While black people struggle, the media constantly portrays them as animalistic brutes. In turn, it reinforces the stereotype in the minds of white people, which in turn feeds their fear and contempt of black people, particularly black men. Fear is a powerful motivator and white people justify segregation as the only way to protect white society from the “animalistic brutes.” Bigger is well aware of the instant judgments white people make when they see a black man. For example, when Bigger goes to the Dalton’s house, he thinks, “Suppose a police officer saw him wandering in a white neighborhood like this? It would be thought that he was trying to rob or rape somebody,” (44).
Then Steinbeck opened the character up by talking him to Lenny. Crooks felt as if he could be totally open with Lenny because Lenny couldn’t properly follow track of the conversation and wouldn’t tell anyone else what he has said. This showed the readers the suffering that black people suffered. For example Crooks says to Lenny “Spose you couldn’t go into the bunkhouse and play rummy ‘cause you was black.” This shows the social outcast that black people were. By including this character, John Steinbeck was protesting that treating black people as social outcasts and as second class was not fair.
One could describe him as a man who hated his own race because like whites he saw them as being incapable of bringing about change or gaining the respect of White Americans. Moreover, in his eyes blacks are the reason that no changes occurred after the war, which is the leading factor to his internalized racism towards them. In addition to Sergeant Waters’s attitude towards the black military his death also depicts blacks versus blacks. The death of Waters shows that not only did he hate those of his kind but that they hated him as well because of his ill treatment of them. The film offers increased racial tension among blacks themselves by allowing the murder to be committed by, Peterson, who is a black soldier.
I choose these because they all revolve around a similar idea: Racism. Although these films obviously contained physical conflict, it is the internal and external conflict that Lee is attempting to display. Whether this is the conflict of morals seen in School Daze or the struggle to retain sanity in She’s Gotta Have It, Spike Lee is suggesting to society that racism is destructive, both physically and more importantly, emotionally. Here is a graph showing from which aspect I choose the films. As you can see, most come under this aspect.
Not everyone has a special power to alter public space, but if the surroundings were different then people would probably have a very good sense about what is being said. In "Black Men and Public Space," Brent Staples claims that he is a black man who whenever in public is met with fear from his surroundings because of his racial stereotype. He points out that one can easily change physical behavior and dressing in order to alter public space in a good way or bad way. As Staples says, “Black men have a very bad reputation of being a mugger, a rapist or even worse” (336). Therefore, many people are afraid of them.
Jefferson’s attorney was the reason that Jefferson lost his self-respect. Jefferson’s attorney is a symbol of racism. Defending Jefferson as a “hog” because he sees him as one, he assumes he is guilty because of his race, no second thoughts, and even though the lawyer is assigned as an attorney to help him, he doesn’t care about Jefferson either way. Whites saw African Americans as unintelligent, so the attorney defends Jefferson the way the whites see him. An example would be when the lawyer says, “He does not even know the size of his clothes or his shoes”, another example of the attorney seeing Jefferson as unintelligent was when he stated “Ask him to quote one passage from the constitution or Bill of Rights.” When the lawyer says, “What you see here is a thing that acts on command.” Shows that the lawyer doesn’t show any sign of respect he has for Jefferson what so ever.
Stereotyping them she say they were black, so they must be harmful and out to harm her. Her view of black men was that they must be harmful and violent. She felt safer when she held on to her husband closer. She also did this in another part of the movie; when the men came to change the locks on her door, she wanted them changed again because the man who was changing them in her eyes was a “gang banger”. She was convinced that since he was Mexican that he was going to sell the key to someone else and he or she would rob the house.
Despite the movies gaining massive fanatical following, they always depicted the African American men as aggressive people who engaged in criminal activities for heroism. For instance “a time to kill” by Samuel L. Jackson is a perfect example. These grotesque caricatures are not accurate representations of the African American men and contribute to the proliferation of negative stereotyping. However a movie like “I am legend” by will smith can be used to counter this
Bob Ewell, who is above Tom in the social standard, accuses Tom of the rape just because he is black. Bob makes these accusations without any evidence. Atticus defends Tom Robinson because believes he is innocent. Atticus doesn’t see color and teaches his children this strong moral value. The townspeople respond by calling Atticus a “****** lover.” Mrs. Dubose, an old racist woman, shows disrespect towards Atticus and his children.
These cause other people from different racists to look at blacks in a bad way. It also causes society to live in fear, hate and racism. I believe that it isn’t fair how a television show can bring so many thoughts and opinions on black people. Studies state “most people in U.S. society are well aware of the many stereotypes and images surrounding black males.” Television programs should be used to educate and inform the viewers. Most African American shows portray males as violent, dead beats fathers, lazy and gangsters.