Media 2070 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 62
XIII. Media Racism from the
Newsroom to the Boardroom
HOW THE CYCLE CONTINUES
The ways in which these big media companies are harming
Black people extends beyond their news operations. For so
long, these companies have profited from Black suffering
by denying Black people their civil and human rights.
Big media and telecom companies like AT&T, Comcast
and Verizon are part of this history. Until recently, these
companies were members of the American Legislative
Exchange Council, a right-wing organization made up
of some of our nation’s most powerful corporations.
The group’s mission is to lobby state lawmakers to pass
legislation that it crafts to further its members’ business
and, at times, political goals.1
Through the years, ALEC has crafted legislation for
state lawmakers on such issues as voter suppression,
greenhouse-gas emissions and repealing Obamacare. The
group has also pushed stand-your-ground laws, which
make it legal for people to respond to perceived threats
with deadly force.2
Too often, the public is unaware of ALEC’s role in the
passage of state legislation until the harm is done. After
George Zimmerman shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon
Martin in Sanford, Florida, in 2012, ALEC’s role in the
passage of the state’s stand-your-ground law received
greater attention.3
But in 2018, it became difficult for many companies
to remain in ALEC after David Horowitz — who the
Southern Poverty Law Center has called a leader in the
anti-Muslim movement — gave a speech at the group’s
annual conference.4 The Intercept reported that Horowitz
denounced “marriage equality and suggested that the
Constitution’s three-fifths compromise was not about
Black people.”5 He also reportedly said that K–12 curricula
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were “turned over to racist organizations like Black
Lives Matter and terrorist organizations like the Muslim
Brotherhood.”6
AT&T, Comcast and Verizon all left ALEC after a coalition
of civil-rights, labor, environmental and governmentreform organizations called on the group’s “largest
corporate backers” to denounce Horowitz’s speech and
leave the organization.7
Verizon told The Intercept that “our company has
no tolerance for racist, white supremacist or sexist
comment[s] or ideals.”8
As ALEC members, the big broadband companies pursued
such predatory corporate policies as preventing state
legislatures from passing their own Net Neutrality bills
and banning municipalities from building their own
high-speed broadband networks.9 Their success on the
latter front has contributed to the digital divide, which
disproportionately impacts Black people across all income
levels.10
While these companies are no longer members of ALEC,
they are still hurting Black people with policies they’ve
pressured our federal government to adopt.
For nearly a decade, Black racial-justice leaders and
Black-led groups like Color Of Change and MediaJustice
have fought for strong Net Neutrality rules to ensure that
Black people could tell our own stories without the risk
of being silenced by big cable and telecom gatekeepers.
MediaJustice and Free Press (led by its staffers of color)
also co-founded the Voices for Internet Freedom coalition
to ensure the interests of communities of color are heard
in the fight to protect an open internet. Coalition members
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