For black journalists in America, covering the police killing of George Floyd and the protests that followed has affected them in a personal way and it's taking a toll.
Charles Clark, who covers county government for The San Diego Union-Tribune, and Donna Stewart, president of the San Diego Association of Black Journalists, recently wrote about how this moment is impacting them and why they remain hopeful about the future of race relations in the U.S.
"I think about my dad, who was born just before the passage of the Civil Rights Act and who it seems has seen so little change in his lifetime. He continues to be discriminated against even as a doctor. I think about my brother and some of my closest friends who could be hunted down and murdered because they committed the apparently unforgivable crime of simply existing as a large, black man in America," Clark wrote in an Op-ed for the Union-Tribune. "And I think of myself a bit too and the kids I’ll hopefully have someday. Would there be justice for me or them if something happened? Is this even the kind of world I’d want to raise a kid in?"
In an essay also for the Union-Tribune Stewart wrote, "To realize in 2020, we are still fighting this fight is exhausting. The idea that black parents still need to have the talk with their black sons is exhausting. The talk that has been happening in black families since slavery. The talk that explains to young black men they need to be above reproach at all cost because rarely will they be given the benefit of the doubt. The talk that no parent of a white child has ever considered having."
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They joined Midday Edition on Tuesday to share their reflections and weigh in on how local newsrooms are covering protests against racial injustice and police violence.
