No Blacks Allowed: The 2024 Presidential Debate

Who was it who taught me that I can often learn more by listening for what’s not said, than being guided by what is? Maybe my mother. She always had small tidbits of advice like that.  Watching the debate last night and listening to its virtual silence on race matters, spoke volumes about Mommy’s mantra–and even more volumes about America, be it liberal, conservative or Trump America.  

In the interest of not being redundant, I’ll dispense quickly with the most obvious clear take on last night’s debate: Biden’s poor performance and Trump’s vulgarity and lies which were at peak pathological. Rather, we should focus directly on what wasn’t said–or asked–by the other two people in the room: CNN’s Dana Bash and Jake Tapper. What’s the right word to describe their performance: Tepid? Capitulating? Boring?  Ambulance chasing long debated above-the-fold stories? Maybe the right phrase is the personification of white privilege. They have the privilege and social status not to worry about things that I do. But then, I’m a single Black mother who’s known the violent loss of a child.  

But not only did Tapper and Bash traverse well-trodden territory—viewers could have written the scripts for either candidate’s response, the questions were so predictable–but they didn’t even fact-check in real-time when they absolutely knew a candidate was lying (like when Trump called soldiers harmed in battle losers and suckers. Later, he babbled something about Biden being a fictional character, The Manchurian Candidate. Weird stuff). 

To be fair to the moderators, CNN apparently told them not to correct candidate remarks. They were told that only the candidates would be allowed to fact-check. I’m not sure how CNN proposes itself to be a real news outlet, not like, say, The Onion, given the bizarre mandate that essentially orders journalists not to be journalists.  But then of course CNN was already under fire because it failed to credential even one Black-owned media outlet despite pushes to do so from, among others, the Congressional Black Caucus. 

CNN’s justification was a reiteration of the racist trope about Black people being lazy and shiftless: They didn’t apply on time, CNN claimed. Even if that were true–the veracity of the statement hasn’t been checked–wouldn’t any media outlet covering one of the most important nights in politics work to ensure Black-owned and other minority-owned outlets are there? I mean, we don’t have to be in the room where somebody is saying, “Make sure so-and-so is there,” so-and-so being a journalist from a white-owned outlet. 

Which is why in the end, what we heard loudly both in query and in response, was what was not said: critical matters of concern for Black people. I  mean, wow. Just wow. With all the attacks on DEI, CRT and Black voters, how did none of that make it to the stage? No issues were calibrated toward Black sensibilities and needs.

And there, my Democratic friends, is where your most vulnerable spot can be found. Elections live and die on the 13 percent bloc of Black voters. Thirteen percent makes or breaks just about any election held. And in the Black community, that number is powered primarily by Black women voters. Black women are the most loyal Democratic voters, and, as key leaders in their communities, they have the ability to convince the many, not the few. And we want our children coming home alive. Ignore us at your own peril. 

So aside from the issues noted above, where was the full-throated discussion on police violence, something that lives at the very top of an issue at the top of the NAACP’s agenda, which was released in March? 

What about CNN taking its own reporting seriously since they sent their own journalist, John King, to Wisconsin in November of 2023. There, Mr. King listened and then told the story of Black organizers who named their top issue for Election 24. You guessed it: police violence and accountability. 

Even if all of that fell under the white radar, the Gallup Poll  for goodness sake, revealed last September the Black community’s ongoing lack of trust in the police.

And they missed it even as one of the most respected mainstream papers, The Washington Post,  keeps a running list of people killed by police each year. It’s been upticking every year but that that hasn’t caused widespread rush to coverage–except in Black-owned outlets like NewsOne. 

In the main, I suppose the other outlets have just ceded the territory to teenagers with smartphones, despite the fact that  over the last 12 months, some 1,166 people were killed by police (as of June 19th). Black people are killed at twice the rate of whites–even though Black people are less likely to be armed during police interactions than whites. 

In just over a month, we will turning our eyes toward Ferguson where recent high-school graduate, Michael Brown, was shot down and killed by former Ferguson cop, Darren Wilson. No true bill was ever brought against him for killing the unarmed 18-year-old in the middle of the street like he was a rapid dog. Instead, this still-minor child’s body, bloodied and lifeless, lay there handcuffed for hours. Hours and Hours. As we move to note the anniversary of Mike Brown’s killing in 2014, we’re going to remember that the only people ever held accountable in America’s courts were the people who braved militarily armed police, their tear gas and rubber bullets to say what is still true today: 

Black. Lives. Matter.

All. Black. Lives. Matter.

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