WARN-ING

n. reading this blog may be hazardous to your complacency

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Bamboozled

recently, i learned that there are less then 1% of African Americans in graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin. needless to say, i realized this when i saw that "I" was the only one admitted out of all PhD and Masters students in my (Media Studies) program.

everyday i go to class, i gotta remind myself why I am doing this


Donald Bogle describes it as the blackface fixation:

Directed by whites in scripts authored by whites, and then photographed, dressed and made up by whites, the Negro actor, like the slaves he portrayed, aimed (and still does aim) always to please the master figure. To do so, he gives not a performance of his own, not one in which he interprets black life, but one in which he presents for mass consumption black life as seen through the eyes of white artists. The actor becomes a black man in black face (Bogle 2001, 27).

What's the reality?..."I say and I say it again, you've been had. You've been took. You've been HOODWINKED, BAMBOOZLED, led astray, run amok" --Malcolm X

1 comment:

Dre' Leon said...

I remember seeing this at the end of bamboozled...in some regards it is a hard clip to watch b/c the images in that vid reminded me that racism is real and the prejudice that [our] ppl suffered back then was unfathomable...

but then you realize how strong our ppl have to had been to make it through...if it wasn't for their sacrifices, struggles and survival we wouldn't be able to do some of the things we take for granted everyday...not only in film but in every aspect of our lives...