I felt slightly disappointed by this NBC Nightly News series. “African American Women and Where They Stand” did not – could not? – offer the level of in-depth analysis and fresh perspective I anticipated. Clearly the producers and executives responded to the overwhelming buzz generated throughout the Black community, as Brian Williams commented on the large number of online responses at NBC.com.
However, this excitement did not lead to much more than ongoing sound-bite reportage. I yearned for more in-depth analysis of each topic. Luckily, Mara Shiavocampo provided much more thorough journalism with her Web-exclusive reports.
Shiavocampo asked the right questions, expressed a first-person experience with subject matter without violating journalistic integrity, and covered the provocative issue of women in Hip Hop. I was particularly impressed with her term, “Walking Bling,” which she defined as Black female eye candy, the vacuous beauty mindlessly gyrating in videos. We need more young journalists who are thinking about the issues they explore in balanced and meaningful ways. “Walking Bling” is a term that might catch on and help articulate a counter-narrative to the Culture of Black Female Degradation. Kudos to Shiavocampo for coining it. Shiavocampo also produced a video where several Black women discussed interracial dating. Her questions helped elevate the discourse around this still-sensitive topic. She elevated the discourse by simply letting a group of smart, professional sisters talk. She let their voices challenge those who would silence them – and silence their experience with genuine human love.
Rahema Ellis sat with a group of Mocha Moms and mentioned important blogs like What About Our Daughters. I’m glad she reported from and about these interesting spaces that express our diversity. But why did Ron Allen spend so much of his segment covering the impact of Black women on the upcoming presidential election in a beauty parlor? I mean, really. With all the unprecedented opportunities opening up to sisters as we enter a Democratic primary that either a Black man or White woman
will surely win, with all the spaces that have opened up to Black women who are actively campaigning on behalf of either Barack or Hillary, why go to a beauty shop – and stay there?
Rahema Ellis articulated a desire to “get it right” with this series, and none of the reporters got it wrong, I think. I just wish they had gotten it more substantive.
Comment(s)
Your blog entry on the NBC series was, as all your writing, thoughtful and thought-provoking. Many of us agree with your response concerning the lack of depth in the reports, even though we all realise the limitations of television reporting that offers only a few minutes of exploration.
“Walking Bling” is something that caught my attention, too. Especially since the focus of my fourth novel YOU KNOW BETTER was just that, a young African-American woman/child looking for love and affirmation who seems to aspire to one thing in life: dancing in the background of a music video.
Although the novel did encourage some discussion about our young people (male and female) and the myriad of challenges and shiny nothings they face, especially juxtaposed to the ethos of the Hip-hop culture, there was not nearly enough of response.
Among my age group (the parents and grandparents of these young folks), there is a definite hesitation (and shame) about discussing their children’s lives and the part we’ve played in it. And among the younger generation, there was a hesitation in reading a book that was not in the popular “street/urban lit” genre.
What to do? What to do? Just what we’re doing. Talking/blogging about it, writing about it, making films about it, praying about it. In other words, just doing something!
I applaud you for your work.
Love and peace,
Tina McElroy Ansa
Comment(s)
Sadly, I am not surprised about NBC’s lack of substantive coverage. I came across something a few months ago I found very interesting. It is what I have observed to be the truth about “the press.” This is from long ago. I don’t see where much has changed. If anything, Jena 6 not being reported for over a year in the mainstream, and then at the final hour, distorted reports, more than proves the below to be true.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Eisa. You are an aware sister. I appreciate you.
– pp
John Swinton New York journalist at a banquet (1880’s): “What folly is this, toasting an independent press? There is no such thing, at this date of the World’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon [Biblical ref.], and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of “rich men” [Biblical ref.] behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
—
Here is another tidbit for thought. Slightly off topic, but relevant in many ways:
“It is perfectly possible for a man to be out of prison, and yet not free – to be under no physical constraint and yet to be a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national state, or of some private interest within the nation, wants him to think, feel and act. “The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are
acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective.” Brave New World Revisited, Aldous Huxley, 1958
Comment(s)
Thanks to author Virginia DeBerry for sending me the link to www.AverageBro.com – and to Average Bro who let me post this:
*****
NBC News To Black Women: It Sucks To Be You
via Racialicious – the intersection of race and pop culture by Guest Contributor on 11/28/07
by guest contributor AverageBro, originally published at AverageBro.com
Well, here we go again. Every 3-4 months, the mainstream media tries to focus on a topic of interest to black people, and as opposed to objective coverage, they resort to flipping to page 94 in The Book of Manufactured Controversy.
This phenomenon is something I’ve blogged about in the past, especially such “issues” as black women dating outside their races, and the disparity between news coverage of missing black women and whites. BTW, how ironic is it that after shaking down and illegally arresting all those Arubans, the very cats we knew had abducted Natalee Holloway all along turned out to be responsible? Maybe ironic isn’t the right word.
Anyways, NBC News With Brian Williams (how clever is that title?) is running a five part series this week called African-American Women: Where They Stand, and after watching the first night, I can already tell you it’s the piece of oversensationalized crap you’d expect it to be.
Here’s a blurb from NBC News about the series:
Throughout the week of November 26, “NBC News With Brian Williams” will take a look at the issues facing African-American women across our nation in a new series “African-American Women: Where They Stand.” The series will cover a wide-range of issues from their role in the ‘08 Presidential race, to the increased health-risks that they need to be concerned about.
Monday’s installment will discuss African-American women’s progress in the education field. Nearly two-thirds of African-American undergraduates are women. At black colleges, the ratio of women to men is 7 to 1. And that is leading to a disparity in the number of African-American women who go on to own their own businesses. Rehema Ellis will talk to educators, students and businesswomen about why this disparity exists.
The problem with such coverage is the medium itself. Trying to objectively present the dynamics of such a topic in 3-4 minute vignettes is a surefire recipe for failure. If NBC was so concerned about “the state of black women”, maybe they’d dedicate a few episodes of Dateline. Instead, these short segments, cleverly dropped at the end of each show (to make you watch the whole episode of course) go headfirst into misleading statistics that serve no real purpose other than further discrediting black men and magnifying a rift between genders that exists in every race.
Case in point, last night’s segment lead off by showing a black single mom who owns her own PR firm. No problem here, entrepreneurship is positive stuff. But then the show starts throwing up a series of stats, namely the 7-1 ratio of black women to men at HBCU’s and that black women account for 63% of all black college students. Never mind the fact that the academic gender gap is hardly unique to blacks, it’s a universal problem that is just now emerging as one of the biggest epidemics in public education. And of course, the series reaches deep into The Book of Negro Excuses, and blames hip hop for the high dropout rates of black males. Typical. They droned on with more and more stats about how black women control a majority of the $850B of annual spending power in the black community, and how the rate of business ownership among black women is growing at a higher rate than that of black men.
If the purpose of the series is to focus on black women, why even bother mentioning how well they are performing relative to black men? Hell, why even bother mentioning black men at all?
What’s really the point?
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m obviously not downing black women here, but I think when you can only highlight their successes by contrasting them with the relative failures of black men, there’s obviously an ulterior motive at work.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: relationships are hard. Period. But by continually bombaring ourselves with stories like this, the manufactured DL brother phenomenon, or Love Lust and Lies style destructive chatter, we’re only making the issue worse. Black people operate in generalizations just as much (more?) as any other race, yet I can’t say I see this level of devisive rhetoric directed towards anyone else.
It’s like The Willie Lynch Letter personified. Never mind the fact that The Willie Lynch Letter is nothing more than an internet hoax, it’s still pretty appalling.
Note to Black America: learn, trust, and love each other. Turn this crap off, because NBC News clearly cares about keeping us apart more than they do about where Black Women Stand.
The ladies at WAOD are ripping this series a new one, but if you’re watching this series and have a different take, you know where to voice your two cents.
African-American Women: Where They Stand Series on NBC [with video]
Comment(s)
Hi Eisa-Just want to say that I understand where you’re coming from and agree that it would be wonderful if news outlets invested more in digging below the surface of stories but I have to say that I am so blown away that NBC invested the resources and time in putting together a piece of this scope focused on us that I am willing to give them a little leeway regarding its depth. I’m so used to having us ignored by the media altogether (unless we’re being depicted negatively) that this was a breath of fresh air. I also want to give props to all of the African-American journalists including Rahema and Mara because I am sure that they and other African-American producers were hugely instrumental in getting this story on air–a testament to the importance of diversity in the newsroom. Kudos to them! Keep it up ladies and you keep it up too Miss Eisa!
P.S. I reference the NBC segment on the election in my latest blog which can be found at www.keligoff.com.