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How To Pass As White
A few select non-white bodies manage to walk through the doors of US media organisations. These are the compradors. They parrot the imperialist discourses of the West, celebrate its achievements, speak from Eurocentric frames, and volunteer to act as “go-betweens” between the West and the rest. They are the “native informants” who speak the local language, perhaps…
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Whiteness As An Institutional Wall
Then there are the Institutional walls. Discussions about the lack of gender and ethnic diversity often blame a lack of access to “diverse” journalists on lousy hiring practices, failure of self-promotion, lack of professional commitment, an inability to locate talent or some organisational operations failure. They often call for more decisive efforts and better campaigns…
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Whiteness As Unfinished History
It took me a while to fully understand this wall’s nature and its many layers [Much of my understanding of these walls comes from my readings of feminist scholar Sara Ahmed. Her work on institution walls and the way racism and sexism continue to inform the cultures at the academy is the basis of much…
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The Promise Of The Other
The very serious function of racism…is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being…None of that is necessary. – Toni Morrison Diversity initiatives veil the structural whiteness and persistent Eurocentricity of US media. The more media institutions announce their commitment to diversity, the more…
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Laundering War
NGOs are complicit with political power and are today a critical element in Western imperial projects. This issue alone warrants an entire book, and I cannot do it justice here. However, it is a critically important issue that should give journalists pause. Human rights organizations have a long and sordid history that traces its lineage…
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Angels of Mercy, Have Mercy!
The assumption of the apolitical and neutral nature of humanitarian and development aid NGOs has stood for too long. Any serious engagement and desire for impact must begin by adopting a more realistic understanding of the roles and influences of the various actors on the ground. Furthermore, journalists must see that the “development” perspective silences…
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A Marriage Made In Hell
On the one hand, the humanitarian sustains a self- narration as a benevolent political subject working to amend the damages of oppressive regimes. On the other hand, this subject disavows its material and ideological entanglements with neocolonial power. – Julietta Singh US journalists have increasingly hitched rides on NGO SUVs and found a bed for…
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What A Difference Difference Makes
Baudrillard once said, when speaking about the WTC attacks on 9/11, that. The hatred of non-Western people [for the West] is not based on the fact that the West stole everything from them…[but]…on the fact that they received everything but were never allowed to give anything back [Jean Baudrillard, “Violence of the Global,” Ctheory.net, May…
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Their Uniquely Violent Ways
US media’s practice of manufacturing difference is almost always about constructing and reinforcing the myth of a liberal West as a place beyond patriarchy, misogyny, inequality, despotism, exploitation, racism, and violence. To do this, American journalists outsource pathologies and social ills that affect their societies to the Other, where the issues are presented as culturally,…
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At The Barbarian’s Gates
US media will, based on the demands of US imperial and political interests, transform heroes into monsters and vice versa. The Pathan in Afghanistan and Pakistan know this habit well. Celebrated as freedom fighters and heroes when they aligned with US Cold War priorities, they were later quickly condemned as reprobates and “terrorists” when the…