Abstract
In The Waste Products of the American Dream I argue that the ability to influence the popular narrative that frames the Black communities' public existence is critical if the Black urban poor is going to draw the nation’s attention to the structural and historical forces that create and continue to perpetuate concentrated Black poverty today. More specifically, enticing white “common sense” fears about Black life, culture, and space became a strategic political maneuver that conservative politicians began to use in the late 1960s by suggesting that all “civil rights brought was rioting.” The mainstream media would reproduce these narratives of Black criminality to further demonize low-income inner city communities and its inhabitants as the culprits of urban decay, delivering the state from any blame for the creation of concentrated poverty and the spatial mismatch that went along with social isolation. To illustrate how this discursive politics works to frame North Minneapolis and its residents as always already deviant, I did a comparative reading of the 2011 North Minneapolis tornado media coverage between the historic Black press and local mainstream press. I did this to show how important it is for the creation of Black counterpublic spaces that the historic Black press maintains as a way to take control of the community's narrative while also highlighting how the mainstream press simply relies on readily available stock narratives of Black cultural pathology which blame the victims of disaster for their plight with an uncanny similarity to Hurricane Katrina coverage.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 390-406 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Critical Studies in Media Communication |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2019 |
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Keywords
- Black counter publics
- Blackness in the media
- Hurricane Katrina
- and North Minneapolis tornado
- the politics of disposability
Cite this
The Waste Products of the American Dream : framing Black cultural pathology in the dominant news media in times of crisis. / Lewis, Brittany M.
In: Critical Studies in Media Communication, Vol. 36, No. 4, 01.01.2019, p. 390-406.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The Waste Products of the American Dream
T2 - framing Black cultural pathology in the dominant news media in times of crisis
AU - Lewis, Brittany M
PY - 2019/1/1
Y1 - 2019/1/1
N2 - In The Waste Products of the American Dream I argue that the ability to influence the popular narrative that frames the Black communities' public existence is critical if the Black urban poor is going to draw the nation’s attention to the structural and historical forces that create and continue to perpetuate concentrated Black poverty today. More specifically, enticing white “common sense” fears about Black life, culture, and space became a strategic political maneuver that conservative politicians began to use in the late 1960s by suggesting that all “civil rights brought was rioting.” The mainstream media would reproduce these narratives of Black criminality to further demonize low-income inner city communities and its inhabitants as the culprits of urban decay, delivering the state from any blame for the creation of concentrated poverty and the spatial mismatch that went along with social isolation. To illustrate how this discursive politics works to frame North Minneapolis and its residents as always already deviant, I did a comparative reading of the 2011 North Minneapolis tornado media coverage between the historic Black press and local mainstream press. I did this to show how important it is for the creation of Black counterpublic spaces that the historic Black press maintains as a way to take control of the community's narrative while also highlighting how the mainstream press simply relies on readily available stock narratives of Black cultural pathology which blame the victims of disaster for their plight with an uncanny similarity to Hurricane Katrina coverage.
AB - In The Waste Products of the American Dream I argue that the ability to influence the popular narrative that frames the Black communities' public existence is critical if the Black urban poor is going to draw the nation’s attention to the structural and historical forces that create and continue to perpetuate concentrated Black poverty today. More specifically, enticing white “common sense” fears about Black life, culture, and space became a strategic political maneuver that conservative politicians began to use in the late 1960s by suggesting that all “civil rights brought was rioting.” The mainstream media would reproduce these narratives of Black criminality to further demonize low-income inner city communities and its inhabitants as the culprits of urban decay, delivering the state from any blame for the creation of concentrated poverty and the spatial mismatch that went along with social isolation. To illustrate how this discursive politics works to frame North Minneapolis and its residents as always already deviant, I did a comparative reading of the 2011 North Minneapolis tornado media coverage between the historic Black press and local mainstream press. I did this to show how important it is for the creation of Black counterpublic spaces that the historic Black press maintains as a way to take control of the community's narrative while also highlighting how the mainstream press simply relies on readily available stock narratives of Black cultural pathology which blame the victims of disaster for their plight with an uncanny similarity to Hurricane Katrina coverage.
KW - Black counter publics
KW - Blackness in the media
KW - Hurricane Katrina
KW - and North Minneapolis tornado
KW - the politics of disposability
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85067041907&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/15295036.2019.1610185
DO - 10.1080/15295036.2019.1610185
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85067041907
VL - 36
SP - 390
EP - 406
JO - Critical Studies in Media Communication
JF - Critical Studies in Media Communication
SN - 1529-5036
IS - 4
ER -