You Decide

I am currently taking a summer course at Georgia State University, Black Nationalism. The class meets from 12noon - 4pm Monday and Wednesday. With a class that long grad students tend to talk and mingle. Well there is a lady in the class, of European decent; I'll call her Shelley, about my same age who also happens to be a mother of teenagers. Consequently, we talk about everything from the assignments for class, the department, our children.

Last week another student in the class mentioned the portrayal of Black men in the media. When the above Vogue cover was mentioned my colleague and I had a vast difference of opinion. Shelley didn't see the problem with first, the large black savage gorilla beast used to lure men into enlisting in the military - to "Destroy this Mad Brute" and save the white women’s virtue; nor did she see the correlation of a 6 foot 8 inch 250lb Black man almost carrying a 5 foot 9inch 120lb woman. They even had her wear a green dress to show the connection with the poster. Does anyone see my point here?

This country has had a long and sordid history of using the media to manipulate the perception of Blacks. Why is this not obvious to anyone who lifts a newspaper/magazine or turns on a television set?

My white liberal colleague came off as too sophisticated not to know about racial injustice and too comfortable with her skin privilege to care. And I am sure I came off as an angry Black militant. I suppose there is no such thing as an objective point of view.