Media 2070 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 9
INTRODUCTION
We are living through historic times.
The racial-justice uprisings that have been happening
across the country and throughout the world since the
public execution of George Floyd in May 2020 are both
inspiring and heartbreaking.2
This insurgency is happening at a time when the
COVID-19 pandemic has exposed — once more for
everyone who cares to see — many of the societal
inequities that have ensured that Black lives don’t matter.
Fueled by Black death and by those who refuse to accept
it, the public uprisings have forced a reckoning in this
country.3 Powerful institutions, from governments
to museums to universities to newsrooms, are being
challenged to address their own anti-Black racism.4 The
institutions and systems people are protesting have all
contributed to the prevention of Black freedom and
liberation.
This essay documents how anti-Black racism has always
been part of our media system’s DNA. On the pages that
follow, we explore the harms inflicted on Black bodies by
our nation’s white-dominant media companies. We also
examine the harms inherent in government policies that
consolidated media power with white owners and made
anti-Black racism a central fixture of our media system
since colonial times.
In this essay, we provide historical and contemporary
examples of the active role white media institutions have
played in promoting and perpetuating anti-Black hate
and violence on their platforms. Since the colonial era,
U.S. media organizations and institutions have protected
a racial-caste system and in some cases allowed their
platforms to be used as recruitment tools for white
supremacists.5 All of this has contributed to the death of
Black people.
Media organizations were complicit in the slave trade
and profited off of chattel slavery; a powerful newspaper
publisher helped lead the deadly overthrow of a local
government in Wilmington, North Carolina, where Black
people held power; racist journalism has led to countless
lynchings; southern broadcast stations have opposed
integration; and, in the 21st century, powerful socialmedia and tech companies are allowing white supremacists
to use their platforms to organize, fundraise, recruit and
spread hate.6
We also tell the stories of how Black activists and
journalists have challenged racist media institutions and
policies — despite the violence they have faced for the
radical act of speaking up in a country where Black people
have yet to fully realize their ability to speak freely.
This essay is a living document.
The examples we provide are far from comprehensive
— there’s still so much we need to learn about how the
white media have created and perpetuated the myth of
Black inferiority. And there is still so much we need to
learn about how the Black community has fought for a
just media system and the health and well being of our
communities. In particular there’s much to uncover about
the work of Black women and Black queer people, and
Black transgender and gender-nonconforming activists
and journalists — all of whose stories often go untold due
to the forces of patriarchy, homophobia and transphobia.
#MEDIA2070
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