The Continued Distortion of the Black American Family

Why does American media continue to distort
the reality of the black family?

From my perspective, the recent ground-breaking report that was co-produced by the progressive non-profit organizations Color of Change and Family Story is a must-read.

"A Dangerous Distortion Of Our Families", represents one of the most important pieces of research to reveal detailed insight into an issue that has plagued the United States in one form or another since the 18th century:

The ongoing distortion of the broader perception of the African-American family by the media, whether intentional (which the study indicates it often is), or not.

The actual research of the study was conducted by Dr. Travis L. Dixon, a professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.



Dr. Dixon was interviewed about the study on a segment of The Brian Lehrer Show last Tuesday morning along with the chief marketing officer of Color of Change Rashad Shabazz - definitely worth a listen if you want to click on that link above and hear their thoughts and observations.

The research confirmed concerns and complaints that writers, activists, academicians, clergy, politicians and concerned citizens have voiced for years - the continued widespread distortions of the black family in popular media and news coverage in America.

The study dives into the degree to which provably-false narratives about issues like black poverty, parenting and criminality by both news media and entertainment (film and television), are still embedded within popular American culture.

To the extent that many Americans who don't actually know, work with or socialize with African-Americans on any kind of regular or meaningful basis, do not "see" a true representation of the black family in the news media and entertainment they consume on a daily basis.

During their interview with Brian Lehrer on Tuesday, Dixon and Shabazz detailed how the kinds of perpetuated racial stereotypes identified in the study impact the implementation of public policy on the local, state and national level - including the recent Republican tax bill.

Obviously I'm not an academic, but I've read through parts of the report and the research seems quite  comprehensive.

University of Illinois Professor Dr. Travis L. Dixon

As part of the study, Dixon analyzed over 800 different news stories and op-eds that were published in print or online, or that aired on television or radio, between January 2015 and December 2016.

When the divisive, racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Trump campaign was at a fever pitch - and the toxic "otherism" that was (and continues to be) the defining plank of his overall message was being continually circulated in the inordinate news coverage that Trump received.

The news stories and op-eds were examined for the context in which they portrayed the African-American family.

And it wasn't just conservative media outlets that were analyzed either.

Dixon analyzed stories from CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC, national and local newspapers (including the New York Times and Washington Post) from all parts of the country - as well as ideologically-conservative Websites like Brietbart and Christian-themed media outlets that promote conservative policies.

While the focus of the study is on how African-Americans are portrayed in the media, it offers valuable perspective on the 21st century definition of the American family,  a subject that is the overall mission of Family Story, the co-producer of the study - an organization which seeks to enlighten the public on the diverse definitions of what "family" means in American society today.

And it also offers insight into the growing economic divide in America that was further widened by the recent passing of the Republican's tax bill - a shameful, overreaching and irresponsible piece of legislation that was passed, in part, by conservatives who utilized rhetoric laced with some of the very same flagrant distortions of Black Americans highlighted in the study. 

With Christmas falling on a Monday this year, my guess is that some of you (hopefully) reading this will have some spare time over the next few days, I'd recommend that you to take some time to read through it - you can click here to go to the Color of Change Website to download a PDF copy of the full report, or read a digital copy on the Website.

For those unfamiliar with their emails, Color of Change was founded back in 2005 by social justice advocate Van Jones and former MoveOn.org volunteer James Rucker following the national outcry over the botched federal response to the devastation in New Orleans and surrounding areas caused by Hurricane Katrina.

It was established based on the progressive online activism model of MoveOn.org, utilizing email and social media to coordinate massive targeted responses to specific issues related to racism, injustice, poverty, voter disenfranchisement and the distortion of African-Americans by media outlets.

Right-wing nutjob Glenn Beck with his chainsaw gun

Over the years Color of Change has leveraged Web-based activism to tackle a range of issues.

From the NRA-supported "Stand Your Ground" laws in Florida which enabled racist psychopath George Zimmerman to walk after stalking and murdering unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin.

To targeting the corporate advertisers of former Fox News host Glenn Beck after his deranged public comments accusing President Obama of being a racist who hated white people.

While I've signed a number of online petitions from Color of Change in support of their grassroots activist efforts, and donated a few dollars to them in the past, I first heard about their joint study on The Brian Lehrer Show last Tuesday morning.

Some of the highlights of the study were things I'd seen, known of and written about - but I'd never seen the distortion of the African-American family verified with research before.

For example as the study highlights, 59% of the families depicted in news media stories about the poor were black - when in fact only 27% of families living below the poverty line in America are black.

Or think about this one, if you see a news media piece on television about welfare recipients or welfare reform, chances are that the "b-roll" footage you see in the background as a reporter does a voice-over will show black people standing in lines at a government office.

But as the study highlights, 60% of the families shown in news media stories about welfare were black, when 42% of welfare recipients in America are black.

Americans in a bread line in The Bowery in the 30's

The reality is that over 60% of people who receive welfare assistance in the United States are white, but it's unlikely you will see images of white people standing in line at a government office in a news report about welfare.

As Dr. Dixon observed in his interview last Tuesday, when millions of white Americans were receiving some form of public assistance during the Great Depression in the 1930's under the New Deal, politicians never stigmatized welfare recipients by characterizing them as "lazy".

The mainstream news media continually present a distorted image of what poverty looks like in America, painting a picture that equates being black with poverty - when in fact poverty in America is far more diverse than how the news media and popular entertainment typically present it.

Quick example: when I lived in Brooklyn, it was common knowledge that large segments of the Hasidic Jewish population in certain areas were on welfare - as someone who considers himself a news junkie I can tell you with absolute certainty that I've never once seen a Hasidic man or woman in a television news report about welfare in the United States.

Interestingly, last Wednesday I was listening to a segment on Fresh Air, host Terri Gross was interviewing filmmaker Jonathan Olshefski and North Philadelphia music producer Christopher Rainey about Olshefski's documentary about Rainey's family.

Filmmaker Jonathan Olshefski  & the Rainey family

The documentary, Quest, chronicles Rainey and his wife's lives from 2006 when President Obama was first elected, until Trump's election in 2016.

It's actually a really fascinating story if you have some time to listen to the interview with Terri Gross.

Some aspects of the challenges Rainey's family faced living in North Philly reflect the issues outlined in Dr. Dixon's study.

For example, after Terri Gross asked Rainey to describe the North Philly neighborhood where he lives and has his music studio, Rainey mentioned the close-knit nature of the community populated with many long-time residents.

He noted that many of the local buildings were constructed in the late 1800's and some of the streets still have cobblestones.

But he also quickly noted the distorted perception most people have of North Philly from the way the neighborhood is so often portrayed in a negative light by the local television news media.

So again, the study is definitely worth a read, as part of its examination of the distortion of the black family it also delves into the perpetuated myth of the absent black father - a topic I last blogged about back in January of 2014 after the release of a CDC study on the role of fathers in family health and child development.

Trump's racist appeal to black voters in 2016

The distortion of African-Americans by the media and major institutions is a theme I've revisited on this blog, one that's obviously personal to me.

The study co-produced by Color of Change and Family Story is especially important in the age of Donald Trump.

A man who regularly dispenses uninformed wildly-distorted stereotypes of "others", particularly African-Americans.

Remember the eye-opening comments Trump gave back on Friday August 19, 2016 as he was polling at historic lows with people of color?  When he made a desperate hail-Mary pass to try and woo African-American voters to support his candidacy?

During an appearance in the mostly-white Michigan suburb of Dimondale, after trashing his opponent Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party for taking the votes of African-Americans for granted, he famously went off-script and asked black voters for their support with this asinine statement / question:

"You're living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed - what the hell do you have to lose?" 

If you look past the flagrant ignorance of a statement like that, it's a prime example of someone whose perceptions of black Americans are so distorted, that he literally has no understanding of the actual reality of the African-American family.

"Liberal media"? A snapshot of MSNBC political
coverage during a month in the 2016 presidential race 

Most African-Americans do not live in poverty, but that the fact that Trump believes they do reflects the kind of distorted inaccuracies that are continually re-circulated on Fox News, Alex Jones' InfoWars, or Brietbart - where Trump gets most of his "information".

When he sees people of color, he sees a myth.

The steady diet of "other-ism" based on the continued denigration of basically anyone who doesn't look or worship like him would be his own business save for the fact that he's the president.

And as Dr. Dixon's study notes, that kind of alarming ignorance informs his (and other Republican's) public policy positions - the result is a government enacting laws and legislation based on myths and distorted truths.

The end result is a dangerous cycle that ends up feeding itself, with policies like the Republican tax bill that only end up reinforcing the false narratives the legislation is partly based on in the first place.

Sound crazy? It is.

A sick feedback loop that leaves many Americans, not just African-Americans either, obscured and stigmatized - reduced to a simplistic one-dimensional stereotype that empowers the political, ideological and financial needs of those who would use it to leverage their own needs.

Anyway here's to organizations like Color of Change and Family Story for engaging in the hard work of helping people to understand and change this false narrative - let's hope Dr. Dixon's study can be a tool to awaken people to the realities of 21st century America.

As we approach the 2018 mid-term elections, let's hope an undistorted view of American society can help serve the truth rather than the narrow self interests the recent Republican tax bill aims to appease.

Dr. Dixon's study isn't a magic cure, but it's a pretty good start.

Can a Sister Get a Break? Rihanna & Shonda Rhimes Wrestle With Big Media

Chris Brown's erie tattoo (L) Rihanna after being beaten by Brown in '09 (R) 

With flat wage growth, a hiring rate that is steadily inching up but still sluggish and millions of people chronically under-employed or stuck in jobs that don't pay living wages, the lingering after affects of the Great Recession are making these tough times for many average working class people in the US.

But Department of Labor statistics released two weeks ago show that black American women are a  particularly hard hit demographic when it comes to economic recovery.

The study shows that the unemployment rate amongst black women remains high at 10.6% - that hasn't changed since the same period 12 months ago. Compare that to the overall unemployment rate which has dipped to 6.2%. One reason?

The study suggests that as a percentage of employees, women of color were over represented in federal, state and local municipal jobs - so when Republican lawmakers began slashing government jobs across the nation, black women suffered disproportionately. The reality is that many working class sisters are finding it much more difficult to get back into the workforce; much more so than their white, Hispanic or Asian counterparts. Don't look for that on the Tea Party's agenda, it doesn't even seem to be on the Democratic Party's radar at the moment. 

Last week the media was also tough on some high profile black women at the top of the economic scale too.
 
The Website Color of Change.org launched an online petition demanding that the New York Times retract a controversial Op-Ed piece written by Alessandra Stanley that took highly successful television producer/writer Shonda Rhimes to task for writing characters that are "angry black women".

Rhimes is best known for television shows like Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice and Scandal featuring strong female characters who are confident and outspoken, but also multidimensional, sensitive and compassionate. If Stanley had watched more than say, five episodes of Grey's Anatomy, she would realize Rhimes' characters are ethnically diverse and ALL of them deliver opinionated rants on a range of topics at various times - but only the black female characters are "angry"? Hmmm.

Rhimes took to Twitter on Friday to deconstruct Stanley's arguments in typically eloquent fashion and created something of an online backlash against Stanley, who obviously picked the wrong target and got called out for a sloppily-written Op-Ed.

Speaking of highly publicized Twitter responses, singer Rihanna also took to Twitter to express her anger at CBS for pulling the Jay-Z song "Run This Town", which features Rihanna's vocals, from the television intro for its Thursday Night Football broadcast.

The media dust-up began the week before last when CBS decided to pull the intro in light of the public outcry over the release of the elevator footage of Ray Rice punching his then-fiancé in the face.

CBS pulled "Run This Town" from the televised intro prior to the September 11th national broadcast of the Baltimore Ravens - Pittsburgh Steelers game and replaced it with different theme music. Given that Ray Rice was the Ravens starting running back before he was suspended indefinitely by the NFL, the CBS decision to pull the song does make sense because of the potential risk to the brand.

The possibility of unforeseen media blowback from associating both the CBS and NFL brands (and their advertisers) with a celebrity who was herself a highly-publicized victim of domestic abuse could have very easily been taken in the wrong way and had unintended consequences.

While I respect Rihanna as an artist, global fame and stardom came to her at a very young age.

She's been ensconced within a retinue of managers, lawyers, handlers and publicists
(her own family has complained publicly of not being able to contact her at times) for years, so I'm not sure she actually realizes just how deeply shocked many people were by her decision to rekindle her relationship with Chris Brown in 2009 not long after the vicious beating he gave her. She also reunited with him again in 2011.

While one might certainly express a degree of admiration for her capacity to forgive someone as emotionally disturbed as Chris Brown, many people ultimately viewed her choice as immature and foolish; one reflective of an almost juvenile determination to date a "bad boy" and "fix him".

Rhihanna didn't catch heat because she tried to make her relationship with Chris Brown work, but because she came off as young and dangerously uninformed on the realities of domestic abuse.

Her decision flew in the face of volumes of credible data on the patterns of domestic abuse; one in four women has been a victim. She seemed unaware of the four phases of domestic abuse as described by Lenore Walker in 'The Dynamics of Domestic Violence - The Cycle of Violence' .

As documented on the Family and Child Abuse Prevention Center Website, Phase 3 follows the actual physical violence that takes place in Phase 2 and is known as the "Honeymoon Phase" where the abuser expresses deep remorse, apologizes profusely and:

"Many abusers will buy gifts, flowers, etc. so that the victim will forgive the abuse. Oftentimes the abuser will promise to go into treatment voluntarily, that the violence will never occur again, and that he or she will "Change"." 

I read that quote and think back to the famous photos of her and Brown jet-skiing around Florida together not long after he'd pummeled her; look at the picture above, would you even consider going jet-skiing with some guy who did that to you?

Personally I can't imagine how frustrating it must be for Rihanna to be put into the position where she's still having to deal with the repercussions of being a victim of domestic abuse five years after her violent encounter with Brown.

But the reality is that she is also dealing with the repercussions of the message that her choice to reunite with Chris Brown sent to the public. On one hand she remains defiant about wanting her personal life to remain private. Yet, look at any issue of Rolling Stone in the past couple years.

I'm a subscriber and I can tell you that more often than not, the "Random Notes" section which features color photos of famous musicians, has a photo of Rhihanna in a swim-suit with a drink in her hand hanging out in Ibiza or some other exclusive sunny vacation spot hanging out.

For instance, look at page 34 of the September 25th issue of RS with Taylor Swift on the cover. There's Rhihanna (with a drink in her hand...) floating in the waters off the island of Ponza, Italy celebrating the end of her Monster Tour. The photo caption reads: "RiRi and her entourage snorkeled in old pirate caves on the island of Ponza."

Now I'm not judging her personal life at all. If Rihanna wants to party on a yacht off Monaco with her friends, hey more power to her. She's a successful adult artist who's entitled to recreational down time and she can do with her time and money whatever she wants. 

But you don't get to saturate the media with images of yourself to promote your career as an entertainer then complain about the public prying into your private life.

When CBS pulled the song from their national prime time broadcast, they were just trying to be sensitive to the issue of domestic abuse, because they couldn't predict how the public would react to Rihanna's voice promoting a game involving the Baltimore Ravens with video of Ray Rice punching his fiance in the face making headlines and overshadowing the game itself.

The images of Rihanna's beautiful face all bruised, battered and swollen after Chris Brown attacked her are stuck in the public sub-conscious; like it or not she always WILL be linked to the issue of domestic abuse.

I can understand Rihanna being angry at CBS for having distanced themselves from the trauma she suffered. But maybe she should remember that domestic abuse affects millions of people, and many of those people simply still have a hard time understanding why anyone would willingly go back into a relationship with someone who would hit, and bite you like that.

And then get a tattoo of the photo of what he did drawn on his neck? I don't even want to know what that is about.

Can Rihanna really blame CBS for not wanting any part of that? I don't think so; her being a victim of Brown's violence wasn't her fault but it certainly wasn't CBS's decision for her to get back in a relationship with him either.