Media Images of African-Americans

"The 10 essays here explore the images of blacks in historical contemporary American culture. Negative and stereotypical images of blacks have been deeply embedded in our art, music, literature, film, theater, and other forms of expression. On the other hand, as the preface states, black artists and others have also celebrated images of strength, beauty, and achievement.' Reflecting the complexity of the relationship between the races, these two elements are often intertwined. This reference work explores these images, both positive and negative, and their historical development and impact on both black and American culture. . . . Its unique qualities are the discussions and sources for studying and understanding those artifacts as well as the provision of a historical perspective on the images." Reference Books Bulletin

"This book provides a mirror to our past--a past that has been ignored or overshadowed for too long." From the foreword by Alex Haley Kern-Foxworth chronicles the stereotypical portrayals of Blacks in advertising from the turn of the century to the present. Beginning with slave advertisements, she discusses how slavery led naturally to the stereotypes found in early advertisements. From the end of the slave era to the culmination of the Civil Rights movement, advertising portrayed Blacks as Aunt Jemimas, Uncle Bens, and Rastuses, and the author explores the psychological impact of these portrayals. With the advent of the Civil Rights movement, organizations such as CORE and NAACP voiced their opposition and became active in the elimination of such advertising. In the final chapters, the volume examines the reactions of consumers to integrated advertising and the current role of Blacks in advertising. Its truly novel subject matter and its inclusion of vintage and contemporary advertisements featuring Blacks,make this a valuable work.

Offering a fascinating examination of the explosion of black television programming in the 1980s and 1990s, this book provides, for the first time ever, an interpretation of black TV based in both journalism and critical theory. Locating a persistent black nationalist desire--a yearning for home and community--in the shows produced by and for African-Americans in this period, Zook shows how the Fox hip-hop sitcom both reinforced and rebelled against earlier black sitcoms from the sixties and seventies. Incorporating interviews with such prominent executives, producers, and stars as Keenan Ivory Wayans, Sinbad, Quincy Jones, Robert Townsend, Charles Dutton, Yvette Lee Bowser, Ralph Farquhar, and Susan Fales, this study looks at both production and reception among African-American viewers, providing nuanced readings of the shows themselves as well as the sociopolitical contexts in which they emerged. While black TV during this period may seem trivial or buffoonish to some, Sly as a Fox reveals its deep-rooted ties to African-American protest literature and autobiography, and a desire for social transformation.

This collection of papers encourages social and biological scientists to question their presentations of African Americans and to recognize that afrocentricity is important in refocusing portrayals of African Americans. It contrasts the production of these cultural portrayals by the majority of the U.S. population with those by African Americans themselves. It shows the process of creating a racial identity as well as the historical background related to a new evaluation of what it is to be African American in the United States.

This examination of the causes, severity, and implications of racially stereotyped media coverage of Congress incorporates original analysis of congressional media coverage and interviews with congressional press staff. The news media often portray African-American members as being primarily interested in race, overly concerned with local matters, and wielding little legislative influence. By contrast, the images African-American members attempt to project of themselves are more complex and comprehensive than the images the media communicate. The authors offer a psychological explanation for this phenomenon, the Distribution Effect, in which those who are numerically rare in an occupation tend to be lumped together rather than treated as individuals. Their findings suggest that it is the media, rather than members of Congress, who are responsible for the racialized images that appear regularly in the press. This results in an advantage for white incumbents trying to attract votes but presents an obstacle to,be overcome for African-American politicians.

This is a comprehensive guide to the black experience both on film and behind the camera. More than 6,000 entries documenting global film activity from 1919 to 1990 offer historical perspective on the black image in film, bibliographical materials on filmmakers and individual artists, and exciting information on newly emerging talent throughout the world. Gray furnishes valuable supplementary material in two appendixes which list reference works and film resource locations, and separate indexes keyed by artist, title, subject, and author.