THE MEDIA IGNORES US
Seventy-two things are racing to be finished before
midnight, but I gave priority to only one of them this morning: attending
"The Media Ignores Us: A Human Art Exhibit" at Crescent City Boxing
Club, 3101 Erato, New Orleans. The title
is intriguing. Curiosity demanded that I
find out what an exhibit devoted to young, gifted, and Black youth in New Orleans
encompassed. It is fashionable to
demonize young Black people in the United States, to pepper Internet,
television, and print media each second with negative, dehumanizing images and
narratives about them. On a post-Katrina
Saturday morning, we needed positivity.
The exhibit, conceptualized by Kim Dilosa, founder and executive
director of the YOUTHanasia Foundation, Inc., did not disappoint me. It featured twenty-six young people who stood
silently under or in proximity to an awesome mural of Mohammed Ali at the
Boxing Club. As I looked at them and read the placards which explained who each
was and what she or he had done since August 29, 2005 and what he or she was
determined to accomplish in life, I was deeply moved. They were the polar opposite of Herman
Melville's Bartleby. Their silence was
very loud. They were brave, willing to
risk a certain irony in "exhibiting" human aspirations. They were twenty-six stars forming a
constellation against my usual blue-black cynicism. What I saw was unconditional, unmitigated
hope and strength and the young lifting themselves in affirmation of what their
ancestors, immediate and remote, lived, suffered, and died for. Their iconic
faces spoke to me. Ashé. Amen.
Chance arranged for a young man whom I'd met over a year
ago when I spoke to Students at the Center to reintroduce himself and to give
me some information about one of the exhibit participants, a future Icon of
NOLA. Our conversation convinced me to
make a small donation to the cause. I
also asked Ms. Dilosa if any of the New Orleans newspapers planned to cover the
exhibit. She told me they would not. The
papers did not like the exhibit's title.
They refused to cover it. Ah,
poetic justice. I intervened by calling
and leaving a voice message for one of the best journalists in New
Orleans. The media has the option
of ignoring the exhibit, but the media ought not ignore
the positive stories the twenty-six young people can tell to the United States
of America and the world. It is criminal
to ignore the storytellers and the stories during the anniversary of the Storm
they survived. At the back of my mind, I
hear a small, weird voice saying, "Fool, don't you know by now that
criminality is the modus operandi of choice at every social , mass communications,
and political level in the City of New Orleans?" I answered, "Perhaps I do know that, but
my work is to support the young, gifted and Black by speaking against the
status quo and the media that ignore
them.
Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
August 29, 2015
12:10 PM
