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As the right-wing stepped up their attacks of disinformation, it’s become apparent that they’re unwittingly getting help from an unlikely source — Black tabloids — with a false claim about “crack pipes” the most recent example.
Recently, The Shade Room was caught up in controversy as it published a post that alleged that the Biden presidential administration had approved a $30 million dollar grant to “distribute crack pipes” as a health equity measure. The patently absurd claims got an immediate backlash from the White House, which labeled them “misleading and misinformed.”
The truth was that the administration announced a harm-reduction program aimed at reducing drug overdoses by distributing items called “safe smoking kits.” The kits include materials to prevent infection and contamination such as rubber mouthpieces and disinfectant wipes. These kits and “safe injection sites” are considered important tools by substance abuse experts in the effort to rehabilitate people who misuse drugs.
After the backlash, The Shade Room deleted the post and issued a follow-up. It was later determined that the “crack pipes” allegation was contrived by conservatives who manipulated the language concerning the health equity components. But the situation illustrated the problem of these sites being complicit.
The Shade Room isn’t the only culprit. Media Take Out caused controversy as it released “exclusive” plans from the Trump administration in 2016, and even WorldStarHipHop has also been taken to task for peddling false claims, recently being a source for false claims concerning COVID-19. In the past few years, there has been established evidence that the American public has been the target of malevolent attacks using disinformation, notably leading up to the infamous environment of the 2016 Presidential Election that saw Donald Trump prevail.
Those attacks have increased with a focus on the Latinx community in particular, with some also pointed towards Asians. But what hasn’t gotten much attention is the Black community being subject to the same continued efforts, leading to the proliferation of false claims and conspiracy theories instigated by conservatives to these sites’ followers who follow them on social media.
Veteran Roland Martin has been particularly vocal about this situation, expressing his anger on Twitter last week as the situation unfolded, pointing out how the initial post with misinformation got more engagement than the retraction or correction:
The plain facts are that these sites and others need to be more vigilant in vetting their sources and not being complicit in parroting false claims by those who have harmful agendas against the Black community and that this situation will hopefully be a wake-up call.
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Photo: Getty
