Andrew Gillum, the former mayor of Tallahassee, was literally caught with his pants down with a naked man in a hotel room on South Beach on March 13.
The news coverage slowed to a crawl and then halted days after Gillum, 40, was found naked and vomiting on the bathroom floor in room 1107 at the Mondrian South Beach Hotel. His friend, male escort Travis Dyson, 30, was treated for a possible drug overdose.
A police report was leaked to conservative activist Candace Owens by someone who knew the news media would cover up the story.
Gillum apologized to his wife, R. Jai Gillum, and his friends and supporters. He announced he was entering rehab for an alcoholism problem.
After recovering from their shock, Gillum’s supporters collectively shrugged and moved on, leaving Gillum to his sexual demons.
But 2 of Gillum’s supporters believe Black men should uplift Gillum, and the news media should not demonize down low Black men.
Preston Mitchum and Michael Seaberry penned an open letter to Gillum, Black men and the news media to “be our Brother’s keeper”.
The open letter came days after The Central Florida Post and London’s Daily Mail published embarrassing photos of Gillum naked in a hotel room strewn with drug paraphernalia and bedsheets soiled with blood and feces.
Mitchum, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Law Center, told NewsOne in an email Monday night that “all media has a role to play” in supporting Gillum and Black people.
“…mainstream media, in particular, must be careful in how it displays Black people and our bodies and it isn’t something they are often forced to do.”
Seaberry, a high school science teacher in Clayton County, Georgia, appealed to Black men to be more supportive of Gillum and each other in their times of need.
“Fellow Black men, allow this letter to be a reminder that we, too, must be allowed the space to explore, mess up, reevaluate ourselves and become anew,” Seaberry and Mitchum wrote.
Addressing the rightwing news media. Mitchum and Seaberry wrote:
“We should not be shocked that you, the media, would fetishize a Black life for clickbait, likes, and shares — for anything. Black life, in moments of pain and terror, has long been delectable to the American palate.”
While acknowledging that Gillum’s story is newsworthy, they said the coverage should not be done in such a “salacious way.”
The men asked the news media for decorum and restraint when covering stories about down low high-profile men.
“Sharing photos of Mayor Gillum’s naked body, especially in such a vulnerable state, is inexcusable and triggering to a community that has seen our own bodies fetishized and/or slain across the nation, from the lynching tree to Main Street. Quite frankly, we are sick of seeing Black bodies become a call-to-fame and the subject of your headlines.”
NewsOne chose not to publish the nude photo of Gillum or the drug-strewn hotel room.
