Speak through deafening silence

We all tend to be in a motion to listen to the right person, sometimes we know that person and sometimes we do not. In this age and as we see tidal movements towards black lives matter (I personally believe that nearly all life matters), we look at the cacophony of chaos and we are trying to make sense of what is real, what is sincere and what is different. So, whilst I modernised the idea towards the idea of renewed IP in video gaming, I started to look in different directions, I do that at times. I do it because it tends to remove tunnel vision from creativity. As such I get a new lease on balance, it is part of my own process. And in light that the new IP would be best suited for Ubisoft as they already have parts in their archives, my mind ended up not being very happy. The idea that their process is the better choice does not bode too well. So as I was looking at the change, I overlooked something different as well. 

As such was my mind when the BBC gives us ‘‘Speak and be heard’: Why black media matters’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-53142308/speak-and-be-heard-why-black-media-matters), added to that is “Sara Lomax-Reese owns WURD, one of a handful of black-owned and operated radio stations in the US. Her father, Dr Walter P Lomax Jr, was a respected physician, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He originally acquired the station in 2003 in an effort to amplify and empower the voices of Philadelphia’s black community.” with a less than 3 minute video. That is all!

So one might deduce that black lives do not really matter that much at all. And now I give that proof.

The Evidence?

The video is really good, it gave me a lot more than I bargained for. It starts with a link to the 1996 Telecommunications Act where according to the video individual voices were eliminated. The Wiki page (at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WURD) gives some information, but I am baffled by the amount of information that we do not see. We get the gist, poison and speculations (facts too) of nearly every reality TV station on the planet. Most of them in great detail, in case of WURD it ends with “The new owners reinstituted the WURD call sign. After a period of apparent indecision during which the station aired various types of music and CNN Headline News, management settled on the current talk format.”

So even if I wanted to slap the BBC around, I would be partially unable to do so, there is not much, as such I wonder how trained are the ‘all black lives matter’ in the stage of digital media. Even now as I listen to WURD Radio (streaming) I wonder what more they can do in light of the stage that they are on. 

I hear a lot of references towards Facebook, they give all kinds of Coronavirus information and a lot of Philadelphia news. There is nothing bad about WURD, I am just amazed at how little information on WURD is out there. If we see the digital media, I feared a tidal wave of information drowning me, that is not the case. So as I listen to Solomon Jones, I wonder just  how much more could be done, let’s face it, if black lives truly matter, then they need a voice box that is a lot larger than we are now seeing. Not the people screaming ‘black lives matter’, but voices that inform all others that they matter and that part is not out there. WURD is merely one station in a stage where there would be at least one station per state. And there are a lot more, via Google using “black radio stations US” I find 31 stations, so there is a lot more and whilst I get the news on a young man who gets a whole clip (14 bullets) in his body, I get it that they are talking about it. From my personal experience I know that 1 bullet stops a person, the second shot kills that person. In keeping a community safe we need to see that a lot of questions need to be asked, but at present the mood is too hot and too emotional to see any progress, but questions need to be asked. I personally believe that a clear voice needs to be available. In all this the voice of Solomon Jones comes across clearly. So why does the BBC article have merely 34 words with a less than 3 minute video? This is what I see as evidence. 

In all this it did not need to be merely about WURD, although I must admit that they bring it nicely. And it is here that I notice the first improvement. When you seek a station and you find it, Google gives the low down on the right side, yet if EVERY station found would have a stream button right there, it would optionally become a first step in improving and increasing the visibility of every station. In this stage of globalisation, being able to listen to a local station is actually more important than you could ever imagine. And it is at this point that the video shows the gem it has at the near end: “Media Institutions are in some way cultural institutions”, when we realise that and we wonder how big business has gotten a grasp of strangling budgets to kill of cultural aspects we see a much larger failure, if the Gates Foundation is so close to bringing good, then the idea of them bringing a million dollars a year for every State in advertisement money to these stations, is not a big request, let’s face it paying for advertisements makes sense, and before it is dwindled down to the presentation that digital media is cheaper, wonder how much print advertisement is used, is it such a leap to give these rural and local media stations some of these dollars? Oh, and it is not merely Microsoft or the Gates Foundation, I reckon that it is in the interest of the entire FAANG group to dwindle some dollars in that direction. 

We might believe that it is all cultural and we get it, but culture needs fuel, if it is not fed, it dies, the formula is that simple and as we see the results in the US, we see what anger does when it lacks culture to give wisdom to those in anger, a person who has nothing to live for is the most dangerous man in the game, perhaps that is why a young boy got 14 bullets, it makes us wonder how desperate and how uncertain the person was that was shooting the young black man.

Even as the BBC gave light to WURD, I see that a lot more should have been done.If it was up to me, the video (the entirety) would be part of a 10-20 minute video on local news and how it could optionally temper and improve lives, not merely black lives, but all lives. We all want to see the a better world where all people have a place and optionally a place where they can voice concerns, it is (my personal believe) that larger business enterprises see that as a hindrance to their bottom line and that is the biggest evil, that is why the FAANG group needs to be involved, if the biggest firms become a shield the others will stop their game and we see will over time see a better answer to the one that the 1996 Telecommunications Act seemingly brought.