Dominant and Marginalized Media
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Source: Time.com
Jeffery Duncan-Andrade’s “Urban Youth, Media Literacy, and Increased Critical Civic Participation,” a chapter in Beyond Resistance, advocates for media’s potential for supporting “development of critical civic literacy, civic awareness, and civic participation among urban youth.” This project involved students from LA-area schools creating videos about their community as an act of activism to support social change and media literacy. While the research Duncan-Andrade conducted was focused more on media’s power for creative narratives, as opposed to strictly journalistic narratives, I cannot ignore the overwhelming role of media in the recent cases of police killing unarmed black men (or, in one recent case, a 12-year-old).
It hardly needs a source to defend the claim after these last few months, but Duncan-Andrade argues that there is a need for students to create and experience “counternarratives to those of the media, which largely are negative depictions of urban youth and their communities.” We have heard the media emphasizing more than usual the claim that race has ceased to matter in the United States, even frequently calling our culture “post-racial.” That declaration is made, of course, by the same dominant groups who have been in power throughout the history of the United States. The announcement that we’ve become a “post-racial” society does not come from social overhauls or empowerment of marginalized groups; it comes out of a convenient need the dominant groups have to absolve their system of responsibility.
These are clear examples of why counternarratives are necessary, and it is encouraging that technology has enabled more people to effectively be documentary makers than ever before. When surveillance and spectacle dominate the public discourse on crime and punishment (not always in that order), allowing marginalized people to push back against these dominant narratives is crucially important.
Or so I thought. Months ago, I watched the video of Eric Garner’s murder, and it was so disturbing that I had even convinced myself that some of the cops involved had been slapped with criminal charges not long after the video surfaced. Clearly, that belief was based on nothing but faith that such a glaring breach of trust and police conduct (to put it gently) would result in appropriate investigation and punishment. Then, on December 3rd, it was announced that the grand jury has chosen not to indict the police officer who killed Eric Garner. I admit, I don’t know all the facts. Hard as it is to imagine, maybe what happened to Eric Garner was a tragic accident or somehow merited. I can’t convince myself that is the case, but I have to acknowledge that it’s possible. However, I cannot imagine any version of this situation that would not merit a proper trial; there is an important (and often glossed over) difference between indicted and convicted. It has been suggested that people like Michael Brown and Eric Garner wouldn’t be dead if they didn’t break the law, which not-so-subtly implies that robbing a store or selling loose cigarettes merit an immediate death penalty. If that is even remotely justified, then choking an unarmed man to death must merit a full trial if we’re going to pretend to have a fair criminal justice system.
I wholly endorse the need to broader access to the necessary media for producing counternarratives. Adding ideas like mandatory body cameras for police officers seems to support media’s potential for greater transparency and justice, but media’s power for challenging dominant powers and narratives rings hollow when Eric Garner’s death had just about the best visual documentation we could realistically ask for. If media documentation is not sufficient for pushing back against the murder of an unarmed man, I can’t help but be skeptical of its potential for addressing injustices like inequitable education and systemic poverty.
I can be thankful that these tragic situations have expanded the national conversation on race in America. That conversation has often been more hurtful that helpful, but it is better than willfully perpetuated ignorance of these issues. As much as expanded media empowerment may not solve these injustices, we may not have had such a troubling and critical conversation if the video of Eric Garner’s death hadn’t erased the ambiguities that can complicate these cases. In the words of Miguel, one of the students who participated in Duncan-Andrade’s project, “having the cameras…forced [us] to open our eyes to the inequities that we had not taken notice of before; we effectively became aware citizen.” Change clearly isn’t going to happen tomorrow, but greater awareness today is the necessary first step; we just can’t allow it to be the last.
Works Consulted
Duncan-Andrade, Jeffery. "Urban Youth, Media Literacy, and Increased Critical Civic Participation." Beyond Resistance: Youth Activism and Community Change. Eds. Shawn Ginwright, Pedro Neoguera, and Julio Cammarota. New York: Routledge, 2006. 149-169. Print.
"Lawyer Says Rookie Cleveland Cop Shot, Killed 12-Year-Old." CBSNews.com. CBS Interactive Inc., 24 November 2014. Web. 10 December 2014.
Sanburn, Josh. "Behind the Video of Eric Garner's Deadly Confrontation with New York Police." Time.com. Time Inc., 22 July 2014. Web. 10 December 2014.
