Tagged: white power structure

“A 2014 Sentencing Project report points to media as a source of racial perceptions and misconceptions about crime in the United States, specifically suggesting that stereotypical expectations of journalists and producers, i.e., implicit bias, shape media narratives: A study of television news found that black crime suspects were presented in more threatening contexts than whites: ‘Black suspects were disproportionately shown in mug shots and in cases where the victim was a stranger. Black and Latino suspects were also more often presented in a nonindividualized way than whites—by being left unnamed—and were more likely to be shown as threatening—by being depicted in physical custody of police. Blacks and Hispanics were also more likely to be treated aggressively by police officers on reality-based TV shows, including America’s Most Wanted and Cops. Mass media are therefore a major contributor to Americans’ misconceptions about crime, with journalists and producers apparently acting based on their own or expectations of their audiences’ stereotypes about crime.'”

Source: Kirsten West Savali. “Throw Away the Script: How Media Bias Is Killing Black America.” The Root. June 2, 2015. http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/06/how_media_bias_is_killing_black_america.html.

“‘Implicit bias impacts the way black communities are treated across practically all sectors of life in America, from courtrooms to doctors’ offices,’ Rashad Robinson, executive director of ColorOfChange.org, tells The Root. ‘The media is no different, whether it be the use of pejorative terms like “thug” and “animal” to describe protesters in Ferguson and Baltimore, or the widespread overreporting of crime stories involving black suspects in New York City.’ Media bias not only negatively impacts black America’s relationship with law enforcement and the judicial system but also extends to how African Americans are perceived in society at large. Couple the findings of Harvard’s Project Implicit, which determined that approximately 88 percent of white Americans have implicit racial bias against black people, with a racially homogeneous media industry, and the toxic environment that leads to media injustice is thrown into stark relief. ‘Television newsrooms are nearly 80 percent white, according to the Radio and Television News Directors Association, while radio newsrooms are 92 percent white,’ writes Sally Lehrman, former chairwoman of the diversity committee at the Society of Professional Journalists. According to the American Society of News Editors, ‘The percentage of minority journalists has remained between 12 and 14 percent for more than a decade.’ This lays the groundwork for an intrinsically racist media structure…”

Source: Kirsten West Savali. “Throw Away the Script: How Media Bias Is Killing Black America.” The Root. June 2, 2015. http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/06/how_media_bias_is_killing_black_america.html.

“I understand that mistrust. I am the attorney general of the United States. But I am also a black man.” — Eric Holder, August 20, 2014.

Source: Todd Ruger, “Eric Holder Eyes Civil Rights Legacy,” National Law Journal. August 25, 2014. http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202667809135/Eric-Holder-Eyes-Civil-Rights-Legacy#ixzz3Bi3gzBpN

“Like all aspirants to leadership among Negroes, Malcolm was bound by the conflicts and contradictions of Negro life. He was saddled by a truncated view of the society current among Afro-Americans and victimized by status needs and the lack of a relevant strategy needed to bring about a change. The single issue protest activity that Afro-Americans employ is predicated on the illusion of a concerned public opinion and a power order that is responsive, when in reality there is essentially an apathetic mass manipulated by an unsympathetic power circle.”

Source: Charles E. Wilson, “Leadership: Triumph in Leadership Tragedy.” Malcolm X: The Man and His Times. 1990. pg. 36.