Will the Black Press Step Up To the Plate – The Substance of Truth

President Barack Hussein Obama II was sworn in as the nation’s first African-American president on January 20th, 2009, but a stunning reality, in spite of this historic event, tames all notions of “how far we’ve come.” As the President and his Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, have stepped into the briefing room, they, along with the world, have been confronted by a sobering reality. The overwhelming number of journalists, whose job it is to reflect the diversity and novelty of the country, resemble the essential color of the building itself – white. Save for the presence of a few reporters (April Ryan, Suzanne Malveaux, Helen Thomas, etc.), Obama’s White House briefing room refuses to let go the demons of the past – change we can believe in?

The PBS host, Tavis Smiley, took note of this sad truth a couple of weeks ago: “The media needs to look more like America… If we can have a president who is Black, why can’t we make these other institutions reflect the diversity that is America? The problem is that… the same people who run these news operations, who don’t want to put people of color in positions of power to cover these stories, are the very same people putting on tuxedos and Ball-gowns… to celebrate that there is a Black person in the White House.”

In the coming years, as the snow-white press corps seeks to challenge Obama on the pressing uses facing the country, of what use is the Black Press to an administration it helped cheerlead into victory? Is the Black Press willing to step up to the plate and hold Obama accountable, or does it prefer the modest role of defending him at all costs – in a pathetic attempt to ward off inevitable racist characterizations of the Black President?

In the last half-century – though long before then (a la The Crisis, Freedom’s Journal and The North Star) – the Black Press has always functioned as the conscience of Western Journalism. From the publication of a picture bearing Emmett Till’s disfigured head in Jet magazine, following the infamous 1955 lynching episode; to accurately documenting Dr. King/ Malcolm X’s human-rights movement thereafter, and the hellish conditions Black and Brown folks were entrenched in; to remaining true to its vision during the rise of the Black Panthers, in the late ‘60s and ‘70s; to celebrating the barriers broken by Shirley Chisholm’s historic presidential run in the ‘70s, and representing the true significance of Jesse Jackson’s similar bid in the ‘80s, it’s clear that Black journalists are an intricate part of the success and prosperity of the Black freedom movement. Certainly, the ‘90s would yield less encouragement, as the “first Black president” wined and dined the Black Press corps into crowning him a friend, ally and comrade of the Black Community – never mind the unprecedented spike in incarceration of Black males and females, through the 1994 crime bill; or the erosion of “welfare as we know it;” or his enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which would siphon over 900,000 jobs from within disenfranchised communities – disproportionately black.

In the last decade, the Black Press has shown itself incapable of functioning within the racist cocoons of mainstream media. With all due and earned respect, one cannot expect journalists such as Suzanne Malveaux, Soledad O’Brien, or Eugene Robinson to accurately represent Blackness in a non-stereotypical way. CNN’s exploration of what it means to be “Black in America” helped paralyze all possibilities of Black journalists telling our story with the truth front and center of the depiction. The CNN report, fronted by Soledad O’Brien, was overwhelmingly indicted as a White supremacist misrepresentation of Black American lifestyle. With scenes encouraging educators to pay Black students to attend school regularly, and another which featured the host pleading with a Black man to promote more consistency in his fatherhood responsibilities, the harsh response it received was quite logical. Numerous Op-Eds and Blog reviews saw right through CNN’s devious motives, and never once wavered in calling it an opportunistic stunt, packaged by a megalomaniac corporate empire to double ratings.

At CNN, and other mainstream networks, Soledad O’Brien is not alone in sponsoring racist and bigoted portrayals of Black figures. At TV and print headquarters, Black journalists are predominantly used as parrots to propagate racist perceptions, and analysis, of the Black American experience. That way, the white networks are unscathed in advancing their agenda, without being branded racists. Suzanne Malveaux, CNN anchor and reporter, is a guru in this field of play.

During the media-created Rev. Jeremiah Wright fiasco, last summer, Ms. Malveaux was privileged to interview First Lady Michelle Obama, shortly after Dr. Wright’s brilliant appearance at the National Press Club on April 28, 2008. Unlike the unbiased and serious journalist CNN would rather suggest she is, Ms. Malveaux admittedly went straight for the “headlines,” as opposed to the “issues” most pertinent to voters. Asking Ms. Obama if Rev. Wright “betray[ed]” her by suggesting President Obama’s denunciation was a political move, she proceeded to question the First Lady on “how painful” it was to watch the Press-conference a couple of days earlier. Ms. Obama’s persistent desire to “move forward,” and “stay focused” on issues of substance was no match for Malveaux’s follow-up question to find out at what “point” the Obamas stopped “empathizing… with your pastor, and you thought, here’s something that’s over the line; it’s over the top.” Ms. Obama was bitterly wrong to hope Malveaux would “move into the next phase” and “talk about something else,” as the veteran journalist informed the First Lady that “[t]here are some people who I spoke with who have been trying, on your behalf, on your husband’s behalf, to close this and to go to him [Rev. Wright] and say, look, you know, this is enough. Enough is enough… But they also describe him as someone who is vindictive, and perhaps there is no buttoning up when it comes to whether or not he’s going to come out and talk again.” An unpleased Michelle Obama would, following the interview, scold Malveaux, reminding her that “people don’t care about this as much as you all do.” An intimidated Suzanne Malveaux would reply that perhaps they aren’t as “curious” and “upset” as the National Press corps is. Michelle Obama, asking Malveaux to “welcome that” spirit of journalistic maturity, in order to “grow,” left Malveaux at a loss for words. What the First Lady failed to point out is that Malveaux is simply a classic case of the normalized tradition of appointing Black faces as acceptable representations of White-Supremacist values.

If the Black Press is to collectively rise to the occasion of critiquing the current administration, when necessary, and holding it accountable to the promises and pledges made in the heat of the campaign, it must cease its current function as cheerleaders and baby-sitters for the Obama administration. In the ‘08 Presidential Race, the Black Press, with the exception of independent organizations (a la BlackCommentator.com), never once budged in its chillingly, disproportionate embracement of Obama’s campaign, every step of the way. Its uncritical support of the president made Obama take Black folks less seriously in the course of the ‘08 presidential election.