Racism and Racial Stereotype

1. Racism and Racial Stereotype Group 4 Alice, Angela, Chelle, Josephine, Nancy, Penny

2. Report Outline • Introduction to Racism • Bamboozled: (1) Stereotypes; (2) Who is Black and what is Black? • Save the Last Dance • Racial Identities Power Relations and in Bamboozled • Analysis of the 2 Films: Comparison and Contrast • Conclusion

3. Introduction: What is Racism? • Starting Question: What comes to your mind when you hear, “racism?” • Bigotry: An obstinate or blind attachment to a particular belief, unreasonable enthusiasm in favor of a party, sect or opinion; excessive prejudice or intolerance (Newman 9). • Bigotry turns to racism

4. Racism Any attitude, belief, behavior, or institutional arrangement that tends to favor over one race or ethnic group over another (Newman and E.N.Layfield, 9).

5. 4 Types of Racism • Attitudinal Racism: General dislike of a certain race or group without reason • Ideological Racism: Believing some races superior to others. Ex: Adolf Hitler. • Individual/ Group RacismEx: KKK. • Institutional Racism: Create patterns of injustice and inequality because of skin color. Ex: voting (1960), high price of colleges in America. (Newman 11-15)

6. 3 Assumptions on U.S. Racism • Black people in America live a better life. • Americans set a good example in setting positive aspects of the Black experience. • Americans have Civil Rights Movement and Black Nationalism, suggest equal opportunities for Blacks in work force and education. Are They Completely Correct?

7. The Fact is… • Equal opportunities is not the case between the White and Black in America (Small 8). • Whites, and middle class blacks are proud of him. But it is difficult for the young brother on the corner to see Powell as a hero. (Voice, 26 March 1991:11)

8. History of Racism in America (1) • America was a former colonial plantation society, characterized by immigration, forced or voluntary. Ex: Slavery and foreign labor & Indians banished to reservations. • European immigrants protected their interests, forcing exclusion of Blacks Ex: Radicalized discrimination on the Blacks in the most disadvantaged sections of the society & the segregation in 1960s.

9. Some Sad Facts • The “Color Line” exists, the Blacks remained at the bottom of societies. • Inequality of Blacks represent they are victimized. • Stereotypes of Blacks include images of poverty, educational failure, unemployment, teenage childbirth and crime. Ex: Angelique’s Letter

10. History of Racism in America (2) • In the 1980s, economic fortunes of the Blacks have gone to extremes, but still can’t be compared with the Whites. • Blacks account for only 4% with assets of $50,000 or more. While Black income is roughly 60% of the whites, the median net worth of black households in 1988 was merely 1/10 of the whites. (Small, 40-50)

11. Racism in America-- Jobs • 70% of Black men (16+ in work force), compared with 77% of White men. • 15% of Black men and 30% of the white worked in professional specialties in the 1980s, while women was 19% and 26%. • Unemployment: 11.8% for Black men, 4.8 White. • Black labor grow to 20% in 2000, and the greatest fear is US economy become 2-tier.

12. Racism in America– Schools • Occurrences of segregation, inferior faculties & limited resources. Ex: Washington D.C., Detroit and NYC at the end of 1980s. • The performance of Blacks, in schools, is relatively problematic.

13. Situation in the 1980s In 1986, 27.5% of black school children, and 30% Hispanic school children enrolled in 25 largest central city school districts. However, only 3.3% of all whites attend these schools (Small, 54).

14. Racism in America– Health Care • 2 studies show that treatment vary with the race of patients and not the insurance coverage of the patient. Ex: Dr. Katherine L. Kahn. • Or, the Veteran Administration Hospitals.

15. Dr. Kahn. ‘s Quote Within each type of hospital, patients who were black or from poor neighborhoods got less care (Newman and Eleanor Newman Layfield, 76).

16. Dr. Eric Peterson Dr. Eric Peterson, a cardiologist, helped to conduct the studies, suggest that evidence seems to be that the disparity in treatment points to racism as a factor when patients have the same health coverage and socioeconomic backgrounds (Newman and E. Newman Layfield, 76).

17. Racism Today in America • Civil Rights Act created in 1964, stopping discrimination in employment based on race, religion, gender or national origin. • The results? Elis Cose • Re-segregation on College campus • Public schools new re-segregation policy, and integrated schools are under attack.

18. Elis Cose New racists claim that African American are like products, and need to be careful about what is said about their work (Newman and Eleanor Newman Layfield, 82).

19. Bamboozled Stereotype By Chelle Ke

20. Stereotype: Why & how ? Slaves- Uncle Tom Black women- Mammy Coon Jolly Nigger Bank Black men Outline

21. Why there’re stereotype? (1) • Every stereotype emerges in the wake of a pre-existing ideology which deforms it, appropriates it, and naturalizes it. • The blackface stereotype too, by deforming the body, silences it and leaves room only for white supremacy to speak through it.

22. Why there’re stereotype? (2) • The blackface stereotypes represent the white Souths retreat from the American Revolution, i.e., Reconstruction, the civil rights movement, and desegregation. In other words, the stereotypes help to maintain the myth of the gothic Old South and deny the changes in our contemporary society. --Kenneth Goings, inMammy and Uncle Mose: Black American Collectibles and American Stereotyping (1994),

23. How stereotypes usually seen? • The way stereotypes work with pastiche, caricature, and symbols: stereotypes always rob people of their history and shun their realism. It is in this violent and aggressive manner that the stereotype sends its message ,which is automatically absorbed by the viewer/reader, and which replaces history. In Bamboozled…

24. Slaves • Many of the first Africans in America are not slaves but indentured servants, like many of the first Europeans. • Race slavery becomes law. Over a period of 400 years, the African slave trade that began with the Portuguese in 1441 captures 40 million Africans; 20 million arrive in the Americas. While the captives bring with them little material evidence of their culture, their music and dance have a lasting impact on that of the New World.

25. Uncle Tom • “Uncle Tom's Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe was the first social protest novel published in the United States. • Described by Stowe herself as a "series of sketches" depicting the human cruelty of slavery, opens with a description of Arthur Shelby's Kentucky plantation during the antebellum period.

26. The Black Women :Mammy(1) • Domesticity : • *Is tied to the myth of the South. • *Pastiche - cookie-jar, kitchen decoration, or housewares • ¤ rotund, dressed in a long robe • ¤apron • ¤head kerchief, • ¤big smile face. • ¤carrying a bowl or a white baby in her arms.

27. Mammy

28. Mammy(2) • Mammy’s uniform: *Organizes and disciplines *Domesticity and morality *The apron: appropriates and naturalizes permanent fixture of the white mansion. Neat and civilized ?

29. Coon (Zip Coon) • Uncivilized nature • Sexuality, and evil: oversexed tragic mulattos • Opposite to Mammy: physically punished, exposed to public ridicule for lacking decorum and decency. • Half-human and half-animal. • Pastiche : naked or scantily dressed ,looking as if intoxicated by sexual desire

30. Black Men • Uncivilized sleep & eat, slackers • Thief, poverty chickens, watermelons • Violence, sexual abusing rape, incest • Amusing rap, dancing • Pastiche : The disproportionately large upper torsos of the black men, with long faces and cheeks bigger than their heads… Jolly Nigger Bank,

31. Black Men 2 • Cannibal : *white, black & red *half-human and half-animal *red - a symbol of cannibalism *bigger-than-normal teeth, with wide gaps between them. In Bamboozled…

32. Jolly Nigger Bank 1 • Ridicule : *piggy banks in the shape of female and male busts *stereotype – a) zombie-like b) mouth is wide open, waiting to receive coins from the empty hand. c)vacant eyes, and distended hands

33. Jolly Nigger Bank 2 • It is in this sense that the coin-swallowing becomes a metaphor for an appetite for human flesh, our skin. cannibal • black people as robots or coin-swallowing monsters. In Bamboozled…

34. Jolly Nigger Bank 1 • Ridicule is also reflected in making piggy banks in the shape of female and male busts, "Jolly Nigger Banks", in which the stereotype's mouth is wide open, waiting to receive coins from the empty hand. This toy for white children teaches them economic frugality at the same time as they learn to treat black people as robots or coin-swallowing monsters.

35. Jolly Nigger Bank 2 • These photographs are frightening because the zombie-like characters seem to emerge out of the dark, with an unconscious motion which derives from their open mouths, vacant eyes, and distended hands. It is in this sense that the coin-swallowing becomes a metaphor for an appetite for human flesh, our skin. In Bamboozled…

36. Minstrel Show • White performer Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice adds a new twist to the tradition of mimicking African Americans, and his "Jim Crow" dance earns him the title "father of blackface minstrelsy." Minstrel shows produce two major stereotypes that haunt black performers for years -- the clown and the dandy.

37. Black Men • The stereotype of black men who do not fit the mold of the docile servant of the masters kitchen and mansion is equally rich in Africanist symbolism.

38. Black Men 2 • Cannibal : For example, the disproportionately large upper torsos of the black men, with long faces and cheeks bigger than their heads ,are a sign that they are half-human and half-animal. They can fool nobody, even when they wear a suit, tie, and hat, because their lips are painted with blood, which often spills over and creates a match with the tie. Red, as a symbol of cannibalism, is the dominant signifier here. • The motif of cannibalism also circulates through the laughter of the stereotypes which reveal their bigger-than-normal teeth, with wide gaps between them.

39. Black Men 3:white, black & red • The imminent darkness and the red symbolize our latent fear of cannibalism, and other awful things associated with Africa. • Finally, the relationship between the black, the red, and the white gives us the stereotype ,just as for Freud, the relationship of the dream to its latent meaning is the key to an interpretation of the problem.

40. Minstrel Show • White performer Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice adds a new twist to the tradition of mimicking African Americans, and his "Jim Crow" dance earns him the title "father of blackface minstrelsy." Minstrel shows produce two major stereotypes that haunt black performers for years -- the clown and the dandy. In Bamboozled…

41. Who’s puppet are u ?

42. Bamboozled Ⅱ Who is Black ? & What is Black?

43. Outline • Questions • Black people: Delacroix, Manray(Mantan)&Womack(Sleep ‘n Eat), Julius & Mau Maus, Sloan, Junebug • White people: Dunwitty, the Yale lawyer

44. Questions • Is blackness only in skin color? • Is blackness defined by specific mannerisms? • Is it only possible for black to originate from having a drop of black blood?

45. Delacroix • Satire la: a literary work in which human vice or folly is ridiculed or attacked scornfully...2. Irony, derision or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice or stupidity.“ • He quotes Baldwin saying, "People pay for what they do...what they have allowed themselves to become...by the lives they lead," and then recalls Junebug's admonition to "always keep them laughing."

46. Manray &Womack • Ignorant, dull-witted, lazy and unluck. • They are gonna make us laugh, they‘re gonna make us cry, they’re gonna make us feel good to be American. • The name, Sleep n’ Eat, signified "the idea being...a black man was content as long as he had a place to sleep and enough to eat."

47. strong, wronged, avenging, abandoned, alternatively determined and confused woman They trickery, angry, dark, sullen, depressed, wicked, blacklisted….. Sloan Julius &Mau Maus

48. I am blacker than you. I have a black wife and two biracial kids. I got my ph.D. in African-American studies from Yale. Dunwitty & Yale lawyer

49. Save the Last Dance

50. Outline • The Interpretation of the Movie --- Racial relations • The Problems of the Movie --- Simplify the problems (e.g. Ghetto/Drugs & Violence) --- Idealize the situation/ Fantasy (e.g. Sarah’s easy life in black society)