| Black History month provides an opportunity to assess how Africans Americans are portrayed on television and in the movies. While it is important to celebrate major achievements, i.e., Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington and Spike Lee's Twenty Acres and a Mule film production company, racist, negative and stereotypical images of African Americans continue to persist. The racist treatment of Black folk in the media was evident in films like D.W Griffith's "The Birth of the Nation" in "Gone with the Wind," in the minstrels where White actors in Black face mimicked all of the negative stereotypes of African Americans, and with "King Fish" and all of the other characters portrayed in the series, Amos and Andy. The focus of all of these productions was on documenting and demonstrating the innate inferiority of Black folk through the creation of images of the shiftless, lazy, chicken-stealing ex-slave who had to be watched and treated like a juvenile. While coming of age, my generation watched television shows and movies such as Tarzan, Jungle Jim, Super Fly, The Mack, Car Wash, Good Times, etc. I, my siblings and all of my Black friends always rooted for Tarzan to defeat and destroy the African "natives" until one day when we began to question ourselves about that. I remember listening to the lyrics of the theme song for "Good Times" and scratching my head in disgust. Temporary lay-offs -- good times! Easy to get ripped off -- good times! Please be lucky we got them -- good times! How ridiculous is that! While J.J. kept us laughing a not so subliminal message was pointed directly at us as well as all of the other folk that tuned in. In the 1960s and '70s we celebrated the fact that there was an increasing number of Black flicks that one could go to the movies to see for the first time. Being so glad to see Black stars on the big screen, many of us overlooked the fact that we were being bombarded with images of Black men as pimps, drug dealers and predators in their community. The women weren't viewed much better as the characters were often portrayed as prostitutes, large, overweight, bossy or as welfare queens. A couple of weeks ago, while working out at a local Health Club, I plugged my headphones into the television set whereupon I observed one of the most ridiculous and outrageous "reality" shows that I have ever seen. While watching, I observed a Black man with some Viking Horns on his head and a big round clock dangling from his neck. He calls himself "Flavor Flav" which, I quickly determined was the name of his show. "Mr. Flav" had five women who were vying to be his "lady." Four of them were Black and one appeared to be White. Mr. Flav was very condescending and rude to all five of the women. Even more disgusting was how the women talked about and related to each other. They all schemed against each other and addressed each other as "bitches" and "hos." I could not believe that something this disgusting was on TV and I asked myself, who watches stuff like this in the middle of the day? Thanks to the Internet and Wikipedia, I did a search on Flavor Flav and determined that Mr. Flav is none other than William Jonathan Drayton, Jr. who is one of the founding members of the group Public Enemy. His show is an "enemy" to all who believe in self-respect and decency! All hope is not lost. About a week ago, a friend sent me a link to a very inspiring story done by ABC News on a 17-year-old high school student who did a documentary film on self-hatred. This young Black woman, Kiri Davis, produced a film less than 10 minutes in length that is rapidly circulating around the nation. Ms. Davis' film was influenced by the earlier findings of Black Psychologist Kenneth B. Clark based on experiments that he had done with young African American kids with Black and White dolls. In 1954, Professor Clark determined that, when given a choice between a Black doll and a White doll, the vast majority selected the White doll. Ms. Davis conducted an updated version of this same experiment with Black kids at a Childcare Center in NYC. A total of 15 of the 21 kids selected the White doll over the Black doll. When Ms. Davis asked the question "Which doll is the nice doll?" The reply was "The White doll is the nice doll." Why was this doll nice, she queried? The reply was, "The doll is nice because it is White." The next question that she asked was, "Which doll is the bad doll?" The reply she received was that "The Black doll was the bad doll." Ms. Davis then asked the question, "Which doll looks the most like you?" The kids reluctantly touched the Black doll and dropped their heads. When asked during the interview what inspired her to pursue this project, Kiri responded "I knew at an early age what the standards were for a girl like me." The title for her documentary film is "A Girl Like Me." And what was the "standard" norm that she learned; Kiri said that she was told at a very young age that she could never be a princess because princesses aren';t Black. Anyone interested in reviewing the story done on this very inspiring young lady should link to the following website: http://www.komoradio.com/home/video/5001856.html?video=pop&=a. The Reverend Al Sharpton, while giving his eulogy to God Father of Soul James Brown, called on all rappers, poets and singers to make a commitment to use and promote positive lyrics and images of Black folks in general and Black women in particular. While we may have come a long way from "The Birth of A Nation," we certainly have not reached nirvana with the likes of Mr. Flav in our midst. We continue to be bombarded with negative images in the movies, on cable channels like VH-1, BET and other television stations that create and promote a pathological self-hatred for everyone from infants to the elderly. Given this reality, it is very encouraging to see young, focused and inspired individuals like Kiri Davis making the effort to enlighten us and force us to dialogue about the detrimental impacts so we can find ways to make change for the future of our people. |
| The Literary Divide/Dr. Paul Barrows Negative images of Blacks persist on TV and in the movies |
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