Black People Forced Not To Understand Propaganda Analysis

Gorgias believed that to persuade someone is to deceive them and that language played a key roll in that deception. Using certain words draws emotional and sometimes physical reactions from listeners, which can either turn them off to your topic or draw them in. In Black People Tend Not to Understand Propaganda (2014), Johnson uses inflammatory language and historical atrocities to evoke the reaction he wants from his audience. This language comes in the form of his own words and the words written on the historical documents. Spoken words like extermination, military strategy, oppress, and Nazi Germany all creates an image in the viewer’s mind of how the past reflects the future. However, it is not only the words spoken by Umar Johnson that creates the sense of fear and urgency, but also the headlines, bolded words, and titles in historical documents reflecting such exterminations. The following words and titles are embedded in the historical documents shown in the video: “Blood Race Conflict”, “Awful Calamity”, “White Woman Slandered”, “Leading Negro Republican Newspaper Excuses Rapists”, and “Poor White Women”. While the spoken words grab attention from the audience, the …show more content…
They can shrug their shoulders; say ‘This doesn’t affect me’, and play into the desensitization aspect of this topic [Brushing the Dust off] (Mallory). Or, they can become just as angry as members of the collective affected and just as fearful. Whatever the reaction ends up being, the message has a certain cadence that stays with the audience until they can shake off the foreboding message, but they may begin to recognize signs as explained by Dr. Johnson. Things like noticing patterns in propaganda and paying more attention to cases of African American deaths at the hands of law enforcement are very likely effects of listening to the