Meet Toure, the Kim Kardashian of Social Commentary
Oddly enough, I woke up this morning wondering about the enigma who calls himself “Toure.” No last name, just “Toure.” I normally wouldn’t be spending my time writing solely about another person, but out of respect for serious political analysts that white television networks tend to ignore, I had to discuss this issue out loud.
Toure of MSNBC is the man who has every intelligent black person in America wondering why he’s on TV, myself included. There are no credentials in his background which lead you to believe that he should be defining the direction of national thought on serious political issues (the bio I found says that he dropped out of Emory University in 1992). He also seems to say things for entertainment, rather than substantive, value and doesn’t seem to take his work all that seriously.
I’ve heard grumblings from political science experts who can’t get two seconds of airtime on national TV, and I feel bad for them. Usually, their concerns are expressed about men like Roland Martin, whose Masters Degree in Christian communications seems to make him a better fit for the 700 Club than CNN. But actually, I usually defend Martin, whose time as a journalist in the political hotbed of Washington DC gives him the background necessary to give opinions worth listening to. This doesn’t mean that many of our brilliant black political science professors, attorneys, or judges would not be better suited to speak on American politics (after all, their backgrounds in the field are quite extensive), but Roland at least takes his role (and himself) quite seriously.
Toure, on the other hand, offers the kind of empty insights that make you wonder what the 23-year old television producer was thinking when she booked him to discuss the intricacies of African American politics. The man who hunts for his next soundbite like a teenage girl trying to find the coolest Coach purse, doesn’t seem to know how to make his remarks without saying something that appears to be flat-out stupid. Some might even consider him to be a simple-minded clown.
