In Teaching Trayvon, Noble argues about the positive and negative, but mostly negative effects that the mass media’s coverage of Trayvon Martin’s murder garnered. More specifically, Noble provides examples for how the lack of empathy influenced the proliferation of certain narratives in the media in cases of police brutality. One of the biggest examples of this was the “meme-ification” of Trayvon’s death that was not only incredibly crass, but also reflective of past commodification of Black trauma like minstrel shows. Also, Noble argues that this meme-ification being allowed under the guise of free speech and intellectual property is indicative of the strength this dominant narrative can take hold when political, economic, and social, institutions
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Finding humor in Black trauma has never been new, as seen by the popularity of minstrel shows and other blackface performances as far back as 1842. These shows portray Black people as caricatures and created a lot of the tired stereotypes still being used today, such as the concepts of Mammy, Pickaninny, Buck, and Uncle Tom. These stereotypes are still used today in film, even if they can’t be as explicit as before. Minstrel shows also shaped the opinion in pre-Civil War society that Black people liked slavery and didn’t want to be freed under any circumstance, which was especially dangerous since the general audiences of these shows had little to no contact with Black people on a daily basis. Even once Black people themselves became performers in these shows, this art form did not change and to some degree, made stereotypes worse because people who had not previously seen Black people were now seeing them reinforcing these dangerous caricatures as opposed to just White people making these up.
This passage is especially interesting because Noble connects this meme-ification, in this case “Trayvoning” and other jokes about the case, to a “worship of death” that can only be described as a direct …show more content…
The concept of some White people finding humor in trauma of Black people is also similar to this quote by Baldwin, “...white Americans have never, in all their long history, been able to look on him as a man like themselves,” since you cannot find humor in tragedy unless you see the victim as lesser or inferior and somehow deserving of that tragedy because of it. This meme-ification also lessens the severity of Black death and lessens the pressure on the justice system to actually deliver justice in these cases. The idea that a Black person’s death can be brushed aside in laughter also explains why Black people are not taken seriously in many other aspects of life, like higher education and finance, since their lives can easily be seen as worthless. It can only continue this cycle of oppression that does nothing to push us into the utopian “post-racial nation” that people delude that we are in now. Meme-ification may show a lack of empathy due to ignorance or because of intended harm, but we cannot deny the media’s role in proliferating both of these by continuing to allow narratives dominate that are one sided, as well as breaking news with only half of the facts available at the time. A reform in media presentation could mitigate this issue, as well as more dialogue on the freedom of speech in memes and the
Finding humor in Black trauma has never been new, as seen by the popularity of minstrel shows and other blackface performances as far back as 1842. These shows portray Black people as caricatures and created a lot of the tired stereotypes still being used today, such as the concepts of Mammy, Pickaninny, Buck, and Uncle Tom. These stereotypes are still used today in film, even if they can’t be as explicit as before. Minstrel shows also shaped the opinion in pre-Civil War society that Black people liked slavery and didn’t want to be freed under any circumstance, which was especially dangerous since the general audiences of these shows had little to no contact with Black people on a daily basis. Even once Black people themselves became performers in these shows, this art form did not change and to some degree, made stereotypes worse because people who had not previously seen Black people were now seeing them reinforcing these dangerous caricatures as opposed to just White people making these up.
This passage is especially interesting because Noble connects this meme-ification, in this case “Trayvoning” and other jokes about the case, to a “worship of death” that can only be described as a direct …show more content…
The concept of some White people finding humor in trauma of Black people is also similar to this quote by Baldwin, “...white Americans have never, in all their long history, been able to look on him as a man like themselves,” since you cannot find humor in tragedy unless you see the victim as lesser or inferior and somehow deserving of that tragedy because of it. This meme-ification also lessens the severity of Black death and lessens the pressure on the justice system to actually deliver justice in these cases. The idea that a Black person’s death can be brushed aside in laughter also explains why Black people are not taken seriously in many other aspects of life, like higher education and finance, since their lives can easily be seen as worthless. It can only continue this cycle of oppression that does nothing to push us into the utopian “post-racial nation” that people delude that we are in now. Meme-ification may show a lack of empathy due to ignorance or because of intended harm, but we cannot deny the media’s role in proliferating both of these by continuing to allow narratives dominate that are one sided, as well as breaking news with only half of the facts available at the time. A reform in media presentation could mitigate this issue, as well as more dialogue on the freedom of speech in memes and the