Media 2070: An Invitation to Dream Up Media Reparations - Article / Essay - Page 18
II. Media 2070
AN INVITATION TO DREAM
Pause.
Imagine it’s 2070. There’s a world where Black people
have received reparations. It’s been years since anyone’s
had to lobby for them.
policy either dies or flourishes. For that reason, media
reparations are crucial to repair the harm the government
caused via policies that created structural racism in the
media industry — policies that have benefited whitecontrolled media institutions that in turn have defended,
reinforced and upheld our nation’s white-racial hierarchy.
What does the world look, feel and sound like?
What new kinds of joy are there that perhaps no one
thought were possible? What new innovations have been
created? What knowledge has emerged that never would
have existed without reparations being made real?
This paper is an invitation into that dream. It is a
recounting of harm, an attempt at defining a debt that is
owed. This is a living document, a call awaiting a response,
a question with many possible answers.
The question we want to ask here is this: How can the
media better serve Black people once reparations are real?
We know from the history of Black struggle that the basic
human rights we have fought for and won have improved
the lives of everyday people across all races who also
have been harmed by predatory government policies and
predatory capitalism.
Any strategy to address journalism’s future must reconcile
and repair these harms. Individual news organizations
must advocate for systemic change while taking an active
role inside their communities and their own operations
to offset the impacts of their history of anti-Black racism.
And lawmakers and regulators must adopt policies that
transform the media system so that Black ownership of
media outlets is equitable and abundant.
But to do this, we have to begin by imagining. Imagine
something new, even if it doesn’t yet feel possible.
1. Movement for Black Lives Reparations Now Toolkit, Movement for Black Lives, May 2020:
https://m4bl.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Reparations-Now-Toolkit-FINAL.pdf, p. 25
As the issue of reparations has gained greater political
attention in recent years, the government and institutions
that benefited from the harms and exploitation of Black
people must take part in a “process of making amends for
a wrong” they have committed.1 And one area they need
to make amends for is the harm they’ve inflicted on Black
communities.
Journalism and other forms of media create the narratives
that shift culture. Culture is the forest floor where
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