What’s missing? - Centralized Black media
Growing up I would sit in front of the tv waiting to find out who would be named number 1 for the best music video of the week on 106&Park and in the mornings before school I would switch between VH1 Top 20 Countdown and BET to get my morning music fix before the squeak and thump of the tired bus ride to school.
I would see reruns of Martin on all time as I did my homework and watched My Wife and Kids religiously. I remember that moment in time when everybody was watchin The Game. Waiting impatiently for next week’s episode. Tbh I was suburban as fuck so I didn’t watch too much of the Game but I was sat for every Real Housewives of Atlanta episode, especially the reunions. I’m not sure when but maybe it was sometime between jail broken firesticks and the rise and fall of Redbox that we collectively stopped investing our time into centralized Black media and began trading it in for convenience.
We stopped watching 106&Park (probably sometime when Terrance J left the show and they got BowWow on there). Instead we could listen from our phones through streaming services like Spotify.
Black print media like Jet, which began in the 1950s and Ebony which came out in the 40s went digital and shortly after went bankrupt in the late 2010s.
Tiktok and Instagram’s algorithms make it so that if you’re watching, liking, and saving certain content that you’ll see even more of that type of content. But what does that mean for Black media?
We had so many shows about Black families, Black joy, and community.
Black storytelling is integral to our survival. Our collective joy. Our collective grieving. Our collective thought processing.
I noticed its absence the most with D’Angelo’s passing. Where are our spaces to grieve? Where are our spaces to sing his songs and dance? To honor his legacy and his life’s work?
My prayer is that we have more centralized Black media outlets that don’t pander to non-Black people. Some shit just ain’t for everybody.
Questions for ya’ll: What Black centralized media do u know of? What are some Black cultural workers that are tending to these spaces?
Here’s a few Black media outlets I know:
[ Note: This post is inspired by Amber Abundance’s IG stories talking about the passing of D’Angelo and her conversations with her girlfriend, Ashley Youuniä.]