I was watching some ID Investigate show the other night and the criminals were four black men and I must say I wasn’t surprised. Actually, not only was I not surprised they were Africa American but in fact a part of me was anticipating it. Am I racist for thinking this way or have the concepts of African American and criminal been cultivated in my mind as concepts that are intertwined and dependents on one another. In order to legitimize their lynching, their killings, and their mistreatments of Black men, White America would cultivate in the minds of the masses, the narrative of the Negro as a criminal. Not too long afterwards, pictures of middle class African American men became synonymous with a picture of a criminal. To take a closer examination at my own interpretation of the Black man’s body, I thought about how the media represented the [pictures of Mike Brown and Eric Garner in the news during their ongoing trial for their deaths. All these Black men were from the middle and lower middle class strata of the economy. But why is it that when they showed their pictures it made so much sense in our minds to initially associate them as mischiefs and delinquents. To be completely frank with myself, every time we see a picture of a professional successful Black man posted anywhere, my friends and I (a group of diverse individuals), point it out and say something along the lines of “Oh look! They got a Black dude too.” Now, I don’t want this to get misinterpreted as meaning something else. What I’m trying to say is that a picture of a Black guy with oversized clothing in a mugshot looking picture seems all too normal for us- but an image of a Black guy who is successful, is exotic. I asked myself if White America has been able to do such a good job all these years of associating success with whiteness and criminality with blackness that it has shaped our idea of common sense? The answer was yes. Yes, because the dominant ideologies present in our society are the ideologies of the dominant ruling class. I think Marx said it, or maybe Weber, it doesn’t really matter but what does matter is that I am no different in my way of thinking than the people that were around when Jim Crow Laws were in full effect. Why am I no different? Because I am excited when I see a Black man not in the streets and in the work force. Because I have a false notion of the Black man living in impoverished areas as a criminal. Because a successful Black man is not the standard. It is the exception and I know damn well I am not the only one who thinks like this. It is 2015 and I can admit that I have allowed the dominant ideologies present in White America to become so far engrained in me that I have failed to ask- why can’t a picture of a Black man be just that? Why must it already have a negative narrative in my mind prior to any knowledge about the individual?
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2015
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