How the Media Portrays Black and White Drug Users Differently | Alternet
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How the Media Portrays Black and White Drug Users Differently
NYT’s sympathetic coverage of white moms struggling with opioids contrasts with its hysteria over “crack babies”
By Joyce McMillan / Salon
May 28, 2018, 5:14 AM GMT
The lives of the women profiled in the story are complex and the writer makes great effort to mute her judgments and witness the mothers nurturing their children. Because of this thoughtful observing, the women are shown in their wholeness. But the writer also uses descriptors that highlight the whiteness of her subjects. She highlights Alicia’s blond hair, a flaxen-haired child, and another’s hazel eyes. In a way, this is as much a story about the redemptive power of whiteness as it is about opioid use.
The New York Times, like many major publications that have reported on the opioid epidemic, has a history of covering societal drug use. Often, publications reference the differential response to the opioid epidemic and the way that race has influenced political response. Coverage of the opioid epidemic alludes to the “cultural overreaction” to the “crack baby” and the panic over crack use in general.
They recall the dehumanization of black women and their children, who did not benefit from the gentle words of a famed novelist. It is apt that the light shone on the New York Times, a publication that proffered racist and sensationalized journalism depicting black people as sex-crazed cocaine addicts and black children born to mothers who used cocaine as broken and irredeemable. It is not hyperbolic to claim that the New York Times had a role in the creation of the modern war on drugs, one it now deems to be a failure.
The New York Times and other major national publications fanned the flames of the drug war, and have now pivoted their coverage to protect white victims and whiteness. Telling stories in a way that allows people to exist beyond their drug use is not the issue; it should be standard practice. What is surprising is that the New York Times and other publications have not done the work of looking through the archives to see the harm they have caused historically and presently – especially the harm done to black mothers.
Black motherhood is a high-risk endeavor and little empathy is given to those who fall short of societal expectations. The New York Times and other major media publications are not totally responsible for the systemic racism that leaves black motherhood at the societal fringe, but they are crucial part of the mechanism. I don’t know how the media can atone for their actions in shaping the narratives of the drug war, but acknowledging the harm they caused is a start.