NNPA NEWSWIRE — According to media scholar Dr. Racquel Gates, media fasts serve a purpose because of the volume of images African Americans are exposed to in a given day. “It’s not just the violent anti-black content of the media; it’s the omnipresence of it on every platform, coupled with a society where every interaction is increasingly happening in mediated spaces,” says the Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Columbia University. “You watch the news and have to hear about police brutality. You go online to look at social media and an associate shares a disturbing video. You pull up a funny clip from YouTube but the ads traffic in subtle or not-so-subtle problematic messages. Sometimes the only way to avoid the constant onslaught is just to remove yourself altogether,” says the author of Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture.

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