Malcolm X once said, “The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” After reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley, viewing Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls In Schools, and reflecting on Malcolm’s words, the Video Production Scholars began to question the media's coverage of Black women and girls. We were guided by questions, such as: Why is there a lack of media coverage for Black girls when they go missing? How does colorism show up in the media in 2020 and affect women of color? Why aren’t Black girls diversely represented in film and television?

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Our scholars began making plans to answer these questions in the form of a documentary film. But, before we could pick up a camera and start recording, COVID-19 hit. In the blink of an eye, our world as we knew it changed. Suddenly, our scholars were fighting a pandemic, attending school via computer screens, managing their loss, stress, and uncertainty, all while practicing social distancing. COVID-19 brought the world to a halt, but the public execution of George Floyd at the hands of police officers took our breath away. 

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And the media, our focus, was at the center of it all. Our scholars paid close attention to how the media shaped the story. Were they telling the full story? We decided that our voices were just as powerful as those of the news anchors on television. Our final project began with questions posed and ended with questions answered. Guided by curiosity and research skills, our group created a five-segment showcase that is intended to provoke conversations with friends and family on topics that have been plaguing our communities and our Black girls for years.

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- Sharee Hereford, Media Instructor