The Racial Industrial Complex: An Introduction & The Legacy Media's Grift

“Racial Industrial Complex” refers to an industry that has monetized racial discourse. Entities have recognized that Americans, and human beings in general, respond strongly to perceived incidents of racial injustice. Monetization of the racial discourse has led to the emergence of the Racial Industrial Complex. Universities have entire departments dedicated to the studying of racial grievances funded by hefty tuition fees paid by students, authors are able to secure mainstream prominence by publishing books that appeal to white guilt, and Legacy Media (the term in this context referring to major news outlets such as CNN and Washington Post) platforms are able to maintain their ratings by pumping out news stories creating a 24/7 discourse about race. This phenomenon, the commodification of racial grievances, has gained prominence in the past decade. Despite the many key players, this article will focus on covering examples of how the Legacy Media leverages the human response to racism to manipulate the discourse and serves as a pillar of the Racial Industrial Complex.

The above graph showcases how the usage of racial language increased several fold in the past decade across several major Legacy Media outlets. As we saw with the Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax, it does not always matter if the racial injustice actually occurred or not - only if the racial injustice can be marketed to an unwitting audience. Artificially inflating the usage of racial language leads to perceptions that do not match reality.

The New York Times wrote an article that began with: “Imagine that every state were free to choose whether to allow Black people and white people to marry. Some states would permit such marriages; others probably wouldn’t.” This framing makes interracial marriage seem like a polarizing issue - akin to abortion. Anyone would be angered to learn that the most human of emotions, love, is being tampered with. However, public opinion polling from Gallup indicates that 94% of Americans approve of interracial marriage.

If an independent outlet like The Rabbit Hole is capable of doing basic research to uncover the above statistics, it seems unlikely the New York Times would be unable to have trouble uncovering the same data; this means that the New York Times is either hiring incompetent reporters who neglect to do proper research or are intentionally promoting racially divisive rhetoric in America. Participants of the Racial Industrial Complex have no remorse for the division they sow, even when children are involved.

In 2019 a clip began to circulate showcasing an interaction between protestors and a group of students from Covington Catholic high school at the Lincoln Memorial. Early interpretations of the footage portrayed the Covington Catholic students as the ones who had provoked the incident and as racist hooligans who had harassed a man with Native American heritage. 

The above picture of Nick Sandmann, one of the high school students from Covington Catholic, and Nathan Phillips, the Native American man the students were allegedly harassing, circulated with news of the incident. Once more details, including more video footage, came out it became clear that the incident was more complicated than the public had initially been led to believe by the Legacy Media. Despite being originally presented as the aggressors, it became clear that the high school students from Covington Catholic were not the racists the Legacy Media had portrayed them to be. Subsequent lawsuits were spearheaded by Nicholas Sandmann who ended up settling with CNN, Washington Post, and NBCUniversal with more cases in progress against The New York Times, Rolling Stone, ABC, and CBS. 

Perhaps the most notable example of how media coverage on race skews public perception is the perpetuated myth that large numbers of unarmed African American men are being killed by police officers. If you imagine being fed a continuous news cycle diet that your skin color makes you a target for execution from law enforcement officials in the country you were born and raised in then it makes sense why African Americans would feel a sense of despair.

The above graph from Skeptic shows that a large portion of Americans, especially those holding liberal views, believe over 1000 unarmed African American men were killed by police officers in 2019. The true number of African American deaths in 2019 is far lower with the total number of African Americans killed by police officers sitting at 282 according to Statista and the number of unarmed African Americans killed by police officers actually being 12 according to a Washington Post database which is a far cry from the perceived number of African American deaths in 2019. The false perception led to mass protests in 2020 that resulted in police budgets being cut and sharp increases in black homicides - an example of the phenomenon The Rabbit Hole defined as the Bigotry of Good Intentions. Not only did the Legacy Media fabricate a false narrative on African American relations with law enforcement, they did so effectively enough to trigger a movement for police defunding that subsequently led to budget cuts and tangible increases in African American deaths through homicides.

The above graphic is a real picture of CNN coverage of the 2020 protests; it shows how the Racial Industrial Complex looks down on its consumers and thinks they are stupid. Prove it wrong.

Ibram X Kendi, a notable race grifter and writer for The Atlantic, once said: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” It is clear the racial industrial complex has a desire to continue perpetuating a never-ending divisive cycle; although this specific article focused primarily on Legacy Media institutions it is likely that, without this cycle, several industries would be at risk of dying out: critical theory college departments, Legacy Media networks, race gurus and authors, and so forth.

Fact is: the manufactured demand for racism far exceeds the actual supply. Earlier we observed that virtually all Americans are supportive of interracial marriage and below we see a graph from the Washington Post indicating most Americans are supportive of sharing neighborhoods with all races.

One thing that’s clear is this: America is not a racist country. Virtually all Americans support interracial marriage and having neighbors of a different race. To live with and marry anyone regardless of race is a landmark achievement in human history. To ignore the significance of this American miracle is to take for granted all the sacrifices real anti-racists like Martin Luther King Jr. made to get our country this far. The Racial Industrial Complex is willing to sacrifice the progress that has been made to improve race relations to arrive at this point in favor of propagating divisive messaging to the people. It is our duty to deny it the pleasure.