“Mainstream communication does not want women, particularly white women, responding to racism. It wants racism to be accepted as an immutable given in the fabric of your existence, like evening-time or the common cold.”
Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde (1934–1992) was a poet, essayist, librarian, feminist, and equal rights activist.
Linda hosts One-Liner Wednesday.
Riddle from the Middle 
That’s sadly because it’s all about control. I think it’s actually getting worse.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have to agree with this.
LikeLike
Apparently, there are injustices and victimizations that most Western media (i.e. news, literary, social and entertainment) cover or ignore as though those injustices/victimizations are ideologically and therefore socially/politically acceptable. Those media, especially the news outlets, can be credited for the creation and maintenance of current societal/institutional racial standards and even hypocrisies in Western society.
As a timely example, anti-Caucasian racism or violence can be expected to not receive objective coverage by the neo-liberal mainstream news-media, in particular The New York Times and Washington Post, quite unlike when the victim is Black and the accused is Caucasian.
Their justification? It’s likely because they’ve deemed such occurrences, however newsworthy, as not being a social/societal problem and therefore un-fit to publish. Over my decades of news consumption, I’ve heard this excuse more than once, although it’s not even their professional prerogative to do so in the first place. Such reporters/editors appear to feel they can be both journalistically activistic AND truly objective/professional; but they cannot. Instead, they notably compromise their integrity.
According to my journalism instructor approximately three decades ago, however,
the probable rarity of such an assault (in this case, anti-Caucasian racism or violence) would make it newsworthy; and the opposite would apply to the common or usual occurrence, such as that resulting from a recurring social/societal problem.
All the more disturbing and concerning about the mainstream news-media’s failure to condemn or even properly cover such racist assaults is that it encourages the justice system to not properly/fully charge and prosecute, if at all, those responsible.
Not only are the racist attackers not held criminally accountable, but they also notice the news-media downplaying the serious crime they’ve committed, likely leaving the impression that perhaps their vicious crime was actually morally justified. It’s in our flawed, if not corrupted, human nature (especially as children) to observe such societal cues and take advantage of them.
LikeLike
I’ve been sitting with your comment to see if I can process it. I agree that there’s a cyclical nature to media coverage — the media determines if something is worth covering, the event gains traction as it’s covered, thus making future events “more worthy” of coverage. It’s a complicated thing. I believe I may be struggling to sort out your points on anti-Caucasian violence, anti-Black violence, and media’s effect on future actions.
LikeLike
I think that’s still the case in 2025 with mainstream communication sadly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I absolutely agree.
LikeLike
Yes, this needs to be established that racism is not acceptable.
LikeLiked by 2 people
True. Change will only stick when we name it and refuse to brush over it as “just how things are”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exactly. 👍🏼
LikeLiked by 1 person
Regardless of skin color, such ugly and hateful sentiment is typically environmentally developed/acquired during childhood, often enough even passed down generationally, if not also genetically. Especially if it’s deliberate, exposing very impressionable young children to such an environment of baseless contempt and overt bigotry amounts to a formidable form of child abuse.
If the parents won’t do it for plain moral reasons, they then should do their own children a big favor by NOT passing down onto them such destructive anti-social/-societal sentiments and perceptions (including stereotypes and ‘humor’), since such rearing can readily make life much harder for those children.
It fails to prepare them for the practical reality of an increasingly diverse and populous society and workplace.
It also makes it so much less likely those children will be emotionally content or preferably harmonious with their multicultural and multi-ethnic/-racial surroundings. Children reared into their adolescence and, by extension, young adulthood this way can find themselves seemingly always feeling angry yet not really knowing exactly at what. They also may feel self-compelled to move to another part of the land, where their own ethnicity/race predominates, preferably overwhelmingly so.
This serious social/societal problem can/should be proactively prevented by allowing preferably-all young children to become accustomed to other races/cultures/faiths, etcetera, in a harmoniously positive manner.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very well analyzed my friend. The conscious and subconscious behavior and actions of parents drill these unwanted thoughts into their children’s minds.
LikeLike
Interesting thought. She has a point…
LikeLiked by 1 person
She does. There’s an uncomfortable ripple that happens when I talk about this stuff. It’s hard to explain the small (and sometimes big) glitch that happens but I feel it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
💛
LikeLike