One of my tasks as EMEAC’s Remedia Communications Coordinator is to “deconstruct” the not so well camouflaged pro-corporate biases in the mass media outlets these days. There is no shortage of deconstruction projects for sure here in Detroit.
I could begin with Russ Bellant’s messages at the most recent Undoing Racism in the Food System meeting where he told of seeing timely and relevant stories of interest to the community pounced on by eager reporters only to see them time and again “shot down at the editorial level.”
I could examine the historically unhinged and sadly irresponsible media campaign being waged in favor of the take over the Detroit Water System using corruption chargers against the former mayor as a pretext to pit Detroiters against their suburban neighbors. I could likewise breakdown the shameful yard sale approach to running the Detroit Public School System going on as a pretext to defund the Detroit Public School System in favor of even more privatization efforts. I could talk about the slanted coverage of the current mayor’s “Right Sizing” …. uh I mean “Detroit Works” plan involving the wholesaling or large swaths of city to foreign investors. Fortunately, there are many people like Mr. Bellant, Brad Van Gilder and the fine folks at the Michigan Citizen who can do those subjects a much greater service than I could at this point in my sojourn here in Detroit, so I’ll happily rely on their insightful expertise.
For now, I’ll start my deconstructing the media campaign with something closer to home for me — the tens of thousands of red-winged black birds that mysteriously fell out of the sky in Arkansas to ring in 2011.
No doubt, you all remember the story?
On this past New Year’s Eve, a portentous 2011 was rung in not with stories of manna and quails from heaven but dead black birds and fish found along streets and streams in Arkansas and Louisiana. The world was introduced to these unique species of birds as lowly scavengers but for me the horror was all the more poignant because the Red Wing Blackbird or “Ricebird” as we know them was actually our high school mascot at Stuttgart High and a source of great pride and nostalgia.
We call them Ricebirds because they flock to the rice fields surrounding the towns of South Central Arkansas’ Grand Prairie where I grew up. They feed on stray grains that fall to the ground and the abundance of insect life – most assuredly the swarms of nocturnal mosquitos — that thrive in the well-irrigated rice fields.
Many a time I walked along the streets at the edge of the city, drove by in speeding cars or jogged along the railroad tracks and looked up to see a solitary male with his raven black chest feathers thrust forward catching the sun’s prisms at the edges and his red-patched shoulders trimmed with gold, crowing from power lines above like a sentinel over his turf as a flock of less adorned females and younglings darted through the fields in gleaning of food.
Though the birds were small and hardly intimidating, I always made the connection with the “Ricebird Pride” motto we wolfed in our highly decorated high school football program as we took to manicured fields to play or practice the “second religion” of the South. You might imagine how ominous it was to me to turn on the television New Year’s Day and hear the reports of over 4,000 bird deaths in Beebe – a town one county over from my hometown in the same region between the Arkansas and White Rivers.
The story soon gained world wide mileage as people from around the globe seemed to be as spooked by the whole incident as I was – Ricebird Pride or not! As scientist from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission scrambled for answers, then came the stories of over a hundreds of thousand dead fish washing up on the shores of the Arkansas River around the same time. That was followed by similar stories in neighboring southern states like Louisiana, Tennessee and Kentucky.
With 2012 just one year away and world news reports increasingly resembling the works of John the Revelator or Nostradamus, it wasn’t surprising that some people speculated that it was a sign of the apocalypse or the result of a clandestine military experiment in the area. Don’t get me wrong, if there were an organization called Conspiracy Theorist of America, I’d probably be a card-carrying member, but as a military veteran I also know that soldiers and sailors are more likely to be conducting experiments in their shot glasses or cross dressing on New Year’s Eve than military science. As for a warning of the apocalypse, hey. Who knows?
It wasn’t long before the official speculations and conclusions began coming in with explanations like the birds dying of mass fear upon being stirred from their nearby roost then flying aimlessly into some solid object or being struck by lightning. Most of the official explanations I’ve seen have settled on one of these. In fact, it was a publication in New York that prompted me to blog on this particular issue.
That piece, like so many others declared – based on unofficial conclusions of local authorities – that “stress” from the fireworks display caused the birds to panic then run into houses, power lines or other structures. These mid-air collisions caused “internal injuries” and hemorrhaging, resulting in the death of the birds.
Say what? Internal injuries and hemorrhaging caused by a one-to-two ounce bird flying into a house? Yeah right. While I’m not inclined to believe in a government conspiracy or Biblical prophecy for once, nor am I inclined to buy something as illogical as that explanation either.
I mean I can see a few dozen maybe but 4,000? And where was this object they ran into. I’ve been into Beebe. About the largest structure you’ll find is a two story house. I’ve also seen how the birds fly in their black swarm and even so, it’s high enough to avoid most buildings in Beebe. It’s interesting that all these experts settled on the same conclusion, without anyone identifying this mass murdering structure, which would surely have signs of such a collision some place.
The most telling part to me was that the conclusion in the article was reached without any word on the results of toxicology reports, which the same article mentioned were submitted. This brings me to one of the major flaws of today’s media: The failure to ask the right questions.
Having grown up in the area and knowing that these birds are considered an agricultural pest, the most logical explanation to me would be that the birds were poisoned. Having grown up in the area and experiencing the level of corruption that exists between local media, big agriculture and their bought and paid for watch dog groups and political organizations ala the 2008 Wall Street scandals that caused the near collapse of the world’s financial system, I tend to go with the old scientific theorem that all things being equal the simplest explanation is the most likely one.
As the honorable Miss Lila Campbell said in an impromptu discussion of the topic following a recent environmental justice meeting, ‘What about all the fishes?’
Even as these black birds fell from the sky, over 100,000 fish turned up dead also along the Arkansas River. Still, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, which concluded that stress from the fire works cause the death of the blackbirds, quickly pronounced the two incidents unrelated. I guess the fireworks have some sort of under water sonar capacity hunh?
When thousands of fish turned up dead on the shores of Paran, Brazil, the sale of seafood in Paranagua was suspended as a precaution. What does it say that no such precautions were even considered in the U.S.?
Whether the birds could have been poisoned in the irrigated rice fields of the area and if some runoffs had contaminated the river should be considered instead of dismissed out of hand. Of course, that assumes our media and government would put people over profits, but it’s clear from everything going on in this society today that such thoughts no longer cross the minds of those in positions of power today.
Am I saying that I know for sure what caused the death of those birds and fish? No. I am not. I’m speculating just like everyone else. What I am saying is I don’t buy that it was caused by stress from hearing fireworks, and it is irresponsible and down right insulting to the intelligence of the American public for such an explanation to be passed off as fact.
As I mentioned before, the same dynamic is taking place in the current debates in Detroit surrounding the public’s water, land and educational systems. I’m looking forward to deconstructing media here in Detroit around these issues as we go forward.
