Monday, June 22, 2015

Dear Media: Grow Up!


America has been given yet another opportunity to begin sincere dialogue about the problems we have with racism in our society. We have them at least once a month now. The reason we know about the events is because you report them to us. Then, tragically, you turn every single event into something fantastical that can get you ratings. 

Every. Single. Time.

I feel confident that the reason you ignore important discussions is because you know that most Americans don't want to hear it. They are quite content in their little bubbles where societal issues don't affect them. You fear they will turn the channel and watch some other network give them 24/7 nonsense. As a journalistic outfit, can you not just accept that and do your job? Can you not make it important to give America the information that they need?

Today Marc Maron's podcast, WTF, had an interview with President Obama. The interview was a revelation. We were offered thoughtful and candid reflections from our leader about the issues of race in America. These are issues that are traditionally ignored by those in leadership because they don't want to offend anyone in their base or be called out for saying something insensitive. We finally had a deep conversation with our President. You are all telling us that he used the N- word. Are you fucking kidding me? It literally gave me a vision of you sitting at your desk in third grade, raising your hand with your mouth  making an 'ooo' and begging the teacher to call your name so you can say, "Ooohhhh, teacher, Johnny said the N- word."

GROW UP!




The entire point of his having said it was to point out that just because those in society don't hear the words use as often doesn't mean the same supremacy that used to allow it doesn't still exist. He gave you something to tell us. If you truly were journalists the discussion would have started right there. You have plenty of news clips you could've shown of many politicians and pundits on the right using coded language to incite their base.

Here. Let me get you started. Take these videos and begin the dialogue in our discourse regarding why it is still acceptable for Americans to be full of hate and believe that racism is still a part of our political world.

Last week offered us plenty of opportunities to sincerely discuss race with the comments coming from the right. Their inability to empathize about how hurtful the Confederate flag would be to the descendents of slaves while supporting the people who see the flag as a proud symbol of their heritage (a heritage of their ancestors fighting for the right to maintain slavery) should be profound enough, but it was ignored and offered to us as just a matter of fact.

Here we have Lindsey Graham explaining why the Confederate Flag is an important symbol of the South and then he literally waves his hands as if to say 'over there' and says they have an "African American memorial." The memorial is, obviously, a throw away. And the pain the flag causes and its symbolism adopted by racist groups is, too.



Remember Charles Murray? The white trash piece of shit who wrote the Bell Curve? Right. The guy who wrote about how whites are genetically predisposed to superiority over blacks. Just this year in an interview Jeb Bush was questioned about solving the issues of income disparity and he went into a talk about welfare and, without encouragement, went into explaining how his ideas are shaped by Charles Murray. The rest of his answer was about welfare, and because of who he quoted, he was obviously talking about black people being the problem.



Rick Santorum telling a group of white people about how its not fair to give the black people welfare money that white people earn.


Instead of focusing on the President reminding us that racism exists, maybe give America an opportunity to reflect on why it is still deemed socially acceptable. Just last week Donald Trump, while kicking off a campaign to be our President offered us a nice look into the mentality:




Mike Huckabee is forever condemning the President for fighting against the Jews and Christians. This is his dog whistle reminder to their racist base who need to hear reminders about the rumors they started about President Obama being a Muslim and means to support Jihadists. He tells us that everything the President does is against the Jews and Christians (just like Jihadists).





 Here he tells us he was proud to have a black President and now he realizes that Obama doesn't want America to succeed. They are always telling their base that the President is sincerely trying to ruin the country.





The Chinese (all of them, apparently) lack imagination and are thieves




Maybe you could just discuss this for a single moment (from earlier this year):




Oh. By the way. Here is a journalist who gets it. Maybe give him a call and ask how its done. Editorializing is, in fact, necessary sometimes. If you do not editorialize you offer the Republican faithful only the dog whistles they are being sent without offering any rationality or asking thoughtful Americans to consider why they are hearing things they find offensive.


It is unfathomable that you all get to call yourselves journalists and then behave as if you are either employed by a tabloid or the Fox cable channel with the word 'news' in its title. 

As often as the politicians on the right offer us examples of how large swaths of human beings can be immediately dismissed or worse, you never find it important to report on that. You are literally complicit in the racism so pervasive in our society when you give a voice to the racist actors and do not either condemn them or ask your audience for reflection. 

6 comments:

  1. I hope I'm not duplicating, I thought I already commented then the form popped up. At any rate, good one Angie! So sad that we have to spoon feed need-to-know-information to so many but I guess we do!

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    1. Not a duplicate. I have had that happen to me, too? I thank you for your support! It is true, we do get fed the need-to-know and they determine what they think we need to know. And its sick!

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  2. Hi, best letter ever. I'm sharing on all my social networks. I was thinking about starting a petition for change against all of the bullcrap media posting, but this letter is great. I hope you don't mind copy/pasting with the link back. I have three blogs I'll use and my Tumble along with the three Twitter accounts. This is what I tweeted. Putting on my FB pages which also tweet out.

    Plz. RT: #BiasMediaReportingSucks & It Needs Clearing Out! The Mean Progressive: Dear Media: Grow Up! http://ow.ly/3xZ3rg

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    1. Thank you so much. It means the world to me to hear that I am not the only one who is driven absolutely nuts by the media refusing to hold itself accountable. I would be honored to have you post links to this. Thank you again :)

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    2. You are absolutely not the only one - that's why whenever I hear someone use the phrase "liberal media" I snort and say "yeah, RIGHT" out loud - and I also shared everywhere <3

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  3. Cool, because I've done it. Each blog tweets out somewhere at least 4 times each and goes to FB and tweets. I've even seen someone share the FB post. You did a great job writing this. Thank you. I was having a conversation until 4 this morning with someone angry at the president, blaming Blacks for everything and in the end he says how he liked talking with me. His mind was full of that bias mess. I hope some of his opinion was changed.
    I posted here: http://wade-inpublishing.com http://wade-inpublishing.blogspot.com. and http://speaklowericanthearyou.blogspot.com They're basically the same, but I hope it gets the point across. I'm on FB as Ey.

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