While some viewers find videos depicting police violence, racism, and other forms of abuse eye-opening, marginalized people—and specifically, people of color—may also find them traumatic, triggering, and otherwise terrifying. Media coverage of these viral videos is another element worth discussing, and speaks to a bigger picture issue: The media has a responsibility to cover stories on civil rights violations, including those that quickly roll across the internet. As president of Color of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization, Rashad Robinson tells Daily Kos in an interview that the media has an obligation to do more than just cover these stories—it should cover them with real intention and dig deeply into the issues.
“Far too often, the media covers issues of civil rights as unfortunate, almost like a car accident, rather than unjust,” Robinson explains for our Making Progress video series. “As a result, we get stories that don't have a systemic lens, that almost seems like these stories sort of popped out of thin air or these problems just came from nowhere.”
Robinson is exactly right. When the media is afraid to label behavior or words as “racist,” “homophobic,” “sexist,” and so on, dimension of these stories gets lost. Instead of the big picture behind civil rights issues getting air time, the identifying of possible causes, correlations, and relationships is seen as taboo and swept under the rug.
“Whether we're talking about jobs, or the economy, or policing, or so much more, these issues are oftentimes covered in a really shallow way,” Robinson continues. “And not with the type of depth that really helps everyday people figure out how they can make sense of the world and be better citizens and participants.”
Curious to hear what Robinson thinks about big tech companies like Facebook and Twitter? What about housing and real estate finance? Or the common response to tell people to just “get off Facebook” when it comes to privacy concerns? Robinson breaks it all down in this invigorating Making Progress interview. The interview transcript is below. You can also watch the interview here.
Question 1: How could the media improve its coverage of issues related to civil rights? Whose stories or what angles aren’t being explored?
Far too often, the media covers issues of civil rights as unfortunate, almost like a car accident, rather than unjust. And so as a result, we get stories that don't have a systemic lens, that almost seem like these stories sort of popped out of thin air or these problems just came from nowhere. So much of the problems that we face have been manufactured, manufactured by folks who have an incentive to profit off of certain challenges, to create certain problems for profit. And media doesn't oftentimes have that lens.
It's not just about diversity, but diversity is incredibly important. It's about intention. It's about digging in deep and really trying to understand why these problems exist. And so whether we're talking about jobs, or the economy, or policing, or so much more, these issues are oftentimes covered in a really shallow way. And not with the type of depth that really helps everyday people figure out how they can make sense of the world and be better citizens and participants.
Question 2: What should be done to ensure big tech companies like Facebook and Twitter are better protecting communities from hate and misinformation?
Like so many structures that have power over our lives, these companies cannot police themselves. Police can't police themselves. Doctors can't police themselves, and tech companies can't be trusted to police themselves. These companies, many of them, especially the bigger ones, have grown far too large to continue to exist in the current way.
Unfortunately, the powers that be in Washington and elsewhere don't yet have the incentive to make the changes that need to be made. But right now, what we do need is that these companies need to be broken up in different ways. Their power needs to be changed. Facebook has 2.3 billion users. That's more followers than Christianity.
And so, simply asking people to sign off from Facebook is not actually a strategy that changes the fundamental way that this company has become a utility and has so much impact over our lives. They have so much of our data. They dictate the terms of so many industries, from media and elsewhere. And so right now, from the FTC to the federal government, we need the type of leadership that's going to step in and create the type of rules and regulations that we needed the government to step in in the '20s and '30s to create for other industries.
At the same time, we are at the table with tech companies, pushing them and challenging and trying to get as much change as possible.
But make no mistake, we know that that change that we are getting is only a piece of the puzzle. Without fundamental structural change, these companies will continue to have the type of power over our lives that is not healthy for any democracy and is certainly not healthy for a functioning society.
Question 3: What are some ways we can counteract decades of discriminatory housing and real estate financing?
So we need deep investment. First, we need deep investment in communities to change those practices. You know, my family is a product of redlining—the places that black people could buy homes and the ways that the banks used their power and the ways that government aligned. But even in the era of redlining, Black folks were still buying homes. As banks became deregulated, as policies that held banks accountable started to be broken down, we saw even more dismantling of structures that helped to build Black wealth.
So about 1980 represented the sort of height, not just of school integration in this country, but also of the Black/white income gap closing. And as new rules came into place, those things started going the opposite way. And unfortunately, through other practices, whether it was the, you know, Depression that happened in the early 2000s and other things that kind of settled in and created rules where banks were able to basically steal the wealth of Black folks.
And so yes, we need new investment, but we also need new rules. And without those things, we're gonna continue to have these problems about Black/white income gaps, income gaps for people of color and others, that we talk about as, once again, you know, car accidents, like they just happened, without talking about them as injustice, without talking about who has manufactured inequality.
The final thing I'll say here is that when we talk about inequality as unfortunate rather than unjust, we end up with false solutions to problems. And so we end up with like financial literacy for Black families who have had their homes stolen, rather than the deep investments in Black communities. We end up with people sending water bottles to Flint instead of cleaning up the pipes, or cleaning up inner city schools instead of changing public education.
We actually have to have a structural conversation to structural problems, but we don't get there unless we build power, unless the people who these systems were built to destroy have the power to rewrite the narrative for their own liberation.
Bonus Question: If you could give your teenage self advice, what would it be?
You know, if I could give advice to my teenage self, I'd probably tell them to make some investments in hat companies, 'cause you're gonna be there one day. But no, really if I could tell my teenage self, I would say: You're gonna be all right. It will be okay. That the world will have space for you and all of the feelings of being an outsider, being weird, having ideas and having wants and desires that may not seem right, you're gonna be okay. And you're gonna be loved.
Be sure to check out our other Making Progress videos on allyship and racial justice, including with Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza and educator Prairie Rose Seminole. You can also follow the Daily Kos YouTube channel to find more interviews.