The American Media Killed the African American Long Before His Body Hit the Pavement.

In 1939, before Adolf Hitler invaded Poland, the Nazi regime launched an aggressive media campaign to build public support for a war. To present the invasion as a morally justifiable action, the German media placed immense emphasis on “Polish atrocities.” This media campaign convinced the Germans that the world would be better off without the Polish; therefore, when the physical carnage began, no one would empathize with them.

During the American Civil Rights Movement, it was a common tactic used by Southern politicians to sue national media outlets for defamation if they provided sympathetic coverage of activists. This tactic resulted in national media outlets losing millions of dollars, and thus significantly reduced any sympathetic coverage of civil rights activism.

Fast-forward to modern media coverage of the Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM) and the victims of police brutality and you’ll understand the purpose of the history lesson above.

In order to destroy a population, you must first

destroy the image of that population.

If you can convince the majority population (as Hitler did with the Germans) that it would be better off without the inclusion of another, the empathy for that population is gone long before the physical carnage begins. Prior to the more recent instances of police brutality and BLM activists, the image of the African American had been eviscerated. The African American has been portrayed as lazy, uneducated, unattractive, violent, etc. That portrayal is reinforced when the American Media uses the mugshots of police brutality victims, and family photos of the police who pull the triggers. That portrayal is reinforced when the American Media spends hours covering looting and riots, but spends only minutes covering peaceful BLM protests. That portrayal is, yet again, reinforced when the American Media spends weeks discussing the posture of a man during the national anthem, and seconds on the reasons why he refused to stand at attention.

Let’s be clear, the media portrayal of the African American is not a coincidence. The media portrayal of the African American is a deliberately calculated attempt to destroy the image of our bodies, to the extent that we are forgotten long before our bodies hit the pavement. The destruction of the image of the African American is so powerful, that the majority population will believe the words of the police over the brutality they witness with their own eyes via unedited videotape. The destruction of the image of the African American is so powerful, that the African American has even found ways to validate the systematic murder of himself during police encounters. *Insert: What about Black on Black crime, Why didn’t he just lay on the ground, etc*

So, while we are all outraged by the seemingly recent uprise in racism and police brutality, please remember that America decided that we didn’t matter long before Trayvon bought his skittles or Tamir headed out to the park. America decided we didn’t matter, when our justice system penalized media outlets for sympathetic coverage of activists, and turned our actual black bodies into nothing more than the worthless, evil characters they have created for us within their minds and within their media. The murder and violations of our bodies, coupled with the acquittals of those sworn to protect and serve, are nothing more than validation that the American media has succeeded in its effort to destroy our image, thus leaving our bodies without the worth required to seek justice in an American justice system.

It's like Dr. DuBois told us long ago, "A system cannot fail those it was never meant to protect.”