NEW ORLEANS — In our ongoing series on racial issues “The Talk” we’re going dedicating time to race and media. We recently sat down with members of a locally, black owned newspaper that’s been an outspoken voice in the New Orleans African American community for almost a century.
Black lives matter. Depending on the color of your skin, your politics or world view those three words can carry different meanings.
“All black lives matters means, our lives matter too. Not that we are better than, we are the same as,” said Renette Dejoie-Hall.
“It’s hard for me to believe that people truly don’t understand the point in the purpose behind black lives matter, why it was said in the first place. To respond with ‘all lives matter’ I feel like it is in most cases, or in all cases a willful ignorance and an intention to continue the belief that, yeah we should be treated more unfairly than other communities and that we are more dangerous than other communities none of which is true,” said David Baker.
David Baker and Renette Dejoie-Hall are members of the Louisiana Weekly, a locally black-owned newspaper dating back to 1925. The paper’s archives are housed at the Amistad Research Center on the campus of Tulane University.
“When my grandfather started the paper it was not just to dispute what was covered in mainstream media but it was also to promote what the black community was doing, because that was not covered in the mainstream media,” said Dejoie-Hall.
Renette continues that mission. She’s the president and publisher of The Louisiana Weekly.
“The black press, we number around 200 now. We spoke up for the African American community before there was anybody else to speak up for,” said Dejoie Hall.
Most of us know the Pythian Building as a relatively new development with a food market on the bottom floor, but the building is where The Louisiana Weekly was once headquartered. The building used to symbolize, black pride and enterprise in New Orleans.
In the years that followed the paper’s founding, the Dejoie name grew in prominence. For a time, Renette’s uncle was a part owner of the New Orleans Saints. Back then, The Louisiana Weekly was 50 cents. It still is today.
“I’ve been told I’m not necessarily a great businesswoman because I haven’t raised the price of the paper since the ‘70’s. That’s because I want everybody to be able to afford, you know to buy the paper and get the news,” said Renette.
David Baker is an associate editor. He says the Weekly offers a perspective mainstream media does not.
“What we don’t really see that you will see in a paper like ours or other similar papers is the coverage of the reasons behind those things beyond just saying the world is an equitable place for black people. We will give you the examples. We will talk about how certain communities are built within areas that are unhealthy environmentally. We’ll talk about how black people make less than white people. We talk about the system of racism how it’s institutionalized and how it started,” said Baker.
David and Renette say too often, television demonizes African Americans, feeding or perhaps even generating a fear of black people. While they didn’t offer concrete examples, they said they believe television’s coverage of violence, such as mass shootings, tends throw a harsher light on black suspects.
“It reaffirms this larger notion in the media and local media sometimes. You can give it a good guess when there’s a national tragedy or any random mass shooting, you could give it a pretty good guess on the race and gender of the culprit on the basis of whether or not they’re showing on tv the suspect’s face within the first 24 hours or honestly even in the first eight. If their name is released, if it’s a black person it’s often done right away. It’s often with some photograph that is not very flattering,” said David.
Renette says she notices some bias against blacks in local media’s coverage of crime.
“It’s the way mainstream media presents it. If it’s a black suspect, you all tell us it’s a black suspect. If it’s a white suspect, race is never mentioned. So, you are building, you keep giving an image to people that only people that commit crime are black people,” said Renette.
The net effect of that media bias they say, is black lives become less important.
“A black woman can go missing and be abused and that doesn’t make the news certainly not national news. we will publish stories about that all the time but nationally it really doesn’t happen. But if a little white girl went missing that will be in the news cycle for weeks until basically until she’s found,” said David.
An issue that inevitably gets injected in the conversation about race…is a phrase that has become controversial in itself: black on black crime. On the day that 9-year old Devante Bryant was shot to death in the Seventh Ward in July of this year, the New Orleans Police Superintendent said such violence must stop.
“We as a community need to take a look at ourselves, and what it is we’re doing and what we are accepting as the norm that should not be accepted as the norm, with this black on black violence,” said Superintendent Shaun Ferguson.
“U don’t really believe in the term black on black crime. It’s not a term that I use because crime is crime. Crime happens within the communities where people live so when there’s crime in a white neighborhood people don’t use the phrase white on white crime,” said David.
You don’t have to go far online to find critics of black lives matter who say African Americans selectively ignore crime committed by one of their own.
Despite the weekly’s influence through the decades, Renette says the black community continues to face the same threats. Before the video of George Floyd, there was Rodney King.
“We march nothing happens. We protest, nothing happens. We throw bricks, nothing happens, except we get arrested. One would think that we would move the needle, but there was Rodney King, and nothing changed that much,” said Renette.
We often fear what we don’t understand and perhaps mainstream media needs to better understand the issues in the black community and other communities of color for that matter. To do that, the media has to look at its own ranks. Do we need more minority reporters? Do we need more black news executives? Renette says to ignore those questions will only perpetuate a cycle of fear.
“The white community feels threatened that if the black community gains enough power, that they will be treated as they have treated us, which means that they know we haven’t been treated correctly. We just want to be treated the same, we want equal opportunity,” said Renette.
In such polarizing times, there are people who disagree with the Black Lives Matter movement. There are people who believe the racial disparities are manufactured by certain agendas, or certain media. It is a luxury and maybe even a privilege, to make those claims. It is a privilege not everyone enjoys.
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