Tag: media

Why Black Role Models Matter

 

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As a young child, if someone were to ask me about my race, I would say with great pride: I am Black. Being the daughter of a Women’s Studies Professor definitely had its informative advantages – by the age of 6, I was familiar with heavy terms such as systemic racism, visible minority, and gender politics. This early exposure, untainted by perspectives of my peers, made me proud to identify as Black. Unfortunately, various life experiences caused this pride to waver. It never died completely, but at times it did temporarily burn out.

The first time my Black pride died was in fourth grade. I had just returned from Nigeria, and upon being re-introduced to an environment where being Black meant being Other, I realized that my identity was bizarre to those around me. At first, I did not realize the slight differences that caused my peers to distance themselves from me. However, when my rude awakening did happen, it altered the picture-perfect idea of my Blackness. It was my first day at a new school, and all I wanted was to be friends with the tattoo club girls, who would always be on the basketball court making cool designs for their temporary tattoos during recess. I distinctly remember mustering up all the courage I possibly could in order to approach them; more importantly, I remember my request being politely declined because the tattoos would not show up on my skin. After that, it became difficult to take pride in something that my peers considered strange – so I gave up embracing my identity in order to be accepted by them. I decided that I needed to re-define my Blackness, and I turned to the Internet for inspiration. At the time, I did not realize that re-defining such an important part of my identity in order to be accepted by my white counterparts would cause me to view being unapologetically Black as something to be ashamed of.

As an adolescent, if someone were to ask me about my race, I would pause and quietly admit that I was Black. I was no longer the young Black girl who ran around the house shouting, “sing it loud I’m Black and proud!” The girl who begged her mom to tell more stories about the Nigerian Civil War, and about the history of slavery in Canada, was gone. This young carefree Black girl was replaced  by the Black girl that loved catfish, grape soda, and fried chicken, because the media told her that this was the acceptable way to embrace Blackness. This girl refused to have crushes on Black boys because she thought they would all eventually become “thugs” and “gangsters.” She idolized Cinderella and knew that her Prince Charming could only be white. She identified as stereotypically Black in order to be convenient for her white friends, but wished she was white so that she could be exactly like her idol, Cinderella. The media told her that her Blackness was only okay when it was stifled by the stereotypes created by whiteness to control Black people and Black bodies. Her Blackness was accepted only when she realized that she was ‘other,’ while whiteness was the standard. She accepted this as the truth because Cinderella did not look like her, but the characters who did were servants, antagonists, and clowns. She truly believed that in order to be the princess she wanted to be, she had to somehow achieve this standard called whiteness.

I know the effect of not having role models that look like you in the media, and for me it was a catastrophe. When you see people that look like you represented in a negative way, you begin to believe that there is something wrong with you. The shift from young pride and innocence is subconscious and slow, but before you know it you have stifled yourself in order to attain a certain standard that the media enforces. In times of self-doubt, I looked to my movie and TV show characters for an affirmation that my Blackness was acceptable. When I failed to find this affirmation, my ten-year-old self watched the movies with the white Disney princesses and began to idolize them. But my ten year old self looked nothing like her idols and this was a problem, because in order to become them, she had to look like them.

I say all this to emphasize the importance of events like the Montreal Black International Film Festival, which took place earlier this month. This annual festival allows Black artists and creators to express themselves in an area where they are often both underrepresented and misrepresented. Representation of Black people in the media is crucial because there are young Black children out there, watching and waiting for their next idol. They all need to know that not only are they acceptable, but they are beautiful and destined for excellence. In times when their non-Black peers question their Blackness, they need a Disney princess that looks like them so they know that they too are royalty. And lastly, they need to know that whiteness is not the default, and that Blackness is not the ‘other’. They need to be able to turn on the television and see a positive representation of someone who looks like them. These young people need to be aware that unapologetic Blackness is not only acceptable, but something to be proud of.

 

Chidera Ihejirika is a proud Nigerian Canadian in her second year at McGill University. She is an admirer of Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie and a lover of storytelling, dance and hiphop. 

On Desensitized Violence: “Muted Colours”

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word by Annie Rubin

colour by Mojo Wang

There was no one in Bill’s house to turn off the TV when channel four came on. We thought of him as some sort of guru: he told us of kidnappings; of guns and knives and fires and what it meant when there were people on roofs about to jump.

It happened when we were in our sevens and eights that we realized we could press play when mom was in the kitchen. Imaginations were running crazy and fueled by these wild images that kept flashing across the screen.

My brother always liked video games. There was this one where you got to steal cars and ride away, hair all wind-swept. It was cool to be able to drive a BMW even on a screen where his fingers turned the wheel with a flick of a button.

The rest of us were playing hide and seek where the floor was lava. No one ever found out what happened when you touched because maybe your shoes were fireproof, you grew wings, or we just didn’t want to think about the truth. Mom would be in the other room watching the news. We’d ask to sit on her lap and she’d usually put on PBS but that day she was in a trance, eyes fixated on the screen. The television was on mute but you could still hear shouting.

The walls were this grey even though I swear they were melting that day we couldn’t walk outside because of the smoke. They don’t give you a trigger warning on the streets of Manhattan. We were six and eight and felt too much older.

Close your eyes, she said to me, holding a cupped hand over my face to shield from the screen, the same way she had done at the movies when couples started kissing. I held my breath, too.

 

 

From the author: “This portrait of muted colours evoked desperation and frustration. The arms reaching out to grab hold of the figure whose muscles are exposed inspired a piece that targets vulnerability. The story tries to raise questions about exposure to graphic images, and question the idea of whether vulnerable children should be censored from the media. Ultimately, begging the question of whether striking headlines are desensitizing our population and how to cope with horror on the news.”

Keep Mufasa Dead

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“Inner Glow,” by DSORDER

Mufasa is dead. The new king explores his new jungle with the same good blood in his paws as his father: Tempted by hyenas with black voices, he says, watch the throne- let’s go, Nala. The death of a perfect someone is meant to piss you off: Evil characters aren’t supposed to survive. You learn that lions are either good or evil, and it’s up to you to kill the right one. Painting Scar evil means giving him dark features that people will associate with having an empty heart, alligator tears, blackness associated with evil, subtle racism sold in cartoons, animals succeeding or failing through their relationship to the perfect hero warns kids that if you don’t try to become perfect, you’ll become Scar: Sad. What the fuck, this guy’s criticizing cartoons, I just liked the songs, get over it, Hakuna matata, brother. I know: I get it: We shouldn’t analyse everything to death, weren’t the colours nice, just enjoy Rafiki, dickhead. When stories show people who are all good or all bad, the Americans and Russians of Hollywood explosions; the Scars and Mufasas of cartoon jungles; when the story of a crack dealer going to jail is played before the CEO of a billion dollar drug dealer announcing it will take advantage of your desire to help others and introduce a pink line of drug packaging; when the viral video of the poorest black person saying something stupid is prefaced with a Lexus commercial; when good or bad characters are included in any form of media you are supposed to feel one of four things: 1. Don’t become bad, this is how to stay good, this is what I should buy, and this is the group that can help bring me there… just look at what happened to Scar: All that fire. 2. Good people help bad people become better, so they don’t die, like Scar, because they are so nice. 3. You can become good if you work harder: It’s possible to become perfect: You can become white, rich, and saved. We sell a cream for that. Ever heard of hell? 4. Bad people always lose to good people, so stay on the good side and don’t forget that bad and good people exist: We’ve done studies: Your heart is either full, or broken: This rumour that human beings are actually mixes, with hearts of daffodil yellow or pylon orange or mint green is just a rumour: Mufasa was not sometimes helpful, sometimes in need of help, sometimes tired, sometimes intelligent, sometimes unsure, sometimes fun, sometimes strong, sometimes boring, sometimes patronizing, sometimes insecure, sometimes excited, sometimes friendly, sometimes introverted, sometimes: All this realism, no, he is always perfect. The complicated nature of people isn’t sexy. It’s hard to sell when you’re trying to hook people in for a later message, the whole become good thing, Join Us, and you want people to stay in the room or to read the next page. Insert an empty page between chapters, or double-space your pages, but it had better have fake characters. When we sit up from the death of Scar, from a video warning us not to become poor, from a book talking of a perfect love, we need to wonder who benefits from the way you now think. How hard do you now work, how much are you buying, are you going to Church? In order to give people credit, we need to look at them like human beings, where there is no objective standard of pure good or pure bad. You’re stuck in a jungle, and that hierarchy rarely changes- except in the death of a king. And who replaces Mufasa?

colour by Dsorder

words by L.L.