Wow! What an astonishing story. The points you make about erasure are so critical.

I think this incident speaks to an aspect of systemic racism that begs to be addressed particularly — the information bubble.

While it’s true as you mentioned that all media sources were covering the Brianna Taylor protests, one news source in particular was awfully sparing in how they told the story.

Fox News covered the protests quite thoroughly, often in a negative light, but they were much less likely than other sources to say Brianna Taylor’s name or to report on what the protesters were angry about.

They contributed to an environment that made it easier for conservative congresspeople, who are more likely to watch Fox than any other news source, not to know her name.

Combine this with the Facebook/social media information bubble that operates in much the same way, and the problem gets worse.

This doesn’t excuse any individual congressperson, each of whom has a responsibility to be aware of the state of the nation. But it does show how our information polarization is contributing to our systemic racism.

Current events reporting in the United States has become polarized in a partisan way like no time in recent history. It’s contributing to systemic racism, and we have to do something about it.