NABJ did the white thing
OPINION: By normalizing Donald Trump, the National Association of Black Journalists undermined everything it is fighting for.
The burden of working for racial justice is laid on the very people bearing the brunt of the injustice and not the powerful people who maintain it. I say to you:
I refuse.
— NIkole Hannah-Jones
On April 23, 1899, Georgia’s Caucasian citizenry gathered in Newnan to participate in one of white America’s greatest traditions:
They were going to lynch Sam Hose.
Hose was a Black man who was accused of brutally murdering his employer, the employer’s wife and the couple’s newborn son. No one cared that Hose killed his boss by throwing an axe as his employer was about to shoot him for demanding a day off. It didn’t matter that Hose had not been tried for the alleged crime. The flash mob didn’t care that the wife and child that Hose was accused of killing were actually alive and had not been touched. In those days, Black lives didn’t matter. White people didn’t care. To them, lynching Black people was normal.
So many lynching enthusiasts flocked to Newnan that railroad companies rerouted their trains to accommodate the white flash mob. When they arrived, hundreds of normal, white adults took turns slicing off pieces of Hose’s extremities, ears and genitalia to keep as souvenirs while their normal white kids gathered firewood. After a series of routine stabbings, the normal lynchers doused Hose with ordinary gasoline, burned him and sang their normal songs until Hose’s eyes exploded from his head. Then, they went back to their normal homes.
W.E.B. Du Bois was not normal.
He formed the foundation of the study of human behavior that would become known as sociology. His brain sowed the seeds that spawned the modern Civil Rights Movement, the study of African American history, critical race theory and even nuclear disarmament. While I personally believe he is the most brilliant mind America ever produced, I must also concede that my appreciation for his brilliance pales in comparison to the biggest Du Bois fanboy of all:
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois.
As one of the most eloquent, prolific wordsmiths who ever lived and breathed, Du Bois believed he was uniquely equipped to convince white people of the error of their lynching ways. Since he was in Georgia teaching at Atlanta University, he put on his best suit, grabbed his walking cane and headed to meet the editor of the Atlanta Constitution. Du Bois was going to defeat the normalized racial violence that had infected society. He truly believed white supremacy was no match for facts, scientific data, logic and, most of all, the singular genius of the smartest man in the world.
“I did not get there,” Du Bois wrote in “Dusk of Dawn: An Autobiography of a Race Concept.” “Sam Hose had been lynched, and they said that his knuckles were on exhibition at a grocery store farther down on Mitchell Street, along which I was walking. I turned back to the University. I began to turn aside from my work. I did not meet Joel Chandler Harris nor the editor of the Constitution.
“Two considerations thereafter broke in upon my work and eventually disrupted it: first, one could not be a calm, cool, and detached scientist while Negroes were lynched, murdered, and starved; and secondly, there was no such definite demand for scientific work of the sort that I was doing.”
If W.E.B. Du Bois were alive, he would probably be in Chicago right now at the annual convention for the National Association of Black Journalists. Some of the most brilliant reporters, smartest thinkers and eloquent writers in America are gathered in community in the same hotel from which I am typing these words. During my time here, I have not met a single NABJ member who agreed with the decision to invite Donald Trump.
Of course, there were a few people who contended that NABJ should have treated Donald Trump as if he were any other presidential candidate. They mistakenly believed that the fiasco that happened on Wednesday could have been avoided by choosing more aggressive questions, more experienced journalists or having a male reporter on stage. Others say NABJ needed a live fact-checker on stage with Trump. Or maybe it was the audio.
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Those people are wrong.
The only difference between every other Trump interview and the dumpster fire that exploded at the NABJ convention is that Black people set it up. Trump did what he always does. He attacked women. He spewed racism. He lied. He sowed chaos and division. We already know Black lives do not matter to him. Everyone knows he does not care about the truth. Or laws. Or us. He is a one-man lynch mob. A lie enthusiast. But more than anything … Donald Trump is normal.
The most common complaint of Black journalists is about how white media hides behind the artificial construct of objectivity when covering Trump. Outlets like the New York Times are not objective; they are just white. Their entire coverage normalizes his conduct. When covering his criminal cases, they don’t cover him like a criminal. They are supposed to be truth-tellers, but they routinely share his words without noting that they come from the mouth of an unrepentant liar. They have no trouble referring to people as terrorists, looters and scammers. But apparently, they need more evidence before they can call Trump a racist. Still, by deciding to normalize Trump in the same way as white journalists, NABJ put the knuckles of all Black journalists on display.
They could’ve just said no.
Even if NABJ invites every presidential candidate to its convention, you don’t have to be the smartest man in the world to know that you can’t treat Donald Trump as if he were any other president. Treating a liar like a liar and a racist like a racist doesn’t require special considerations. Any editor at a reputable outlet would never use a certified liar as a source. Even if their backs were against the wall, they’d fact-check the lies. Most reputable outlets certainly wouldn’t ask a racist for an exclusive interview (Well, the New York Times would, but … You know how they do.)
NABJ’s decision ultimately contradicted the reason NABJ exists. It ignored the voices of Black people and amplified racism. It treated the arbitrary unwritten rules of white journalism as if they were something to which Black journalists should aspire. It was disrespectful to Black women. It helped spread racism and disinformation and hate. It treated the warm glow of the white gaze as if it were the center of the universe. It put the burden of white supremacy on the shoulders of Black journalists.
Black people are not magic.
During my time here, I have not seen anyone writing with a wand that could erase away all of the barriers to equality. Not even the most magical of negroes can convince Trump’s army of Mountain Dew drinkers that their orange crush is not a bigoted aspiring authoritarian. There is nothing those excellent Black journalists (and Harris Faulkner) can expose that the world hasn’t already seen. Why should mostly anti-MAGA Black conventiongoers have to walk around in the feces that anti-Black MAGAmuffins squirted out? Saying “no” is also an option.
We cannot abracadabra white America into caring about Black people or democracy or justice, especially when white people truly believe the systems and culture they built are perfectly normal. How much labor should we expend before we realize that they are the ones who are sick? There is no amount of logic or reason that can cure white people of the virus they willingly spread. Nor is it our responsibility to try. Even if I could …
I refuse.
Michael Harriot is a writer, cultural critic and championship-level Spades player. His NY Times bestseller Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America is available in bookstores everywhere.
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