Should The Film Wilmington On Fire Perpetuate Stereotypes Of African Americans?

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Dr. Umar Johnson’s interview is impactful in the short time it is shown within the film Wilmington on Fire (2015). While it only lasts for three minutes and twenty seconds, the message of the ‘conspiracy theory’ is laid out and the consequences of ignoring its signs are given. The following figures from the interview show propaganda of the late 19th and early 20th centuries:
Figure 1:
Figure 2:
Figure 3:
Figure 4:
Figures 1 and 2 are examples of early propaganda against African Americans that were used to perpetuate stereotypes about them being of lesser worth than White Americans. As Dr. Johnson says, “The one thing about the brain that we have to understand is the creature of repetition. Whoever has the most access to the brain rules the brain. …show more content…

Images like figure one and figure two are examples of previously used propaganda, but figure three is an example of the images we see on the news today. Images like Figure three show up time and time again within news media when African American men are being discussed. This is in contrast to White victims of police violence, which are not shown in the interview. Figure 4 is a picture taken during the burning of the only African American newspaper headquarters in history. This happened during the Wilmington Race Riot and serves as a parallel to the images of Ferguson, Missouri after the death of Michael Brown, only reversed in its perpetrators. And by reserved I men the people in the community of Ferguson burned the city to the ground in protest, but the White Americans in 1898 that burned the printing press carried out the massacre and saw the community burned. Even though the interview does not show many parallels to today’s media portrayal of African Americans, it is so common and current in our history that its omission is not noticed. If a person has watched the news at any point in the

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