Author: spence.233

Week 14 Context presentation

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When you think of a super hero who comes to mind? Superman, Captain America, Spiderman, etc. We have seen Marvel create movies with all these different super heroes. What we see lacking is cultural diversity across these super heroes. The movie Black Panther is different than any Marvel super hero movie created previously. What aspects of this movie create such a strong cultural depiction?

As I watch this movie for the first time the African culture is immediately prominent, the overall main theme in this movie is African American culture. Ryan Coogler, the director of this movie, held true to African culture throughout the movie. The ability to present so much of this culture within a super hero movie is nothing like we have seen before. The entire cast within this movie are African Americans, that alone holds such strong message. Through the movie we see the certain clothing used, jewelry, body painting and the language. These aspects give viewers details and insight to the African culture.

Not only does this movie present African American culture in a strong way, but the way Coogler depicts African American women takes the cultural and gender diversity to a whole new level. In society we know the struggles of women, African Americans and even more African American women. The strength and power the women hold next to the men in the movie creates a point of view toward such a large controversial subject, gender equality. Overall for lack of a better term this movie is a game changer. Coogler has created something different from any super hero movie we have seen and it changes the way we see super heroes, adds so much cultural diversity to the Marvel and superhero community.

 

 

https://www.thewilkesbeacon.com/opinion/2018/02/19/the-cultural-impact-of-black-panther/

Diary Of Systemic Injustices Showcase

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I would like to come back to a situation I used in a previous diary post and explore the other side of the incident. I spoke previously about the George Floyd case (https://www.adl.org/education/resources/tools-and-strategies/george-floyd-racism-and-law-enforcement-in-english-and-en ) and would now like to connect this with the Breonna Taylor case (https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/23/us/breonna-taylor-timeline/index.html ) and view the injustice toward African Americans. This topic is such a controversial issue still in society and is continuing to grow with the black lives matter movement. This movement is directed toward the fact that African Americans are treated different by law enforcement than whites. This could be anything from physical, verbal or even just stereotyped more often. In New York the population is much more diverse than that of Ohio. According to the NYPD when African American or Latinos were stopped, 85% were frisked compared to whites at only 8% (Quigley 2010). These number are appalling to compare. Why are these numbers so different? Why are certain races immediately more questionable than another? Personally, any person of any race has the power to do good or bad. These stereotypes people create bleed into our government and justice system, it is clearly human nature to perceive people a certain way. Even if it is human nature to feed into stereotypes, it cannot affect one’s ability to perform their job as they are intended too. In this case, stereotypes and personal points of view are affecting the system.

The reading by Ortiz Cofer titled The Story of My Body  I feel relates closely to this systemic injustice. The relation between this injustice and this writing is the aspect of judgment based on appearance and race.  Cofer experienced a lot of racial stereotyping and hate because of the way she looked and where she came from after moving to the United States. Like Cofer, these African Americans are being judged solely based on their race and/or appearance which is created by assumptions from societal stereotypes.

 

 

Quigley, Bill. “Fourteen Examples of Systemic Racism in the US Criminal Justice System.” Common Dreams, 26 July 2010, www.commondreams.org/views/2010/07/26/fourteen-examples-systemic-racism-us-criminal-justice-system.