Michelle Dione Snider, You Rep Oakland Post, A Black News Site, Yet Blast Me For Pointing Out Racism
ONN – Michelle Dione Snider, You Rep Oakland Post, A Black News Site, Yet Blast Me For Pointing Out Racism
Michelle Dione Snider is the Associate Editor of the Oakland Post, and even though we’ve never actually met or talked on the phone, was a friend of the Facebook variety. She’s best known as the person who made the famous BBQ Becky video from 2018. With that, I believed she was sensitive to racism against blacks in America. Apparently, and shockingly, I learned I am mistaken.
For reasons best known to her, Michelle elected to get on Facebook and attack me for pointing out that an Oaklandside entry on Oakland City Council Race At-Large Candidate Derreck Johnson explaining that he filed for bankruptcy while running his business was racist. As I said before, it tried to make him look bad in an area that’s the focus of many black business problems: being under-capitalized. I do not support Derreck Johnson’s run against my friend Oakland At Large Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, but that does not mean I’m going to sit by and watch an attack I view as racist from my own experience as a black man in America.
But, even though Michelle Dione represents The Oakland Post, a black news website and news paper, she just decided to attack me on Facebook, and say “That’s a non-profit journalism organization”, as if that buys Oaklandside the place to be unassailable. Then, she went off and accused me of making bots to inflate my web traffic. That, right there, showed me she has no idea how the web works. And she’s trying to put me in the typically racist place of being the black guy who does something criminal. On top of that, she obviously has no respect for what I’ve done for The Oakland Post over the years.
If you go and look at the sidebar for Oakland News Now, you will see that Post Newsgroup Publisher and friend Paul Cobb is presented as a special person, and because he is. Paul Cobb can say that he knew Martin Luther King, Jr. In fact, Paul and I talked about that in 2007. Have a look:
Also, in 2016, I was hired to boost The Oakland Post website’s traffic and also correct a vast number of problems. The Oakland Post was not on key news aggregators (and now it’s not, again after my work to put it back on them), and did not understand how to use basic search engine optimization practices. I boosted The Oakland Post web traffic by as much as 300 percent. Now, if Michelle Dione thinks I make traffic bots, as she claims, then one would think she would be happy I used them to help the The Oakland Post, right? What a riot!
Michelle must understand that she can’t represent a black news organization and have white sensibilities. Media is the last bastion of white supremacy. For Michelle to throw the typical “they’re better than you” and “what you do is criminal” take on me, begs for a fight I’m happy to wage. I’m sick and tired of institutional racism. I will not put up with it. And for a person who represent a black news organization, and yet is white and seems to have little sensitivity at all to racist images in media, is all kinds of wrong – it’s racist. I am not saying a person has to be black to recognize racism in media, but I am saying one can’t say they represent a black media publication, yet are demonstrably blind to see racism in media.
As an update, another colleague who’s with the The Oakland Post, also white and female, also took to Mark Zuckerberg’s site to attack me, and this time for the post you’re reading. That both can’t at all see what racism in media looks like is sad, but even sadder is they are allowed to present such a problem of blindness to racist media images and stories while representing a black-owned publication. (And it’s even more disturbing to see a black person in media advance such classic institutional racism).
I fear for Oakland’s future because it points to an environment where any black person who points to institutional racism draws a white-led attack on their point of view, rather than any desire to want to see change.
I am not expecting an apology. I am very disappointed to learn that, all of this time, Michelle has issues, personal issues, with me. And I’ve never met her.
In closing, I add these words from one of my favorite songs, Private Idaho by The B-52’s, and it is a message for Michelle, and the obviously racially unsympathetic view she expressed:
Keep off the path, beware of the gate
Watch out for signs that say “hidden driveways”
Don’t let the chlorine in your eyes
Blind you to the awful surprise
That’s been waitin’ for you at
The bottom of the bottomless blue, blue, blue pool
You’re livin’ in your own Private Idaho, Idaho
You’re out of control, the rivers that roll
You fell into the water and down to Idaho
Get out of that state
Get out of the state you’re in
You better beware
According to Songfacts, “In this song, the fine state of Idaho is used to represent a case of paranoia – the lyrics “get out of that state” meaning to get out of that state of mind.” What I am pointing to is a state of mind that protects the idea that white-ran traditional media is beyond reproach.
And now, I think I’ll close with this fun addition, and because we need a giant dose of levity, with some mix of irony:
Stay tuned.
Zennie
Note from Zennie62Media and Oakland News Now: this video-blog post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest updated version of an experimental Zennie62Media , Inc. mobile media video-blogging system network that was launched June 2018. This is a major part of Zennie62Media , Inc.’s new and innovative approach to the production of news media. What we call “The Third Wave of Media”. The uploaded video is from a vlogger with the Zennie62 on YouTube Partner Channel, then uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and Zennie62-created and owned social media pages. The overall objective is smartphone-enabled, real-time, on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours. Now, news is reported with a smartphone: no heavy and expensive cameras or even a laptop are necessary. The secondary objective is faster, and very inexpensive media content news production and distribution. We have found there is a disconnect between post length and time to product and revenue generated. With this, the problem is far less, though by no means solved. Zennie62Media is constantly working to improve the system network coding and seeks interested content and media technology partners.