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In an interview with Jill Nelson to promote new book, 'Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media: The Return of the Nigger Breaker,' author Ishmael Reed gets fired up about the media and its role in black oppression.
Ishmael Reed always has valid points but a tendency toward digression means that sometimes those points get lost in a labyrinth of words and twisting storylines.
His points raise questions worth pondering. Has the conservative media targeted Obama? I would say yes. Is it the job of the media to critique a president? Of course. Are both the liberal and conservative media almost exclusively run by older white males with a few token minorities sprinkled here and there? Yes and yes. Of course, that problem existed in the mainstream media for some time before Obama. If anything, Obama's presence has caused some media outlets to scramble to look for black journalists to cover the Black president. And there's no question that the conservative media, Tea Partiers and their cronies have gone beyond just dissenting opinion.
His points raise questions worth pondering. Has the conservative media targeted Obama? I would say yes. Is it the job of the media to critique a president? Of course. Are both the liberal and conservative media almost exclusively run by older white males with a few token minorities sprinkled here and there? Yes and yes. Of course, that problem existed in the mainstream media for some time before Obama. If anything, Obama's presence has caused some media outlets to scramble to look for black journalists to cover the Black president. And there's no question that the conservative media, Tea Partiers and their cronies have gone beyond just dissenting opinion.
Does the media have a huge influence on the public opinion of minorities? Yes. And again, it always has. One example Reed gives is taken from a report conducted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities entitled "White Poverty in America". It concludes that "contrary to the stereotype, whites use government safety-net programs more than blacks or Hispanics, and are twice as likely as minorities to be lifted out of poverty by the taxpayer money they get." We know this but that didn't change CNN's seeming commitment to show black pathology as connected to the cause of poverty in their "Black in America" series. "Black pathology profiteers" is the term that Reed uses for these outlets and TV producers like David Simon.
What Reed successfully shows in his interview with Jill Nelson are the links between the media and corporate corruption. For example he points out that: "Wells Fargo recently had to pay a fine of 152 million dollars for laundering money from Mexican drug criminals (March, 18, Times). No wonder they recently announced an over 2 billion dollar profit."
And he also gets points for being as critical of progressive media such as The Nation, NPR, and black media as he is of conservative media. "The progressive media is just as segregated as the corporate media which they are always criticizing from their glass houses," says Reed. "Richard Prince printed a photo of a Huffington Post Christmas party. One black staffer!! The opposition to Obama from people of color comes from the fringes. He has a 90% approval rating from blacks, over 60% from Hispanics and he carried the Asian American vote, yet these arrogant white progressives say they are his base and that he is obligated to them."
Because Reed is beholden to no one he's a man that, if nothing else, needs to be heard whether or not you agree with what he says.
Here are excerpts from his interview:Would you explain the subtitle of your book, 'The Return of the Nigger Breakers?'
Edward Covey was a member of a profession whose job was to tame unruly slaves. Frederick Douglass was one of those men who was sent to him, a "nigger breaker," to be disciplined. Douglass turned the tables on [Covey] and thrashed him. I argue that this [breaking of niggers] is the aim of the media and other institutions that are opposed to Obama. In fact, Sen. [Jim] DeMint from South Carolina, a state that has an active secessionist faction, used the verb "break" when describing the intentions of the Republican Party toward Obama. Moreover, with the firing and buyouts... hundreds of minority journalists, black institutions, blacks in general, black celebrities and even the president are being judged by a mostly white media jury and a handful of acceptable right-wing blacks, a few of whom are farther to the right than the white right.
Why were you unable to get this book published in the United States?
This is attributable to the state of black letters. Serious fiction and nonfiction by blacks are becoming extinct, except for that which upholds the current line coming from the media owners and the corporations that all of the problems of Africans and African Americans are due to their behavior. This is true not only for literature but for black theater, film, art galleries and opinion columns as well.
Much of your recent work has focused on media criticism. Why?
The media are the mob leaders. And they cater to a niche of people who are addicted to black pathology, people who can't seem to get a life. When you read that the New York Post ran more front pages about Tiger Woods than 9/11, then you realize the sickness that we're dealing with. Susan Block, a psychologist at counterpunch.com, traced the fascination with Tiger Woods to the fantasies of her white male patients. The usual explanations don't come close. Incidentally, a New York Post ex-writer, Sandra Guzman, is suing the Post. She said that she was fired because she objected to the cartoon showing Obama as a dead chimp. (The Post also called Tiger Woods "Cheetah," after Tarzan's chimp companion).
You can read the entire interview by Jill Nelson here.
Comments: (4)
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By: bed5d0e on 5/25/2010 1:23PM
I can see why I'm the first to comment on this story, no one else cares.
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By: tc2ewra on 5/27/2010 10:15PM
Ishmael Reed is always on point.
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By: SP on 5/28/2010 12:58PM
An accurate assessment…
It is unfortunate the amount of people who believe everything that the media says without checking, double checking and researching the histories of the parties and subjects involved. We have become a gullible and lazy society in which we take every thing presented to us at face value, reacting immediately and righteously to something we do not even understand, shaping our futures with lies and half-truths.
Jour 101 can teach you how to suck the truth out of a story, presenting it as fact when all it is- is skewed statistics and opinions marginalized by a word count.
Bravo, Mr. Reed! Bravo!
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By: Constance on 6/02/2010 7:40PM
Excellent!!!
I agree with Mr Reed.My thoughts about the true objective of the media concerning Black America is confirmed.
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