Black Lives still Don't Matter to the Media

​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.