CNN SUMS UP THE BLACK EXPERIENCE IN 4 HOURS: BLACK IN AMERICA

http://www.urb.com/permalink/3215/CNN-airs-Black-In-America.html
(seen on URB.com)

Written by: Tiffany Amanda Ford


Black in America hosted by CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, will air this wekend with much anticipation. As expected, CNN attempted to display what it was like to be “black” in America through two episodes entitled “The Black Woman and Family” and “The Black Man”. The titles itself are quite intense and distinctive, which causes one to ponder on the discourse of choice. Using the voices of black families (only a few that we can count on perhaps one hand), black scholars, celebrities and a few regular black folks, CNN exposed various challenges, issues and stories that face black Americans daily. What CNN was doing was what scholars acknowledge as the “Insider /Outsider Dichotomy, which is a theory that CNN used the “insiders” (Black people in America) as the link to “authentic information/black truth”. Whereas, CNN is marked as the “outsider” whose role is to appropriate the “black truth” and theorize those “facts” in the dissemination of knowledge.

CNN uses black voices as information, but in reality only those black voices are truly heard and considered valuable information through the media because their stories are in this documentary developed by CNN. Get it? It isn’t that black people cannot articulate themselves; just that ONLY through CNN their complex lived experiences can be articulated. Evidently, the problematic issue is POWER. CNN holds the power over the discussion of being Black in America.

One major problem with this presentation is that CNN’s exhibit of Black in America was “A-Historical”, meaning that there was absolutely no historical basis to the discussion. From watching the documentary I came to the conclusion that to CNN, history played absolutely no part to what is going on with black people in America today. This reduced the level of complexity to the issue. CNN’s presentation did not even touch the social construction of “race” and, the role that America and Europe had on the conceptualization of what race is. These are the types of conversations we MUST have first before getting into the discussion of what it is like to be black in America today.

Overall, the CNN presentation is intriguing to watch, refreshing to view on the network, long overdue, but yet as publicist and writer I’d have to ask, why did CNN choose to analyze how black people live in America? Is “race” today’s headliner issue due to the presidential elections? Vogue Italia thought that it was a great campaign to have an all black model issue only last month, the same with Ebony Magazine’s most current issue entitled “Black Cool”. Will there be more to come or will everything “Fade from Black to the BACK of the media’s mind once again”? My opinion is that CNN wants to be the FIRST news network to discuss the topic and of course they want to be the leading in news information, because CNN as their slogan states is; “The Most Trusted News Source”. So will we be ignorant to conclude that watching this presentation of the black experience on this network would be entirely truth?