COLOR OF CHANGE (U.S) : KERNER AT 50.

05/03/2018

Dear friend. 

I would like to extend a personal invite for you to join Color Of Change and FreePress, along with some special guests, for an online discussion on forcing a new level of accountability from journalists and media makers. Register here for "Owning Our Stories: Kerner 50 Years On"

The biggest challenge in social justice work is shifting the assumptions that underlie the issues we fight for, which is necessary to enable real, lasting change. Each night on the news, we’re bombarded with images that further inaccurate narratives about Black people and our families. The most dangerous of these is the one that depicts poverty as an unfortunate condition that people have brought upon themselves, as opposed to an unjust and intolerable system intentionally built to benefit a chosen few instead of our country at large. The media has long played this insidious role in American culture. In 1968, the Kerner Commission, convened by President Lyndon Johnson, released a report on the root causes of the civil unrest that took place across the country in 1967 in Black neighborhoods around the country. Their findings included a damning critique of the media.

The commission warned that our nation was “moving toward two societies, one black and one white — separate and unequal,” and that media needed to accept and correct its unfortunate role in exacerbating that schism. 50 years later the report remains all too relevant. We know that we need media to challenge, not reinforce, the system now, as much as ever.

Join us for a virtual town hall as together we’ll discuss the state of our media and how we can fight back.

Color Of Change started in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, because we saw like everyone else, that poor people, overwhelmingly Black, had been let down not just by the government, but by a corporatized media that exploits white fear of Black violence and perpetuates narratives that blame the very people harmed most by poverty—for the deeply flawed decision making and structures that cause it. For twelve years, we have worked to highlight how local and national news outlets both intentionally and incidentally inject harmful bias into public opinion. We have taken on Fox News, working to force misinformation zealots like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly off the air, and challenged practices in local television news rooms in New York City, which were found to inaccurately over-associate Black people with crime by 75%.¹

And this past December we released a report that shows that in the dawning era of Trumpism, many of the mainstream media outlets that have proclaimed themselves the saviors of good journalism, are the very ones that helped push harmful narratives about Black families. ²

Add your voice to the discussion on how we can force a new level of accountability from journalists and media makers.

Most of us, whether we want to or not, form our opinion of what’s real and true based on what we see in the media- on television, in the newspapers, on our movie and computer screens. And even when we turn off our televisions, decisions made about us are shaped by how our humanity is viewed by others and shown in media - everything from what type of health services we receive, to the quality of air that we breath, to whether our lives can be taken without a question of why.

Our pain (and sometimes joy) is often hijacked and used for “front page” fodder, our stories are told without our consent, our voice, or our context. And everyday too many of our communities- Black, Brown and indigenous people, poor people, women, LGBTQ folks and others- are let down by “a press that repeatedly, if unconsciously, reflects the biases, the paternalism, the indifference of white America.” ³ By doing so, they not only fail those who rely on the news for accurate reporting, but they also fail families by reinforcing unfounded assumptions about them, helping to justify bad federal and state economic policies that will doom American families for generations to come.

Join us, next Thursday to hear about how we can continue to fight for a fair and accurate media and weigh in with your thoughts- we hope to see you online!

Until justice is real, 

Rashad, Arisha, Brandi, Johnny, Jade, Janaya, Evan, Corina, Chad, Mary, Saréya, Eesha, Angela and the rest of the Color Of Change team

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References :

1. Not to Be Trusted : Dangerous Levels of Inaccuracy in TV Crime Reporting in NYC.  https://act.colorofchange.org/go/24929?t=9&akid=9522%2E1942551%2EEMSGmP
2. A Dangerous Distortion of our Families, Representations of families, by race, in news and opinion media  https://act.colorofchange.org/go/24930?t=11&akid=9522%2E1942551%2EEMSGmP
3. The Kerner Report (The James Madison Library in American Politics),  https://act.colorofchange.org/go/24931?t=13&akid=9522%2E1942551%2EEMSGmP

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Color Of Change is building a movement to elevate the voices of Black folks and our allies, and win real social and political change. Help keep our movement strong.