Marvel Studios has recently been releasing another limited series weekly on Disney Plus called The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It has only released 4 episodes (minor spoilers ahead), but the series follows the heroes known as the Falcon (Sam Wilson) and the Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes). So far in the series, a new group of super soldiers have popped up and been committing crimes in the name of their cause. Sam and Bucky are trying to track them down to stop them and the possible creation of even more super soldiers. Bucky is a super soldier himself that was created by the evil group known as Hydra to be controlled and used as an assassin against his will. At the beginning of their search, Bucky takes Sam to an unknown Black super soldier, named Isaiah Bradley, that Bucky fought while being forced to work for Hydra. Sam is a very highly ranked and trusted Black superhero that works with the United States government and military, but he had no idea Isaiah even existed. Isaiah was basically a Black Captain America that came after the original Captain America, Steve Rogers. However, he is now an old man that becomes very upset by their unexpected visit and immediately asks them to leave. Before they leave, Isaiah is able to reveal that his existence was hidden from the public. The United States just used him for his abilities after Steve disappeared and was no longer able to act as their super soldier. Isaiah was even imprisoned and then tested on after they no longer needed him. This completely different treatment of Isaiah compared to Steve represents the clear systemic injustices that plague the United States. The scene after leaving Isaiah’s house also shows Sam almost getting arrested by cops for having an argument with Bucky, a white male. The officers are acting hostile towards Sam and almost arrest him until they realize he is an Avenger. I believe the story of Isaiah is included to try to show that even when Black people achieve power and use it for good to help others, they are often oppressed by the system and taken advantage of. The encounter Sam has with the police is also included to drive home this statement because Sam was only treated fairly when the officers realized he was a celebrity. These scenes are included in the overall story of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to remind viewers of the systemic injustices Black citizens encounter every day, and to encourage us to consider what we can do to counteract this flawed system.
The Black Panther film made a powerful entrance into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2018. It was a long awaited film for fans of the Marvel comics and films, but it had an even larger impact on the Black community. Black Panther focused on the rise to power of King T’Challa as the ruler of Wakanda. Wakanda is an African country that was created in the Marvel Universe and has a thriving hidden city with greater technology and resources than any other country in the world. T’Challa is not only the king of this amazing African country, but he is also the superhero Black Panther. The movie has almost an entirely Black cast full of extremely strong and inspirational characters.
This talented cast and amazing story shed a different light on Black culture that is typical in the entertainment industry. In an article on Vox, Tre Johnson explains “This makes Black Panther a palate cleanser of sorts, a healthy injection of powerful, beautiful images of the black body” (“Black Panther Is a Gorgeous, Groundbreaking Celebration of Black Culture”). The film was able to focus on the power of the Black community and give them hope for a better future where they are not oppressed by systemic injustices. It did not create a story in which a white narrative was intertwined into a black story, as often happens in films. Instead it created a black narrative that remained a black narrative, which is a huge move for the film industry towards representing the Black community clearly and more often (Johnson, “Black Panther Is a Gorgeous, Groundbreaking Celebration of Black Culture”). Without films like this, the Black community will continue to feel underrepresented in media. As a white male, I have had a plethora of major figures in the media world to look up to. I can not begin to imagine how it feels to be limited to only a select few figures that have made it into the mass media. Jamil Smith explained in a Time article how important it is to be represented in the mass media in order to feel seen and understood, but also for others to see and understand you (“The Revolutionary Power Of Black Panther”). By limiting the amount and characteristics of major Black characters in mass media it creates a single story of Black culture that often can come off as negative. The Black Panther film was so revolutionary because it represented many Black characters in an extremely powerful way. It has had an extraordinarily positive impact on Black communities, and hopefully it continues to inspire them to feel confident and strong with their culture.
Citations:
Johnson, Tre. “Black Panther Is a Gorgeous, Groundbreaking Celebration of Black Culture.” Vox, Vox, 23 Feb. 2018, www.vox.com/culture/2018/2/23/17028826/black-panther-wakanda-culture-marvel.
Smith, Jamil. “The Revolutionary Power Of Black Panther.” Time, Time, time.com/black-panther/.
For this showcase, I would like to focus on a recent event that led to the country music industry being questioned. On January 31st, a popular country music artist, Morgan Wallen, was filmed coming back home after a night of drinking by one of his neighbors. Wallen was caught saying the n-word during this recording, which has led to him losing many music deals and suffering huge amounts of backlash. While this specific incident is an example of a single act of racism, it highlights an underlying problem the country music industry has. There were varying views and remarks made in response to this video from fans and other artists. There were a few a white artists, such as Kelsea Ballerini, that tried to defend the country music industry on twitter and say that this incident was not representative of the industry as a whole. However, several Black artists also tweeted about this and had very different views on the subject. A few days after Wallen was filmed, Mickey Guyton tweeted, “When I read comments saying “this is not who we are” I laugh because this is exactly who country music is. I’ve witnessed it for 10 gd years. You guys should just read some of the vile comments hurled at me on a daily basis. It’s a cold hard truth to face but it is the truth.” Miko Marks then responded to Guyton’s tweet by saying, “Agreed. @MickeyGuyton There are so many layers to this. It’s systemic. Until that can be acknowledged and addressed, the circle will continue to be unbroken.” These varying views between white and black artists shows how different the experience of the artists are in the industry based on their race. It is clear that many Black artists feel the industry has been plagued by systemic injustices that create a system that benefits white artists over Black artists. Since the white artists are the ones that benefit in the industry, I believe they can be defined as the Ones and Black artists are defined as the Others. As the Ones, many white artists don’t witness the problems in the industry, so they continue to go on as usual since it is working for them. Until white artists also realize the problem and step up to help their fellow Black artists, the country music industry will remain a system in which white artists are the Ones and Black artists are the Others. Marks comment was right on because she referenced the industry as systemic and that it needs to be addressed for any real change to occur.
The following link is an article that references the quoted tweets above and many more that addressed this incident.
Jake Grim 0:12
Hello, everyone, my name is Jake grim. I am a fourth year student here at the Iowa State University. I will be graduating this spring with a degree in agricultural engineering specializing in soil and water.
Brock Michaelis 0:27
And my name is Brock Michaelis. I’m also a fourth year student and we graduated in the spring. My major is civil engineering and I have a minor in survey and I will be continuing to work in the civil engineering field and land development. Okay.
Jake Grim 0:47
Okay, on this episode of the podcast, we’ll be talking about two incidents of racism. So the first one is about country music, or Morgan Wallen, and the second one is about the shooting of Atlanta woman in Atlanta, or a gentleman in Atlanta. So, on February second 2021 country music star, Morgan Wallen was caught on film saying the N word. He told reporters that he had a he and a group of friends were on a 36 hour bender out in Nashville, and had performed a quick show prior to him coming home. The group came home around midnight and was being very loud. They were seen and heard honking their horns and shouting your Morgan’s house by his neighbors. One of his neighbors started recording them. And this is when the profanity was caught on tape. In the captured video, the country music star was saying goodbye to his friends, and told them to, quote, take care of this pussy ass blank. And quote, using the heart er at the end of the word. This caused an uproar around the country because it was clear that this wasn’t his first time using the word, Morgan Wallen received a lot of backlash, and people demanded that he be held responsible. He issued a five minute apology video saying that he was sorry, it was going to work with black organizations to see the error of his ways in which I think is kind of bullcrap. Because just because he got caught saying word, and now all of a sudden he wants to work with black organizations. And why wouldn’t he just do it from the first place, it just blows my mind a little. Anyways, after this incident, all of his music stopped airing on the radio. He lost all of his endorsements. And he was dropped from his record label big loud. However, his music sales rose roughly 1,220%, which is was reported by Rolling Stone. This is absurd that people are willing to show their support for a man who used a racial slur by buying his music. I don’t know if they bought the music out of fear that they would have won’t be able to listen to his music any longer. Or if they just wanted to buy his music because he said the N word. I know that I saw a lot of people on social media saying I’m still going to listen to his music, though. And I just think that’s an absurd thing to say after an incident like this has happened. Now after all the racial problems that have arose over this past couple years. I think that this incident just shows the systemic racism that is rooted in the country music industry.
Brock Michaelis 3:42
So as Jake was saying, he created a lot of backlash from the country music industry and its fans. Many artists have reacted in disgust to his actions, but some reacted in different ways. kelsea ballerini, a white country music artists tweeted, quote, the news out of Nashville a night does not represent country music, and quote, tweets like this for many country music artists and fans change the focus from a singular event to one focused on a system and sparked several reactions to the
Brock Michaelis 4:12
white country.
Brock Michaelis 4:14
Mickey Guyton as a Black Country music artists who tweeted quote, when I read comments saying, This is not who we are, I laugh because this is exactly who country music is. I’ve witnessed it for 10 GT years. You guys should just read some of the vile comments hurled at me on a daily basis. It’s a cold, hard truth to face, but it is the truth and quote, Nico marks quoted this and said, quote, agreed, there’s so many layers to this, it’s systemic, until there that can be acknowledged and addressed, the circle will continue to be unbroken, and quote, some or all other artists, including Rishi Palmer, Katy Bannon and Britney Spencer made similar comments calling out the industry and saying that this incident is rubbish. 100 of the difference between the reactions of white artists and black artists shows how this problem is truly systemic. The white artists don’t understand how huge the problem is, because they’re not the ones that experienced the racist comments and prejudices that are thrown at Black Country artists every day. So there’s clearly a systemic problem that is plaguing the country music industry, and creating an environment where black artists grow much more to feel accepted and find success.
Jake Grim 5:31
Going into one of the concepts we’ve talked about in class is the one versus the other. Looking at this situation, we would classify the one as the white country music stars that have received all the recognition from the industry and fans. They don’t usually have to face backlash as often for their music, and don’t have to deal with a lot of criticism. Unless maybe you’re a female. We would classify the other as a Black Country artist who usually who doesn’t usually receive the recognition that a lot of white country artists do, even though they could go note for note and bar for bar with them. Also, Black Country artists face a lot of criticism for their music, and often are often heard racial remarks towards them. female artists such as Mickey Guyton have even said that a lot of hurt had to happen to them before they saw any success in the country music industry.
Brock Michaelis 6:31
Considering all this, the country music industry has created a system in which most black artists are cast to the side and are exposed to racial comments in the prejudice industry and needs to take a step back as a whole. admit there’s a problem, you focus on making change that will help eliminate these in justices.
Jake Grim 6:52
Moving on to our next example, it is about the Asian woman that were shot in Atlanta by a white male. So our next example is about a white male Robert long, who shot and killed eight people, six of which were Asian women. The man legally purchased a nine millimeter handgun earlier in the day and headed towards an Asian run massage parlor. The man went into Young’s Asian massage parlor and was seen leaving after an hour and 12 minutes of being inside. The police were called roughly five minutes after he left and showed up to two people fatally shot and three others wounded, two of which died at the hospital. Police then received reports of a robbery at gold massage, gold massage spa, where they found three woman dead from gunshot wounds. They then received reports of a shooting across the street at Roma therapy spa, where they found yet another woman shot and killed Robert long was eventually found and arrested roughly three and a half hours after the shootings about 150 miles south of Atlanta. I think that this incident just shows how there are truly evil people out there in the world and that don’t care about who you are and where you come from, and will discriminate you solely against your ethnicity.
Brock Michaelis 8:20
This horrific shooting is clearly sparked many reactions across the country. Many people in organizations have made statements to show their support to the Asian American community. In response to this incident in many other recent crimes toward Asian Americans, OSU Barstow compiled comments from Asian American students and made a post about it on Instagram. Many of them expressed how they experienced backhanded comments that are all always include the fact that they’re Asian. One quote included in the post said, quote, it’s the constant backhanded compliments for me. I just feel that everything about me is contrasted with people’s expectations based on my race. I was told very recently that I speak English surprisingly well. I mean, yeah, I’m American. Implicit racism is considerably harder to even call out much less combat, and quote, by giving these backhanded compliments people are saying that they are surprised that Asians can have these positive characteristics which is completely wrong. Our society should be able to accept Asian Americans for who they are and stop constraining them to stereotypes that have been made about them. Some students were even quoted in the posts saying that they were they were their hoodies up to cover their face when they go out in areas off campus because they fear getting attacked because of their race. They also express concerns for their elderly relatives that are more vulnerable and susceptible to attacks like these fact that Asian Americans have to hide who they are to protect themselves as horrifying. These multiple accounts from students shows it is more than isolated events and that it truly is systemic. The Post from OSU bar so even referenced a statistic from Cal State that said Asian American hate crimes are on the rise 149% this year. I can’t act like I understand their feelings sign not an Asian American. But I can speak out against these problems and try to help our society move in the right direction to eliminate these systemic and justices.
Jake Grim 10:22
It is sad to hear about these examples of systemic racism and racist, racist experiences throughout the country. I know that I can’t really relate to any being a white male, and it’s just sad to hear. That’s really all the time we have for today. Thank you for listening and we will continue to show our support against systemic racism and do what we can to combat it.
