*REMINDER, Assignment 3 DUE Nov. 27, 5pm.
In order to get the most out of family time for Thanksgiving, we’ll go with this “video” version of class, which will be interactive as well. Here are two videos to watch about how visual rhetoric and race intersect, in the form of colorism. These two videos are difficult to watch, but I think you’ll have much to consider.
Please be sure to give comments to this film, 6-8 sentences each. Feel free to also engage the comments of your classmates.
First, this film called “A Girl Like Me”
And this report from CNN
Again, please leave comments below. Also feel free to share videos or materials you think might apply to this important topic. I’ll be interested to read how you all consider in what ways visual rhetoric and race relate to one another.
WRD 308 Visual Rhetoric 
#BlackLivesMatter is a great and current example of race and rhetoric meeting. This hashtag has grown into a much larger social movement that tries to place value on black lives. Moreover, this hashtag criticizes the U.S. society as a place unequal between white lives or #AllLivesMatter and black folks. Yes, all lives matter (even the turkeys on grandmaw’s Thanksgiving table), but the imagery in which a large amount of society analyze and place judgment on black people is this: gangster rap. Gangs, drug dealers, gold teeth, red bandanas, blue bandanas, large gold chains hanging from the neck, and importantly guns. This imagery misrepresents black society as a whole nor does it represent the majority of black folks. Therefore, gangsters, thugs, thieves, drug dealers, and pimps, these folks are not accepted in society as holy than or healthy participants in the society ruled by white men for hundreds of years. As a result, this clash has created a paradigm that #BlackLivesMatter is trying to change because the U.S. society is not a post-racial country. It still very much is a racist country in which all sides use rhetorical devices and artifacts in attempts to persuade. Simply, it is a country scared of black men. And for whatever misconstrued notions that have persuaded us in the unfortunate paradigm given that we are all human (animals).
A resource to share with the class: Tavis Smiley’s Covenant with Black America (10 all together): http://www.covenantwithblackamerica.com/police_accountability.htm
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Those were difficult to watch, indeed. Implicit bias is something that is rampant in our country and that I have become more and more aware of in myself this year. These videos are further proof that these biases do originate at a very young age. This is scary and makes me aware of how impressionable young children are. The whole time watching these videos I was thinking about my future, when I become a father. I want my children to be free of prejudicial beliefs and biases, and it’s almost as if it’s a helpless ambition. These children pick up subliminal messages of superiority and inferiority from their parents, from television, from school, and other places. I wonder if it will be possible to keep my children from such messages. I have already thought about what it would look like if I kept my kids out of the public school system and away from television. But then, I don’t want them to be shut-ins who never experience everything. I think it all returns to the fact that this world we live in is truly fallen and our hearts are all broken and looking for fulfillment. It is sad, but true.
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These videos are a combinations of intriguing, disturbing, and sad. I had little idea how deep of a negative connotation being black was in their own community and lives. The part where the little girl explains how she thinks her own skin tone is ugly touched me. No one should have to feel like that. It honestly saddens me, though truth be told I have no idea how this must feel. That said, hopefully one day we can push past these negative connotations our society has put on skin color.
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“I wouldn’t marry someone of a certain color because of the gene pool.” That quote really stuck with me from the videos. Do people really decide who to marry based on what their future kids might look like? Like one little girl said in the video, it’s 2012, the color of someone’s skin shouldn’t be an issue when forming friendships, or just in general. And I agree, yet it’s almost 2017 and not much has changed. The more we talk about race, the more we create the problem. No one is born hating a certain race or thinking that someone with a different skin color is not worthy enough to be their friend. We are groomed, by parents, society and the media to see race as a dilemma. It’s simple though: don’t make racial differences a problem we need to worry about and they won’t become one.
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I think also the more we talk about race tries not to ignore the problem. In other words, not talking about race is a way of acting like in the social world racism doesn’t exist. That said, the short film tries to break a certain mythology about whiteness and beauty.
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I found these videos to be very interesting. They gave me a new perspective on the way that kids view race. It was my expectation that black children would be aware of racial bias, but I did not imagine that much of this racial bias would actually be internalized. I think that it is easy for children to notice differences between the races and the way that they are treated or the way they interact with one another. However, I did not think that these perceptions of bias would actually change the way that these children view themselves and their own race. In the experiments I was shocked to see that more children preferred the white baby doll, and described the white children in the photographs as smart, nice, and pretty, while describing their own race even as ‘nasty’. Seeing the situation from the white side of things I think I just assumed the preference would be toward one’s own race (likely I would have chosen the white doll as a child). It is alarming that these biases are not only affecting the way we interact with one another, but people’s actual self-perceptions. I think like they said in the videos, not talking about race is part of the issue. When parents leave race off the table it makes room for many false assumptions to take over. I think that I was lucky in that my parents actively encouraged the friendships I had with kids of different races, which let me know that it was ‘okay’. Had they not said anything, however, my perceptions of how ‘okay’ it was to hang out with black kids may have been much different.
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These video’s show the sad current truth about race relations in America. We have come a far way regarding race, but it seems to never get fully solved in our society. I have friends who’s parents won’t allow them to date a black person, I think that is absolutely absurd. Racism makes me so angry, it truly show pure ignorance and stupidity in people.
I am taking a sociology class this semester and it has further opened my eyes to the unfair challenges minorities, especially black people face. It just makes me sad and angry that this is the world we have to live in..
side note: using children in these video’s was a good way to appeal to pathos (children = innocence)
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I think that this is extremely sad. I know that many females of all skin color have insecurities and standards that we feel like we are pressured to meet regarding hair, weight, etc, and I know that all girls struggle with image in different ways. However, I think it is extremely sad that these women are told that lighter skin is prettier. I was very upset by the story of the girl who got in a bathtub full of bleach hoping that it would lighten her skin. It is also very sad that even at a young age girls think that the white dolls are prettier and nicer because they are white. It is sad that young girls think that they are ugly if their skin is darker, and I don’t know why anyone would teach them these things about beauty.
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The second and third videos in particular hit close to home for me. As a child growing up in rural Kentucky with my Grandmother, I was never allowed to have black friends, especially black boys. She would tell me that the boys would hurt me physically while the girls would try to ruin me emotionally. She would say that it was “the way they are”. Now that I’m older I understand that the color of a person’s skin doesn’t make the person. I’ve dated outside my race, I have friends all over the spectrum, and I want to advocate for them and protect them from the prejudice I grew up with. I guess I knew that I couldn’t be the only one who was raised around racism but it breaks my heart to see it happening to others. I can only hope that as the younger generations become more and more educated, children won’t have to be subject to this terrible brainwashing some day in the future.
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My father grew up in Atlanta in the midst of the 1960s, my mother grew up in Eastern Kentucky during the same time period. They experienced the Civil War, and my dad has some pretty interesting stories regarding racial tensions in Atlanta during that time. I don’t know how they grew up in that era and didn’t become racist. I know that some people growing up weren’t allowed to have black friends or date black people, and that always made me sad. I lived in Tampa, FL for the first 8 years of my life and I had a couple African American Friends, I didn’t see any difference in them vs. my white friends. There is no difference. It hurts my heart that people still hold onto this racist attitude. It’s almost 2017, yet some are still stuck in the past.
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I think the videos are a very realistic view of what our society is like regarding race. Racism is definitely something we have been at odds with as far as true equality and I don’t think everyone has truly excepted the fact that some people are still considered racists.
I think that it is a very very sad and ignorant way to think of people “differently” because they don’t look like us. Unfortunately, these are behaviors that are taught and learned, and most definitely passed down from parental figures and even other family members.
I think also we should make a conscious effort in our daily lives to stop the behaviors if they’re seen or heard.
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