You must be logged in and have permission to create or edit a blog.
|
Sep
23
Written by:
BMTT Staff
9/23/2009 6:07 PM
This article examines the current health care debate, racism, and media propaganda.
The Health Care Debate, Racism, and Media Propaganda
By Marlon Aldridge, Sr.
On September 9, President Obama during a joint session of Congress presented these words regarding health care reform,
I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last…. It has now been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt first called for health care reform.… And ever since, nearly every president and Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has attempted to meet this challenge in some way …. Our collective failure to meet this challenge year after year, decade after decade, has led us to the breaking point. Everyone understands the extraordinary hardships that are placed on the uninsured who live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy.… These are [primarily] middle-class Americans.… We are the only democracy, the only advanced democracy on Earth, the only wealthy nation that allows such hardship for millions of its people.… There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage. In just a two-year period, one in every three Americans goes without health care coverage at some point. And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage.1
In March 2008, a Gallup poll determined that 54% of those surveyed felt that it was the responsibility of the federal government to ensure that all Americans had health care coverage while 41% disagreed. In March 2009, another Gallup poll reported that 31% of those surveyed favored replacing the current health care system, while 56% favored maintaining it in its present form. Such findings have generally been the case since 2001. Access to health care was the primary concern for the majority of respondents, with the cost of health care and its associated insurance costs ranking second. These two concerns have alternated back and forth as the number one health care concern since 2003. However, from 1987 until 1999, AIDS was the number one health care concern among Americans.2 From this data, I infer that the media plays a predominate role in determining public opinion.
As a backdrop to the current health care debate, there were town hall meetings across the nation where people were fighting, dismissing, ridiculing, and harassing participants. Some were allegedly staged by opponents to the President’s health care plan. Even Congressman Joe Wilson (Republican, South Carolina) called the President’s remarks during his speech, “Lies!” The congressman said, [I] “let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill”.3 Supposedly, Wilson’s argument was that illegal immigrants (mostly Hispanic) would be provided free, government-sponsored health care because of unenforceable provisions in the President’s plan. Forty-two percent of Hispanics are uninsured4, and have surpassed African Americans as the nation’s largest minority group. Wilson’s argument presupposes a considerable amount of money being transferred from legal citizens (who are mostly white) to illegal citizens (who are mostly non-white).
Currently, there are more subtle messages taking place along side the health care debate. In this particular instance the subsequent events may seem unrelated, but if carefully analyzed focus on power – white power, aka “racism”.
While consistently reporting on the health care debate, news outlets consistently coupled two horrible acts along with it. The first was Phillip and Nancy Garrido, who were charged “with kidnapping and [raping] Jaycee Dugard in 1991 and holding her [for 18 years] in a squalid encampment of tents and sheds at their Antioch, [CA], home”.5 Unidentified bone fragments were found on their property, and authorities are hoping to link them to two or more unsolved murders. The second was the alleged murder of Annie Le by co-worker, Raymond Clark. The Yale University student, who is Asian, was found strangled and stuffed in a wall. In both instances, the perpetrators were white. Between the last week of August and the first week of September (8/31 though 9/4), President Obama was the lead newsmaker, followed by Jaycee Dugard and Phillip Garrido.6 Subsequently, during the week of September 14th through the 20th, President Obama and health care were the most reported news stories, followed by Annie Le’s murder and Obama’s race, which were the third and fourth most reported, respectively.7 What is compelling and ironic about the news stories concerning Obama’s race is that although he is bi-racial, he was primarily raised by his white mother and maternal relatives.
By contrast, Serena Williams’ outburst at the U.S. Tennis Open; Kanye West’s disrespectful dismissal of Taylor Swift at the Video Music Awards; and the physical attack and beating by a black student on a white student while they rode a school bus in St. Louis8 were also reported with regularity. In each of these incidents, the perpetrators were black, while the victims were white. These stories, whether market-driven or not, pander to the fears of racial bigotry, as espoused by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, who recently commented that “In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering”.9
In these instances, “apples to apples” were not being fairly compared, as the white Yale laboratory worker committed a premeditated murder, while these black perpetrators were at best, “nasty.” To be fair, why not also show Blacks who have committed murders, as blacks are historically more likely to commit murder against other blacks, not against whites. Were there no black-on-black murders during the month of September? Does nasty, disrespectful behavior really compare to murder? With few exceptions, the news media and its outlets claim that their coverage is “Fair and balanced”, implying that political spin is objectified in their respective news coverage; however, few viewers and readers really believe this. In support, both Liberal-inclined Democrats and Conservative-inclined Republicans lambaste media outlets for biased Left- or Right-leaning coverage. The President has tried to objectively deny and nullify racism as a factor in the health care debate, while also trying to facilitate a debate on racism, as evidenced by his White House invitation of Harvard Professor Henry “Skip” Gates and Connecticut police officer James Crowley. It was not too long ago that during his campaign, much ado surrounded the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and their association. Although he may not want to believe or state that opposition to his health care plan is racially motivated, former-President Jimmy Carter does. Given the sensitivity of the issue, coupled with the nation’s racial history, the President can only walk a slippery and precarious slope!
There is little goodwill in balancing out news reporting with equal amounts of racially polarizing stories. In the foregoing instances of news reporting I have documented and associated its submerged, yet true temperament: the maintenance of white power and its subsequent deferential controls. Since the emergent history of Greek and Roman powers (some 2600 years), white Anglo-Saxon Europeans and their white American counterparts have circumvented the planet, while committing colonialistic and violent acts against indigenous peoples who were by-and-large, unlike them culturally, religiously, or racially although conquest of less-powerful peoples were against other whites on many occasions. As a result, the victors have studied and amassed a great deal of knowledge about power and its usage, and subsequently wield it accordingly. Paradoxically, efforts to maintain power by violent force is very expensive; for example, (in addition to the lives that have been sacrificed) approximately $912 billion has been spent in Iraq and Afghanistan since 200110. Although it has been difficult to see the expected results, such is the equivalent cost of the President’s health care plan over ten years. In juxtapose, propaganda is much less expensive, but has the same benefit as violent force. In this case, the media’s use of propaganda has the ability to sway public opinion or policy, pro or con, resulting in the maintenance of power of one group over another, with the status quo the desired outcome. Subsequently, the current health care debate will continue to be obscured by racism and its primary strategists – the media and its propaganda.
References:
1. CNN.com (2009). Obama offers health care details in speech to Congress. http://www.cnn.com.
5. WTNH.com (2009). Bone fragment found at home of California kidnap suspects. http://www.wtnh.com
Copyright ©2009 BMTT Staff
4 comment(s) so far...
Re: The Health Care Debate, Racism, and Media Propaganda
Health care is very important. We, I mean all of us, need to support President Obama in his effort to reform America's healthcare system. He needs our prayers daily to help guide him in making the right choices for the American people. Everyone wants a free ride, even I, but healthcare cost. We need to pay for it, just differently than we've done so in the past. Why do we want health insurance companies to manage our $$$s vs. us having a system that allows for at least 90% of our $$$s to go toward our care and pay doctors? My cost has escalated and without the right thing being done cost will continue to rise.
A bat can see that change is needed.
By Donald on
1/4/2010 8:49 PM
|
Re: The Health Care Debate, Racism, and Media Propaganda
You are right. Healthcare cost will continue to rise. It has risen at least 14% for the company I work for over the last year. The U.S. is stalling the inevitable; some form of socialized medicine as most if not all of Western Europe has done.
America will go the way of ancient Rome (fallen because of overwhelming debt) in our quest to be more "free" than everyone else.
By Marlon on
1/4/2010 11:39 PM
|
Re: The Health Care Debate, Racism, and Media Propaganda
There are many people who know nothing about healthcare and try to make one think that they do. And there are those who do and who willl fervently to try and put one in the dark and keep all in the dark. Socialized medicine is not Communist run. Most European countries besides Russia have it, so it must not be what many Americans perceive it to be. Don't just watch mainstream medias little snipets on the subject. Watch PBS programs that give more indepth investigation of what Socialized medicine is and what America has and what the health insurance companies are trying to preserve. Anyone who has worked anywhere in this country for at least 10 years may have had a health insurance carrier change because of cost to the employer, loss of medical providers under an old plan or sometimes a combination of both. In making that change there may be a loss of gain of medical providers to the new plan, especially if that new plan is not with the old carrier. This will put all new signees in the category of having a pre existing condition for any problem they bring from the old plan. Insurance companies can be allowing covered customers to die by not approving medications, allowing treatments or life necessary surgeries, most often due to the cost of said items. If this is not a death sentence, then what would one call it? Read people, please read and don't take the high piitched shouting and believe it to be the truth.
By Shahid Raki on
1/31/2010 2:32 PM
|
Re: The Health Care Debate, Racism, and Media Propaganda
Shahid,
You are correct. Pre-existing conditions represent liabilities for elitist-run health insurance carriers that must pay tribute to their masters or shareholders. Obama was right on the verge of the single greatest contribution that the American government has ever made to Black Americans besides the Emancipation Proclamation, which is universal health care coverage. But of course, the majority society rallied with its calling cry of "socialized medicine", which is a code phrase that signals the transfer of income and wealth away from those that have to those that don't. Hopefully, the Congress and the President can pass a "good" health care bill with prohibitions against pre-existing conditions and universal coverage for all.
By ohioadnet on
1/31/2010 4:32 PM
|
|
|