Riot to Repair: Community Archives on Media and Narrative Power
The anti-Black harm caused by the media system is deep seated and expansive. From using papers to run ads for enslaved African and Indigenous people, to fanning the flames for the War on Drugs, mainstream media has parroted police narratives and criminalized Blackness.
The Riot to Repair: Community Archives on Media and Narrative Power, created in partnership with the Charlotta Bass Journalism and Justice Lab, are an example of reparative journalism in action. Listen to USC journalists and 70+ L.A. community members share their lived experience of the death of George Floyd and the 2020 uprisings. Through joy, accountability, power, solidarity, grief and care– we engage in reparative journalism that confronts mainstream narratives and recontextualizes their place in history.
Grief
Reparative Journalism leaves space for grief and honors the political, economic, social and spiritual impacts that narrative and language have on Black communities. This archive honors the grief connected to the longstanding violence that has resulted from narratives of Black criminalization.
Accountability
Reparative Journalism prioritizes holding power to account in solidarity with working-class communities. This archive explores a wave of (possibly unfulfilled) commitments made by institutions regarding transfer of resources, diversity and allyship in the aftermath of the 2020 uprisings.
Power
Reparative Journalism highlights centers of power and reports on the directionality of that power. Police occupation of Black, Latine and Indigenous communities is highlighted here as an example of power over. In this archive, power over can be understood as the positionality to enact inequitable force and consequences upon someone or a group of people.
Narrative Power
Reparative Journalism normalizes power with, a power available when people gather to build collective force towards a group outcome. This section in particular highlights narrative power, the ability to tell stories that build collective understanding about the world around us. This archive bears witness to the reclamation of power through story in the aftermath of the 2020 urprisings.
Solidarity
In the tradition of Movement Journalism– Reparative Journalism is in solidarity with Black working class people struggling towards liberation. The 2020 uprisings highlighted that collective understanding and multiracial action in support of Black freedom struggles are only made possible when anti-Blackness and misogynoir are confronted.
Care
Creating a media system that allows all of us to share our individual and communal stories requires that we actually build and operate out of a culture of care. In moments of disconnection, we’re reminded that care can be infused to all our actions.
Credits & Acknowledgments
The Riot to Repair Audio Archive was created in collaboration with Dr. Allissa Richardson and journalists at the USC Charlotta Bass Journalism & Justice Lab. It includes nearly the full selection of audio interviews from Los Angelenos describing their lived experience of the death of George Floyd and the 2020 uprisings. The interviews uplift stories of grief, multiracial solidarity, the reclamation of our voices and the repetitive nature of anti-Black violence in the United States.
This archive serves as a counter narrative to the stories of destruction, care for property over people and pro-police narratives that mired the lived experiences of communities and organizers on the ground.
Lead Curation by Diamond Hardiman
Interviews by the USC Charlotta Bass Journalism & Justice Lab Students in Dr. Richardson’s JOUR 580 Class in Fall of 2024
Creative Direction and Collage Artwork by Courtney Morrison
Animation by the team at Neta Collab