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I’m so fed up with our gatekeeper media structure. No matter how many times we mute, hide, or block certain creators, we can’t help but see their smirking faces in our feeds. They’re so arrogant and entitled and nothing they do ever seems to topple them from their perch. They kind of remind me of a certain orange domestic terrorist.

There have been numerous incidents of “respected” creators platforming people who are openly racist. It’s no different whether these creators bring the racists on to berate them, or whether the racists reveal themselves through a comment. Again and again, we see that media personalities are more interested in normalizing racism than advocating for the people who actually have solutions to our problems.

The situation always plays out the same. A racist incident occurs. That’s appalling in and of itself. But after the incident comes a period of “circling the wagons.”

First the creator comes out to make some sort of half hearted apology. It always sounds like this, “I scheduled a meeting with the grand dragon of the KKK, but I never expected them to say anything so offensive.”

That by itself is absolutely ridiculous, but then their colleagues and their minions come out to sell it.

“How dare you keep berating this issue! He took accountability! He made amends! The only one who won’t let it go away is YOU. I guess that means YOU are the real racist.”

This happens so often at this point you can’t really convince me that it’s not intentional.

Again, take a step back. We’re sitting in an unprecedented moment in our nation’s history. Corruption is in complete control of our politics and our media. Despite that, new voices are emerging in every corner. Naturally, the existing structure of corruption is going to do everything it can to push back in a desperate attempt to retain its power.

“But wait a minute, why would establishment media create a racist incident to preserve themselves? Wouldn’t it look bad?”

Hubris and entitlement lead to a lot of dishonest tactics. We’ve seen the republican party use division and racism to rise to power. Why wouldn’t corrupt journalists do the same? Heck, even corrupt democrats do it. These concepts are potent.

It’s because openly racist talk is so painful it create a fracture. Nothing provokes an emotional response like a blatant act of dehumanization. A few years ago, a girl at my daughter’s grade school used the same slur Rula Jebreal got platformed to toss around. My daughter wasn’t having it. She dropped the boy who said it even though he was the son of the vice-principal.

“You aren’t going to get away with talking to my friends like that.”

I approve of my daughter’s action. At the same time, the system allowed for that slur to be hurled. They put my daughter in a position where her integrity required her to make a stance. Had my daughter not had me and my wife to advocate for her, they could have buried her for her response.

Essentially, the system figured out a way to draw her out into the open. Even though she wasn’t punished, might she now be on some sort of list? Might she now be the target for passive censorship?

That appears to be the same strategy the media is deploying now. They feel a threat to their power, so they want to flex. It’s the same way a member of an abusive relationship attacks just to reestablish his authority. “This is just a reminder of what you get unless you obey.”

Then the proximity to power enablers come out to support the viewpoint of the attacker. They’re trying to crush us. They’re trying to say, “See? See what we can do? We can shoot somebody in Times Square and we won’t lose any support! It’s hopeless, you better comply or you’re going to be erased.”

I’ve been watching the attacks that have been directed at my friend Zuri Stevens after she wrote a very thoughtful plea not to allow racist language on platforms. It’s been astonishing to see how quickly the narrative can be twisted back into an attack on her.

All Zuri said was, “Please don’t platform racists.” That’s it. What’s wrong with that?

We still live in this culture where the people think they have to defer to the authority of power. But just because somebody has a hundred thousand followers, or a million followers, or they are the president of the United States, it doesn’t mean they’re right.

When the small creators like Zuri or myself speak the truth, the people disregard us at their own peril.

But I think an effort to disregard us is the point. I think the big creators are afraid of us. They know that if they make some racist swipe, we’ll be the first to call them out. So, they draw us out so they can identify us as their opponents. Then, in order to preserve their position, they offer an insincere apology and go on the attack. This allows them to misrepresent what happened. What gets lost in the aftermath is that the incident initiated with them.

We have to be mindful that the crime wasn’t just the utterance of a racist phrase, the crime was the willingness of big creators to platform racists in the first place.

I expect that we won’t see an apology tour in which people like Zuri Stevens or myself are allowed to explain the true extent of this socially destructive language and behavior. The whole point is that good people don’t get a platform. This is why I’ve been experiencing such intense blowback for platforming independent candidates this last year.

The big creators do not want to represent diversity. They only want to maintain their own power. They know that they can sow the seeds of division by being loudly racist and then engaging in performative apology to avoid consequences.

They use racism to increase their following.

This is coordinated.

The next thing you know, there will be dozens of other big platforms publishing articles about the incident that all sound as if they were written from the same script. They’ll claim the big creator is good, and that the little creators who sound the alarm are “out of line.”

They’ll use those exact words.

Think about that the next time some big creator who pretends to be our friend “accidentally” invites a racist onto his show. Be sure to watch not just how he responds, but who defends him, and who tries to hold him accountable.

The liars are right out in the open and they lie right to our face.

The good people are out there too. You can find them in the pile of books scheduled to be burned. I’m sick of seeing people with huge platforms who claim to be fighting fascism but who openly use the same tactics of the entities they pretend to oppose.

Believe the evidence of your eyes and ears. Don’t succumb to the pressure to deny the truth. Racists don’t get platformed by accident. It’s intentional.

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