The press holds the responsibility of painting an objective picture when reporting, so what happens when the language they use perpetuates stereotypes and helps to enable power structures?
In his lecture at the Galanti Lounge on Feb. 27, “The Politics of Safety: The Black Freedom Struggle,” titled after his book, Shannon King, the associate professor of history and director of Black studies at Fairfield University, demonstrated how labels and language use affected the Harlem Race Riots in 1935.
“Certainly Blacks had already been criminalized and the white press had always played the signature role,” King said.
As a result of the white press criminalizing Black poverty, it helped to legitimize punishment, civilian and state sanction, according to King.
King’s novel aims to explore Black activism against police brutality as well as equitable policing and the effects of the criminalization of Black people, according to King.
“There was a contradiction between the presence of the police, on the one hand, and the safety on the other hand,” King said.
Following the riots, which took place in Harlem in 1935 on March 19 and 20, a report was commissioned by the mayor of New York, Fiorello La Guardia, but not released because it was “too hot, too caustic, too critical” to release, according to King. However, the situation wasn’t really about crime, but rather economics.
The press used the word “riot” to criminalize the entire Black community and increase the demand for police presence, King said.
“So it was a huge distrust, massive unemployment and Mayor La Guardia, although he was the most liberal mayor at the time, he had not really addressed many of the needs of the Black community,” King said.
Those in positions of power used the white media to push aside what really caused these incidents to occur, according to King.
King used letters written during the riots to help research what was happening through first-hand accounts. King saw that the Black press, leaders and community joined against police brutality, the mainstream press relating the word “mugging” to the Black community and more socioeconomic points.
“There is a great deal of tension in Harlem and the large forces move it,” King said.
King also argued that, while there was widespread juvenile crime across races, only Black people were treated a particular way through being criminalized in the press or gaining more attention for their actions from the police and mayor.
“An essential aspect of Black History Month, and in general, in my case, teaching Black history, is to interrogate these imagined or problematic articulations of Black life,” King said.
Part of how King does this is by looking at how the press depicted different leaders during the Civil Rights Movement, specifically the contrast of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
“So how many knew that when he [Malcolm X] talks about ‘by any means necessary,’ sometimes he’s talking about self-defense, sometimes he’s talking about human rights,” King said. “So he was talking about the politics of safety.”
King also challenges students to consider why Martin Luther King Jr. is depicted as singularly peaceful and X is depicted as singularly violent. He also urges them to consider why the March on Washington is just associated with “dreams” rather than police brutality, which was discussed in many of the speeches made that day.
The press censored white brutality and mob violence from the speeches made during the March on Washington and made it about “dreams” instead, according to King.
“One question among several, especially considering the placards, is what does the March on Washington tell us about how Black folks conceptualize freedom,” King said. “They wanted to be safe from violence, is what it told us.”
King’s lecture provided students with an overview of how the press and those in power affected the “Black freedom struggle” and what freedom means to the Black community.
