ABSTRACT
This chapter elevates four means by which media, as a system of cultural production, distribution, and consumption, can provide cover for White supremacy: segregating White supremacy, qualifying Black victimization, mystifying material determinism, and politicizing "knowing" as sufficiently antiracist. It describes the dimensions of each maneuver to demonstrate how even allegedly liberal media can reinforce an epistemology of ignorance that suppresses and distorts critical understanding of systemic White supremacy. Segregating White supremacy emerged as a prominent maneuver, appearing in discourse that functionally isolated White supremacy in discrete "social locations", implying by relation social locations where White supremacy does not exist Media is a vital site for examining cultural production of ignorance given its "main sphere of operations is the production and transformation of ideologies". The chapter demonstrates that media can operate as a system of cultural meaning-making to reinforce racial ignorance, even through projects designed to reveal Black suffering.
