Readings: Andersen & Collins, Pages 25 – 32
“Label Us Angry,” by Jeremiah Torres
Torres is still angry, years after an incident that he describes as “the most painful and shocking event” of his life. Growing up in Palo Alto, California, he and his friend Carlos had not experienced overt racism until they had a confrontation with a speeding driver who cut them off as they were leaving their high school parking lot. The events that followed—from the meanness of the people in the other car to the reactions of police officers and the different ways in which the author and his friend handled their anger—illustrate some dramatic consequences of racist assumptions and racist labeling.
1. Why did the author call the incident he relates “the most painful and shocking event” of his life? Discuss why it was so painful. Consider what made it shocking to him.
2. Discuss the reaction of police officers after the men were maced. Consider any differences that might have been evident in their reactions if Jeremiah and Carlos had sprayed mace in to the faces of the white men, instead of being the ones attacked with mace. Would the police officers likely have asked if the white men were gang members? Would they still have considered the possibility that the Filipino men were gang members? What evidence do you find in this story to support your answer?
3. Discuss the choices that Jeremiah and Carlos made in dealing with their anger, and compare the consequences of their different choices.
4. We see in this story, several angry young men. Discuss how each man handles his anger. What does each man do? What are the consequences of how each man deals with his angry feelings? How is race related to the consequences each man gets for the way he handled his anger in this true story?
‘”It Looks Like a Demon’: Black Masculinity and Spirituality in the Age of Ferguson,” by Jamie D. Hawley and Staycie L. Flint
Hawley and Flint reflect in this commentary on the ways that cultural representations of Black masculinity and Black male spirituality contribute to tensions between police and Black men. Historically, Black masculinity has been represented in ways that have justified state-sanctioned violence against Black male bodies, ranging from enslavement to police brutality to microaggressions. Common depictions of Black men as hypersexualized brutes often use animalistic imagery to imply the need to “tame” them through violence. Even Black boys are subject to dehumanization. because they are less likely to be seen as children: arguments justifying the killings of Black youth such as George Stinney Jr., Emmett Till, and Tamir Rice turned on claims that they “looked like” men. The alternate caricature of the “Magical Negro” may seem benevolent, but Hawley and Flint point out that it is actually a spiritualized variation of othering and dehumanizing characterizations of Black men. As hospital trauma chaplains, Hawley and Flint note that these depictions of Black men result in the delegitimization of their expressions of pain and grief.
5. How do Hawley and Flint connect Darren Wilson’s grand jury testimony to historic justifications for Black enslavement? What underlying message about Black men do these have in common?
6. How do the killings of Michael Brown, Emmett Till, and Tamir Rice illustrate the importance of understanding race, gender, and age as intersecting systems of power and domination?
7. What examples of the “Magical Negro” portrayal can you think of in films or literature? How can depicting a black man as having supernatural power or primordial goodness be harmful?
Review “The Hate U Give’ – Trailer and short commentaries available here.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5580266/
8. Discuss the portrayal of Black men and boys in the film The Hate U Give (2018, based on the book by Angie Thomas, 2017). a. NOTE: You do not have to watch the whole movie/read the book, the review above is fine.
9. How do cultural representations of Black masculinity change public perceptions of childhood innocence? 10. Discuss the decision to make the book/film’s protagonist a black girl.