Media Call for ‘Diversity’—When What Media Need Is an End to White Supremacy
Media need to stop saying “missteps” when they mean sustained, systemic failures. Journalists ought to speak plainly, including when they’re talking to themselves.
‘There’s a Shocking Lack of Accountability for Sheriffs’
“When you combine the incredible concentration of power and lack of accountability, with the concentration of that power in the hands of one demographic group, that makes for a very combustible and dangerous situation.”
‘Face Recognition Risks Chilling Our Ability to Participate in Free Speech’
“It’s particularly critical, in a moment where we are protesting police brutality and over-surveillance and the over-militarization of police, to take into account how advanced technologies like face recognition play into historical injustices and over-surveilling of communities of color.”
What Journalism Needs Is Not More Diversity, but Less White Supremacy
Media need to stop saying “missteps” when they mean sustained, systemic failures. Journalists ought to speak plainly, including when they’re talking to themselves.
Morningside Case Shows Media Learned Few Lessons From Exonerated Five
Many Americans now recognize the racism at multiple junctures of the criminal punishment system. Especially now, as our leaders refuse to release the disproportionately black and brown incarcerated people from prisons and jails, despite their being sites of serious COVID-19 outbreaks across the country. But even before the pandemic, some media have played a […]
Coronavirus Alarm Blends Yellow Peril and Red Scare
As an Asian-American, I’m not surprised that there are numerous reports surfacing of racist and xenophobic responses arising in the US (and elsewhere) as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, where “coughing while Asian” is being compared to “driving while black.” In case there are any doubts that media coverage is being racialized, reports […]
Greasing the Gears of the Armageddon Engine
There is a concerted, perhaps purposeful failure to acknowledge the linkages between the Canadian separatist movement known as Wexit and the far right.
‘This Is Not a Troll. This Is Real Life.’
“If that’s what you’re trafficking in, day in and day out, isn’t it that much easier for someone like that to allow for the kind of cruelty that we’re seeing at our southern border right now?”
Michael Edison Hayden on Stephen Miller, Mallory McMaster on Katie Hill
Calls are coming in for the resignation of Trump policy advisor Stephen Miller, after leaked emails show him promoting white nationalist books and ideas to the far-right outlet Breitbart.
NYT Steers Dems Away From the Obvious Formula for Defeating Trump
Election Focus 2020: The false impression that Trump was a moderate Republican on economic issues left voters free to be swayed by his appeal to a white racial identity.
‘It’s an Attempt to Impose a White Nationalist Vision of What America Is’
“It gives tremendous discretion to people, basically, to discriminate, to discriminate knowing the government now has your back.”
‘Black Communities Are Already Living in a Tech Dystopia’
“We can’t take an ahistorical approach to technology’s role in sedimenting forms of inequity and hierarchy; we have to go through this history to understand the present.”
Jonathan Weisman’s Judgment Has Been Lapsing for a Long While Now
At FAIR, we’ve been following Jonathan Weisman’s career for quite some time, and “lapses of judgment” seem to be par for the course for him.
Ruha Benjamin on Race After Technology
Some examples of discriminatory design are obvious—which doesn’t mean the reasons behind them are easy to fix. And then there are other questions around technology and bias—in policing, in housing, in banking—that require deeper questioning.
Ronald Reagan’s Racism Should Come as No Surprise
The historical amnesia that allows people to be surprised that Ronald Reagan was a racist does more than sanitize the image of a historical figure. If you imagine that Donald Trump invented the political technique of appealing to white supremacy, you’re going to have a hard time figuring out an effective way to overcome it.
What Do Black Voters Want? NYT’s Edsall Says It’s What ‘Conservative’ Democrats Want
Election Focus 2020: Thomas Edsall is playing a shell game—lumping self-identified black and white “moderates” and “conservatives” together, even though they have very different policy preferences, and then using the amalgamated opinion to generalize about what African Americans really want.
Media Can’t Quit ‘Trump Supporters Support Trump’ Stories
Election Focus 2020: It’s a common theme of Trump coverage that now is extending to election coverage: When people protest something Trump does or says, corporate media feel the need to cover as well the people who aren’t reacting as a sort of faux-balance, giving us tautological Trump-supporters-support-Trump stories.
‘These Terms Have a History and a Power We Have to Acknowledge’
“So much of this language protects Trump and others who use it, by making ambiguous what is really not that ambiguous.”
‘White Men Have No Electability Advantage’
Election Focus: “The problem here is not, by and large, voters; they are not the reason we don’t have a reflective democracy. They are voting for women and people of color just as often as white men.”
Brenda Choresi Carter on the Electability Myth, Lawrence Glickman on Racism & Euphemism
Election Focus 2020: The upshot for many seems to be that to beat Trump, Democrats should run someone as much like him as possible, and must on no account run a “nontraditional” candidate, no matter how excited people are about them.
