A Quote by Issa Rae

People are tired of mainstream media's limited and confined portrayal of people of color. — © Issa Rae
People are tired of mainstream media's limited and confined portrayal of people of color.
I was on television a couple of years ago and the reporter asked me, "How does it feel being on mainstream media? It's not often poets get on mainstream media." I said, "Well I think you're the dominant media, the dominant culture, but you're not the mainstream media. The mainstream media is still the high culture of intellectuals: writers, readers, editors, librarians, professors, artists, art critics, poets, novelists, and people who think. They are the mainstream culture, even though you may be the dominant culture."
I think maybe since there isn't a great deal of access to the mainstream media and people don't understand the language of mainstream media, if you put music out there with lyrics that are loosely political, people absorb some of it and spit it back out.
I don't think the mainstream media understands people of color are multidimensional. For some reason, there's an idea that only white people are relatable. I don't think it's necessarily racist. But it's odd, because the people who watch the most television are black women, so we should be represented in more ways.
The people are tired of these mainstream media outlets telling them who should be the boss, who should be the nominee, because it hasn't worked.
Independent documentary isn't beholden to some of the interests that the mainstream media are influenced by. It's a pathway to renegade, independent reporting in an in-depth, investigative fashion, and it can do so with a compassionate lens; it allows people to speak in a way that is more human than the mainstream media approach.
Independent documentary isnt beholden to some of the interests that the mainstream media are influenced by. Its a pathway to renegade, independent reporting in an in-depth, investigative fashion, and it can do so with a compassionate lens; it allows people to speak in a way that is more human than the mainstream media approach.
I think the beauty of the Internet is that it's giving a lot of people the opportunity to reach people around the world that they never would have been able to, and for people to tell their own stories where they don't see themselves reflected in mainstream media, or the media is misrepresenting the truth, right.
I think there is a mainstream media. CNN is mainstream media, and the main, ABC, CBS, NBC are mainstream media. And I think it's just essentially to make the point that we are largely in the center without particular axes to grind, without ideologies which are represented in our daily coverage, at least certainly not on purpose.
People have said over the years that the reason I did not give up my seat was because I was tired. I did not think of being physically tired. My feet were not hurting. I was tired in a different way. I was tired of seeing so many men treated as boys and not called by their proper names or titles. I was tired of seeing children and women mistreated and disrespected because of the color of their skin. I was tired of Jim Crow laws, of legally enforced racial segregation.
I think the media in general hasn't been very kind to fat women or fat people. We see so many insensitive portrayals of plus-sized people. That kind of stuff really affected me - not even necessarily the portrayal of fat people, but the absence of fat people.
Mainstream media can be controlled, right. Because messaging from mainstream comes from that particular news outlet or whatever. Then you have the top people driving that messaging, and then that's what it is, right? Social media can really stir up a higher level of panic. If you think about it, it's not controlled.
I mean, when we did 'Families At War,' on Saturday night prime time, people said we were mainstream then. But it wasn't in the least mainstream. The fact that we got that on BBC1 at that time with those ridiculous things, that's as mainstream as we get. We do what we do and people can think that it's mainstream or avant-garde.
I'm interested in people who are dwelling outside the mainstream. And very often, those people happen to be woman of color.
I'm completely perplexed how someone who has most of the mainstream media for Hillary Clinton, well all the mainstream media, well most of the media for her, she's got a sitting president - a sitting First Lady far more popular than she'll ever supposed to be, a former president also her husband, the sitting vice president, a thousand people working in Brooklyn, she has all these states locked up and she can't crack 50% and stay there.
I'm sick and tired of this stuff. I'm sick of them doing it. I'm sick and tired of it working. I'm sick and tired of the media carrying the ball and running with it. I'm sick and tired of the assumption. We've gotten to the point where [Donald] Trump was actually talking about a serious problem that not everybody faces. The idea that some people don't face this, he is being accused of being insensitive and he's actually talking about how the VA has let those people down and we need to have a program of improvement where we deal with this a little bit better than we have been.
Part of the problem is that if anybody has a gut reaction about an issue, they can go online and have it backed up. That said, they can also find support for their ideas in the mainstream media - because when the mainstream media gives a so-called balanced view, it's often misleading.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!