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Megyn Kelly's confession on NBC's Today that she had only yesterday learned about "the history of blackface being used in awful ways by racists" stands in such stark contrast to recent changes at her network's other daily flagship newscast NBC Nightly News.
It is now three years since Lester Holt took over as nightly anchor of NBC's newscast. For most of that time Holt, an African-American, projected a persona that was uninflected by racial insights. It was as if he needed to reassure his audience that this person of color was not going to color the content of the news.
If Holt had pointed out how an acknowledgement of the legacy of racism was necessary for understanding contemporary America…or if he had chosen unusual stories to cover, ones in which the racial component was central…then he would run the risk of crossing the line from mainstream journalist to black activist.
It seems that Holt's self-denying ordinance has now been repealed. By no means is he now transformed into a Black Lives Matter flamethrower -- but he is certainly presenting himself and his newscast as one where it would be unthinkable to be able to claim ignorance about the history blackface, as Kelly did. More than that, his newscast is bringing such history into the front of mind.
In September, Holt was clearly delighted at the racial pride of a dark-skinned twelve-year-old girl and her sister, marketing a line of Flexin' In Her Complexion T-shirts. It is such a favorite that it is posted as an Inspiring America anecdote on the NBC Nightly News homepage to this day.
Just since the start of the month of October, there have been a dozen examples of Nightly News segments that explicitly feature a racial angle, either a tribute to black pride or, more often, observing the continued disadvantages that African-Americans face in everyday life merely by dint of their race: Babysitting While Black, Sports-watching While Black, Apartment-dwelling While Black, and so on. Those designated with a hashtag were filed by Holt himself.
Often on the nightly news, a story is selected for coverage because of its universally-acknowledged headline-grabbing nature. If all the stories in this dozen were appearing not only on NBC Nightly News, but on CBS Evening News and ABC World News Tonight also, then it would be harder to make the claim that Holt is displaying a hitherto-unseen race-consciousness. However, few of these examples were deemed newsworthy by NBC's two rival networks (those designated with an asterisk were covered by ABC; none by CBS). Similarly, there are few examples of ABC or CBS covering stories with an African-American angle that NBC ignored.
Oct 3rd: The Talk by African-American parents dramatized in The Hate U Give#
Oct 5th: Kenan Thompson is Saturday Night Live mainstay#
Oct 9th: Jim-Crow-era lynching museum in Montgomery#
Oct 9th: Rev Martin Luther King's church organist still plays#
Oct 11th: Lost black teenager asks for help, dodges homeowner's bullet*
Oct 11th: History of racial redlining in Kansas City#
Oct 12th: Black male babysitter arouses white woman's suspicions
Oct 15th: White woman harasses black neighbor in St Louis apartment*
Oct 17th: Black soccer dad singled out for shouting on sidelines*
Oct 18th: Lack of concern about missing pregnant black mail carrier*
Oct 22nd: Ryanair passenger racially abuses woman in next seat
Oct 24th: School violence plot by anti-biracial bigot spotted on Facebook
On this evidence, NBC News appears to have a white racial ignoramus as one of its anchors on Today…and an African-American race man as its anchor on the Nightly News.
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