Recently, Tina Knowles-Lawson has partnered with the Discovery Channel to produce a documentary that's called ‘Profiled: The Black Man’, in an attempt to "counter" the media's "negative portrayals" of Black men. 

As a Black woman who is also a classically trained journalist (who understands minority media depictions very well), this is extremely problematic as the actual research, statistics and data paint a drastically different picture. 

According to the FBI, at least four Black women and girls were murdered per day in the United States in 2020 alone. We've seen a stark increase in these numbers recently, and according to Black women advocacy organization “Black Femicide — America” a Black woman is killed in the US once every 6 hours. According to the US Department of Justice, Black women are much more likely to be sexually assaulted and four times more likely than white women to be murdered by a significant other. More disturbingly,  92% of these killings were intra-racial, which means the overwhelming majority of these murders were committed by a Black man against a Black woman. 

Surely, since Black women are being victimized in such a significant and horrific manner, shouldn't there be MORE media coverage spreading awareness about these crimes? If anything, we do not need to be creating documentaries that minimize the victimization of black women and girls within these communities by indicating that the culprits are simply being "profiled".   

Furthermore, Tina Knowles-Lawson indicated that she was inspired to create this documentary as a direct result of a woman calling her son-in-law rapper Jay Z a "gangster"  even though he has openly admitted to selling drugs in his community,  being in and out of prison,  and even openly raps about his illegal escapades in popular songs like 'Justify My Thug' and 'Big Pimpin'.  

Therefore I ask that you sign this petition to request that the Discovery Channel does one of two of the following items immediately: 

1. Cease airing the problematic series ‘Profiled: The Black Man’ completely 

OR

2. Create an additional documentary that spreads awareness about the brutality, victimization, and femicide that black women and girls are experiencing globally.