Beyond superficial debate: How can we change the way the media frames racial issues?
by guest contributor Tami, originally published at What Tami Said
Why was Don Imus vilified and fired for calling a group of young, black athletes “nappy headed hoes,” but able to return to the airwaves months later provoking barely a stir? Why is Michael Richards’ racist tirade in a Los Angeles nightclub all but forgotten? Why have these incidents, and others like the Duke University case, failed to generate any long-lasting, helpful dialogue on race in America? The Washington Post attempts to answer these questions in a thoughtful, though conservative-leaning, article entitled “Reduced to the Small Screen: Incident, Reaction, Forget, Repeat–Formulaic Entertainment Replaces Serious Discussion on Race.”
And with each episode in the long-running Saga of Race in America, a string of characters lines up to react to the latest eruption. The media records them as they take up positions in the Great Race Debate. The media stokes the discussion as self-proclaimed black leaders scream outrage while opponents — often white, sometimes black — scream counter-outrage. The “colorblind” wonder why we all just can’t get along. And the rest of us watch from ringside, rooting for one camp or another, sometimes in silence.
Then inevitably, the media turns away. The outrage fades. The talking heads go silent. The curtain falls, and the debate recedes to wherever it goes until the next eruption.
Which raises the question: Has the debate over race become a melodrama? A bad television soap opera? A theatrical stage play with complex issues boiled down to a script? Entertaining words thrown around simply to satisfy the 24-hour news cycle, the blogosphere?
Are we doomed to debate racism over and over — stuck in purgatory, a cycle of skirmishes, of shock and awe, with nothing gained, nothing learned?
Or is there a way to change the ritual, to go deeper into our national consciousness and get off this merry-go-round?
I have asked myself that question often and I believe the answer is complex. The Washington Post article does a good job of tackling many of the reasons the race debate has become so superficial. Two factors that I believe play a key role in defining talk of race are 1) the way most Americans consume media and 2) the limited number of voices invited to participate in the mainstream racial discussion.
I’m a media junkie. I consume a variety of media, both mainstream (local and national TV news; local and national newspapers; political, news and cultural magazines) and alternative (blogs; progressive radio, and even though it makes my blood pressure rise, right wing radio). It helps that, as a public relations professional, I am paid to pay attention to the media.
Most people I encounter on a daily basis don’t have the time or inclination to do what I do. Most people I encounter get their information from limited sources, including a mainstream media owned by a narrow group of people–a mainstream media that is no longer The Fourth Estate, but a series of corporations operating with profit as their main mission. It is a media that courts controversy and, more than ever, believes “if it bleeds, it leads.” It is a media that traffics in stereotypes and narrows race to black and white. It is a media that doesn’t have time for nuanced and in-depth discussion about anything–not war, not healthcare, not poverty and not race. So, it is no wonder that the authors of the Washington Post article write:
There it was on television one afternoon, another episode in the Great Race Debate. A perky commentator moderated the banter between two intellectuals discussing the Jena 6 case and the debate over racial injustice.
Even with the sound off, it looked like entertainment, says Alan Bean, executive director of Friends of Justice, a Texas-based criminal justice reform organization that began probing the Jena 6 case long before it became big news. Bean was watching the show while sitting in an airport. That’s when it occurred to him: The race debate had become theater.
“When I looked at the woman who was the correspondent refereeing the fight between two talking heads, I didn’t get the impression she was concerned about enlightening the audience or coming to a meeting of the minds or shedding light on inequities in the criminal justice system,” says Bean, who is white. “Her primary concern seemed to be putting on a show.”
Mainstream media as a whole (there are certainly exceptions) no longer serves as public advocate. It is entertainment–candy everybody wants. On its own, it is not the ideal organ to discuss or solve our country’s racial problems, yet it is the place most people get their information on the topic.
I often wonder if the mainstream media has some sign they flash a la the bat signal when faced with racial controversy. You say a comedian unleashed an epithet-laden tirade in a nightclub? Someone caught it on video phone? Send up the race signal! Pow! Bang! Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Boy Wonder Michael Eric Dyson are on the way to the studio. Whether you believe the activists I just named are well-meaning and effective advocates for the black community or “grievance merchants,” you must agree that there are many, many more voices available to dissect America’s views on race. There are myriad authors, scholars and bloggers (Some of the most insightful commentary I’ve read about race is in the blogosphere.) who should join the race discussion. However, the mainstream media regularly puts forth the same voices–the more polarizing, the better.
How do we fix this? The Washington Post article ends on a pessimistic note:
So the show goes on. The debate over racism becomes as predictable as reruns on basic cable. The audience watches the Great Race Debate for a while, then changes the channel — until the next episode.
I’m honestly at a loss, unless we can transform more Americans from passive consumers of information to more proactive seekers of information on race and other important topics; unless black people can convince the mainstream that just as there are no appointed “white leaders,” there are no appointed “black leaders;” unless we can encourage all sides of racial debate to listen more, talk less, and come to the table with empathy.
What say you?
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
ebog wrote:
It’s hard for me to have much of a response because the article at the center of this discussion is such a crock. I wish Tami/Racialicious had called bullshit more emphatically here. Lame central TV metaphor? Two coequal “teams” duking it out? Last words given to neocon hacks Abigail Thernstrom and Shelby Steele? What-evers!
Posted 15 Nov 2007 at 11:12 am ¶
cjwilliams wrote:
I agree with the assertion that there really is no honest dialogue on race going on at the national level. This really isn’t a surprise given the fact that there really is no honest dialogue going on at the national level on ANY topic. Everything is divisive and partison.
…all the more reason for a discussion on difference and divisiveness at a base level: skin color.
One of the best discussions I was ever a part of was facilitated by folks from the the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. The two and a half day workshop was called Undoing Racism and took a real historical look at our nation as a “race structured” society and that racism, on the institutional level, is something that is “done” to everyone, not just POC.
I believe we need a leader, or leaders, that can first lead by example and admit that racism does exist and embrace a discussion about how that has effected him/her on a personal level, we might then be able to have discussions in smaller forums so that change might take place incrementally.
We have at least one or two candidates that might be brave enough to make those assertions. Hopefully that might be the needed first step.
…here’s to hoping.
Posted 15 Nov 2007 at 1:36 pm ¶
Jennifer wrote:
Thanks for a very thoughtful post Tami. This is the central dilemma I wrestle with and why I started a blog of my own–to try to talk about issues of race in the U.S. (and to some extent the wider world, although I profess a North American bias since it’s the region/culture I know best). I think part of the problem is time. It takes time to really explain the complexity of race–time to understand the long history of race–and time to digest others’ ideas and then formulate one’s one. And time to really separate the wheat from the chaff–the comments that move beyond indignation or righteousness or reaction and defensiveness and into a position of real dialogue and a willingness to move forward. I don’t have an answer, but I am personally grateful for blogs, like Racialicious and others, and the support I’ve gotten on my own blog (especially when I became a target for writing about the Duke lacrosse case)–which makes me realize that there are people out there who want to have real conversations–now we just have to figure out a way to get more people included–which is your whole point, I know, so back to square one.
Posted 15 Nov 2007 at 1:41 pm ¶
Luna wrote:
I haven’t read the WashPost article, but agree, coverage is always about the conflict, the accusations, never about how to improve the situation. Never asks IF the situation can be improved. I didn’t read a ton of coverage of the Jena 6, but I did read quite a bit, and most of the mainstream coverage was all the same stuff. The accusations, the protests, etc. no depth. I read that prior to the nooses being hung a black student had asked at a school assembly if he could stand under a tree where white students gathered. I think this was not so widely reported. He was told yes, he did stand under the tree…we know the rest. No one in the media asked the super boring questions: why did the school administration not realize they needed to make efforts to improve relations between races at the school? Or, What can be done to improve relations between races in Jena? Or, why would a fight at a high school ever result in a murder charge?? I suppose more voices, more depth in coverage is good, but most people are practical (like me–I’m a Virgo) they just want a little improvement in their corner of the world.
Posted 15 Nov 2007 at 3:29 pm ¶
LM wrote:
@ebog:
You are a fan of irony, eh? I don’t much care for Abigail Thernstrom myself, and I took note of the rightward ideological leanings of many, if not most, of those quoted in the article.
But that alone doesn’t make the article “such a crock,” does it? For example, Thernstrom may have an agenda in mind when she says what she does, but her quote in the article isn’t exactly controversial.
If you think the “central TV metaphor” is “lame,” cool, but does it help this discussion for us to know you feel this way? I’d like to know why you think that.
The authors write of the portrayal of “two coequal ‘teams’ duking it out,” to use your phrase, but don’t themselves portray this. At least this is my perception.
“What-evers!” Perfect phrase in the conversational climate at issue.
Posted 15 Nov 2007 at 5:48 pm ¶
LM wrote:
BTW, Tami, I honor your use of the phrase “What say you?” though I have come to associate it with the most insipid of talking heads, Bill O’Reilly. Dude says it all the time and then, of course, cuts off the respondent to spout more BS.
Posted 15 Nov 2007 at 5:53 pm ¶
Tami wrote:
ebog, I noticed the Post article’s reliance on right-leaning interviewees. I may not agree with their politics, but in this case I can’t argue with what they have to say. Modern media is mainly about spectable.
LM, I am erasing the phrase “What say you?” from my vocabulary, now that I know it’s an O’Reilly staple. I can force myself to consume some rightwing media, but I can’t do O’Reilly or Limbaugh. They send my blood pressure into the danger zone.
Posted 15 Nov 2007 at 8:22 pm ¶
Sam wrote:
When I expressed mild annoyance to this article, a friend of mine reminded me of the context for the article. I think that it was surprisingly insightful considering it appeared in the Washington Post. I hope there will be more to come and that they will go beyond Racism 101.
While the U.S. media is very good at demonstrating our racial diversity and our “intolerance” of racial bigotry, they are terrible at depicting how these things actually manifest themselves in our society. Because race is a socially constructed classification used for social stratification, showing racial diversity and racial bigotry without showing the large scale effects of these things are not really showing them at all. I think that this issue has the possibility of being well communicated, especially now that mainstream outlets like WashPost are starting to realize the emperor has no clothes in these “debates.”
What does everyone else think? Is there hope?
Posted 16 Nov 2007 at 5:03 am ¶
Kenny wrote:
I don’t think these cable shows really care about the pain felt from these incidents by POC.It’s a big story! I notice another trick used is having people in blackface like Jesse Peterson and Larry Elder come on say that some obviously racist incident isn’t. Hannity likes to avoid the curent issue by saying “what if a rapper……… “.When they do that you know it’s time to turn the channel.Racism in this country has been around a lot longer than rap music h as.
Posted 16 Nov 2007 at 11:53 am ¶
Zan wrote:
Great post! Thanks Tami. I don’t feel as though the mainstream media is the right place to hold ongoing debates about race. The mainstream media reports ‘news’, things have recently occurred (and by report I don’t mean an accurate portrayal!) There doesn’t really seem to be room for ongoing debates unless a new story occurs….
It seems to me the only place to stir up discussions about race is in schools. The high school kids should be discussing race issues in their classes, whether they have ‘race issues’ in their school or not. Even the younger kids in school can be educated, in a less direct way, than the high schoolers.
There several methods that have been tested in school systems e.g. the jigsaw classroom, that have shown small changes in teaching methods can have profound effects on class dynamics. The obvious race divides in classrooms disappear throughout a semester. This followed up with education about discrimination in society seems like the best bet to make people (kids=future) aware of racial differences/discrimination in society.
Posted 16 Nov 2007 at 1:03 pm ¶
ebog wrote:
LM writes:
>Thernstrom may have an agenda in mind when she says what she does, but her quote in the article isn’t exactly controversial.”Abigail M. Thernstrom is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York, and a highly partisan Republican commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. The author of a highly acclaimed book critical of affirmative action in 1987, Whose Votes Count: Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights, Thernstrom and her husband, Harvard University history professor Stephan Thernstrom, have subsequently written three more anti-affirmative action books.
Since 2003, Thernstrom has become an outspoken advocate for high-stakes testing in public schools, contending “State testing is forcing public schools to teach illiterate students to read”. [1]
In 2001, Thernstrom vigorously challenged allegations of systematic bias against minorities in the 2000 Florida presidential elections. [2] She also supported removing all Democrats from the United States Civil Rights Commission, which had documented the systematic bias: “The political appointees involved with this commission should have resigned with the old administration. The Bush administration should get them out.” [3]
In 2002, Thernstrom broke ranks with Republicans in the scandal involving Trent Lott’s segregationist ties, authoring a controversial Op-Ed in the New York Times that urged Lott to step down for the good of the Republican party. [4]
In 1993, Thernstrom was instrumental in leading the opposition to the confirmation of Lani Guinier, who had been nominated by then-President Bill Clinton to the post of assistant attorney general for civil rights. Thernstrom was accused of fabricating quotes in an editorial she had written for The New Republic magazine, allegedly concocting fictitious positions and quotes and attributing them to Guinier. [5]
In a scathing review of Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom’s 1997 book, Beyond the Color Line, Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy took issue with the Thernstrom’s purported neutrality:
‘The authors try to place themselves at the vital center of racial politics: “We quarrel with the left–its going-nowhere picture of black America and white racial attitudes,” but “we also quarrel with the right–its see-no-evil view.” In actuality, however, they unremittingly berate “the left” but rarely challenge the settled understandings of conservative or neoconservative readers.’ [6]
Thernstrom first attracted the attention of conservatives with a thundering denunciation of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in Public Interest magazine in 1978. She “distinguished herself with her hostility toward any method of promoting black and minority representation”. [7] “<
Please re-read that Kennedy quote again and then look back at Thernstrom’s quote: “People are afraid of saying the wrong thing, something that can be labeled as racially questionable,” says Thernstrom. “It stifles the debate and lessens our public lives because there’s much to be debated.”
LG calls this quote “uncontroversial,” which is only true as long as you ignore the extent to which it’s of-a-piece of Thernstrom’s career MO - lay claim to a false rhetorical “vital center” while actively working to deny African Americans practical access to equal opportunity. Thernstrom’s agenda isn’t just a question of pro-forma “rightward ideological leanings” but you wouldn’t know that from reading the WaPo article or this post.
As I said in my initial comment: “I wish Tami/Racialicious had called bullshit more emphatically here. “
Posted 16 Nov 2007 at 2:27 pm ¶
ebog wrote:
My comment above got garbled. The line “Abigail M. Thernstrom is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York, and a highly partisan Republican ” begins a quote from SourceWatch.com
Posted 16 Nov 2007 at 2:29 pm ¶
LM wrote:
ebog: so you and I have the same opinion of Abby Thernstrom. To the extent that she’s given credibility by an appearance in this and other mainstream newspaper articles, I can understand your disgust.
But that doesn’t make this article itself, or the points within, worthy of dismissal out of hand. Who cares that you and I (and plenty of others) can’t stand Abby Thernstrom et al? For the “average” person who doesn’t know who Thernstrom is, all that matters in this article is this particular quote. She’s partisan; this quote is not.
Posted 16 Nov 2007 at 5:54 pm ¶
Paz wrote:
What I see happening is real dialogue and even some real change around race. However, it is not being covered by the media and it is definitely not happening in the media. Facilitating discussion and change around race continues to be thought of as a skill/job that anyone can do. I have two degrees and a world of experience talking with young people and adults about racism. When will we as a collective community stop relying on mainstream media to define us? I suppose we need some people to keep trying to hold the media accountable but more effort needs to go towards promoting indie media and spreading the word about communities who are tackling this issue. I called a press conference to showcase 10 youth teams who reached over 8,000 people in our community with their anti-racist projects. No media showed.
Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 4:26 pm ¶
F.L. Ball wrote:
OK- OK The big bad media is here. Who is this media beast? Well all you have to do is look at the writers on strike right now to see who this beast is: WHITE men and women! So until people of color are the ones that write the story’s that we watch and read we will aways be the ones on the short end of the proverbial stick.
Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 9:08 pm ¶
Jonathan Richardson wrote:
I thoroughly enjoyed this article. I definately believe that not only does the mainstream media pursue conflict more than real dialog and solution, but that most Americans wish to deal with race in this salacious manner as to not have to deal with deep seeded and oftentimes complex attitudes and feelings that may reside within themselves. It can be easier for some individuals to simply pick a left-wing or right-wing side and try to defend a polarizing point of view than to look and see the layers of race influenced opinions and thoughts that they have, that although not as polarizing and harsh as those shown on television, are no less influential in contributing to negative steroetyping. I have written a book entitled: The Complicated Life Of The African-American Man(What’s on his mind) and it dogs into the layers of attitudes, thoughts, accepted behaviors, laws…ect. which have helped influence the current attitudes about race in America. Without exploring the foundational elements which have contributed to this present state, we will find ourselves bickering about surface topics and issues that are easily muddled by opportunistic word-mongerers.
Posted 21 Nov 2007 at 3:15 am ¶
Jonathan Richardson wrote:
Here is a sample of how we must dig a little deeper to talk about issues…
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION:
The definition of Affirmative Action in Webster’s
dictionary is 1. a policy to increase opportunities for
women and minorities, especially in employment.
Why has there been a need to increase the opportunities
for not only women and minorities in general but
for African-Americans specifically?
As observed earlier, the historical teaching in this
country, as it relates to the true and accurate depiction of
the severity of racism and its effects on the African-American,
is grossly underrepresented. The way the historical
facts about racism and its effects are sanitized and delivered,
seems to lessen White America’s self-perceived culpability
in the current state of affairs in the African-American
community. White America’s historical teachings, as
well as the media, have done a masterful job of presenting
information (whether it be historical or present day)
in a way that leaves most White Americans with the impression
that ANY problems that occur in finding employment
or entering into institutions of higher learning
are strictly the result of the actions (or lack thereof) of the
African-American applicant.
They have somehow convinced not only White
America, but also a portion of minorities, that the achievements
of White Americans were reached through simple
hard work and persistence. Almost all effects of racism (as it relates to historical teachings) seem to start and end
with slavery. Once slavery ended, it is implied that the
playing field was level, except in the South, where they
had those “dirty little Jim Crow laws,” which were eliminated
by the courts in the 1960’s after the civil rights
movement. Because of the blatant disregard for portraying
racial discrimination accurately (not only in the historical
sense, but presently,) most White Americans view
Affirmative Action as giving something to an undeserving
individual because of racism that occurred during slavery
times. Many African-Americans have heard someone
of European descent say,” I was not a slave owner, so
why should I have to pay for what my ancestors did?”
So you think the need for a policy that increases the
opportunities for minority employment is no longer necessary?
Do you think America has progressed to the point
that racial discrimination is no longer an issue? Let me
illustrate how little progress this country has made in the
area of equal employment.
Professional football is comprised of approximately
seventy percent African-American men, yet in the late
1980’s there was only one African-American head coach.
African-Americans desired to be head coaches, but not
only did they not get hired, they were not even being interviewed
to have a chance to be hired. During the 1990’s,
there were only about three African-American head
coaches (and they did not all serve their posts together
throughout all of the 1990’s). It was not simply the fact of
how few had head coaching positions, but the fact that
during the 1990’s on into the twenty-first century, there
were multiple firings and hirings. There were African-
American assistant coaches who had paid their dues in
the ranks, who would not even get an interview opportunity.
Meanwhile a white coach, who had not even been
successful at his last head-coaching job, would be recycled
as a head coach of another franchise. Black leaders began
to promote the names of qualified African-American assistants,
hoping they would get an opportunity to work as
a head coach, but they did not have much success.
There were so many qualified minority candidates
not even getting an opportunity to interview, that the league
finally mandated that teams had to interview at least one
minority candidate when it had a head coaching vacancy.
Now, you have people complaining about that mandate.
How would the problem of these African-American men
not even getting an opportunity to interview be rectified
if it were not mandated? Blacks waited for many years,
playing the “come up through the ranks game” they were
led to believe would take them to a fair opportunity. If the
league had not adopted a policy that would increase opportunities
for employment of African-Americans, would
there be any change in the hiring practices of the teams?
Now, if a league consisting of approximately seventy
percent African-American men (who have close contact
with the owners who will employ future head coaches)
needs to use mandated policies to ensure that African-
Americans get a fair shot, why would anyone think it far
fetched that Affirmative Action policies are necessary in
the general job market to ensure equal access for the average
African-American?
One of the amazing things is how those who oppose
Affirmative Action use an exception to the rule as a foundation
to try and support their reasoning that Affirmative
Action is not needed. They point to the one black coach
who was hired before the 1990’s (the first one in the modern
era I might add) and say this is proof that race doesn’t
matter. They don’t look at the hundreds who were not
given a chance and see that a change is needed. In addition, if another African-American is hired with the policy
in place, some will have the audacity to say that a qualified
white man is not working because a less qualified
black man was “given” the job.
For example: There is an auto plant that employs
1,000 workers. One hundred percent of the employees
are white. There are openings for fifty jobs. Three hundred
whites apply; two hundred blacks apply. Forty whites
are hired, and ten blacks are hired because federal law
requires them to hire a certain percentage of minorities.
Some whites would look at the ten blacks with angst, saying
that there are ten qualified whites not working because
of Affirmative Action. Yet they would not question
how a company employing 1,000 workers did not have
one minority on payroll until it was forced to. There was,
and still is, a need for Affirmative Action.
Sometimes there needs to be a written policy that
increases the employment opportunities for minorities, to
offset the oftentimes unwritten polices that have not only
denied minority employment, but also allowed whites to
get jobs that, if viewed without bias, they would not have
gotten.
Many companies use hiring practices that give much
credence to the saying “It’s not what you know, but who
you know.” I’ve worked for a company, a worldwide employer,
that uses references from its existing employees
as a factor in hiring new employees. When I began working
there, I was surprised to see that many of my fellow
employees knew each other previous to working for the
company. Whether it was a brother, cousin, sister-in-law,
or friend, approximately sixty to seventy percent of the
people employed at this company (locally) had significant
ties to someone who had been employed with the
company before them. I have found this to be a pretty
common practice at many companies. The company that
I have been referring to is more progressive in its hiring
of minorities than most.
Do you see how this potential employment practice
could lead to the exclusion of many qualified minority
candidates? If you are a part of the “good ol’ boy” network,
and you employ this practice, chances are you don’t
have many minority friends who would benefit from your
hiring recommendations. So you recommend a white
friend who recommends a white cousin, who recommends
a white brother-in-law. Soon you have a company full of
white employees. Have you ever noticed that the conversation
of being unqualified or “he got the job handed to
him,” rarely comes up when whites hire their white friends
or family?
Another hot button political issue is race-based admissions
to institutions of higher learning. I have three
points of observation on this topic. First, it has been said
that race should not be a deciding factor in one’s admittance
or denial, but simply the test scores (SATs). Blacks
might not have as much of an issue with this, if all kids
were taught at the same rate and progression up to the
twelfth grade. I went to school in the suburbs when I was
a youth. Do you know that I learned lessons in the seventh
grade in the suburbs that were being taught in the
tenth grade of the inner city high school I attended later?
You are not going to convince me that at the end of twelve
years, the schools in suburbs and the city schools have
educated their students evenly. Now you want the simple
high score on the SAT’s to determine admittance to college?
Secondly, if race should not have any bearing on your
acceptance or rejection (the insinuation being that simply
the most qualified student should be accepted), why do applying kids get bonus points for things such as their
parents being alumni?
Finally, it is insulting and outright wrong to insinuate
that African-American applicants are just “given”
something, and that they have not put in much hard work.
Some of these politicians act as if these admissions are
given to anyone who asks, no matter what their qualifications
(just as long as they are black). They seem to imply
that doctorates are given out to anyone of color who asks,
as if at a drive-through window picking up a quick snack
(“Let me have a Ph.D., hold the Associates, and please
put a law degree on the side.”)
Posted 21 Nov 2007 at 3:35 am ¶
j prof wrote:
If you want a perfect example of the “duking it out” charade, check out Soledad O’Brien’s “refereeing” of a discussion between Jayson Williams and Al Sharpton about Don Imus. What’s the news peg here? Black folks disagree? Stop the presses!
I have a positive example of Jena 6 and civil-rights coverage in Howard Witt of The Chicago Trib. (He broke Jena 6 in mainstream print.) There’s a reporter who does his work and bothers to get into context.
Posted 25 Nov 2007 at 8:41 pm ¶
j prof wrote:
Sorry- Jason Whitlock! I have basketball on the brain. Here is a link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qpaM5bA7Z0
Posted 25 Nov 2007 at 8:45 pm ¶