This is an ad for the new white Playstation Portable. The new white version of this previously all black gaming system was advertised in a series of controversial ads like this. In the ad you can clearly see a black women in a fight with a white women.
This ad fits in with what was being said about blacks after their emancipation. This ad is much like the movie "Birth of a Nation" in which the blacks were savages. The black women seem to be not be as dressed nicely as the white women is, her hair is not done like the white womens, and the black women is winning the fight which makes her appear more savage.
I think this ad is very strange and quite racist. I can hardly believe that people looked at this ad and thought it would be alright to put forth into the world.
The Five Chinese Brothers is a book I read when I was young. The story Is nothing to get excited about, it is simply a story that has probably been passed from generation to generation and was finally put in to into a book. The story however is not the problem it is the pictures that make this book what it is. All the pictures are much like the one above. All the pictures feature Chinese people with eye that are slanted, they are all happy, they are yellow in color, and they all are typically wearing the same thing.
This is similar to the way that African American slaves were shown as happy and willing to work. This book also relates the comic book covers that we looked at in class. The Chines in these illustrations are the same way, they seem happy all the time and willing to serve. As well as the Chinese that are shown are very stereotypical in the way they look in the artwork that is displayed in this children's book.
I think this book pokes fun at Chinese people and I'm a bit concerned that this is being shown to children. I remember reading this story as a child and the story itself is not something I would want me child to be exposed to, that combined with the art makes for a child with a skewed outlook on the world.
The part of this clip I'm referring to is the character "Roxy". She is the body guard of the main character in the popular TV show Hannah Montana. Not being a regular viewer of the program I am a bit fuzzy on many of the details surrounding the relationship of Roxy and others on the show but from the few episodes I've seen that feature Roxy she seems to play the role of mammy to Hannah and the other kids that appear in the show.
Much like what was explained in the video, Ethnic Notions, that we viewed in class Roxy is given the role of the children's mother. She is obviously not any relation to any of the other characters. She is classic mammy, she cares for the children and the absents of any other mother figure on the show leaves ample room for Roxy to be de-sexualized and to become the mammy of the children. She is very classic in appearance as well, she is a larger women who often is betrayed as being from the south. In the clip that I provided she also presents another stereotype, she is aggressive much like the blacks were made out to be after emancipation. In this clip she says she is a "puma" which furthers the thought that she is "wild" or "uncivilized".
I think that this character is very normally seen is programs for children and these show are so often successful that others try to replicate that success by making the characters in their new show like the ones in the program that has had success. I don't think that the makers of this show places the character Roxy in the script because they wanted to include a stereotyped black women, but maybe because they need a mother figure and this actress just fit the part.
This something like the text I received a few months ago from one of my friends. In the text Mario was running after Yoshi who was being ridden by a black man. At the top of the screen were the words "Nigga stole my Yoshi."
I choose to write about this peace because at the time I received this text I really didn't think much about it, I saw it laughed a bit, and went on with my day. Then while watching the video "Ethnic Notions" in class I began to think about it again, about how it fit right in with what I was seeing on the screen.
This is also how it fits in with course material, the man in the text was much like what was being said in the film. After emancipation blacks were made into brutal savages that in the movie "Birth of a Nation" were almost wolf-man like, they chased a young white woman off a cliff. This text was classic brutal blacks stealing because blacks are unable to survive in civilized society.
This text was sent to me from a very good friend of mine who I know never meant to hurt anyone, and I think that's part of the problem with text such as these they seem harmless, funny, "it's a cartoon, who could it hurt." The thing that surprised me most about this text came when I was looking for some kind of screen shot of it. I put the words "nigga stole my yoshi" into google and was give thousands of matches, several being videos. One such video featured two young black men one cashing the other yelling "that nigger stole my yoshi" this reminded me of the black men that preformed in black-face just so that they could be on stage.
