A look at The Baltimore Sun’s racist attack on a Black cultural institution
By Dayvon Love On March 23, 2026 the Baltimore Sun published an article written by Mary Carole McCauley. Here is how the article is an instrument of a right wing, White supremacist political propaganda: The subtitle uses the notion that the Reginald F. Lewis Museum cost $91 to tax payers per visitor as a way […] The post A look at The Baltimore Sun’s racist attack on a Black cultural institution appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.
Black News 
By Dayvon Love
On March 23, 2026 the Baltimore Sun published an article written by Mary Carole McCauley. Here is how the article is an instrument of a right wing, White supremacist political propaganda:
The subtitle uses the notion that the Reginald F. Lewis Museum cost $91 to tax payers per visitor as a way to promote a right wing political frame.
This frame is an affirmation of the widely circulated mythology that Black people are living off of hard working (White) tax payers. This is a right wing political tactic that is reminiscent of the message of the conservative revolution who stoked White resentment after the social movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s. They framed government support for Black people as an unfair punishment to working class White people. This contributed to many in the White masses who felt that Black people were given too much because of the Civil Rights Movement. This resentment was the basis for the emergence of Ronald Reagan in 1980, which was responsible for some of the most radical right wing policies that devastated our community.
Reagan and his administration were responsible for the war on drugs, taking funding from health care and investing in prisons, support for Apartheid in South Africa, anti-affirmative action, union busting and numerous other policies that did enormous damage to our community.
McCauley is now using this classic right wing frame to stoke White (and those who wish they were White) resentment to characterize the Reginald F. Lewis Museum as giving Black people “too much.”
The analysis in the article does not contextualize the disparities in access to wealth between Black and White institutions. The average White family has 16 times the wealth of an average Black family. That staggering wealth inequality gives White people and their institutions a tremendous advantage, so much so that comparing them to the Baltimore Museum of Art or the Walters Museum of Art is intellectually unserious.
It makes sense that large private institutions are less of a “burden on the tax payer” because they have access to more wealth. The logical conclusion of this frame is that only wealthy White institutions should have museums in order to reduce the tax burden on hard working tax payers. That is, by definition, advocating for a system of White institutional control over Black life.
Additionally, because this article doesn’t address racial wealth inequalities between Black folks and White folks, it omits a historical dynamic where many Black institutions needed public investment in order to exist. Many of the long standing historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are land grant institutions that were made possible by enormous investment of federal dollars. That should cost tax payers more money because this society owes us for the 246 years of free labor that made the wealth that the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Museum have access to possible.
What is even more sinister is that the owner of the Baltimore Sun, David Smith and his wealthy family (his family is married into the Paterakis family, founder of H&S Bakery), according to a May 2, 2024 Real News Network article written by Stephen Janis, have received $115 million in tax payers dollars between 2012 and 2022 to the Harbor East development that they own.
Why should the majority of the tax payers in Baltimore (who are mostly working class and Black) subsidize the profits of companies that cater to wealthy White people? That money is better spent investing in communities that have historically been disinvested in. That $91 per visitor pales in comparison to the $115 million to subsidize wealthy people’s entertainment.
If we are being completely honest, some people read that Baltimore Sun article and thought to themselves some version of “here we go, another Black institution being run poorly.” Even though a cursory high school social studies level understanding of the world should lead a reporter to contextualize the social economic inequalities that shape the challenges faced by the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, the decision to disregard those realities demonstrates one of two things: Either an explicit political agenda to damage the reputation of the museum, or a stunning lack of social and historical awareness. Both cases make that article a right wing attack on Black cultural institutions.
The article gins up racialized stereotypes of Black people leeching off of White people, and that becomes political currency that could be used to attempt to reduce funding to the museum.
The Baltimore Sun reeks of David Smith’s right wing, White supremacist political agenda.
Go support the Reginald F. Lewis Museum!
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.
The post A look at The Baltimore Sun’s racist attack on a Black cultural institution appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.
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