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Nobody can deny the power of the Black voice, the amazing steps taken from the impact of the Black voice. One can’t deny the thoughtful, brilliant ideas that changed the world, like The Black Panther's ‘Feed the Children’ program, or Black women like Ida B. Wells, who were integral to the success of the Women Suffrage Movement (but were not acknowledged for it). The Black voice has always been a vision for a better future.

In this new age of fast information and quick stimuli response, the alt-right has mastered how to use its mainstream media to bring change. When there is a problem (e.g. the COVID restrictions of restaurants), the media quickly interviews the owner or manager to get ahead of the story as opposed to "Black related" reporting, which is only reported after protests have started.

There is no backstory the day before, just people marching. If an incident happened today and people marched one week from now, major news probably would start reporting on the week of the march.

This also applies to "Black related" tragedies:

Insert: "A Black teen was fatally shot by police in yet another case of police misconduct. Tamir Rice…"

1. His name came in the second sentence because his life was just a statistic.

2. "In yet another…" placates your anger by normalizing it in your brain in a "It's yet another day…" type of situation.

Insert: "Hailey McMahon, a 12-year-old girl, has been kidnapped."

Notice the difference? The title starts by humanizing her by her name, then her age and then what happened.

It has been proven through many psychological studies that upon hearing bad news, the brain tends to "turn off," so any news delivered in a 'bad news' – 'good news' manner will always be less absorbed than 'good news' – 'bad news', and that does not even include the later demonizing of the victim. (e.g. Botham Jean and marijuana news stories.)

If at any one time, during these last four years, the government did something unacceptable to the alt-right, the alt-right media would put that one particular issue on repeat until it was changed. There would be news reports, discussions, panels upon panels, breakfast rants etc. to put the government in check. Compare that to how the media covered the Flint water crisis. The media couldn't have run out of there faster than they did. They must have gotten thirsty. Compare that to how the media treated Gov. Ralph Northam's blackface incident — in and out of the media faster than you can say tiktok.

President Barack Obama was unable to do as much as we had hoped he would do because there were no news media outlets telling Americans what Americans should care about. It's like after that election — Black people were convinced that because the most powerful man is in the office, everything is fine. You could be suffering but everything is fine, not remembering that the president is as strong as his supporters.

Look at how much Trump supporters strengthened him throughout his term and how much he was able to do for them. All the media seemed to do during President Barack Obama's terms was constantly congratulate him for being the first Black president and not strengthening him to do what he could have done. Everybody took a back seat on policies. All people talked about was America having a Black president.

If we were to be frank, most of the fights he had and won were mostly by himself. We can't allow that to happen with Biden and Kamala. They are not President Obama. If we remain silent during this four-year term, they both will revert to their old ways.

For the past five months has reverted to their old ways too, and what has happened?

Remember the police reforms that nobody thought were possible, companies held accountable, Karens taught a lesson, systemic racism fought and slowly chipped away at almost every sector? But after the election cycle, suddenly no one cared. No issue is big, no pain matters. "Black-related" change has only happened every four years, and it is clearly not working. The neighborhoods are rundown, the schools are underfunded, people are being murdered, brutalized and harrassed in the streets by employees of the state.

The Black voice is the holy grail of votes, but in this day and age of “if it wasn't recorded, it didn't happen,” we cannot do it on our own. We need the media now more than ever. The media needs to decide if it is a tool of a party for an election cycle or an instrument for the people.

Felix Mumo

Writing since February 2022 · 1 story contributed