Media Lynching
Ida B. Wells notably led a campaign against lynchings in America, in 1900 she wrote:
Our country’s national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. It represents the cool, calculating deliberation of intelligent people who openly avow that there is an “unwritten law” that justifies them in putting human beings to death without complaint under oath, without trial by jury, without opportunity to make defense, and without right of appeal. …
I feel like this is my life… it accurately describes the media lynchings I am both witnessing and experiencing across the world and in my own life.
I know too well what it feels like to be hounded, to seek escape, and to have allegations overtake your life and be used to erase everything good that you ever did.
Seeing the reports on the number of news articles that ran about Jason Arday, the questioning of everything he ever did, with no recognition of his accomplishments and the rush to judge and destroy not just his career, but his life are a reminder of how quickly a media lynching can occur.
For a time, I was keeping track of the amount of articles that ran about me, but I had to stop, my heart couldn’t bear reading the headlines or seeing the list. None of the articles talked about the work and they all called into question my character and painted me as a grifter. My heart was broken, decades of work destroyed based on biased reporting and I almost gave up not just on work, but on trying and some days I wanted to give up on living.
Torn paper collage
I wanted to fly away and float amongst the clouds
Early on, I wrote a piece I called “Longing for Flight, it was an honest painful expression of my desire to escape and the days I didn’t want to wake up . (Let me know if you’d like to read it.)
But the grace of God kept me, my friends and family kept me. The people who remembered me and the real work helped me push through. I am forever grateful for the people who prayed for me and stood with me, and reminded me about the grace and mercy of God.
