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The movement for black lives is alive and well across Americaand on social media, but you probably wouldnt know that from watching CNN.

Reported incidents of anti-blackhate crimesandpolice-involved deathsare actually higher this year than they were two years ago, when coverage of cops killing people of color was so ubiquitousit was impossible to ignore. One would think this would be front-page news.

But Donald Trump is our president now and the mainstream media apparently no longer has the bandwidth to cover alleged discriminatory treatment and brutality inflicted on African-Americans by police. Cable-news pundits are too busy trying to kill off the campaign-season, ratings-friendly Frankenstein monsterthey createdover the previous two years.

This reality makes the mission of activists likeKimberly Ortiz that much more difficult.

Theyre diverting our attention to Trump so we dont have to talk about these issues, the 32-year-old Bronx mother of two said on Monday night. She was standing at the corner of 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in Harlem,before she andabout 30 other protesters marched through the New York City neighborhoods streets, shouting verbal indictments and obscenities at the two dozen NYPD strategic response officers who shadowed them in police cruisers.

Their flashing lights illuminated the angry black, brown and white faces of Ortiz and her comrades. Smartphone-wielding pedestrians recorded and documented the scene. Members of the press were notably absent.

The people who have influence are being distracted by the grabbing of the pussies, the Russian spy investigations, Ortiz added.I think its intentional.

A founding member of the pro-Black Lives Matter group NYC Shut It Down, Ortizspent the evening doing the same thingshe and her fellow activists have done every Monday for more than two years now: calling attention to the violent killingof black men, women and children by police or other overtly racist acts.

This weeks subject wasRamarley Graham, anunarmed black teenager who was fatally shot five years ago by an NYPD officer inside the 18-year-olds Bronx home. The killing was witnessed by Grahams 6-year-old brother as well ashis grandmother, whom the officer, Richard Haste, also threatened to shoot as shewatched her grandson dying on the bathroom floor.

On Sunday after years of stalled criminal and civil rights investigations that resulting in no disciplinary action, let alone jail time, Haste quit his jobin lieu of being fired.

An internal affairs probe found the officer guilty of misconduct, saying he had exercised poor tactical judgment leading up to the discharge of his firearm and acted with intent to cause serious physical injury, which led to Grahams death.

The story was covered by The New York Times and other local media outlets but drewlittle or no coverage from national cable news networkslike CNN, MSNBC or Fox News part of a growing trendof flagging mainstream media attention.

Mass media outlets are very selective on the news they report. We already know that, Ortizs friend and fellow activist Shannon Jones of Bronxites for NYPD Accountability said onMonday. This country is not attuned to showing black plight. Its not going to happen over an extended period of time.

Two years ago a slew of disturbing videos of police killing unarmed black men, women and children were plastered all over the 24-hour cable news cycle, making national headlines almost weekly.

In a one-month span late in 2014, police fatally shot 12-year-oldTamir Ricein Cleveland andAkai Gurleyin Brooklyns East New York neighborhood, while grand juries in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York Citys Staten Island, respectively, declined to indict the officers who admitted to killingMike BrownandEric Garner, who bothhad been unarmed.

A few months later in April 2015, another onslaughtof daily media coverage covered the day-to-day developments intheEric Harris, Walter Scott, and Freddie Gray;this was followed shortly thereafter by white supremacist Dylann Roofs church massacre in North Charleston, South Carolina, and the mysterious Julydeath ofSandra Bland, the black woman who died in police custody in Texas after a questionable traffic-stop arrest.

But since Trumps election in November, many similarlytroubling videoshave gone viral on Facebook and Twitter, while the mainstream media has turned a relative blind eye.

Last week self-proclaimed white supremacist James Jackson rode a bus from Baltimore to New York, where just a few blocks from Times Square he fatallystabbed through the chest a randomly selected black mannamed Timothy Caughman with an 18-inch blade.

Jackson, who now facesterrorism charges, said he chose to do this in New York because its the media capital of the world, and he wanted to send a message. Thatmessage was apparently lost on reporters and editors at theNew York Postand theNew York Daily News, who for some reason maligned Caughman, rather than his killer, as a career criminal. This has drawn criticism from at leastone writeramong the Daily News ranks as well as members of the pro-Black Lives Matter community.

Media coverage of the racist New York terrorist attack was muted nationally amid the unending litany of stories focusing on Trump congressional hearings concerning hisridiculous tweets, his partys latestfailed attemptto repeal and replace Obamacare andFBI probesof the Trump campaigns possible ties to Russia.

Not only was [Caughman] murdered on the streets, but he was murdered again by the media, organizer Jason Walker of the advocacy group Vocal New York told a crowd last weekof more than 100 people gatheredat the steps of the Union Square park in Manhattan, before a march organizedin the wake ofCaughmans apparent murder.

Other pro-Black Lives Matter activists like Carmen Perez of Justice League NYC, Linda Sarsour of the Arab American Association of New York and Nelini Stamp of Resist Here and the Working Families Party marched with Walker to the corner of Broadway and 38th Street,where supporters created a memorial using bouquets of flowers and flyers bearing Caughmans likeness.

One protester held up a sign that read BLACK LIVES STILL MATTER, echoing the idea that Americas national focus has shifted away from the movement.

[Caughmans] death is reminding us to not be distracted, Sarsour told the crowd at one point during the protest. We dont see the same type of outrage that we did back in 2014. . . . I want you not to be distracted by the clowns and white supremacists in the White House.

But Ortiz saidthis lack ofmedia attentionis hardlynew for Black Lives Matter supporters and it wont stop her from fighting for whats right.

As long as our black and brown brothers and sisters are still dying and there is no accountability, I will march until I cant march no longer, she said with a laugh. And even then, Ill haunt yall motherfuckers!

Originally posted here:
Black lives blackout: Has the mainstream media forgotten about police violence and African-American resistance? - Salon