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Richmond, VA
2019
Blackface America
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Blackface TV: From Amos 'n Andy to Empire
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Why do the stories we see on TV screens, computer monitors, mobile devices matter when it comes to our perceptions of Black Folks, particularly Americans of African descent?
In the Color of Change funded report from last year titled, Race in the Writer's Room: How Hollywood Whitewashes the Stories that Shape America comes this from the research:
"For many people, fiction presents the only set of facts they know. Whether we admit it or not, sustained exposure to stereotypical and inaccurate portrayals in the media affects our attitudes and decisions about how we vote, whom we hire, whom we empathize with in public debates, how we treat our neighbors, or how we do our jobs (e.g., as police, judges, doctors, teachers)."
So when a recently revealed picture of two "white" students, one in Blackface, the other in Klan regalia on the medical school yearbook page of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam caused such a stir I was only slightly bemused, but not surprised. Non-white Americans understand the centrality of race and racism in American society and to what it means to be an American.
Blackface is a symptom of a much larger issue of "white" dominance and hegemony. Overtime this has led to the notion as author and educator Robin DiAngelo notes, "As a white person I was socialized to see race as something they had, I was just a person." And she like most "white" folks globally saw racism only as individual acts of discrimination. But she has come to understand that racism in America and around the world is a system.
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Robin DiAngelo Deconstructs White Privilege
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So what has been missing from all of the hubbub surrounding Northam, the Democratic State Attorney General, the Republican Majority Leader of the Virginia State Senate, Blackface controversies all, is the extent to which these notions of "white" supremacy and privilege exist the world over.
" In Dutch tradition, Sinterklaas has a “helper” named Zwarte Piet, or “Black Pete,” who usually appears as a blackface character with large gold earrings and exaggerated lips. In the weeks leading up to the saint’s name day, cities and towns host parades featuring hundreds of white people dressed as Piet. Stores stock up with Zwarte Piet costumes, merchandise, and baked goods while adults visit children’s homes and schools dressed as Sinterklaas and Piet."
If Northam, aka "Coonman" and other "white" Virginians who think of themselves as having evolved from the bad old days of the 1980's, can begin by removing all of the Confederate Statues erected as resistance to the principle of equality under law enshrined in the 14th Amendment from the public square. |
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USA Today
2019
A Commemoration
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Happy New Year
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More than four million slaves were shipped to Brazil from the coast of Africa during the 16th century and onward.
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An Auspicious Year
"In 1619, “20. and odd Negroes” arrived off the coast of Virginia, where they were “bought for victualle” by labor-hungry English colonists," so begins an article by Michael Gausco titled: The Misguided Focus on 1619 as the Beginning of Slavery in the U.S. Damages our Understanding of American History, published at Smithsonian.com.
As we begin this auspicious year in African American History, the 400th anniversary of that landing at Point Comfort, it is important that we look at the history and status not just of "blacks" here in North America, but throughout the Diaspora.
We are now in the 5th year, the half way point in the UN's International Decade for the People of African Descent. As the IDPAD website informs us that:
In proclaiming this Decade, the international community is recognizing that people of African descent represent a distinct group whose human rights must be promoted and protected. Around 200 million people identifying themselves as being of African descent live in the Americas. Many millions more live in other parts of the world, outside of the African continent.
Most of these modern day Diasporic Africans came to inhabit their current circumstance as a result the world economic engine of the 15th through the 19th centuries, the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. Most of those ancestors began their journey to the West "in the interior of Africa with his or her capture as a prize of war, as tribute given by a weak tribal state to a more powerful one, or by outright kidnapping by local traders," about 11 million in all.
Just imagine all of the stories, of love and loss, triumph and sacrifice, conflict and adventure that are waiting to be told generated by that human experience and the history that came before. The Eurocentric nature of the commercial media industry has yet to discover and may never fully embrace the centrality of the Black Experience to our modern state of affairs.
So as we commemorate this 400th anniversary of that Point Comfort embarkation let's also remember to celebrate and embrace the midway point of the International Decade for the People of African Descent.
Walt Gavin is a writer, producer, author, and 'race man,' , the driving force behind Gavin Media Nu World.
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The World
Calling Producers
NU-TOPIA.NET
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Gavin Media NU World is committed to changing the shape and landscape of the commercial media environments through its NU World Media programming. Programming that doesn't pander to the lowest common denominator or rely on old program forms made up to look like something new.
There is a difference between faux diversity in media programming content and real diversity. There is a vast difference between "Black-faced" TV and Motion Picture programming and programming that celebrates, uplifts, and enlightens audiences the world over from a truly "black" perspective.
Gavin Media NU World is proud to embrace the U.N.'s resolution of an International Decade for People of African Descent 2015-2024.
For more information on the media products available, programs now in development from Gavin Media NU World, or how you can support our efforts visit www.nu-topia.net.
Join the Nu World Media Movement here! Subscribe to access exclusive content. Or become a member of the Nu World Creatives Database. PRODUCERS: Find out how to SUBMIT your programming for consideration to be distributed via NU-TOPIA.NET
Stay Tuned!
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