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The challenge we have with today’s news media is that far too often it is driven by ‘expert’ punditry. We see this all the time where people holding lofty titles like ‘Professor’, ‘journalist’ and ‘doctor’ are invited onto shows as pundits and are assumed to be the definitive expert in the topics being discussed. As a result anything they say is taken as fact and hence gets repeated and passed along to others as gospel.
Far too often people holding other perspectives that are widely shared by members of particular communities are excluded from these discussions which leaves folks who do not fully understand or critically think about media matters to assume the following;
1-There are no other perspectives to consider but those of the pundit
2-When other perspectives are presented they are ‘alternative’ at best and on the fringe and out of sync at worse.
3-If a person who looks or says he/she is a member of that marginalized or often excluded community does appear on a mainstream news show what they say is given addition weight and taken as the predominant view of the community.
Over the years I’ve heard these types of handpicked leaders say outrageous things on behalf of the community ranging from ‘we are against immigration reform’ to ‘racism and discrimination has ended and we no longer need to talk about such matters’. We’ve heard age old myths that have long been proven wrong like ‘The majority of Black people are in jail as opposed to college or the majority of Brown people in this country are here illegally. We’ve heard conservative women come on shows and say things like; fighting for equal rights to pay is not needed at this time.woman should stay home and take care of family. I am still hearing handpicked Black pundits pushing outdated assertions like; Black people from the hood don’t do well in school because they are afraid of appearing to ‘act white’ . Can we please require this myth which first emerged in the late 80s when during an interview with film maker Spike Lee?
We can take these misperception closer to home-with false assertions like; President Obama is a Muslim or President Obama is a socialist.
This continued misrepresentation of communites has spawned the media reform and media justice movements that has pushed for major changes and overhaul of systems in place that routinely assualt people who do not have a seat at the table where they can speak to the masses and provide a counter or more balanced view.
Rachel Maddow Corrects False Assertions made by Pat Buchanan
In the clip below we will show you haw this works and one of the rare times someone in mainstream media returned to the airwaves to correct what was uttered, widely heard and subsequently listened to and believed. This centers around the debate that took place the other day between conservative pundit Pat Buchanan who appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and made the outrageous assertion that this country was built by 100% white people. He said that the Civil war, World War I and II were fought by all white people and basically rewrote American history. This was a conversation between two white people and Buchanan’s remarks went unchallenged and uncorrected until yesterday when Rachael Maddow came on her show and spent 10 minutes correcting the assertions made by Buchanan.
As I said this rarely happens. As you listen to this keep in mind how many people were left believing what Buchanan said was fact. Hopefully we all learn to think about what is presented on the news more critically. Check out the clip below.
-Davey D-
peace brotha d,
great post! these myths you list: “acting white,” “illegals” (and many more if we thought about it) have been repeated so often that they have become commonsense. they need to be challenged. there is a sista at berkeley (?), prudence carter, who demolishes the “acting white” argument. her book is called “keepin’ it real” –> http://www.hepg.org/her/booknote/225
the prison stat is a powerful one. but on the other hand black folks are grossly overrepresented in prisons. i found this link on the topic. http://www.stylemagazine.com/wordpress/2009/07/dispelling-the-myths-about-the-black-man/
Lastly, I just wanted to mention that Buchanan is neither a professor or journalist or doctor, he’s a politician. Maddow is basically a professor-journalist. IB
Brother Davey, your article is right on point. America (and the West in general) has always been fixated on moral absolutism. In fact, the media, even in its earlier stages in literature, Western society functioned as a medium to uphold the hegemonic powers of the status quo, which in many cases act as a political and cultural monarchy. As Lupe Fiasco eloquently raps in “American terrorists,” “the ink of a scholar is worth a thousand times more than the blood of a martyr.” Scholars such as Edward Said and Frantz Fanon argue that the Occident utilize literature/media to construct the identity of the marginalized “other” in order to validate atrocities committed against nonwhites and to maintain a space of positional power in the world. While most believe that colleges or universities are centers for intellectual thought or cultural freedom; in actuality these so-called schools of thought are merely structures that reflect and support age-old philosophy of the West. In most classrooms, the professor, functions as a God or demigod, spreading his or her knowledge (which in most cases in steeped in West philosophy) to students who are expected to accept it as truth. If not, the student is punished in a number of ways (especially if it is a student of color). With that being said, I am not surprised that professors,scholars, or journalist function as the voice for the whole because even the most militant professionals have been educated in western schools of thought. In a perfect world, education systems would emulate the call and response paradigm of the black church allowing the marginalized a space to respond back to the Occident in the same way the congregation responds positively or negatively to the preacher’s message. Preach on Bro Davey preach on!!!
I learned a long time ago that perception is stronger than reality (especially in this country). To take that a step further, a person’s perception IS their reality. Throughout history, many have mastered this concept. Some have used this knowledge with good intentions and humbled hearts. Others have used it with selfish irresponsibility. Historically, many people in positions of power have designed several systems and processes that significantly influence and subsequently control the perceptions of those not in power. They do this because in reality, they are not more powerful than the masses they oppress. Therefore, they have to create and sustain perceptions in order to maintain that appearance of power. The ways it has manifested throughout history are almost endless. They will withhold resources, promote divisive propaganda, misrepresent historical facts, misrepresent religious facts, mis/sub educate, etc. Basically, they’ll covertly create many forms of chaos, then publicly present themselves as the power to defeat chaos (and pocket trillions in the process). This has been going on for as long as people have walked the Earth. That’s why Pat Buchanan came out like that. Though his opinions may seem narrow-minded, he is not uneducated. He knew the things that he said aren’t true. He also knows that retractions are never seen by no where near the amount of people who saw the first story. Thus, his objective was not to spread truth. There’s pre-measured return value in the reactions that intentionally seeded chaos brings.
We’ve allowed the powerful to dictate the order of our value system. As a result, the pursuit of money, materials, and sex are the top objectives of most Americans. Things like health, education, and spirit are far down on the list. We’ve allowed ourselves to become like them, and want what they want. A value system like that will ultimately lead to self destruction. It affects all races, but Blacks and Latinos seem to catch it the hardest.
As long as our value system has us on the great ‘paper chase’, we will always fall victim to (as a previous reply eluded to) this western philosophy, which is quickly becoming a world philosophy. We can counter this mindset if we change what we value. If we, for example, reverted back to when Spirit, home, and school were at the top of the list, then the perceptions would not have lasting effects if any. Instead of choosing things/lifestyles with predetermined limited fates, we’ve got to start making choices that create unlimited choices. We can’t allow people like Buchanan to re-write the history books to suit their purposes.
I can’t believe that someone would say that America was built by white people. It’s painfully obvious that it wasn’t, but it is getting destroyed by white people…
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Props to Rachel for setting the facts straight. And why do Buchanan, Dubya, and the guy from the 700 club all look like cousins?
Rachel Maddow definitely did the right thing instead of the white thing and deserves respect for that.
As for Pat Buchanan his message is targeted toward a specific audience as others have said. I’m sure he reaches that audience too and in doing so helps create greater misinformation, confusion and general disunity amongst the people.
Which leaves it to folks like Davey D and each of us in our capacities to reach out to create understanding and connection amongst the people.
peace
ROFL!
Ol’ Pat is just speaking out his arse. The GOPers (and some Demo’s) are comedy central these days…
They built the “percuilair institution” of slavery and “institutional racism”, but everything else was stolen. I beleive Thomas Payne or whoever the philosopher observer of America was who said the same thing. They created nothing! Only stole everyone esle’s stuff and made a hodge podge calling it a “melting pot”.
Very good article. I actually saw this clip when it was first introduced. Thanks Maddow for speaking up…. Going forward we as a people must make sure that our history is heard and the truth is told, as we can see they must rewrite history to further their agenda of keeping the masses ignorant and scared.
Also, Davey D thanks for the “Black Wall Street”.
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here are a few words of chaos:
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