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Forum nameOkay Activist Archives
Topic subjectPopular Art and Racism
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=22&topic_id=33408&mesg_id=33486
33486, Popular Art and Racism
Posted by Nettrice, Sun Dec-18-05 08:39 PM
>Yes, there are
>people in blackface at the beginning, but the movie is set in
>the 1920s, and in stage shows there were people in
>blackface...pretending that things were otherwise would be
>worse surely.

"The onset of Jim Crow laws and customs rested upon the racist characterization of black people as culturally, personally, and biologically inferior. This image functioned as the racial bedrock of American popular culture after 1900, especially manifested in minstrel shows, the vaudeville theatre, songs and music, film and radio, and commercial advertising. So pervasive was the racial demeaning of black people, and so accepted was it by white Americans throughout the nation, that blackness became synonymous with silliness, deprivation, and ignorance. Most white Americans believed that all Africans and their descendants were racially inferior to whites, and that their common inferiority tied them together wherever they might live in the modern world." - http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/resources/lessonplans/hs_es_popular_culture.htm

>I know you think there are deeper issues, and I'm with you, if
>not alongside you on them; I just fail to see the big deal
>here.

IMHO everything adds up and if you break it down to its parts you can better deal with the issue, esp. as it relates to becoming more literate and able to understand

* The processes involved in critically analyzing and creating media messages
* The business of mass media or the globalization of media
* The intersection of media and government
* The nature of journalism and the issue of media bias
* The sociopolitical nature of the media’s content such as the depiction of stereotypes and violence