This week on CounterSpin: Black History Month has always been something of a double-edged sword: It implies that Black history is somehow not "history," that it has to be shoehorned in, "artificially," to garner any value, with the corollary implication that if you choose to ignore it, you aren't missing anything crucial.
The idea that Black Americans are somehow something other than (meaning "less than") "real" Americans is stupid, toxic…and fully in play, as reflected in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's response to a reporter's question about efforts to suppress Black people's voting rights with the statement that "the concern is misplaced because, if you look at the statistics, African-American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.” So: There's a reason Black people feel a need to lift up our particular history--our efforts and accomplishments, in and despite the context of violent, systemic harm we live in--that distinguishes that from the bland and euphemistic vision that usually passes as "US history."
What matters is how the history of Black people is approached, discussed and integrated into what's happening today. Journalists, of course, have an opportunity to do that work every month, not just the shortest.
Last year, we saw some open media acknowledgement of an event previously shrouded in silence and ignorance: the Tulsa, Oklahoma massacre of 1921. The layers of that story, the roles played by various actors, make it especially relevant for news media, who, to fully tell it, need to reflect on their own role, then…and now.
We talked about the Tulsa massacre around its anniversary last June, with Joseph Torres, senior director of strategy and engagement at the group Free Press, and co-author with Juan González of the crucial book News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media. He works, as does CounterSpin's Janine Jackson, with Media 2070, a consortium of media-makers and activists that are detailing the history of US media participation in anti-Black racism, as well as collectively dreaming reparative policies, interventions and futures.
We hear from Joseph Torres about Tulsa this week on the show.
Plus Janine Jackson takes a very quick look at media coverage of Ukraine.
