#DividedBaltimore, Week 8: The Media's Perpetuation of Racial Inequality - Entrepreneur Generations

Tonight's #DividedBaltimore course dealt with the media, and its perpetuation of inequality in Baltimore and beyond.

Two excellent speakers -- Adam Marton of The Baltimore Sun and A. Adar Adaya of Associated Black Charities -- discussed the issues of the media and its reporting on issue of inequality.

Marton is a graphic designer for the Sun, and he's been creating many graphics representing racial injustice in Baltimore (he created a special website for his talk).

Baltimore Sun graphic designer shows us the interactive maps from the Sun.

He began his talk by sharing with us the project "Undue Force" by Mark Puente, which documents deals between the city and people who were victims of police brutality. Since 2001, the city has paid out $5.7 million to victims of police brutality since 2001. By and large, according to Marton, the settlements have gone to regular, law-abiding people who had interactions with police that went bad. For example, Barbara Floyd had her face ground into the concrete by police during a drug bust on her block. She was 58, had no record and was the grandmother of 2. She was awarded $30,000. She's just one example, and all of these examples. Anyone who spoke with the Sun risked losing their settlement, but it was important for them to speak out and they did.

Marton then presented a series of map graphics. The map below shows a racial breakdown of the city:


Marton continued with his discussion of maps, noting, "The most important thing isn't the averages, it's what happens at the extreme edges." For example, he noted that the average income of Baltimore is around $50,000, but it's $13,000 in Upton vs. $90,000 in Roland Park.

Similarly (and this was the number that kind of blew my mind), the average life expectancy in Roland Park is 83 years old; it's 62.9 years in Druid Heights. These two locations are only about 3 lies apart, but there's a difference of over 20 years of life expectancy between the two areas. Marton's interactive map of all of Baltimore is here.

The 45 Murders of July, feature in the Sun.

Marton then showed these maps, which emphasized just how secluded the white people of Baltimore are from the murders and post-unrest violence of Baltimore. Unsurprisingly, the violence in the city correlates with by income, unemployment, and race.

Martan ended his presentation of the July Baltimore Sun feature that examined the 45 murder victims in July, the most in recorded history for Baltimore. He was proud of the piece, which attempted to tell the story of each murder victim, which can be seen here.


The next presentation was entitled, "Showing 24 Hours Per Day: Media and The Image of the Black Bogeyman" by A. Adar Ayira of the Associated Black Charities. She was awesome.

Ms. Ayira began her presentation by asking us whether we wanted to have a polite conversation about race, or a "kitchen table" conversation about race. We wanted the latter: a real conversation.

An incredibly dynamic speaker, Ayira spoke much of framing of events by the media. She offered an anecdote in which a media source was asking her about the "riots" of Baltimore in April. She confronted her interviewer: "Why are you framing it as riots instead of peaceful protest? Why are you not framing the story in a larger way than that?"

After several comments back and forth, the reporter refused to budge in his conversation of the events in Baltimore as riots. Ayira then refused the interview, because, as she forcefully said, "I do not collude in my own oppression or the oppression of my community." 

The formidable A. Adir Ayara of Associated Black Charities.

Ayira then went to the topic of her discussion, that of the media creation of the "Black Boogeyman," which she says started with the film Birth of a Nation, which was such a compelling film in a white supremacist America that President Woodrow Wilson praised it up and down. At the time, that film fit into what was going on in the nation, the uncertainty, the angst, the anxiousness, about the changing role of African Americans. 

From that, we got redlining, so you wouldn't have to live next door to them. Baltimore was the first city that enacted into law segregation of neighborhoods, back when W. Ashbie Hawkins became the first black person to buy a house in a white neighborhood. 

Ayira then went into the framing of the Freddie Gray murder. 

There's a personal/interpersonal framing that says, if he wasn't guilty, he shouldn't have run (white middle class media view).

There is an Institutional Frame, which says, "Wait a minute. There seems to be a pattern of black men and women and trans men and women, who are murdered by police. What is up with that? Let's look at the culture of the organization. Let's examine policies, procedures."

And, lastly, there is a Structural Frame, which takes a broader view. It says that this has been going on since 1815 and even before then. It says that we need to figure out what systems and structures in this society continue to perpetuate the myth of the Black Boogeyman. It is about how we are inculcated as a whole society.

Clearly, the mainstream media frame of Freddie Gray was a personal/interpersonal one. For white mainstream media, white-owned media, everything was a riot. Social media was able to transform this a bit. Black Twitter was able to transform it a bit.

Speakers Martan and Ayira address community questions.

Ayira went on to offer a solution: "We are all ahistorical. We are racially illiterate. We do not understand institutional and structural racism. We all want something similar. We want great neighborhoods for our children. We want an equitable chance for access. We want great schools... these things aren't radicalized. For the most part, we in Baltimore love Baltimore. We want it to do well.  We have to own our own stuff. We've all been inculcated; we've jut been on different sides of the gun." 

After the talks, there was an hour and a half devoted to discussion of the course and dialogue between those taking the class and community members. I offered some of my takeaways: that, before, I was a well-meaning white guy who knew about racism but never, say, had heard of redlining, that I now try to look at institutions and structures more than individuals. I shared how my teaching of James Baldwin this year has been guided by discussions of structural racism rather than individual racism; Baldwin writes about both, but I glossed over the former in my previous discussions of it. Some of the students have never heard the term "structural racism" before, and I love that I hear them discussing it throughout the unit.

I also shared my idea to create a high school version of the #DividedBaltimore course, which I'll present to our curriculum committee this January.

Map of Baltimore City; Blue is white people, Yellow is Black people, Red is Asian people. Better version here: http://ift.tt/1LyhVoR

The map of shootings in Baltimore shows they happen inBlack neighborhoods. The areas with the white people are unsullied by the red dots.

Homicides are, unsurprisingly, in areas of high poverty, high unemployment, and are divided by race. Those yellow areas? That's where the white people of Baltimore live, who are largely able to live free of any worry of violent crime.

from Epiphany in Baltimore http://ift.tt/1P1LB02 #DividedBaltimore, Week 8: The Media's Perpetuation of Racial Inequality - Entrepreneur Generations

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

Tweet