The New White Supremacy in the Corporate Media

Lloyd Hart
Martin Luther King Day 2004

With NBC publishing their full-page color ad in The New York Times today illustrating who and how MSNBC will be covering what the ad titled as the "Battle for the White House" NBC has illustrated their commitment to news by whites and therefore, for whites. It wouldn't be so bad if the ad and NBC's news reporting practice illustrated a reasonable balance of coverage but it most certainly does not and for that matter nor does any other corporate network broadcasting America today.

The MSNBC photographic lineup from the so-called pros that "know politics from the inside out" starts with, from left to right, (literally not figuratively), Norah O'Donnell, Pat Buchanan, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Peggy Noonan, and Howard Fineman. All white, mostly right wing or pro corporate right wing, mostly anti affirmative-action. None of these people are real journalists but turning politicians into journalists and journalists into politicians is the best way to control the message in this military budget guaranteeing bogus war on terrorism. If there ever was an advertisement that symbolized what the status quo in America truly is, it is MSNBC's "Battle for the White House" ad in the York Times today. The operative symbol here is white supremacy.

Almost everywhere throughout the corporate media once semi reliable African-American, Hispanic and women journalists are being weeded out and replaced by white journalists or those that are yes journalists to a growing and coercive corporate media monopoly with a racist agenda. In the case of CNN all the real journalists have either retired or been shunted off to CNN International where they can't have an impact in the American consciousness. After all Europe has a much greater taste for a free press and an informed public than that of the U.S. today.

Just the fact that the corporate media completely panned Rev. Al Sharpton's clear victory in the District of Colombia's first in the nation primary in which over 200,000 people participated in a city of half a million, is clearly a racist act considering the majority minority population in D.C.. Even though Howard Dean secured 42% of the vote to Al Sharpton's 35% it is very clear that if Gephardt, Kerry, Edwards, Clark and Lieberman, all white guys, had not removed themselves from the ballot in D.C. (all on the same day and most likely at the request of the Democratic National Committee), Dean's 42 percent would have been spread over five more candidates with Al Sharpton losing very little. This single act of not covering the D.C. primary can only lead me to believe that the corporate media and corporate sponsored Democrats do not want a "first in the nation litmus test on race relations in America" primary. Nor do the white elites in America want to provide the majority minority population of Washington D.C. with the representation that is guaranteed with taxation. For African-Americans as well as other minorities voting rights were hard fought for over the decades with the blood of many spilled but yet litely swept aside in election 2000 and now in republican racist redistricting. The white elites in America are ignoring the voting rights of the majority minority population in Washington D.C. just as they ignored the Jeb-CrowBush racist act of the deliberate and premeditated scrubbing of the voting lists of African-Americans prior to election 2000 in Florida and God knows where else.

It seems that instead of supplying equal access to high-quality education for all, equal access to voting rights for all and equal access to high-quality jobs in the corporate media, Elite White America through its corporate media is simply paying lip service, if that, to minorities in this country and not truly recognizing the significance of Martin Luther King Day and all that it represents because what Martin Luther King Day really represents does not exist in America or its media.

As America imposes its racist will on the Iraqi people (as the war in Iraq can only be seen as a racist act, the assumtion being that Arabs are crazy and therefore can not be reasoned with but yet America can somehow teach them pluralistic democracy when America does not even know what pluralistic democracy is themselves) I would like to wish all of you a happy Martin Luther King Day

The US is imposing its "racist will on the Iraqi people"?

How is it an "imposition" to rid a people of vicious despot?

I suppose Saddam, or Castro, would consider it an imposition to be ousted. But for the average Iraqi, having Saddam's boot lifted from their throat is hardly an imposition.

You know what's racist? Genocide agains the Kurds, which Saddam engaged in for years and years.

Giving people the right to self government for the first time in generations -- that is not racist.

Usually, they'll toss in a token black guy, or maybe an asian woman if she won't talk much. If the horoscope says it's OK, they will put a brown person on, who might turn out to be conservative.

We people of color demand our token!

(To wit - if you are really interested in diverse viewpoints, hit the web. There are many perspectives on the election. Abandon the big media, and email alternatives to your friends.)