Black Voices, White Power

Abstract

When a former Black editor says he was told that Blacks do not care about news by his White boss and a Black deejay is told that his commentary is too hard hitting and not to go to an event featuring a Black militant leader by his White boss, these personal accounts could be extrapolated to mean that there may still be a world filled with White privilege and an ensuing hegemonic bifurcation in a communication studies context. This study utilizes Afrocentricity and the agency that is denied to these two individuals to provide insight into a world where these Black media/newsroom personnel describe how they lost ground to their White media owners. Those interviewed said this world does not promote the agency that comes with Afrocentricity, which is utilized as a critical cultural studies lens to interpret these 18-question qualitative interviews. The environment that those interviewed described is a world not often viewed in the context of White media ownership and the Black-focused content that is produced within them, but is a phenomenon that may be better understood by utilizing an Afrocentric lens in a Communication Studies context.