Meet Janks Morton, Director of 'What Black Men Think'

'What Black Men Think' has been promoted as "the most provocative" film since "ROOTS."

Novice documentary filmmaker Janks Morton examines the role that myths, stereotypes and misperceptions play in modern Black relationships. He attempts to discredit these illusions and show how others provide larger insight into the relationship between the African-American community, the government, the media and special interests.

He concludes that the dehumanization and tearing down of black men has been used to manipulate the race and marginalize the role of black men in society.

Recently, Black Voices sat down with the critically-acclaimed director to talk about the film, what he learned making it and about his mission to change what black men think. ...

What's your background?

I never made a movie before. I come from the health care background. I've worked there for 20 years. I'm also a musician by trade. I learned how to cut music videos a few years back so this film is really an extended music video.

But, 'What Black Men Think' is more than just a music video. You really use statistics to support your assertions.

What I did in this film is call out the "bait and switch." The Census and the department of education are data warehouses. If you use the department of education numbers, I just shut everybody down; there are 1,460,000 black men in post-secondary degree granting institutions, non-duplicating head count. And, everybody kind of knows that the census short counts black men but 864 versus 80, which I used for the film, making for a livelier conversation. I thought, I can just really drop the bombshell; We really shouldn't be having this conversation.

So, take me through the steps that led to this movie. How did you go from numbers on paper to making this movie?

I was sitting in a room full of women watching Michael Eric Dyson and Juan Williams debate over the Bill Cosby issue, both of those guys have published books on it. They were coming down pretty hard on Cosby at the time for how he said things but not really what he said.

Williams said that 70 percent of children are born out of wedlock and I thought, that didn't sound right. I went to my barber and asked him: "If you have 10 black women coming through the door, how many of them are married?" He said,"1 or 2." That kind of set me on the path to find the facts. The truth of the matter is that 69.7 percent of black children are born out of wedlock; that includes Africans and people of color from other countries.

If you look at the indigenous black, it's creeping closer towards 75 percent ; that is diametrically opposed to what I grew up with. I grew up very low middle class, just barely above the poverty line. We still had men and women together with their children in every house except for one in a neighborhood of 52.

If you can't tell from my movie, I am a cynic; whenever the media says something especially about blacks I try to discredit it first. I know that a film is the best way to try to garner a captive audience and communicate a message without the retort and rebuttal, at least for 90 minutes.

But, how did you get all of those powerful black minds like Armstrong Williams, Dr. John McWhorter, Joseph C. Phillips, Steve Perry, Michael Steele, Dr. Earl Hutchinson, and Juan Williams to talk?

It's so crazy how it went down. I'm one man with one camera and one mission; I don't have a team, it's just me. I just called these people up. I remember specifically when I called Juan Williams. I said, "Juan, this is Janks Morton. I'm a filmmaker and I'm doing a project called What Black Men Think."

I told him I was going to be exploring the diminution of the black family over the past 40 years and that I had already confirmed John McWhorter and Shelby Steele. He said "I'm in." It was just that quick; it was about 15 seconds.

The great thing about the contributors to the film was that there was no per diems, no stipends. They are just so passionate and invested in what's going on today with blacks that they just freely gave up their time.

In the end, how do you feel about the African-American media outlets and the way that they are portraying us?

I think the challenge we face, and this goes all the way to "StepinFetchit," we've got to be able to know the difference between a comedian and a clown in the community. A clown is not just a person who dresses up in white face and a red wig. A clown is a rapper who's sliding a credit card down a black woman's butt cheeks. A comedian gets you to laugh at a situation.

What I will say is that the larger entities that we think are representative of our voice typically are not owned by us, and not controlled by us. They have a very vested interest in exploiting the worst in us, it's just that simple. Positive stories about blacks are just a non-seller, it doesn't make money; it just doesn't generate ad dollars. People derive pleasure from other people's misery. It's a sickness. It's not a black sickness but an American sickness.

Some people have said that you spoke to too many conservatives and present a real conservative view. What do you say to that?

My response to that is that if you talk to the most conservative, Shelby Steele, to the most liberal, Dr. Cornel West, who was also on the panel and you ask them if their 12-year-old-son comes to the door with his pants hanging down, dropping the N-word, and bad grades, they are both going to look alike. A man is going to respond to his family pretty much in similar fashion regardless of his ideology.

You also really have to understand that if this generation, this 'Joshua generation' moves into the promised land you can't just listen to the tenors, you can't just listen to the sopranos, you can't just listen to the baritones, it's going to take every voice.

Given all the people you have talked to and the data you've found, what is your prescription to cure our ills as a black people?

The out-of-wedlock birthrate, the lack of the fathers in the home with the children has got to be the greatest challenge we, as a people, are facing today. A lot of the social ills that we talk about, specifically the less desirable behaviors of black-on-black crime, the drop out rates which may or may not be at 50 percent, and the incarceration rates, can be resolved when you have a man in the house who is the absolute last line in the sand, who ratifies and defines and shapes and forms the super ego. My father told me as a child, "you can fight with sticks, you can throw some bricks, but you don't take another man's life." My mother is not going to have that conversation with me.

What do you attribute to the low marriage rate of black women?

There is a condition clinicians talk about which is called the 'deficiency mindset' or looking for the worst first, you're never satisfied; It's not just black women, it's black men, it's American women and it's American men. If you apply that to the black relationship, you get women who will have a guy who is a nerd because they wanted a nerd but the deficiency mindset will tell them that's not enough.

You're constantly looking for something to appease yourself and the true satisfaction is serving others not yourself. If a father is not in the home, he is serving himself. If a father will not commit to a marriage or commit to a black woman he is serving himself and that's a bitter pill to swallow.

Also, 70% of black women are single. That's a true statement but what that doesn't take in to account is that black women out live us. Over the age of 18 there are13.9 million black women compared to 11.2 million black men, so it's like musical chairs. If everybody paired off one black man with one black woman, there would be 2.7 million black women left over.

So, what is your reaction to the CNN's special 'Black in America' ?

The only way you are either angry or disappointed in Black in America is because your expectations were too high. You've set yourself up for that expectation by believing the hype of what was served up prior to this documentary; that it was going to be groundbreaking that it was going to be riveting, that it was going to be fair and balanced and tell both sides of the story. They are not 40 acres and a mule; they are segment producers in a news room and you can't fault them for that.

For more information on Janks Morton, please visit the "What Black Men Think" website.