Today I was going to sit back and watch some more of the “Non-Impeachment” of Donald John Trump… but if those honky’s think I’m not going to say anything about that reporter… OMG.. did I say honky’s? I meant “homie’s…”
An Expectation Of Conduct
In the above example most of my friends could reasonably take my word on face value that I made a mistake… and meant to say “homie’s.” That’s because they know me and have an expectation of my conduct, as I have an expectation of theirs. I can’t say the same thing about a person who I just saw on a television show for a few moments… saying something that sounded like the “N” word… especially a personality who use to be a news anchor for one the most conservative and racially insensitive networks in the country… Fox News. I have no idea what that person is capable of. What I can say about televised media, is that for all the good they have done, they have also been a bulwark and chief disseminator of discriminatory racist indoctrination since the advent of the medium.
Alison Morris mistakenly using the “N” word.
Perception Is Ninety Nine Percent Of Reality
So it didn’t surprise me when on national TV the storied Los Angeles Lakers were referred to as the “Los Angeles “Nigg*rs.” Even in the midst of tragedy and death, I knew somewhere, some racist would use the occasion to inflict more pain. Back in January of 2013 a similar so called gaffe happened on Fox Television 5 in Washington DC. Just four days before President Obama inauguration, Holly Morris gave a report in which she seemed to say “Yes I am here at the Williard Hotel In Washington DC… a key “nigg*r” inaugural spot,” and yeah, some came to her rescue too. But a lot of people don’t know about Holly, like the time when a black teen who had just gotten accepted to four Ivy League colleges on scholarships was called “obnoxious,” because she thought by him being accepted to those colleges, his success was taking away from “other” students. What “other” students do you think she is talking about? A lot of us don’t know that there are numerous petitions calling for her to be fired for her racist attitude.
Holly Morris mistakenly using the “N” word.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ― Edmund Burke.”
In 1980 CNN launched the first 24 hr cable news network. Sixteen years later it’s competitor, Fox News went live in 1996. Before that time it was a simple 15 or 30 minute format. The first television show aired in 1928 and it would be almost another 25 years in January of 1952 when the Today Show would premier. It was the first and is the oldest television news show in the world. In December of 1951 a paper called “We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro People,” was presented to the United Nations at meeting in Paris by the Civil Rights Congress. It charged the United States with black genocide, lynchings, discrimination, police brutality, disenfranchisement of southern blacks and systematic inequalities in health and quality of life. It was based on the UN’s own definition of genocide. The news received international media attention. Do you know what they were talking about on the first news show in the United States… burning polyester sweaters. It took vicious dogs, fire hoses, mace and the beatings of men, women and children for black people to be on the news and another 15 years to get “closer” to Edmund Burke’s idea of the triumph of evil when Martin Luther King told the world about his dream.
You Can’t Always Get What You Wooount!!
In 1978 the first black news anchor appeared on ABC World News Tonight alongside Frank Reynolds and Peter Jennings. His name was Max Robinson. Robinson’s ABC tenure was marked by conflicts between himself and the management of ABC News over the portrayal of Black America in the news. As a young black man in 1978, I can attest to the fact that we as a people were getting a steady diet of “yes boss” and “no boss” commercials. Our TV shows were about poor black people, black people who were servants, or mischievous illiterate black children. Robinson was a bright light in all that darkness. Even though Robinson was known to fight racism at any turn, he often felt unworthy of the admiration he received. After a tumultuous career at ABC, Robinson left in 1983. As an aside, one of the first stations Robinson reported at was our very own WRC TV channel 4 in Washington DC. He stayed for three years, winning six journalism awards for coverage of civil-rights events such as the riots that followed the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was during this time that Robinson won two regional Emmys for a documentary he made on black life in Anacostia entitled The Other Washington. In 1969, Robinson joined the Eyewitness News team at WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C. Robinson was teamed with anchor Gordon Peterson, becoming the first African-American anchor on a local television news program and the show was a resounding success. During that time, he was so well-liked by viewers that when Hanafi Muslims took hostages at the B’nai B’rith building in Washington they would speak only with Robinson. Robinson retired from WMAQ in Chicago in 1985. In the fall of 1988, Robinson was in Washington to deliver a speech at Howard University’s School of Communications when he became ill and checked himself into Howard University Hospital where he died from AIDS complications on December 20, 1988.
Brother, I’m Getting Ready To Go…
Okay, I know you ready to go and you are ready for me to make my point. Well first I have shown two example of what television means for blacks on both sides of the camera. Neither side of the camera has shown a propensity to black people or for black causes. I have shown two examples of news reporters making so called mistakes and somehow their mistakes always end up with us being called “nigg*rs.” How come in all of these years of programming you never heard of someone slipping up and slurring a Jew or Asian or Latino? You know why? Because they won’t allow it. They want to know why is an extremely talented, well trained, well paid and highly educated presenter mistakenly using racial slurs about their ethnic group? They are not going to have it and neither should we. If you can’t do your job without mistakenly calling somebody a “nigg*er” than you need to be fired. There are thousands of reporters who go decades and make far less then some do, who have never made that type of mistake. This mistakenly calling us “nigg*ers must be stopped in its tracks… and nobody can do that but us.
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