African-American Women: Where They Stand, NBC To Attack Black Women With (more) Propaganda

Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.

– Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, Propaganda And Persuasion

I read about this at the blog What About Our Daughters?. NBC is doing a week of reports on the NBC Nightly News about Black women. And as anyone knows who knows anything about corporate media, any report about Black people is going to be negative. So starting Monday be prepared for an onslaught of negative stories about Black women.

As Gina at What About Our Daughters? points out, they will be doing a segment about Black women going to college in record numbers. But they some how manage to look at that as a bad thing, since more Black women are in college than Black men. I wonder if they will mention that there are more White women in College than White men?

Last week I wrote a post called African Americans Are More Likely To _______ (Fill in the black with some thing bad). I talked about the constant barrage of negative reports and studies telling us that everything about us is bad. I warned that a new week was coming so be prepared for the media attacks to continue. Well here it comes, don't say I didn't warn you.

Note: So-called studies about African Americans are never broken down by economic class. They just say 'African Americans are'. So this presumes that all the ills of the Black community are due to our inferiority rather than lifestyle.

I've hi-lighted some of the negativity indicators below in red.

From the NBC website

African American Women: Where They Stand

A five-part series to air beginning Monday, Nov. 26

Throughout the week of November 26, "NBC News With Brian Williams" will take a look at the issues facing African-American women across our nation in a new series "African-American Women: Where They Stand." The series will cover a wide-range of issues from their role in the '08 Presidential race, to the increased health-risks that they need to be concerned about.

Monday's installment will discuss African-American women's progress in the education field. Nearly two-thirds of African-American undergraduates are women. At black colleges, the ratio of women to men is 7 to 1. And that is leading to a disparity in the number of African-American women who go on to own their own businesses. Rehema Ellis will talk to educators, students and businesswomen about why this disparity exists.

Tuesday, Ellis will look at relationships within the African-American female community. Many agree the gender disparity in education and business among African-Americans is having an effect on relationships that African American women have. Some even say the implications could redefine "Black America's family and social structure." In the past fifty years, the percentage of African-American women between 25-54 who have never been married has doubled from 20% to 40%. (Compared to just 16% of white women who have never been married today). Ellis sits down with the members of a Chicago book club and talk about this difference and how it impacts them.

Dr. Nancy Snyderman will discuss the increases risks for breast cancer for African-American women on Wednesday. Mortality rates for African-American women are higher than any other racial or ethnic group for nearly every major cause of death, including breast cancer. Black women with breast cancer are nearly 30% more likely to die from it than white women. Premenopausal black women are more than twice as likely to get a more aggressive form of the disease. And, not only are African-American women more likely to die from breast cancer, but they're less likely to get life-saving treatments. Dr. Snyderman will profile one of the only oncologists in the world who specializes in the treatment of African-American women with breast cancer.

On Thursday, Ron Allen will take viewers to South Carolina -- the first southern primary state -- and ask the question: Will race trump gender or gender trump race? In South Carolina , black women made up nearly 30 percent of all democratic primary voters in 2004. This year, polls show a significant number are undecided, torn between choosing the first African-American or first female Presidential candidate. Allen talks with the undecided, as well the state directors for the Clinton and Obama campaigns, who happen to be African-American women.

To close the series on Friday, Dr. Snyderman will raise the frightening statistic that African-American women are 85% more likely to get diabetes, a major complication for heart disease. And, like breast cancer, more black women die from heart disease than white women. Dr. Snyderman will profile a leading expert and a unique church-based outreach program in South Carolina that seeks to spread the word about heart disease risks to black women congregants.

Mara Schiavocampo, Digital Correspondent for "Nightly News," will address two hot topics in the African - American community: interracial dating and the impact of hip hop music on black women (For those of you who attended NABJ this year, Ms. Schiavocampo won the Emerging Journalist of the Year Award). Interracial dating is a growing trend in the African - American community. An Essence.com poll found that 81% of participants approved of black women dating non- black men. According to a U.S. Census Bureau report in 2000, 95,000 black women were married to white men. In 2005, that number increased to 134,000. Schiavocampo will talk to experts about the trend and discuss how this defines the "Black family" of the future.

Schiavocampo will convene a panel of leading black men and women from the hip-hop industry for an engaging discussion on whether hip hop lyrics and videos positively or negatively affect black women. The roundtable also will address how these portrayals are affecting relationships between black women and black men.

NBC Website