Unbought. Unbossed. UNAPOLOGETIC!
Dismantling Racism in News Media
The black woman who put her hat in the ring for U.S. President wrote the 1970 book “Unbought and Unbossed.” Shirley Chisholm’s words have re-emerged during this time of racial reckoning like a tornado that hits your soul and leaves you with a pile of emotional and mental debris to collect and throw away. For many people of color (POC) our trash bins are overflowing.
Despite blatant examples and evidence of systemic racism against POC, we turn the other cheek and chalk up hostile work environments to random storms that come and go. We just push through because we have to in order to keep a roof over our heads, access to health insurance, and pay for other needs and wants, but the truth is the storms never let up. The eye of the storm is constantly swirling around us as people armed with the power and control decide to make a landfall with their passive aggressiveness, micro aggressions, and yes, blatant racism. It’s a vicious cycle that never stops, and to speak up potentially means losing your job, your credibility in the industry, and being forever tarnished and labeled as a ‘troublemaker.’
But what’s worse — losing your job or losing your soul?
I finally answered the question when I found the courage to speak the truth to save my soul. The exhaustion of not holding people accountable was burdensome, mentally draining, and complicit in allowing the behavior to continue. However, quite naively, I expected that an unbiased and objective investigation would follow because the bedrock of journalism is seeking truth and sharing facts, right? I was wrong.
Armed with a plethora of fact-based evidence, not conjecture, speculation or narratives, I was met with gaslighting, manipulations, denials, and flat out lies. And if they agreed in any way that the experiences happened, the script was flipped that painted me as the aggressor, and that I was misguided by motives rooted in my ‘feelings.’ The excuses are nonsensical and inexcusable.
How many times have the concerns and issues of POC, especially black women, been reduced to responses by co-workers and management that POC are “using the race card?” My experience has proven the groundswell conversation and belief that a company’s human resources department exists to protect the employer and not the employee, especially if the latter shares their concerns with a person who is not a POC and likely isn’t equipped to understand and empathize with our plight. Some of them don’t want to because they don’t have to. The system is set up to foster and maintain the antithesis of equality and simple fairness.
I have always prided myself on working hard, in fact, most black people will share that they overwork to not give anyone a slight edge to use our work performance against us. They wouldn’t dare after stellar evaluations for over two decades? But they did. After 21 years my work ethic totally becomes subpar —with evidence and facts to the contrary — because THEY say it.
In essence, black voices are not heard and certainly not believed. Perhaps the most harrowing example is the murder of George Floyd. The world saw the video with our own eyes, yet news outlets, media correspondents, and private citizens made disparaging comments about Floyd implying that he was somehow to blame. They changed the narrative because they know their white voices will be believed. Remember Central Park Karen?
There are so many examples, yet the headlines come and go without necessary measures taken to ensure the voices of POC are heard. A great start in the media industry is to intentionally have an inclusive and diverse news management staff that fully represents our community. I made that suggestion several times. Nothing has changed since I was erroneously fired in an effort to suppress my voice, which is a systematic move when the power structure feels threatened. It’s easier to get rid of the one person who stands up for change than for the dozens of power brokers to hold themselves and others accountable, and do their work.
My decision to fight for equality began on April 23, 2020 after I cared enough to protect myself and future journalists from detrimental treatment and abuse in the workplace. I never could have imagined that a little over a month later, George Floyd’s death would usher in this national conversation about prejudice, implicit bias and systemic racism. POC have been having these conversations and sharing our experiences with other professionals in the industry, spouses, family and friends knowing all too well that we could do very little but suffer in silence.
I didn’t choose for my job in television news to end like this. I was robbed of the joy and right to take a look back at my 21 years of service in our community and to say ‘thank you’ to the family of viewers because my voice wasn’t believed and silenced. I’m not surprised, but I’m justifiably hurt. No one deserves to be treated as such all because the powers that be don’t want to admit their professional, ethical and moral failures.
Journalism is still a noble profession, but we must have noble people who are sitting at the table. Shirley Chisholm said even if you’re not invited to the table, pull up a folding chair because your voice is needed. I implore everyone of all races, ethnicities and cultures to speak with courage and conviction. Speak with the spirit of being unbought and unbossed, and in this new civil rights movement — unapologetic.
#I’m THAT chick Who Ain’t Afraid
