, it is just a rookie who has just stepped into the field. As an old bird, of course they will ask for a high price.
The LAM local marketing agreement can also be understood simply. The BT TV station pays rent and rents the entire TV station full-time or on a time-sharing basis. The other party does not need to do anything but broadcast the programs provided according to the schedule given by the BT TV station. As for whether the advertisements are sold or whether money can be made, it has nothing to do with the other party. In other words, the other TV station is the landlord and rents the TV station to BT TV station like a house. There are only two issues to consider: one is the rent, and the other is the leasing method. Time-sharing leasing means renting it to BT TV station during a certain period of time every day, like an hourly room. Full-time leasing is the entire 24 hours, which belongs to BT TV station.
Generally, small TV stations that are unable to make ends meet are willing to choose this method to cooperate with TV networks. In this way, they don’t have to do anything every year and still have a stable income. Even the number of employees can be reduced by half, saving expenses.
"A-level TV station? Requires cooperation with the JSA agreement?" Tommy took the information handed over by the other party, and while flipping through it, he laughed out loud: "Earl, how do you deal with your black compatriots who own half-dead small TV stations? You are not a beggar who comes to beg for money, buddy, you are the savior who saves them from dire straits."
Class A small TV stations are actually low-power transmitter TV stations. Generally speaking, due to limited power, the coverage range of this type of TV station is only 25 to 30 kilometers, which means it only covers audiences in a few communities.
In big cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, these small TV stations are in even greater dire straits.
Because the broadcast spectrum is becoming increasingly scarce in large cities with many TV stations, the most common problem faced by many small TV stations is that if they cannot guarantee that their own programs can be broadcast 24 hours a day, then once they stop broadcasting their own programs, when viewers turn on the TV station's programs the next day, they may find that yesterday's channel has become another TV station, and they don't know where the TV station they watched yesterday has gone.
This is because its spectrum is allocated by the system to large UHF TV stations, which means it can only be relocated to another new public frequency for external broadcasting.
In big cities, if you want to be a die-hard viewer of such A-level TV stations, you must be mentally prepared to search for the TV station signal every day when you turn on the TV.
In small places, because of the vast land and sparse population, there are not many large TV stations, so A-level TV stations can barely survive by helping local businesses publish all kinds of weird advertisements, such as various magical medicines, farm tools, car repair shops, etc.
Earl selected A-level TV stations that were set up and funded by black people in several large cities. Their characteristic was that although viewers often could not find the channel the next day, they had sponsors behind them who paid for advertising to ensure that they would not starve to death or go out of business, but they could not expect to become rich and could only make a living.
As for why there are sponsors willing to provide help, it's very simple. These A-level TV stations are basically equivalent to local black community TV stations. A lost dog in the community may appear on TV. There are often activities where black people in the community are guests on TV stations. Black people have a strong desire to perform, and by letting them appear on TV for free, they can basically win over hundreds of hardcore viewers who watch the programs at fixed times. The purpose of the sponsors is the votes in the hands of these viewers. They are the sponsors of these TV stations and also the partners of a local black congressman. The congressman can get those audiences to support him through these community TV stations.
"In addition to contacting the TV station, have you visited those black communities?" Tommy asked Earl after reading the information.
Earl picked up his coffee and took a sip. "I visited some of them. I found that the programs of FOX TV Network have been very popular among black people recently. Those small TV stations have been impacted. The two most popular programs of FOX in those black communities are America's Most Wanted and Women in Prison. You can guess from the names that they suit the tastes of my low-class compatriots. FOX relies on glorifying street gangs and prison life to attract the attention of low-class audiences. This is also the reason why the three major TV networks are very dissatisfied with FOX. It has lowered the style of the TV industry."
"This trick works very well. FOX uses these programs to attract attention and then sells half-true and half-false news to the audience." Tommy pressed the remote control and turned on the TV next to him.
It was an economic talk show interview on FOX. The host used a lively and interesting rhythm to invite experts to explain what Reaganomics is and how the economic environment in various industries was relaxed during President Reagan's administration.
"The lower-class audiences simply don't know how to distinguish truth from falsehood. They don't know that Reagan has only one and a half years left before he leaves office. During his years in office, the minimum hourly wage for Americans has never increased. They also don't know that during his term, the United States has become the world's largest debtor country. They don't know that what the shitty expert in front of the TV is saying at this moment, that the means of deregulation and reform in the aviation, automobile transportation, railways, communications, natural gas, and banking industries are all the credit of President Reagan, is a complete lie. That was the effort made during Carter's term. After watching the show they want to watch, the audience immediately hears this lie. Over time, they will subconsciously feel that Reagan, the Republican president, is not bad. It turns out that this guy has done so many good things." Tommy looked at the screen:
"It is not lowering the style of the television industry, but lowering the historical status of the television industry. Before FOX, all television networks were neutral, at least on the surface. So if the two parties wanted to explain their ideas to the public, they had to support the three major television networks. But FOX has been in line since the day it was born. This is the real reason why the three major television networks are dissatisfied with FOX, but they can't do anything about it, because when FOX made such shameless TV programs like The Sun, they lined up to criticize it, so they can't immediately become as shameless as FOX. That would be tantamount to admitting defeat to FOX and letting an outsider teach them how to make more attractive TV programs."
"So, you think they need a rising star in the American television industry who is rich and shameless enough to stand up?" Earl looked at Tommy and asked with a smile.
Tommy said seriously: "I can't let the country and people I love be indoctrinated with lies by a country bumpkin from Australia. The times are calling us, Earl, this is our mission."
"If you tell these words to my black compatriots, they may be willing to believe you. I am not within the scope of your brainwashing, Tommy." Earl made a Stop gesture, signaling Tommy to stop instilling these words that he usually used to fool his compatriots.
Tommy also laughed and changed the subject lightly: "You have completed the first round of contacts and selected potential partners, right ? The next step is the second round of contacts."
"Contact the black wealthy sponsors behind those TV stations?" Earl nodded in understanding: "I did collect information on some people."
"No, Earl, why are you here?" Tommy shook his head, indicating that Earl guessed wrong, and then asked Earl.
Earl said frankly: "Because the price you offered is attractive enough."
"No, the times are calling you. You are here for equal rights for black people. You gave up your work as a lawyer to help individual black people and came here to help the black community through the media. The Black Panther Party no longer exists , but there can be a more moderate black organization, perhaps called Sunshine and Rainbow or something that sounds gentle. Don't fight for political rights, don't worry about public policies. This organization is to help black people get welfare and economic support, as well as equal educational opportunities." Tommy said to Earl seriously:
"We need to use the influence of TV stations to gain the support of grassroots black people, and then use grassroots black people to conquer more TV stations. The two complement each other."
"I probably won't get much support from the three major black organizations, because this kind of slogan has been shouted by too many large and small organizations, and the grassroots blacks are almost numb to these slogans. They think they are all empty words." Earl thought Tommy was thinking too simply, so he shook his head and gave the opposite opinion.
"Self-reliance, education, voting rights, equal rights movement, promotion of employment..." Tommy obviously knew these slogans very well, and he said a bunch of words at this time, but he suddenly stopped:
“Because those who came up with these slogans were not the lower-class blacks, but the elite blacks. Why are the lower-class blacks numb to these slogans? Because they have been shouting for decades, but to no avail, and the lower-class blacks don’t think there is any point in studying and receiving education!”
"So, you understand what the lower class black people want? A white person, better than me?"
"Yes, this organization opposes President Reagan's work welfare initiative. All the lower-class black people will support you." Tommy looked at Earl with shining eyes and said this.
Earl was just lighting a cigarette, but when he heard Tommy's words, the cigarette fell out of his mouth, leaving a small hole in his trousers!
He didn't even bother to check his clothes. He flicked away his cigarette and looked up at Tommy. "I know all the lower-class black people will support me, but I will lose the trust of the elite black community forever. You are pushing me into the abyss."
The work welfare initiative is a government program proposed and continuously advocated by the Republican Party. As the name implies, if one wants to receive social welfare, one must contribute to society. For example, if a low-income black single mother wants to receive weekly relief, she needs to participate in a fixed amount of voluntary social labor each week to be eligible.
This initiative has not only been advocated by the Republican Party, but has also been secretly promoted by the black elite group, because they do not want the lower-class blacks to remain lazy, cunning, and welfare-sucking parasites, and want to reverse the stereotype of black laziness through this initiative.
Of course, the lower-class black people do not want this government program to be promoted. Think about it, they used to be able to receive relief or subsidies without doing anything every week, but now suddenly they have to accept more than ten hours of physical labor every week to get those relief and subsidies. How could they agree to this?
So if this organization raises a banner and promotes opposition to work welfare initiatives among the lower-class blacks, Earl believes that the absolute lower-class blacks will support him, but that will be of no use because he has lost the support of the more important black elite group.
The black elite group does not want the lower-class blacks to continue to degenerate. They help them fight for the right to receive education and find various employment opportunities. They hope to minimize the impact of work benefits on them and let them learn to survive by labor rather than relying on American social welfare every week to discredit the black community.
"If a black person came up with this idea, the black elite would distance themselves from him because he is a traitor to the black community. But what if it was a kind white person? What if it was a kind white woman? She is full of maternal love and doesn't want those low-income black single mothers to have to take care of five or six children while working more than ten hours a week to get relief? What do you think of her initiating this organization? But all the efforts she has made cannot be rewarded to a white person. There must be a black person to enjoy the fruits." Tommy looked at Earl Rush sharply:
"Do you still think there is an abyss ahead?"
"New World Foundation...you let me marry a black wife..." Earl Rush looked back at Tommy and spoke softly.
Tommy nodded: "Marry a single mother from a low-income family, stand by my fiancée's side, and then wait to inherit the sweet fruits."
"I understand now that you are right, Mr. Hawke..." Earl Rush let out a long breath: "The times are calling me."
