Painted Picture
Back in 2017, 3 things happened to highlight the danger Black people feel simply on the basis of being Black: Trump's advent, the cinematic release and popularity of Get Out, and most recently the release of the Mike Brown video of him that supports the contention that he had not committed a robbery that put him at odds with law enforcement (and his killer, officer Darren Wilson) in the first place.
These incidents bring to light, once again, the historical picture that is painted about Black males, especially by White males, immediately after the Civil War. Prior to emancipation Black men were not seen as threatening - slave masters would travel throughout the country, leaving their families, especially their women, in the care and/or presence of slaves with nary a concern. After emancipation, the view of males morphed from placated servants to lascivious, dangerous predators - a consequence of guilt and fear aimed at now-free people who just might want to seek retribution for centuries of abuse and genocidal treatment. The majority of lynching incidents at the turn of the century were based on false accusations of rape aimed at Black men. The 1915 blockbuster film, The Birth of a Nation further caricatured Black men as predators with its Gus and Lynch characters both attempting to force themselves on the same White woman..
A century later, not much has changed. Black people have allowed themselves to be portrayed by other (read: White), often altering themselves to fit the picture being painted. And the picture has always been ugly and scary.
Take a particular graphic of Lebron James, for instance, from 9 years ago. In 2008, Lebron was a bonafied basketball superstar, and MVP on his way to a scoring title and Olympic gold, and some could argue pretty well that he was a role model. In March, Vogue magazine shot a cover with him and model Gisele. Was he dapper in a tux, or fashionable in Armani or Duro Olowu? No - he was portrayed in a shoot by photographer Anne Liebovitz as mirror image of a King Kong movie poster, and especially one that used the ape as enlistment propaganda, holding a white woman in a dress identical to Gisele's.
Rewind to the same month in 1991, and witness when George Holiday caught the Loch Ness monster - ie, a police beatdown, which was often experienced/lamented but treated like the stuff of legends - shooting the assault of Rodney King. Officers thought King was "spaced out" and on PCP. LAPD officer Laurence Powell likened the whupping to Gorillas in the Mist, clearly indicating that King was not looked at in any warm or fuzzy way by any of the several officers who beat the snot out of him (literally).
These incidents bring to light, once again, the historical picture that is painted about Black males, especially by White males, immediately after the Civil War. Prior to emancipation Black men were not seen as threatening - slave masters would travel throughout the country, leaving their families, especially their women, in the care and/or presence of slaves with nary a concern. After emancipation, the view of males morphed from placated servants to lascivious, dangerous predators - a consequence of guilt and fear aimed at now-free people who just might want to seek retribution for centuries of abuse and genocidal treatment. The majority of lynching incidents at the turn of the century were based on false accusations of rape aimed at Black men. The 1915 blockbuster film, The Birth of a Nation further caricatured Black men as predators with its Gus and Lynch characters both attempting to force themselves on the same White woman..
A century later, not much has changed. Black people have allowed themselves to be portrayed by other (read: White), often altering themselves to fit the picture being painted. And the picture has always been ugly and scary.
Take a particular graphic of Lebron James, for instance, from 9 years ago. In 2008, Lebron was a bonafied basketball superstar, and MVP on his way to a scoring title and Olympic gold, and some could argue pretty well that he was a role model. In March, Vogue magazine shot a cover with him and model Gisele. Was he dapper in a tux, or fashionable in Armani or Duro Olowu? No - he was portrayed in a shoot by photographer Anne Liebovitz as mirror image of a King Kong movie poster, and especially one that used the ape as enlistment propaganda, holding a white woman in a dress identical to Gisele's.
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