No attention is paid at all to innovations, courageous and remarkable development in Black neighborhoods or African countries. Even when they report any, they still label it “Black excellence”, or “Black power”, which immediately demobilizes the efficacy of such attainment on the existing perception or image of Black people.
──Ebuka Onyekwelu
The ongoing protests in various cities around the against racism have left kin observers with something to ponder on. What apparently remains elusive to many people is what triggers this protest is not particularly unique. Quite frankly, it may not have to be.
Notwithstanding that Black people, more specifically Black men in America have become endangered species of some sort; with increasing acts of police brutality and murder but with minimal or no recorded police conviction for those unjustified killings. Tragically. the murderers always go free, while the system remains intact. We always moved on, as though nothing serious had happened, with or without justice served.
In 2014, twelve years old Tamir Rice was brutally murdered by an American police officer in Ohio. Freddie Gray, in 2015 died in a police van in Baltimore, at age twenty-five. Thirty-two years old Philando Castille was killed in Minnesota while he pulled over for a traffic stop in 2016. Stephon Clark, twenty-two years was standing in the back yard of his grandmother in Sacramento, California when he was killed. He was shot twenty times. Botham Jean was twenty-six years in 2018 when he was shot by an off-duty officer while he was in his house in Dallas Texas, seating in his sofa eating ice cream. In 2019, twenty-eight years old Atatiana Jefferson was shot by an officer through the window of her home in Florida. Twenty-six years old Breonna Taylor was murdered while she was sleeping at her boyfriend’s apartment in Kentucky, by officers on plain clothe, earlier in 2020. This list is inexhaustible.
But for Floyd, it is different largely because the social media made it so.
The murder of George Floyd is not particularly different or especially irksome in any peculiar way to have activated the unusual worldwide protest. In fact, it is safe to say that before George Floyd was murdered, the killing of Black people in America has become common and almost habitual. These killings have nothing to do with what they did except for the color of their skin. It is so bad that even in the comfort of their homes, Black people are not safe. What can possibly be more horrendous than that of a police officer who killed someone relaxing in his home? What manner of death can be more undeserving? But for Floyd, it is different largely because the social media made it so.
There have been harvest of Black lives by white police hunters, occurring almost in perpetuity in America yet, no serious remedies comes off of the system except the anger that often grip the bereaved who try to seek justice in an elusive land of freedom. In all these sad tales of murder, with the mainstream media looking straight or the other way conceivably in conformity, it does appear like the major poser in the war against racism.
Black people all over the world have been living under intense discrimination both as citizens and immigrants, and constantly getting bad publicity. They seek justice but gain none. Suddenly, there is a worldwide outrage against institutional racism. Are we going to just pretend that the media has not played a central part in what is going on around the world in condemnation against White racists? Historically they have always played from the other side, controlling how people see Black people? Certainly, media do have a foremost hand in the ongoing worldwide revulsion against institutional racism and even more in an attempt to end racism.
Even simple words like “Black neighborhoods” without further effort, leaves an impression of poverty and violence.
That Black people are killed in their homes, but the news does not make it to any mainstream headline. This is a definite way of maintaining the racial profiling and murder of Black people at will by racist officers. Mainstream media have helped to strengthen the racial order and bias against Black people in their pattern of reporting. Generally, there is more attention on defining just what it means to be Black, either way. And there is a deliberate effort in associating Black with vices. Often we hear “Black neighborhoods”, “Black gang”, “Black poverty”, and in each case, a most horrible picture of the very lowliest is served to furnish the narrative that Black people are necessarily distinctively dissimilar, maybe unusual compared to especially White people. Even simple words like “Black neighborhoods” without further effort, leaves an impression of poverty and violence. This was made so by the media.
The aggregation of Black people by the media has gone for so long a time that it has become normalized and no one pays attention. This trend leaves a racist narrative in the subconscious minds of many racially biased people which always tends to suggest that the Black man is necessarily poor and violent. It essentially shapes how racist relate to Black people and equally attempts to justify how Blacks are treated by the authorities.
Constant reports of violence, war, and other vices in African countries are the trademark of mainstream media. Any report of progress is often completely blanked. Progress almost never gets a mention, no matter how profound. There is excessive, totally unwarranted attention on all the things that are wrong in Black community. There is expectation even, for Black people to not get it right. From the picture the media often paint, success and excellence look like an exception in Black community. No attention is paid at all to innovations, courageous and remarkable development in Black neighborhoods or African countries. Even when they report any, they still label it “Black excellence”, or “Black power”, which immediately demobilizes the efficacy of such attainment on the existing perception or image of Black people.
Indeed, at the forefront of institutionalized racism is the mainstream media that abuse the sensibilities of people
These expressions are not innocent, even as they may seem like some good news or compliment. On the contrary, they are deliberate attempts at reinventing and maintaining the racial status quo of White is supreme to Black and its corollary. Indeed, at the forefront of institutionalized racism is the mainstream media that abuse the sensibilities of people such that racists already have biases against Black people even before they meet one. Consequently, it is principally not about what a Black person has done or not done, beyond the color of his skin.
For all it is worth, the ongoing protest across many cities around the world against institutional racism against Black people may end as mere reaction or outburst with no concrete impact except mere shifting of the goalpost and some make-believe reforms, if there are no fundamental shifts in mainstream media pattern of portraying Black people. This is a good place to start in a most committed effort at erasing racism. Otherwise, by the time the anger dies off and the vigor vanishes, Black people will remain the object of racist brutality and murder, mostly without consequence.
- November 1, the Gathering Drum —A tide of quiet preparations - November 1, 2025
- Late Senator Ifeanyi Ubah: The Agony of a Legacy in Crisis - October 31, 2025
- Holding Power to the Fire: Journalism Lessons from Rufai Oseni’s Confrontation - October 23, 2025