Racism and Racial Stereotype
Group 4
Alice, Angela, Chelle,
Josephine, Nancy, Penny
Report Outline
• Introduction to Racism
• Bamboozled: (1) Stereotypes; (2) Who is
Black and what is Black?
• Save the Last Dance
• Racial Identities Power Relations and in
Bamboozled
• Analysis of the 2 Films: Comparison and
Contrast
• Conclusion
Introduction: What is Racism?
• Starting Question: What comes to your
mind when you hear, “racism?”
• Bigotry: An obstinate or blind attachment to
a particular belief, unreasonable enthusiasm
in favor of a party, sect or opinion; excessive
prejudice or intolerance (Newman 9).
• Bigotry turns to racism
Racism
Any attitude, belief, behavior, or
institutional arrangement that tends to
favor over one race or ethnic group over
another (Newman and E.N.Layfield, 9).
4 Types of Racism
• Attitudinal Racism: General dislike of a
certain race or group without reason
• Ideological Racism: Believing some
races superior to others. Ex: Adolf Hitler.
• Individual/ Group Racism Ex: KKK.
• Institutional Racism: Create patterns of
injustice and inequality because of skin
color. Ex: voting (1960), high price of
colleges in America. (Newman 11-15)
3 Assumptions on U.S. Racism
• Black people in America live a better life.
• Americans set a good example in setting
positive aspects of the Black experience.
• Americans have Civil Rights Movement
and Black Nationalism, suggest equal
opportunities for Blacks in work force and
education.
Are They Completely Correct?
The Fact is…
• Equal opportunities is not the case
between the White and Black in America
(Small 8).
• Whites, and middle class blacks are proud
of him. But it is difficult for the young
brother on the corner to see Powell as a
hero. (Voice, 26 March 1991:11)
History of Racism in America (1)
• America was a former colonial plantation
society, characterized by immigration, forced
or voluntary. Ex: Slavery and foreign labor &
Indians banished to reservations.
• European immigrants protected their interests,
forcing exclusion of Blacks Ex: Radicalized
discrimination on the Blacks in the most
disadvantaged sections of the society &
the segregation in 1960s.
Some Sad Facts
• The “Color Line” exists, the Blacks
remained at the bottom of societies.
• Inequality of Blacks represent they are
victimized.
• Stereotypes of Blacks include images of
poverty, educational failure,
unemployment, teenage childbirth and
crime. Ex: Angelique’s Letter
History of Racism in America (2)
• In the 1980s, economic fortunes of the
Blacks have gone to extremes, but still
can’t be compared with the Whites.
• Blacks account for only 4% with assets
of $50,000 or more. While Black income
is roughly 60% of the whites, the
median net worth of black households in
1988 was merely 1/10 of the whites.
(Small, 40-50)
Racism in America-- Jobs
• 70% of Black men (16+ in work force),
compared with 77% of White men.
• 15% of Black men and 30% of the white worked
in professional specialties in the 1980s, while
women was 19% and 26%.
• Unemployment: 11.8% for Black men, 4.8
White.
• Black labor grow to 20% in 2000, and the
greatest fear is US economy become 2-tier.
Racism in America– Schools
• Occurrences of segregation, inferior
faculties & limited resources. Ex:
Washington D.C., Detroit and NYC at
the end of 1980s.
• The performance of Blacks, in schools,
is relatively problematic.
Situation in the 1980s
In 1986, 27.5% of black school children,
and 30% Hispanic school children
enrolled in 25 largest central city school
districts. However, only 3.3% of all
whites attend these schools (Small, 54).
Racism in America– Health Care
• 2 studies show that treatment vary with
the race of patients and not the
insurance coverage of the patient. Ex:
Dr. Katherine L. Kahn.
• Or, the Veteran Administration
Hospitals.
Dr. Kahn. ‘s Quote
Within each type of hospital, patients who
were black or from poor neighborhoods
got less care (Newman and Eleanor
Newman Layfield, 76).
Dr. Eric Peterson
Dr. Eric Peterson, a cardiologist, helped to
conduct the studies, suggest that
evidence seems to be that the
disparity in treatment points to
racism as a factor when patients
have the same health coverage and
socioeconomic backgrounds
(Newman and E. Newman Layfield, 76).
Racism Today in America
• Civil Rights Act created in 1964, stopping
discrimination in employment based on
race, religion, gender or national origin.
• The results? Elis Cose
• Re-segregation on College campus
• Public schools new re-segregation policy,
and integrated schools are under attack.
Elis Cose
New racists claim that African American
are like products, and need to be careful
about what is said about their work
(Newman and Eleanor Newman
Layfield, 82).
Bamboozled
Stereotype
By Chelle Ke
Outline
Stereotype:
• Why & how ?
• Slaves• Coon
Uncle Tom • Jolly Nigger Bank
• Black women• Black men
Mammy
Why there’re stereotype? (1)
• Every stereotype emerges in the wake of a
pre-existing ideology which deforms it,
appropriates it, and naturalizes it.
• The blackface stereotype too, by deforming
the body, silences it and leaves room only
for white supremacy to speak through it.
Why there’re stereotype? (2)
• The blackface stereotypes represent the white
Souths retreat from the American Revolution,
i.e., Reconstruction, the civil rights movement,
and desegregation.
In other words, the stereotypes help to maintain
the myth of the gothic Old South and deny the
changes in our contemporary society.
--Kenneth Goings, in Mammy and Uncle Mose: Black American
Collectibles and American Stereotyping (1994),
How stereotypes usually seen?
• The way stereotypes work with pastiche,
caricature, and symbols:
stereotypes always rob people of their
history and shun their realism. It is in this
violent and aggressive manner that the
stereotype sends its message ,which is
automatically absorbed by the viewer/reader,
and which replaces history.
In Bamboozled…
Slaves
• Many of the first Africans in America are
not slaves but indentured servants, like
many of the first Europeans.
• Race slavery becomes law. Over a period of
400 years, the African slave trade that began
with the Portuguese in 1441 captures 40
million Africans; 20 million arrive in the
Americas. While the captives bring with
them little material evidence of their culture,
their music and dance have a lasting impact
on that of the New World.
Uncle Tom
• “Uncle Tom's Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe
was the first social protest novel published in the
United States.
• Described by Stowe herself as a "series of
sketches" depicting the human cruelty of slavery,
opens with a description of Arthur Shelby's
Kentucky plantation during the antebellum period.
The Black Women :Mammy(1)
•Domesticity :
*Is tied to the myth of the South.
*Pastiche - cookie-jar, kitchen decoration, or housewares
¤ rotund, dressed in a long robe
¤ apron
¤ head kerchief,
¤ big smile face.
¤ carrying a bowl or a white baby in her arms.
Mammy
Mammy(2)
• Mammy’s uniform:
*Organizes and disciplines
*Domesticity and morality
*The apron: appropriates and naturalizes
permanent fixture of the white mansion.
Neat and civilized ?
Coon (Zip Coon)
• Uncivilized nature
• Sexuality, and evil: oversexed tragic mulattos
• Opposite to Mammy: physically punished,
exposed to public ridicule for lacking
decorum and decency.
• Half-human and half-animal.
• Pastiche : naked or scantily dressed ,looking
as if intoxicated by sexual desire
Black Men
•
•
•
•
•
Uncivilized
sleep & eat, slackers
Thief, poverty chickens, watermelons
Violence, sexual abusing
rape, incest
Amusing
rap, dancing
Pastiche : The disproportionately large upper
torsos of the black men, with long faces and
cheeks bigger than their heads…
Jolly Nigger Bank,
Black Men 2
• Cannibal :
*white, black & red
*half-human and half-animal
*red - a symbol of
cannibalism
*bigger-than-normal teeth,
with wide gaps between
them.
In Bamboozled…
Jolly Nigger Bank 1
• Ridicule :
*piggy banks in the shape of female and male
busts
*stereotype –
a) zombie-like
b) mouth is wide open, waiting to receive coins
from the empty hand.
c)vacant eyes, and distended hands
Jolly Nigger Bank 2
• It is in this sense that the coin-swallowing
becomes a metaphor for an appetite for
human flesh, our skin. cannibal
• black people as robots or coin-swallowing
monsters.
In Bamboozled…
Jolly Nigger Bank 1
• Ridicule is also reflected in making piggy
banks in the shape of female and male busts,
"Jolly Nigger Banks", in which the
stereotype's mouth is wide open, waiting to
receive coins from the empty hand. This toy
for white children teaches them economic
frugality at the same time as they learn to
treat black people as robots or coinswallowing monsters.
Jolly Nigger Bank 2
• These photographs are frightening because
the zombie-like characters seem to emerge
out of the dark, with an unconscious motion
which derives from their open mouths,
vacant eyes, and distended hands. It is in
this sense that the coin-swallowing becomes
a metaphor for an appetite for human flesh,
our skin.
In Bamboozled…
Minstrel Show
• White performer Thomas Dartmouth
"Daddy" Rice adds a new twist to the
tradition of mimicking African
Americans, and his "Jim Crow"
dance earns him the title "father of
blackface minstrelsy." Minstrel
shows produce two major stereotypes
that haunt black performers for years
-- the clown and the dandy.
Black Men
• The stereotype of black men who do not fit
the mold of the docile servant of the masters
kitchen and mansion is equally rich in
Africanist symbolism.
Black Men 2
• Cannibal : For example, the disproportionately large
upper torsos of the black men, with long faces and
cheeks bigger than their heads ,are a sign that they are
half-human and half-animal. They can fool nobody,
even when they wear a suit, tie, and hat, because their
lips are painted with blood, which often spills over and
creates a match with the tie. Red, as a symbol of
cannibalism, is the dominant signifier here.
• The motif of cannibalism also circulates through the
laughter of the stereotypes which reveal their biggerthan-normal teeth, with wide gaps between them.
Black Men 3:white, black & red
• The imminent darkness and the red symbolize
our latent fear of cannibalism, and other awful
things associated with Africa.
• Finally, the relationship between the black, the
red, and the white gives us the stereotype ,just
as for Freud, the relationship of the dream to
its latent meaning is the key to an
interpretation of the problem.
Minstrel Show
• White performer Thomas Dartmouth
"Daddy" Rice adds a new twist to the
tradition of mimicking African
Americans, and his "Jim Crow"
dance earns him the title "father of
blackface minstrelsy." Minstrel
shows produce two major stereotypes
that haunt black performers for years
-- the clown and the dandy.
In Bamboozled…
Who’s puppet are u ?
Bamboozled Ⅱ
Who is Black ?
& What is Black?
Outline
• Questions
• Black people: Delacroix,
Manray(Mantan)&Womack(Sleep ‘n Eat),
Julius & Mau Maus, Sloan, Junebug
• White people: Dunwitty, the Yale lawyer
Questions
• Is blackness only in skin color?
• Is blackness defined by specific mannerisms?
• Is it only possible for black to originate
from having a drop of black blood?
Delacroix
• Satire la: a literary work in which human vice or
folly is ridiculed or attacked scornfully...2. Irony,
derision or caustic wit used to attack or expose
folly, vice or stupidity.“
• He quotes Baldwin saying, "People pay for what
they do...what they have allowed themselves to
become...by the lives they lead," and then recalls
Junebug's admonition to "always keep them
laughing."
Manray &Womack
• Ignorant, dull-witted, lazy and unluck.
• They are gonna make us laugh, they‘re
gonna make us cry, they’re gonna make us
feel good to be American.
• The name, Sleep n’ Eat, signified "the idea
being...a black man was content as long as
he had a place to sleep and enough to eat."
Sloan
• strong, wronged,
avenging, abandoned,
alternatively
determined and
confused woman
Julius &Mau Maus
• They trickery, angry,
dark, sullen, depressed,
wicked, blacklisted…..
Dunwitty & Yale lawyer
• I am blacker than you.
I have a black wife
and two biracial kids.
• I got my ph.D. in
African-American
studies from Yale.
Outline
• The Interpretation of the Movie
--- Racial relations
• The Problems of the Movie
--- Simplify the problems
(e.g. Ghetto/Drugs & Violence)
--- Idealize the situation/ Fantasy
(e.g. Sarah’s easy life in black society)
I. White  Black
A. Telephone Call --- “ No, I haven’t see anyone
get shot yet, God, I didn't move to Bosnia.”
“They got white guys at your school?”
B. On the Metro --- play a childish game to shock
the white woman
The boundaries between two different
races.
II. Black White
A. Dancing Club Stepps
--- Nikky: “Negro Club”
different views about “negro”
--- MalaKai: “That’s oil, you’re milk,
there’s no point to mix”.
different classes of people cannot be
together
B. Restaurant --- “Snowflaking”
Derek’s view v.s. Others’ view
C. Sara and Nikky’s fight --- White woman
conquering the black world
Sarah’s unawareness about racism
D. At the clinic--- Chenille agrees with Nikky’s point
a. Different worlds v.s. one world
b. Sarah’s ignorance
III. Black Black
• Conflicts between Derek and Malakai
1. Derek believes if he can do something of
himself, so can Malakai
2. Malakai believes that revenge is the way to save
his dignity.
Different view & different future
Dream vs. Corruption
Sara
“It’s me and him, White I. A.B.
not us and
everybody”
Different races
should not be
together
relationships crosses
racial boundaries
Derek “It’s not white
women, it’s
women”
Black
II. A.B.C.D.
Ghetto
A. Disorder environment
1. Guns & Drugs  the situation cannot be
improved
2. Violence  the only way to solve problems
B. Teenager’s values
1. Continuous corruption
2. No future
3. For example, Malakai.
Simply take over those problems without
offering deeper explanations
Sara’s Easiness
• The unreasonable reaction toward getting into
the black community.
• Her ignorance toward the racial theme.
• The director makes things too easy for Sara.
Bamboozled
Racial Identity and Power Relations
Black Separatists –
• Believe in their black history and heritage and appreciate what the
learned in the hood, so as to reject the Whites’ expectations from
the blacks. They do not think the White can fully interpret the
significance of Black people’s culture and blues. They tend to
represent their dignity by not appreciating the white value system
and practice their self-determination by reminding themselves of
the amount of degradation they have suffered from the white and
living with their past historical injuries. They tried to achieve the
reality of a black-staffed, black-controlled, and black-financed
society, in which the White can no longer interfere with the roles
blacks play.
• Ex: Junebug
Black Separatists –
• Ex: Junebug – performing in a small black club.
Treasures his dignity, unwilling to entertain the
whites by devaluating self, so as to leave the
Hollywood.
Shares no big fame as Delacroix
but content with his black identity.
Black militant separatists
• Share similar thoughts with separatists, only
through more aggressive means.
• They tend to change the Whites’ stereotype of the
Blacks, that they are not unable to organize
themselves, but because the misunderstanding of
the Whites that they cannot succeed without the
White as backbone. They are to define their own
roles and view the Whites with their own values.
Blacks struggling for survival
• Blacks that struggle for survival are often
confused with their identity. They may try to
challenge the society and end in vain, or grab at
most opportunities to improve their living
standards. They are often regarded as unworthy
and incapable of adapting to the White values.
Through them the black inferiority is being
reinforced and so are more easily submitted to
Whites’ power.
• Ex: Manray, Wormak, Mau Mau Crews.
Blacks struggling for survival
• E.g. Manray – performed tap-dance for a living.
•
Join Mantan show with esteem to prove his talent but
is confused by his black identity and the whites’ interest.
•
Died as a victim of the media.
• Wormak – join the minstrel show for a living.
•
Having no permanent shelter but is willing to give up
the disgusting industry.
• Mau Mau Crews – a group of rappers having the attempt to
give in and entertain the public.
• Despise the way the Mantan show represents the Negroes.
• End in brutal action executing Manray.
Black Assimilationist
• Thinks that they have to accept the Whites’
value and assassinate their black character
in order to achieve liberation from
discrimination and poverty. Allowed the
white people to interpret and devalue the
black race. Escaping from black identity.
• Ex: Delacroix
Black Assimilationist
• E.g. Delacroix – a film writer, under
Dunwitty.
•
Conduct the Mantan show, but having
no opportunity to refuse Dunwitty’s
demands to change the style of the show.
•
Becomes a target of his own satire.
•
Quite a success at career but a failure
in recognizing black dignity.
Whites
• They take away black achievements and deny blacks’
human dignity by misinterpreting the blacks cultural
heritage and focus merely on stereotypes.
• Racism is still alive through the spreading idea that Whites’
value system is better and by using successful Blacks, who
dumped the Black identity in order to lead a better life,
they confirm the idea that White power is superior.
• They never show respect or participate to blacks’ true
identity, which is full of anxiety and fear, but only blindly
assume they can take over the blacks’ value system and
show their help them by means of stopping the blacks’
self-determination.
• Ex: Dunwitty
Whites
• Ex: Dunwitty is the producer, the one with
money.
•
Have the power to make decisions.
•
Though not a black, financing a black
program and making free adjustments.
•
Confident in self-identity.
•
Able to give judgments and demands.
Comparison
Theme
Method/Filming
Save The Last Dance
A biracial romance.
Fantasy mode.
Bamboozled
A satire on the blacks.
Realistic mode.
Simple filming.
Idealistic development.
Documentary-like filming.
Careful use of ‘color
code,’
Plain brown – daily life
Shady blue –
whites+media
Save The Last Dance
Setting and Plot Whereas a white girl
have to fit in the black
community.
White adapted easily.
(Hip-Hop is a dancing
style that expresses
identity and involves
interactions. It’s also a
widely spread subculture to attract greater
participation.)
Bamboozled
Whereas blacks have to
set aside their dignity
and identity in order to
succeed in white
society/industry.
Blacks end in misery
still.
(Tap-dance with
additional meaning
implies black inferiority
and suggests black as
entertainment for
whites.)
Save The Last Dance
Bamboozled
Black
Relationship
Just briefly mentioned.
Introduces stereotypes
such as, gangs, rappers,
drug-abusers, fights, and
only one exception,
which is educated
Derrick.
Clear exposition of
individuals among blacks,
such as those still
struggling for better life,
the ones assimilate to
whites, and some shying
away from the
unacceptable white value.
Solution/Ending
A fair romantic happy
ending.
Leaving the ghetto
unsolved with its
problems.
A miserable ending that
evokes deep thoughts for
blacks.
Sleep-n-Eat stands as one
black who succeeds in
challenging the white
value and live with
acceptance of black
identity.
Words to Think About
Alexix de Tocquevile, a French historian,
predicted that changing the law to
abolish slavery would be easy
compared to changing people’s minds
about slavery. Over 30 years after the
Civil Rights Act, we still face problems
that can be traced back to the days of
slavery (Newman and E. Newman
Layfield, 77).
Works Cited
• Small, Stephen. Racialised Barriers.
London: Routledge, 1994.
• Newman, Gerald and Eleanor Newman
Layfield. Racism: Divided by Color.
Springfield: Enslow Publishers Inc, 1995.
• Manthia Diawara, The Blackface Stereotype.
Black Cultural Studies Site,1998.