Truly Progressive News

I have continued to read a lot lately and want to focus on one observation I have found. It is almost moot to go into details about what I have been reading – articles about Wikileaks and Julian Assange’s assault charges, the coming U.S. State of Control, DADT, the DREAM Act - or about what I haven’t been reading – where is the coverage of Bernie Sanders’ spectacular speech on the new taxes bill?! – these issues are being well covered (or well neglected) regardless of whether I write about them or not. Regardless of news source I have noted one thing: the writers I read are overwhelmingly white, male, and upper class. Just reading the contributors to today’s CommonDreams articles reveals this trend. The list of contributors is the following: Tom Engelhardt, Bill McKibben, Tom Andrews, Michelle Chen, Joseph Nevins, Robert Koehler, Andrew Kennis, Glenn Greenwald and Glen Ford. Note: as I am writing this Anna Brown and Laura Flanders were added to the views reel.

What do we see here? Seven white men, two white women, one black man, and one Asian woman. All authors are seemingly from the United States (although I have not done extensive research), are currently in the United States and are writing about the United States. Accordingly, 64% of the viewpoints shared come from people whose experience and social identities that are not only acknowledged as “normal” but propped up through the continual playing out of society’s dominant ideologies – to be white and male is to be better than everyone else because we say so, again and again and again. To be sure, one’s identity and one’s ideology do not have to be the same – I consider myself to be a white person dealing with issues of white privilege, seeking to hold anti-racist values and commit anti-racist acts. That said, I will be the first to acknowledge how limited I am in my ability to speak to the oppression of people of color. Similarly, I recognize that I am in no position to dictate how to mitigate and one day abolish the manifestations of racism. Similarly, I wonder about the limitations of these men’s’ perspectives even though they are written from a supposedly “radical,” “progressive” or “Leftist” viewpoint.

The articles written by these white men contain opinions and information about the following: fear, Wikileaks and Assange, and the current conservatism of the U.S. government. Their perspective strikes me not as “objective” but as focused on politics and the political implications of current events. They are focused on Republicans who do evil and “the American Empire.” Generally they are either focused on taxes or on shifts in discourse – topics that are based in the quantitative and analytic, such as economics or linguistics or political philosophy.

In contrast, the two articles by writers of color take political issues and apply a racial lends to them. For example, Michelle Chen’s article focuses on the DREAM Act and the contradiction inherent in having a stagnant economy accompany anti-immigration sentiments and policies. This article is very clearly related to something quantitative and analytic yet it also applies a lens that perhaps a white man would not immediately apply. Similarly, Glen Ford takes a topic covered by white men, fear and U.S. governmental “national security,” and writes a piece on the FBI’s fabricated “terrorist plots” that target black and brown men (or “Muslim-looking” men) who are wholly innocent prior to FBI intervention. Here again we see a topic covered from a different – and entirely necessary – angle.

But let us not forget our latecomers. Laura Flanders (Britain-born U.S. transplant) writes briefly about the nearly sadistic turn of events in England, where a bailed out bank threw a party for Harry Potter amidst student protests about increased college tuition. Meanwhile, Anna Brown writes about peace activists sentenced to ten years in prison for walking around at a military base in Washington. Both topics fall outside of the realm of strictly political but both have political implications (Really? They threw a party for Harry Potter? He isn’t even real!).

Only one article was about a country other than the United States. Only one article was written about peace and activism, and even that article has a sad ending. Were there any articles about queer issues? No. Were there any issues about disability issues? No. Ageism? No. Sizeism? No. The list could go on. Do the authors write about issues pertaining to them based on their social identities? I think that a case can certainly be made for the writers of color – perhaps too for the white women writing. For white men, examining the articles affirms that their social identities are “invisible”. As their writing becomes more abstracted and focused on government, it becomes less about them - individuals whose identities help or hinder them as they move through the world.

But what can we make of all of this? Even in “progressive” circles historically dominant voices are given more airtime. Even on the “Left” we see voices intentionally or unintentionally silenced through lack of publicity – the ultimate irony when that same sector of people seeks the pursuit of truth and the openness of dialogue. Even as we seek justice, we may leave aside those so powerless that they are forgotten even by us. Even in our struggles for resistance, we may fail to resist all of the ways we are colonized. Why is it that we continue to listen to the same voices we have heard throughout all of time?

To make a bold claim, I propose it continues to be not what one knows but who one is that enables them to be heard. I have nothing against the insights of any type of people – I believe everyone has something to contribute to the world and to their community. I would merely like to suggest that it is time for some of us to grow and to learn when to listen. Far from pigeon-holing myself into writing about one topic, I hope to gain the tools to write articulately about a wide-array of topics including race, sex, gender, ability status, systems of government, societies of control. In the future of progressive news, I hope to see explanations of the connections between these things from people with all types of social identities. I hope that these views can be shared equitably and given equitable amounts of attention, space and critical examination. Most importantly, I hope to learn how and when to listen. Maybe then at least the realm of ideas will be a meritocracy.