S2 E13 - Marc Lamont Hill

Ed talks with academic, broadcaster, social commentator and author Marc Lamont Hill. They discuss the current state of politics, the precarious position of Black-owned media and his new book, Seen and Unseen that looks at the intersectionality of race and technology.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to the latest edition of one hundred The Ed
Gordon Podcast. Today a discussion with academic broadcaster, social commentator
and author Mark Lamont Hill. He and co author Todd
Brewster have just released their new book, Seen and Unseen.
The book explores the importance technology has played in the
fight for justice and equality, from the black and white

(00:45):
footage of the savage beatings of protesters on the Edmund
Pettis Bridge to the viral video of the murder of
George Floyd. The book explores how seeing injustice often helped
move the needle towards correct actions. But we started out
by talking about the current state of politics. Our conversation

(01:06):
took place one day before political leaked to Supreme Court
draft opinion that would scuttle federal abortion protections. This sent
Democrats scrambling and was the latest example of the left
seemingly playing from behind. I asked if he agreed with
me that Democrats have been politically fumbling and seemed to

(01:28):
be missing something in the fight against the Grand Old Party.
Absolutely agree, and you could have asked me that question
almost any time in the last thirty years. Enough, fair enough,
But but I think right now, you know we're we're
into we're halfway into the Trump excuse me, the post

(01:49):
Trump years, and you can no longer simply ride the
wave of I'm better than him, because effectively, what the
Democrats did was they did not win the way Democrats
traditionally win elections, the way people interditioning with elections, which
is to have someone who moves people. Whether you like
Trump or not, he moved people, He inspired people. Obama

(02:10):
inspired people, Bill Clinton inspired people, Georgia W. Bush inspired people.
But uh, with Biden, this is one of those times
I said, look, I'll make sure the trains are running
on time, and I won't be that guy. But two
years in and many people have stopped looking for jobs.
Unemployment numbers are are good. That something that they're touting.
But what they can't tout, frankly, is is economic prosperity

(02:33):
for a whole bunch of vulnerable people. Uh, whether you
want to blame the president or not, the COVID nineteen pandemic,
while it is more manageable than it was at its worst,
it's not over and people still feel like they're suffering
right now. If you look overseas, if you look at
what happened in Afghanistan a year and a year ago.

(02:55):
You know, the decision to end war makes sense to people,
but the disaster that he emerged afterward because of the
hastiness and the poor intelligence that was deployed. People are
uneasy with that right now. And it's not the biggest issue,
but it's another it's another issue, you know in local cities.
You know, people are paying the price for the Democratic candidates,
paying the price for crime being high again, whether it's

(03:16):
an individual candidate's fault or not. In the point right now,
people are catching hell and they want relief. And the
Biden administration has yet to offer a clear and coherent
vision and plan that touches the spirits and the hearts
of folk, but also their pocketbooks and their wallets. And
so as long as they keep riding on the remember
what happened on January six, or at least, we're not

(03:38):
that guy. And if that's their only message, they're gonna
be shocked in the mid terms and even more shocked.
Here's what is not unique to this time, particularly if
we use history as a guide. Um, but most of
the time, the party in the White House, we'll lose
some seats in mid term but you can lose and

(04:01):
then it it can be disastrous. I think we are
walking to a line of disasters. Oh yeah, in the
in the House, you could be talking about not ten
or twenty seats from more like forty, you know, I
mean the worst case scenario, you could be talking about
forty or fifty seats. In terms of the swing or
terms of the loss um. That could be disastrous. You know,

(04:24):
if you talk about losing um the Senate, you know,
and if you talk about losing the power and state
houses around this country, which is the part that again
different Democrats are often out maneuvered on. You know, it's
not enough to just win uh you know that the
House and Senate. But you know, many of the fights
we have right now over critical race theory, over gender
neutral bathrooms, over whether the library stays open or whether

(04:46):
there's public housing. Uh, you know, opportunities in a particular
in a particular area. It comes down to decisions that
are made at the at the city and state level,
and Republicans have mastered for decades winning those seats over
and over again, especially vulnerable mid terms like like we
see right now, and you're absolutely right it, I mean,
it's not uncommon for the party with all the power

(05:07):
to take a look in in in national midterm elections. Um.
But the sort we're about to see is more than
just American voters being uncomfortable with power. And it's more
than that. So what do we tell Black voters who
have often found themselves between a rock and hard place.
They give their votes to a party? Uh, they got
a man in that. You know, they weren't in love with,

(05:28):
as you suggest, but they saw it as better than
the alternative. And we still haven't learned quick pro quote.
We don't understand that politics is I give you this,
you give me this back. So what do you tell
the average black voter, who may not know all the
intricacies of politics, Um, and it is become even more
disillusioned than they were when they voted for Biden. In

(05:51):
the short term, we gotta say, the rock in the
hard place ain't the same thing. They neither is where
you want to be. But one is a whole lot
worse than the other. And we can't slip into the
both sides argument. We can't succumb to the well this
is bad time I was will the other side of
try no, no, no, no, no. We we got to
make different choices. UM. The other thing we have to do, though,
I think, is a long term plan, and it's the

(06:13):
thing that we never want to talk about because it's
a long term plan, and that is political education. That
is organizing folks, and that is energizing the base UH
through UH through through a different approach to politics. So
political education is exactly what you're talking about with the
with the equip pro quote thing, right, not just giving

(06:33):
them the basic kind of framework for politics, but but
also getting them to understand what's at stake with each
of these choices that we've made. You know, if we
lose the House and Senate, what's at stake? You know,
what does it mean for us to not get another
shot at the Supreme Court for another four or six
or eight or ten years if we uh, if we
lose a national presidential election and don't have the strength.

(06:56):
Republicans had such a stronghold in the Senate that even
when they didn't have a president in the office, they
were able to protect the Supreme Court in many ways.
Right when we saw that what they did with Mary
Garland and holding out, they had the power to hold out. UH.
The other thing here is we gotta stop being so
damn nice. You know, Republicans don't play by the rules.
They play the win, and when the rules suit them,

(07:17):
they say, look at the rules. And when the rules
don't see them, they say, these rules aren't fair. But
they do it they got to do to win. And
we have to stop. We have to stop doing something different.
So let me ask you this. I think let's take
the Supreme Court as an example. You know, I saw
so many people excited about Cantanji Brown Jackson and look
at what we have and a sister and blah blah
blah blah blah. But they didn't get the connection that
if you don't vote and make sure that Warnock and

(07:39):
others stay in the Senate, you're not gonna see another
Cantanji Brown Jackson. You look at critical critical race the theory,
what you're seeing Republicans do is exactly what you talked about.
They're not just complaining about it. They're running for school boards.
They're running to make sure that they can change the
curriculum in these states. How do we get us to

(08:01):
understand that the game has to have a game plan.
I mean, if you love sports, you understand you can
just run out there with five dudes on the basketball court.
And that's cool for street ball, but if you're winning
in the NBA, you gotta have a game plan at
the end of the day. Absolutely, it's a difference between
the Sixers and the Pistons, for example. That's a whole

(08:23):
another thing. But yeah, but you know, part of what
that means again is showing people what's possible. That's why
I say political education. It's not enough to just go
out here on the Internet and make memes. It's not
enough to just tell folks to vote, and it's not
enough to give Black folks like they do with that,
you know, on election day, that big list of people
where they should vote for each item. You know, this
is a four year deals. Like you know, Christians talk

(08:45):
about the seven day Gospel, not just what you get
on Sunday. We need a seven day Gospel of politics
every single day. We got to show folk, uh, and
we got to encourage folks. I mean, the beautiful thing
that came out of the Ferguson activism was that a
few people, so really important people decided, you know, I'm
to run for Congress, I'm gonna run for the state House,
I'm gonna run for city councilor or or the mayoralty.

(09:06):
We got to do that everywhere we go. We have
to show people that, you know, a lot of times
you can win a city council seat by organizing five
thousand people. You know you could win it. You could
easily be on the city council in New York or
or or you could be an Alderman in Chicago if
you can get four or five six thousand people. These
young folks that win elections and surprise the nation at
eighteen and twenty five years old because they organized their friends.

(09:27):
They use social media. We have to show people what's
possible and then show them the benefits after we win.
Because it's not enough to just win. You got to
show people, like, look what happens when you win, And
we haven't done that effectively. Let me ask you the
thing I get in trouble with often, and that is
black leadership. I don't think that we hold black leadership accountable.

(09:48):
I have been so disenchanted, quite frankly, over the last
decade maybe two maybe two uh in terms of the
lack of new narratives, the idea that we're satisfied with
a quick paycheck or you know, an invitation to the
White House. Um. And as long as that leadership remains happy. Um.

(10:11):
For as much as they preach about the community, I've
not seen the needle move. I've not seen too many people.
I don't want to paint across the board with one
large brush, but the idea of really holding back and
suggesting I'm not giving you this until I get that, UM,
what you're thinking on on current black leadership? And I

(10:33):
put black leadership in quotes because you know, we can
argue what that is here or there? Yeah, when when
it comes to elected leadership, and one of those we've
seen in the last two decades the shift from the
kind of unelected leadership that dominated Black America. If you
ask people in two thousand who the president of Black
people was, they might say Jesse Jackson, right, because the
most powerful people we had positioned were people who weren't

(10:57):
elected to national office. That we didn't have black folk
in the Senate, we don't shouldn't have him in the
White House. But it's but in the Obama moment, the
post Obama moment, we've seen more and more people elected
to office who also are seen as leaders in our community,
in addition to the powerful tradition of civil rights leaders
and grass roots leaders and activists that we see. But
the question is, are we still satisfied just to have

(11:20):
somebody in office? Are we said, are we are we
happy just to say we got the first black this
or the second black that? Or are we actually going
to hold them accountable for outcomes and and and make
the same demands of them that we would make of
other folks. Now, on some level, answers, yes, we didn't.
We didn't as applints for nothing. We didn't ask Obamas
for them. But so we are being consistent. But the

(11:42):
key is how do we turn that up a notch
so that we can we can make better questions. And
that's why I keep beating that drum of political education.
We got to be there. That means our pastors are moms.
That means our teachers, that means our ward leaders that
are block captains have to be part of a project
organizing people and teaching them what's possible by giving a
new language of of critique, a new language of imagination

(12:04):
so that we're not stuck in the same place and saying,
if we could just get the black police chief we
could just get the black mayor and instead say, if
we could just get the police from being occupying forces
in our neighborhood, if we could just get funding in
our school, if we could have African centered history in
our in our social studies classes. The outcome has to
be something concrete and deliverable to the people, not um

(12:28):
not not the the emergence or the ascendants or the
coordination even of a single black leader. Yeah, let me
ask you unfair question. Admittedly it's kind of like the
NFL draft. You really don't know what the real answer
is going to be until after the fact. But prognosticate
for me. What do you think when you look at
mid terms? How how bad is it going to be?

(12:49):
Like a Mike Tyson fight in nineties? Man? You know,
I mean, don't don't pop new popcorn in the first round, man,
unless something extraordinary happens. I think Democrats are going to
be beaten. Uh, not just because of two but because
of sixteen nineteen. Right, the Republicans are gonna beating that

(13:10):
drama critical race theory in sixteen nineteen, and they're taking
your country away and and and disaffected, disillusion angry white
people are going to the polls in droves, and all
of us are gonna not all of us, but many
of us are going to not even know what hit
us until we get to three and people start talking
about the emergence of of Trump again or the emergence

(13:31):
of whomever is running on the right, and then we'll
start to see a battle. But by then so much
damage will have been done. So I'm expecting a huge
takeover of the House and expecting a minor takeover of
the Senate, and I'm imagining gubernatorial elections all around, UM
the country to swing in Republican favor. When when I
think about the Senate seats that that were celebrated two

(13:52):
years ago, I mean like I mean, like the Warnox seat.
When I think about people who were to fight really
courageous races in the next two to four years for
for governorship and states, I think we're gonna see losses.
And in those states where we gained a lot, like Georgia, UM,
like Texas, like Ohio, like Pennsylvania. Uh, we're gonna see,
We're gonna see setbacks. We're gonna see extraordinary setbacks. Let

(14:15):
me suggest, and I agree with you, the one thing
that I will say that I'm most frightened by is
when we saw mirrors of that, you typically still had
a quote unquote strong white house. It wasn't slipping on
a banana peal, wasn't faltering. And when I say that,
I mean by the presidency itself and the man behind
that desk. Even when Clinton was embroiled in impeachment and

(14:39):
all of what we saw, Uh, there was still a
sense of to your point earlier, an inspirational note of
who this person is. When you couple what I see
by means of the lackluster want to be behind Biden
uh and what is coming, I think makes this an

(15:01):
even gloomier picture. I hope I'm wrong, but we'll see.
Let me tell when we come back. Losing Black Media
and Mark's new book that looks at how technology is
a large key to equality for people of color, we

(15:33):
turned our attention to the changing face of media and
the question of the shrinking number of black owned media
outlets and why that becomes detrimental to getting the full story.
I'm curious how you see national black media, in particular
traditional media first, and then what we're seeing what is

(15:53):
being dubbed as black social media, and what it's doing
right and what it is doing poorly. You know, Black
national media is to me sadly worse off than it
was even twenty years ago, twenty five years ago. Um,

(16:14):
there are some great people on television right now, and
we talk about traditionally me I'm I'm happy to see
you know, Joy and Read on television and Tiffany Cross
and Jonathan k Part. Mean, there are some black folk
who are doing amazing work. Um, there just aren't enough
of us. I mean if when you look at, uh,
you know where we were twenty or thirty years ago

(16:35):
on on on national broadcast media plus cable media. I
mean there is there be I mean, I'm the host
of b ET News, but there's no nightly broadcast. Right.
We do specials, right, but there's no Nightly Broken. There's
no Ed Gordon, there's no Jackie Read, there's no you know,
on TV, there's no Tavis Smiley anymore like we had
on PBS nightly. And so the places that we could

(16:56):
depend on for for nightly news simply aren't there. Of course,
there was Black News Channel. We lasted for about a year,
but you know, for a variety of reasons, that didn't
pan out. And so there's no single source on mainstream
media where we can get our story told, where we
can get traditional news approaches, but with from a black perspective. Um,

(17:16):
there are, however, a range of amazing opportunities in new media,
or we should say that, you know, new media, emerging media,
whatever you wanna call it. You know, so you can
watch Roland Martin every single day and that matters. That's powerful,
you know. Then there's the non traditional news approaches that
are on non traditional media. For example, we see more
presidential candidates go to the breakfast club than we do

(17:40):
to any any sort of traditional news outlet, So that's
also a very become a very very important space. Um,
what I'd like to see in terms of that type
of approach of news is I'd like to see more
outlets and and more black journalists doing the work. I
love what happens in lots of spaces, but I think
it's important for actual trained journalists to be out here

(18:02):
getting opportunities to interview, to engage, to tell our stories
in a variety of ways, degree or the route they're
doing it. We just need more of it. And then, um,
we look at black Twitter, where we get to tell
our own stories. Well, I can go live anytime I
want on Instagram or where someone can TikTok and informational

(18:22):
video or whatever the thing might be. Um, that is
so powerful but also very vulnerable. You know, the idea
that you know, our biggest stories, our biggest ideas are
susceptible to the whims of a corporate media outlet that
doesn't care about Black folks and largely exploits us. Right,

(18:43):
folks that make money of TikTok ain't them black girls dancing.
It's the white people that make the videos after after
they copy the dance. Right, it's the themes and the
means and the talking on Black Twitter that reverberate around
the world. But we don't get no check for that.
And now it's not just susceptible to the whims of
corporate media, it's it's susceptible potentially to the whims of
an individual bill millionaire. That scares the hell out of me.

(19:03):
And so I'm very encouraged by the fact that black
media outlets and all these new media spaces have proven
that Black folk are never gonna be quiet. We're never
gonna be silent, We're gonna push back, fight, back, resists,
create lead, etcetera. But I'm disillusioned by the fact that
all this time later, we don't own enough, we don't
control enough of the conversation on our own terms. Um,

(19:25):
and so I'm just looking for more, and honestly, I
feel increasingly responsible, uh, for the fact that there isn't more.
You know, I need to do more of what you do.
I need to do more of what Rolling does. I
need to do more of what other brilliant black pioneers
have done to help create more media space for us.
And that's difficult because one of the things that you

(19:45):
mentioned that people don't realize, and Rolling and on a
number of others have had this discussion, you know, if tomorrow, uh,
and the question about what Musk will do with Twitter.
You know, we like to call it black Twitter, but
that ain't nothing but Twitter with black folks on it.
To your point, you know, at the whim, if it
becomes subscription based, or if any of these you know,

(20:07):
platforms that have decided to let you come on for
quote free, decide tomorrow we're gonna charge you a hundred
or two hundred or fifty or whatever the price, maybe
per day, per month, per week, whatever the case is,
they're going to be a lot of voices that do
go away. I look at an Isaac Hayes, uh, you know,

(20:27):
who's trying to take on the big behemoths and say
that we can own these kinds of things. I still
go back to the white man's ices colder. You know,
I think about all the time. If I was at
b T, I was seeing one way, But the minute
I worked at CBS, black folks saw me another way.
Like you made it to the big leagues, and I

(20:47):
did better work quite frankly on b ET. And so
what would you like to right now? What would you
like to see in terms of us again as a
community try to morph and change our thinking and our ways. Man.
First of all, that thing you said about the B

(21:08):
E T. CVS thing, you know what resonates with me.
And you know, I did a nightly show for the
last year on Black News Channel, and my ratings were
relatively good compared to other folks on a network sometimes,
but I never got half a million black people, all
these millions of black folk America, and I couldn't get
two hundred thousand black people at night. Now, something that

(21:29):
was about our own promotion and lack of a brand,
a wearing and things like that, which I don't blame
black people for, but there is a way that when
people saw me on CNN or when I was on
Fox or whatever, they were like yo, And then when
they saw me in Black News Channel, I was like,
oh he fell off. It like come down right, And
it's like I'm making more money here. I controlled that
I'm the managing editor and every night I'm giving you

(21:49):
all black stories, black reporters, black perspectives, black debates, all
this stuff. But it's like, unless people see it on
a white person's platform, it's not real to them. And
it's like it's some point we have to be able
to believe in ourselves right the lives mohabbit, we used
to say, and the nasure you say, accept your own
and be yourself, you know, until we get to the

(22:11):
point where we actually desire our own award shows and
our own platforms and our own stuff. So that when
Isaac Hayes the Third says, look, I got a social
media platform that can do the stuff that Twitter and
Instagram is doing, but we can do it on our
own terms, people will be happy. They won't be looking
at it as a cheaper version than as a no
frills Twitter. Instead, they'll see it as a platform that
actually offers a lot and in any ways more than

(22:32):
the traditional ones they dashed the same thing. We got
to support this stuff. And so ultimately black media is
not gonna win and thrive if we always are looking
through the lens of whiteness or assessing things to the
lens and with the measuring stick of whiteness. We got
to believe in us. We got to invest in us,
and until we do that, nothing else is gonna matter anyway. Um,
And then this bigger structural problem that you speak to,

(22:53):
I agree a thousand percent right. We we have to
create our own distribution networks, our own landing strips, our
own platforms for our content so that again we're not
one angry YouTube or YouTube execut away from shutting our
whole enterprise. That there's a whole bunch of gonna make
their whole lives off of platforms with it, YouTube, with
the Twitter, with us whatever that they don't control, and

(23:14):
that is very, very dangerous. You can't be radical, you
can't disrupt power. You can't confront the powerful on their
own platform because as soon as you disrupt them too much,
they're gonna shut it down. Is that simple? What do
we do by means of helping those that are there?
I think of years ago when Frank's Place was on
and such a positive show for black folks. It went off,

(23:37):
there was a sense of anger in the black community.
We said that we were gonna boycott advertisers who you know,
walked away, etcetera, etcetera. We're gonna boycott you know that network.
But you know, it reminded me of the idea of
boycotting um Our Kelly till he dropped Chocolate Factor and
we were like, oops, gotta go back. So how do

(24:00):
we find a way to make sure that those I
think about what Byron Allen has been doing, you know,
uh and and and his brilliance. You know, Byron is
a different guy, and there are a lot of black
folk who weren't sure how to take him, but you
could not knock the brilliance of what he did. He
took landscape in television and nobody else wanted. Nobody wanted

(24:20):
to be on at two am and three m. And
he just started to build and build and building too.
He has become a behemoth with within himself in the
media world. Um, but he is brave. One must say
this because he will take a lawsuit to whomever he
chooses and go after it. We've not seen that kind
of bravery amongst those who kind of get opportunity because

(24:44):
we're always afraid of losing that seat, losing that check,
losing that So how can we as a community help
those that we see out there? One Black people, We
have to be intentional about supporting our own stuff. Right
I own a coffee shop in Philadelphia, it I might charge.
For example, in a bookstore, my books are gonna cost

(25:05):
more than Amazon books. They just have to write, I
can't charge your Amazon charging. Amazon will literally if a
thousand books are in printing of a book, Amazon will
buy nine ninety of them to make sure that no
one else can afford to sell the book, and then
they'll raise the price back up. They'll sell it for
they'll they'll sell it initially for cheaper. And let me
put it this way, Amazon will lose money on a

(25:25):
product just to make sure no one else can sell it,
and then when they wipe out all the businesses, they
raised the price back up. So we have to be
willing to say you know what, I believe in that bookstore,
or I believe in that that that clothing store so
much that I'm willing to pay an extra ten PC
in order to keep that store alive. And I know
everybody can't afford to do that. I'm not saying that,

(25:46):
go go go spend extra five thousand dollars on a
car to support the black car deal. I know we
can't all afford to do that, and I'm not saying
I don't know if I would do that myself, right,
But what we can do in everyday life is make
choices to be intentional. I may there are people who
shows are good. I said, port them even if I
can't get home everything I dv are, and I make
sure that I watch it so that they sort that
advertisers know that this show is being consumed. This is

(26:08):
how we have to support each other. We have to
be intentional. It's not enough to just say, oh, if
it happens to fall in my lap, I'll do it now.
We have to be active and intentional in making it
happen and supporting these kinds of projects. And if we
don't do that, we will not be successful. We also,
again can't do that for not part of a bigger vision. Right.

(26:30):
The reason why I would support a buy right now
on or Roland Martin or Ed Gordon or whomever is
because one, I love y'all, but two, I have a
belief that black people can do this and that black
people must do this in order for us to be successful.
That goes back to the political education. So when pastors
on Sunday morning are telling for for example, you know
what what what what to do on their taxes, how
to tie more, when they tell them how to get rich,

(26:52):
when they tell them that, you know, God meant me
to drive a Bentley. When they're doing all of that,
they all still can be talking about self sustaining black
communities and what that looks like in terms of community gardens,
in terms of books, in terms of food, in terms
of clothing, in terms of shelter. We have to be
intentional about that stuff, and we have to be unafraid
that Byron al on example you gave is perfect right.
He's not suing just you know, Joe Schmow. He's suing McDonald's.

(27:16):
He's saying, y'all, y'all aren't advertising enough or now, in
the case of Byron Down, and they're putting him in
a small little bucket of minority advertising dollars where they
only have a little bit um reserved. The brother owns
the weather channel. The Weather Channel ain't no minority owned
news channel or the minority focused news channel. So what
they what they do on the one hand, is they
give very little money to black advertisers, and then they

(27:37):
then they try and force all black businesses into a
very narrow bucket when they often fit in the bigger bucket.
And so Byron and say, no, we're gonna get out,
We're gonna sue Comcast, We're gonna sue McDonald, We're gonna
see whoever is in our way because they are actively
undermining our prosperity. And Byron is not afraid to be
left out of the conversation because, like he said, if
you if you're not at to take what you build

(27:58):
your home and do. I should note that Rich lu Dennists,
who who many knew as Um, the man who who
purchased Essence repurchased it if you will, Um said the
same thing that that you did about the idea of
being willing not exorbitantly, but being willing to pay a
little bit more for uh support to those of us

(28:22):
that look like us. You know we pay a black
tax anyway, two more pennies, three more pennies ain't gonna matter.
Uh And if diet us out of a bind eventually
market His co author Todd Brewster's new book, Seen and Unseen,
explores the intersectionality of race and tech and how today's

(28:43):
means of communication makes technology and an even greater component
in the fight against racism and injustice. As we just
leave the kind of fairy the anniversary of the uprisings
in l A where that man Rodney King was beaten
by least in the world found out because of the
video camera, we're reminded of how powerful media has always

(29:05):
been in the struggle for racial justice. Rodney King was
the first time that video footage was part of the conversation.
But when E. Mattill was beaten in Mississippi, it was
the photograph of his disfigured body, his head multiple times,
it's normal size, that appeared on newspapers. It also appeared

(29:31):
on the cover of Jet magazine. And so when you
had black, so you had you had black your technology
and black media being used to animate a movement, Right,
you go from E. Mattill to the bus boycotts. Why
because maybe Till said, I want the world to see
what they did to my boy. When Ida b Wells
Barnett h is using the same photographs that white people

(29:51):
are using as postcards after lynching, and they were celebrating
these lynchings, she used it to stir public outrage against
the lynching of black folks. Right, So the photograph has
been used much like the camera has been used. And
I mean think about Birth of a Nation. How that
was used to uh to martial white outrage against black
folk and to normalize lynching, to normalize narrative about black folk.

(30:15):
And then when W. E. V. Two Boys and and
and Marcus Gard and others tried to raise money to
make their own movie, which they didn't have the money
to do, which speaks right to what we're talking about
right now. Hundred plus years later, they understood that if
they could make a counter story that week, they could
push back against the evil lies of Birth of a
Nation or the more subtle lines have gone with the wind. Right.
So there's a way that the technology is always mattered.

(30:39):
There's a way that media images have always mattered. Dr
King understood that it wasn't enough for us to get
beaten in the dark, but getting beaten on the Pettis
Bridge and letting in the technology of the camera combined
with the media of evening news, allowed the world to
see it and to be forced to reckon with it
and acknowledge the truth of state anction, violence and really

(31:01):
American apartheype. And so this is the reality of media
and technology. And so by the time we get to
George Floyd, when Darnella Frasier takes the powerful, scary, chilling,
ugly video of of George Floyd being murdered for over
nine minutes, America hits takes to the streets. Why because
they couldn't deny it anymore. It was the end of innocence.

(31:22):
They had to say once again, another generation, this is
really happening, and we got to be accountable for it.
Some were genuinely outrage and just didn't know this really happened.
Others knew it. But we're more prone to denying it
because they don't want to. They want to live in
a world where race doesn't matter in policing. But over
through all of this, the technology matter. We only know

(31:42):
the name of the officer. Sure, I believe his name
is from Grand Rapids because of the advocacy of our Sharpton,
but combined with the megaphone of black Twitter, we only
know that Brianna Taylor only got a semblance of justice
only an investigation of Madda are very only got uh
simblant to of accountability and justice from those those men
in Georgia because we kept saying their names out loud

(32:05):
in black media. And so what this book is doing
is saying both throughout history and examples I just gave
you and contemporarily the the use of media and the
use of technology has been always integrated tied to our
fight to talk about race differently and to get better
outcomes for those who have been racialized in this country's
black and brown frightening lee. Though we are seeing counter

(32:27):
stories being told by the same on the same medium,
and uh that will attempt to come back that yeah, yeah,
and and that's that's the truth. That's also the truth
in the history of media that we talk about, right,
is that it's there's no silver bullet here. You can't
just show the lynching and say, oh, well, we're fine.
You can't just show live raw video. We people tend

(32:49):
to think, those who don't work in media and journalism
that raw video means you've got the smoking gun. But
it's what my voice does over the b role that matters.
It's the story I tell in the leading that I
give before I show you the video that matters. Kyle
Rittenhouse made a video in Kenosha that had his people
thinking that he was on the battlefield fighting for fighting

(33:11):
for freedom and American justice. Whereas we saw the same video,
so this this boy came down here looking to kill somebody,
two different stories. You mentioned this earlier, Mark, how do
we make sure that we understand the difference between um
a journalist and someone who is just out here quote
unquote telling a story, because that's one of the biggest

(33:31):
differences from what all of those examples you gave before
to today. You know, whether or not we believe people
are talented in that journalism seat. If you are a
true journalist, there are certain rules that you follow. There's
certain research that you go after. Firstus someone who has
a Twitter account and Instagram account who may just throw

(33:54):
something up and not know the circumstance, uh or anything
about the video. They just put it up there. And
as we know, the consumption by a social media audience
doesn't concern itself with fact. We need media media literacy,
We need media literacy, We need critical media literacy. So

(34:15):
the media literacy part is about saying we need to
show people, first of all, just because it's gonna mean
just because somebody made an infographic that make it fact.
Just because it's in an article doesn't mean that the
article has been sourced. It doesn't mean that it's been verified.
You know, over the last ten years, we had we
had to make the distinction between bloggers and journalists right
in terms of you know, wh what fact finding was

(34:36):
done here? What sources were you These are key questions
right twenty years ago. We do that with cable news. Right,
just because somebody sitting behind a desk with the camera
and reading and reporting doesn't mean they're objective or fair
or trying to be you know, what happens before eight o'clock,
what happens after eight o'clock on most TV cable networks
is the difference between news and entertainment, news and opinion,

(34:56):
news and proselytizing. And we often don't make that distinctions.
So when when Shepherd Smith would turn into Bill O'Reilly
would turn into Shawan Hannity. People would assume that the
seven o'clock hour was the same as eight and nine
o'clock hour, and it wasn't, and so it was easy
for people to be duped. So we need to continue
to show people how and all these different modes and mediums,

(35:16):
what actual journalism is, what actual media making is, and
what and what the distinctions are at times. And then
the critical part of it is about power. We have
to show people that it's not just enough to make
distinctions between genres and forms, but to understand what's at
stake foot when a Tucker Carlson emerges in the world
with his white nationalist rhetoric. To understand why certain commercials air,

(35:37):
and why certain people are able to be on certain networks,
and and why certain stories get told and why other
stories never will get told. That's all part of the game.
And we should note as I get to the last question,
we should note the idea that even uh in the
quote unquote Golden Age, when Walter Cronkite was behind the desk,
we can't assume that everything was right then what but

(35:59):
but it us not because obviously it was told from
the lens of white men of the time. I will
say though, that the stellar journalist of that time often
fought against their prejudices to try to try and give
you an unvarnished look at it. Um, talk to me
about the connection to James Baldwin, m H and this book. Yeah,

(36:25):
you know, we have a chapter in this book called
about the Influencer. You know, one of the key things
in the fight for racial justice is the role of influencers.
People who shape public opinion, people whose voices get used,
people whose opinions getting made, and when you do us. So,
we did some research and found out that the most
quoted person in the era of Black Lives Matter, it's
not the founties of BLM. It's not Deray mckesson's not

(36:48):
Shaun King, it's not the president, it's not civil rights leader.
It's James Baldwin. He continues to matter in a way,
uh that we never uh would have have ever expected. Uh.
He is the ultimate twenty one century influencer. And that's
very fascinating. And the side of chords right up there too, right. Um,

(37:11):
these are powerful names from the sixties, fifty, sixties, and
seventies that continue to matter now, So Baldwin uh matters
in that way, right. Also a bond of Baldwin's last
books on the Atlanta child murders, right, evidence of things
unseen or things not seen. This book in some ways
is a play on that in terms of our title.
And and then we talked about Baldwin saying that you know,

(37:33):
you can't confront anything until you can't battle or fight
anything until you confront it. I don't want to George
Bush to quote, but you know the idea here is that, um,
nothing can be defeated until it's confronted. And in this country,
we've had a fear of race, we've had a fear
of acknowledging, much less confronting race and racism. And so

(37:55):
now what that means in the age of social media
technology is that we have more tools and more technologies
to take that which was unseen and make it seen.
And we have to make it seen, and then we
have to fight it, and then we can defeat it.
And so Baldwin's fingerprints are all through this beautiful book. Well,
the book is out there now seen and unseen by you, Mark,

(38:15):
Mark Lamont Hill and your co author Todd Brewster, and
I will say, Marcus, I tell you privately and publicly, man,
I appreciate that your voice is out here man, and
and and keep it up man, because we need it.
Thank you, And I gotta tell you, Matt as always.
Thank you for leading away, thank you for being a friend,
thank you for being a mentor, and thank you for
for setting such a high and lofty uh target. Man.

(38:38):
You you you raise the bar of what it means
to be out here as a journalist in this world. Uh.
And I'm always grateful for it. Thanks man. Mark's book,
Seen and Unseen is available now one hundred is produced
by ed Gordon Media and distributed by I Heart Media.

(39:01):
Carol Johnson Green and Sharie Weldon are our bookers. Our
editor is Lance Patton. Gerald Albright composed and performed our theme.
Please join me on Twitter and Instagram at ed L
Gordon and on Facebook at ed Gordon Media.