Black Men : How do we stop the demonization of Black Men in the Media?

[river]

Hotep

Brothers and Sisters, consider for a moment the fact that we as Afrikans in America have tried "Every-Thing" except "Unity". This out-right war on commonly called "Black-People", by Europe has been going on for thousands of years, and there is no stoping the "Demonization" of the Black man and Black Woman in sight.
The Europian has never changed his Nature twords "Us" in more than 6,000k years and couldn't do that if they tried. Please understand that the co-called White Man and Woman is the Natural Enemy to Afrikans and others of Color. We should "All" know this by now because there is no proof of them ever being any thing to the contrary.
With "War" there is "Always" Negative-Propaganda spread about the Enemy.
During the Civil-Rights movement the "Only-Thing" that changed is "Us"; When we "Stoped" take-ing some of the un-human treatment from white-folk, they "Had" to "Re-Write" New-Laws that we could except at that time in our history. During that time we begin to "Fight-Back" all over this Nation with "Riots"ect. Today "They" (Europians) wish to turn back the clock and take back "All" that we struggled and died for.
The day "Will" come soon when we will say, "Enough is Enough", and then and only then, when we stand in a large enough "Unified" effort for self determination, the "Demonization" of Afrikans will stop for Ever.

Ase`

Yep unity is the one thing the enemy has always done his best to destroy. Divide and conquer has always been the name of his game. Tell yourself your brother is a stupid @$$hole and then talk about fighting a war? You might as well stay home. Fahget it.

Now that we know we need unity how and where do we start to build it? Start here where you are reading right now with that brotha or sista you can't stand. Then carry it to your family, your friends, your kids and their friends.

Give the lie to everything they show on tv so there's no way your kids will believe that stuff. Raise the next generation of girls to have so much respect for themselves there won't be any models for the shake your booty videos. Raise your boys to love their brothas so much there won't be any pushers to sell drugs. We don't need another Martin Luther King right now. All we need is an army of fathers and mothers armed to the teeth with love and self respect.

 

[Ralfa'il]

PanAfrica

but before this goes any further remember, don't lose sight of the context of this thread, which is the demonization of black men in the media! This is becoming another interracial thread...Lord knows we have enough.

Perhaps the demonizatoin of black men may be RELATED to interracial dating/mating!



Don't lose sight of the fact that there's been a strange but historically strong link between sex and race in this country.

The basic nature of most men is to accumulate wealth, weapons, and women.

Women are valuable and are a biological necessity to secure your seed and future in this world so the more women you have willing to procreate with you (love you) the more chances you have to ensure the future survival of your race and family.

As far as the white man is concerned, his women are his property used to project his future.

Even black women in America are considered his property because historically sistaz have been forced to nurse and look after the children when white women were unable or refused to do so.



In a society like a America where there are now few PHYSICAL barriers preventing black men from accessing his property (besides that spoiled baloney smell), the white man has to create a MENTAL barrier to protect his "property".

He must demonize the black man in to such an extent and make him so undesirable that we will be socially isolated and our "coitus will be interupptus".

 

[PropheticWisdom]

Popular Media and The Blackman

The problem with popular forms of media relevant to the Blackman is in fact to demonize us. But the problem with popular media in general is that its' mission is not journalistic in nature, instead it is a designed method of mass manipulation of popular opinion. Therefore, it is my belief that in order to exact correction to this willful attack upon the Black Males persona, as with all endeavors we as a unified group must begin to take the steps requisite to squelch such noise. By doing what this society has taught us to do, sue such media outlets as would depict us in such a negative fashion.

We asm a people are all too accepting and complacent, it is not only popular media where such insults exist, For example in the State of New York, wherein Federated Department Stores has massive outlets, from Macy's to Bloomingdales. It has always boggled my mind as to why one outlet to the next has a different appearance. There is Roosevelt Fields a shopping mall in predominently white Garden City, NY, where the Macy's Department Store looks and feels like a Macy's equipped with sophisticated dispays and an array of helpful sales assistants. Then there is the Green Acres Shopping Mall, in Rockville Centre, NY, bordered by the borough of Queens and heavily populated by people of color. Now when you walk into the Macy's in this mall, and during the holiday season no less - this is of import the holidays being the time of year when retail outlets attain better than 65 % (percent) of their annual gross revenues, it appears as if you have just walked into a flea market, swap meet, give it a name relative to your geography, equopped with tables in the aisles strewn with rumpled unfolded merchandise. Yet this as well we as a people willingly accept and in fact heavily patronize. This makes no sense on our part and is without question an insult on Federated Department Stores part, to us an entire segment of the population.

Think about that for a moment....

 

[davidals]

Film & Independent Media

Let them (the media) keep on with their lies. They OWN the stations (radios and television) and also the newspapers. We just don't have to believe their lies.



I know that white people can't believe that I have a son who is in college. Who is not out on the streets at night messing up. Because they are conditioned into thinking the worst of us.

White folks don't want to hear about young black men who are college educated and doing something positive in their lives. It's a shock to them when a black man does something successful. Even my local paper never speaks of positive black kids.

But it's ok, brothers and sisters. We see the exposure regarding those "pictures" from Iraq. As of this writing, I haven't heard about any non-white female soldiers tormenting prisoners or having photos of them having sex. And I've seen my share of white priests, teachers, judges, executives, etc. being exposed for having kiddie porn downloaded on their computers.

God has a way of exposing things. The more the media tries to portray us in a negative way, the hurtful truth comes out about them and they can't cover it up.

This has been a great discussion so far - we need more of such discussion.

I've been thinking about independent media a lot lately - specifically after watching one movie too many with some tired wannabe Boyz In The Hood stereotypes in it. I want to see life, and the diversity of our history and culture - and Hollywood is not in touch with that. I put some thought into movies I'd like to see - like an epic about the Harlem renaissance, or the Black pride/arts/power movement, or a bio pic about Angela Davis, or a few other things (howabout an African American scientist, business leader, or academic as the protagonist of a serious drama?). And then I remembered a few specific comments from filmmakers: Ice Cube mentioning not being able to get anything 'serious' off the ground in Hollywood, Spike Lee's unsuccessful attempts at getting Rent and doing a Jackie Robinson pic, and a few others.

Granted, Hollywood has traditionally been among the most racist and conservative corners of the media (in spite of a fashionable liberalism that has no depth whatsoever), and is not known for intelligent depictions of anyone. Raising the bar on intelligence in media is overdue all around - and the given excuse is that "it's simply a business matter." Well, we should remind them that we spend money as well, and we should be willing to spend wisely.

We have to keep the pressure on media outlets, and we have to keep a close eye on what they do, and do not hesitate to complain - in analytic, critical detail when they disrespect us. Simultaneously, we need to look within our own community for stories, and opportunities to realize them, and launch independent projects at African American (and other) film festivals. Where are our business leaders in this process? White independent artists who run into roadblocks in film, publishing, music or elsewhere have developed an infrastructure devoted to realizing creative works outside of the mainstream media; some of us may have devoted some effort to this (there is starting to be a fluorishing underground of independent African American filmmakers), but this is something we need to continue to develop and deepen. We need to keep producing intelligent work - work that highlights the variety and depth in our culture. Even if it doesn't all achieve blockbuster success, I feel that the sheer accumulating quantity of it will eventually expose it all.

I'm a fan of film and arts, and it's pathetic that I don't really look to Hollywood for much at all; and I would note that box office this summer is lower than it's been in 20 years, which is fine by me. There are - if you hunt hard - filmmakers from elsewhere (Youssef Chahine from Egypt, Ousmane Sembene from Senegal, some Asian filmmakers like Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray) who dug deep into their own cultures - music, literature, folklore, arts, theatre - and brought it to life in ways that are smart, entertaining and have far greater worth than anything Hollywood has served up in a while. This is unfortunate, because (unlike those filmmakers) I'm also an American, and want stories that reflect our experience in America. I think we have to be (like those filmmakers) creative with funding and budgets, aim very high in content, be relentlessly critical of what is getting served up out there, and we need to dig deep into our own culture.

Apart from whatever our day jobs are - we all have stories to tell. Tell 'em as well as you can, and get 'em out however, wherever, whoever, whenever. The majority of what could be considered popular culture in this country originated in our culture, and we should remind people (our own and others as well) of that more often.

 

[panafrica]

This has been a great discussion so far - we need more of such discussion.

I've been thinking about independent media a lot lately - specifically after watching one movie too many with some tired wannabe Boyz In The Hood stereotypes in it. I want to see life, and the diversity of our history and culture - and Hollywood is not in touch with that. I put some thought into movies I'd like to see - like an epic about the Harlem renaissance, or the Black pride/arts/power movement, or a bio pic about Angela Davis, or a few other things (howabout an African American scientist, business leader, or academic as the protagonist of a serious drama?). And then I remembered a few specific comments from filmmakers: Ice Cube mentioning not being able to get anything 'serious' off the ground in Hollywood, Spike Lee's unsuccessful attempts at getting Rent and doing a Jackie Robinson pic, and a few others.

Granted, Hollywood has traditionally been among the most racist and conservative corners of the media (in spite of a fashionable liberalism that has no depth whatsoever), and is not known for intelligent depictions of anyone. Raising the bar on intelligence in media is overdue all around - and the given excuse is that "it's simply a business matter." Well, we should remind them that we spend money as well, and we should be willing to spend wisely.

We have to keep the pressure on media outlets, and we have to keep a close eye on what they do, and do not hesitate to complain - in analytic, critical detail when they disrespect us. Simultaneously, we need to look within our own community for stories, and opportunities to realize them, and launch independent projects at African American (and other) film festivals. Where are our business leaders in this process? White independent artists who run into roadblocks in film, publishing, music or elsewhere have developed an infrastructure devoted to realizing creative works outside of the mainstream media; some of us may have devoted some effort to this (there is starting to be a fluorishing underground of independent African American filmmakers), but this is something we need to continue to develop and deepen. We need to keep producing intelligent work - work that highlights the variety and depth in our culture. Even if it doesn't all achieve blockbuster success, I feel that the sheer accumulating quantity of it will eventually expose it all.

I'm a fan of film and arts, and it's pathetic that I don't really look to Hollywood for much at all; and I would note that box office this summer is lower than it's been in 20 years, which is fine by me. There are - if you hunt hard - filmmakers from elsewhere (Youssef Chahine from Egypt, Ousmane Sembene from Senegal, some Asian filmmakers like Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray) who dug deep into their own cultures - music, literature, folklore, arts, theatre - and brought it to life in ways that are smart, entertaining and have far greater worth than anything Hollywood has served up in a while. This is unfortunate, because (unlike those filmmakers) I'm also an American, and want stories that reflect our experience in America. I think we have to be (like those filmmakers) creative with funding and budgets, aim very high in content, be relentlessly critical of what is getting served up out there, and we need to dig deep into our own culture.

Apart from whatever our day jobs are - we all have stories to tell. Tell 'em as well as you can, and get 'em out however, wherever, whoever, whenever. The majority of what could be considered popular culture in this country originated in our culture, and we should remind people (our own and others as well) of that more often.

There are black independent film festivals in NYC pretty regularly (featuring African American & African films). Some of the best movies I've seen over the last few years have been at these film festivals. The purpose is to showcase the film, with the hope they are picked up by a major distributor. Unfortunately that doesn't happen in most cases, so these festivals are the only time to see these innovative films. I don't know where you are at, but you might want to look into these.