​Ironically, during a time when America should be celebrating milestone anniversaries of civil rights achievements, it instead finds itself staring into a historical mirror seeing images of black bodies left dead in streets at the hands of police or the sanction of courts and politicians. Also existing is the media’s intentional miseducation which informs societal aloofness to “strange fruit”.
Mainstream media is racist. It uses its power to control information in a manner which activates racial prejudices. The simple labeling of “black-on-black” crime while failing to label mass shootings as “white-on-white” crime or “terrorism”, is an example. Arguably excluding outlets such as PBS, Democracy-Now and Al-Jazeera, the media minimizes black, brown and poor persons’ trauma while maximizing non-substantive, emotional near-fiction.
For example, the media dedicates the majority of its airtime repeating Donald Trump’s rhetoric without critique. In a debate, Trump indicated that he “would do a hell of a lot more [than waterboarding]” because “in the middle-east there are folks chopping off heads … [acts] never seen before since medieval times”.  The media repeated this over and over as if to hypnotize Americans into believing that terrorism is initiated overseas by non-Christians and that Americans should be afraid of “foreigners”.
Trump’s statement is indicative of America’s short-term memory regarding atrocities to black Americans, overlooking the Jim Crow era, the most violent era of domestic terrorism since slavery, perpetuated by American “Christian” organizations, politicians and police. “Head-chopping” pales in comparison to the depravity of American “Christian” terrorists who fought over “souvenirs” in the form of body parts from the deceased and took pictures with their children and the remains of dismembered scorching bodies.  And don’t forget the contemporary domestic terrorism of “Christians” who kill innocent people in churches, health clinics and schools.  Instead of the media providing accurate substantive information, it comforts the status-quo using sensationalism and the deceptive publication of foolish “controversy” informing society’s movement down a “path of collective amnesia”.
For example, the media allowed Beyonce’s half-time performance to be “controversial” without providing clarification that the Black Panther Party was an anti-racism, anti-brutality, anti-patriarchal organization formed in reaction to police brutality within minority communities.  Legally armed to defend against acts of violence, the Panthers monitored the behavior of police challenging police brutality, while offering community based programs such as health clinics and breakfast programs, to blacks, browns, and poor whites.  In the midst of an era of publicized police brutality and harassment against black people, the Black Lives Matter campaign, like the BPP, is attempting to hold America accountable to its purported values of equality and justice.
Also minimized by mainstream media outlets is politician-brutality, as exemplified in Flint, Michigan.  October 2014, GM told city officials that it could no longer utilize water from the Flint River, because it was corroding its engines and was authorized to use water from the Detroit Water source. However, when citizens complained about their water’s smell and look reporting sickness, lead-poisoning and death, the city perpetuated the lie that Flint River water was safe, continuing to increase profits.  Even now, Flint residents are responsible for paying for poisoned water.  To add further insult to injury, Flint residents must purchase bottle water, largely produced by the Nestle water plant located a few hours away that reported a $14 billion profit last year was given $13 million in state tax breaks and is allowed to pump over 200 gallons water per minute from a nearby aquafer without cost.  Rather than the media focusing on the contaminated water cover-up scandal or the Nestle financial paradox, it chose to mention the “controversial water-switch”, and replay apologetic “mistake” rhetoric from the Flint mayor and governor, misleading the masses into believing that the water “crisis” was a financial “error” versus the criminal conspiracy it really is. Flint, with a near 60% black populous and declining median household income, is exemplary of how much black (and poor) lives matter (or not) to American society.
There are numerous other examples of how the media misguides the public by spreading misinformation and restricting substantive information. I charge the media to stop facilitating the spread of racist rhetoric and inaction. I charge the media not to allow the definition of pro-black to be synonymous with anti-white, anti-police or anti-American.  I charge the media to stop informing the negative social construction of Blacks and to help redefine Black lives’ worth.  I charge the media to stop allowing emotional fictional rhetoric, such as what consistently comes from Donald Trump to be publicized without critique. I charge the media to stop rewriting the Black American narrative in a manner inconsistent with truth. I charge the media to recognize that Black Lives Matter and to begin acting accordingly.

Scalia’s racist rhetoric during the recent Fisher oral arguments alluding to “Separate but Equal” schools benefiting Blacks seemingly supporting society’s return to segregated education, should come as no surprise.  In 1979, Scalia, then a law professor, pinned a law review article responding to Justice Marshall’s stance on affirmative action in the Bakke case, indicating that such policy was unconstitutional because it would prefer the son of a prosperous and well-educated black doctor or lawyer … to the son of a recent refugee from Eastern Europe who is working as a manual laborer …[and is] based upon concepts of racial indebtedness and racial entitlement rather than individual worth and individual needed”. How ironic that Scalia now believes that individual worth and need is irrelevant when the person is Black?  Not ironic at all for a bonifide American.  To be clear, American jurisprudence has historically written in a level of minority inclusion, while enforcing the level of exclusion necessary to maintain status quo.

American jurisprudence has consistently interpreted civil rights in a manner which parallels the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott ruling that the framers of the beautifully written Constitution were not including Blacks as beneficiaries and as such were unable to seek protection from the federal government or courts.  Scott was never overturned and America continues to operate under its premise.  Some say that the 14th Amendment’s ratification a decade later sufficiently overturned Scott, as it explicitly states that persons born in America are citizens.  Regardless of the Amendment’s verbiage; however, during its passage, Congressman Thadeus Steven explained that “civil equality did not mean a Negro should sit on the same seat or eat at the same table with a white man.” In confirmation of this segregationist notion, the Supreme Court in its infamous Plessy v. Ferguson case initiated the “Separate but [Un]Equal” doctrine, stating “the 14th Amendment could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based on color … or [inform] a co-mingling of the races.” Thus, there should be no surprise that Scalia is following his ancestral precedent by stating that Blacks should go to their own schools.

To be clear, America was created through the enforcement of race-based discrimination.  Segregation was perpetuated with explicit race-based policies. Even the Melting Pot theory was initiated to sustain homogeneity. Is America now concerned with racial discrimination? No! Instead, America is concerned with racial competition.  America has always been concerned with minority integration interfering with its white population’s ability to sustain superiority. Race-based policy does not concern America until its purpose is incorporating minorities.  Since integration, the law has teetered-tottered on its restriction of minority inclusion.  From Bakke to Hopwood to Grutter and Bollinger to contemporary Fisher, white America continuously fights minority inclusion in “their” institutions.

This brings us to certainly the most disturbing of Scalia’s statements: “it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school … where they will do well.” This is an explicit revitalization of the 20 year-old Bell Curve theory by Heinstein and Murray which argues that Blacks inherently have lower cognitive abilities than Whites.  There was no evidence presented in the 100 page oral argument transcript indicating that Blacks had a difficult time once allowed into Univ. of Texas. To the contrary, the school’s persistence rate is comparable between White, Black and Hispanic students.
The media has misleadingly suggested that Black students were allowed into U-of-T based solely on race; yet, this is not the case. Specifically, in 2008, Fisher not being in the top 10% of her high school class, had to compete for the remaining 8% of the entering class.  Any consideration of race was only a subset of 1 of 7 equally weighted factors making up a personal achievement index, which is considered along with an academic index.  The Black students admitted to U-of-T are highly qualified candidates with leadership, work experience, acceptable SAT scores, etc.; it has been conceded that Fisher was not.  Even if given the disputed 1/42 of a bonus point for race, she still would not have scored high enough on the indexes to get in. There is no viable concern that unqualified Black students are taking spots from qualified White students.  Clearly, Fisher’s suit is based on her dismay that if she could not be admitted into an institution, certainly, no one Black should have.  So, again, this is really about minimizing competition to maintain the status quo.

The crux of the Fisher oral arguments was if, how and why racial diversity in school was important.  This reflects white society’s contradictory position that diversity only benefits the minority who should appreciate being in the presence of white America. America seems to forget that the rest of the world is every color but white, and to be in position to globally compete and operate, white has to learn how to interact and work with non-white persons.  Scalia, although following the path of his ancestors, is perpetuating a myth of superiority which is going to be damaging to America in the long-run because minority competition is inevitable.  Will America ever be ready for it?