African Americans & Mass Media

Description

In the film, Ethnic Notions and in the Jane Rhodes reading, we saw how images of African Americans were intentionally constructed to serve the goals of antiBlackness and white supremacy. Answer the following:

How do these images reflect racial tension in the United States?

How are the images of the past still with us?

What other images influence our attitudes and behavior toward

certain groups?

If these images are socially constructed, how can they be changed?

Be as specific in your examples as you can. Here are some ideas to take up for instance. Why did the caricature of the brute African American male surface during/after Reconstruction? What image developed in the North as African Americans began a massive migration to urban cities? How and why were African American women hypersexualized or cariatcured as selfless “mammy” figures?