Alienation As A Fulcrum To Change

As I watched Classified X and Ethnic Notions, I was moved to think that marginalization in the mass media is a form of social control. African Americans were marginalized and misrepresented by "Hollywood" in an attempt to maintain the controls of institutional racism. At the same time African Americans were being marginalized, women, people of other races and cultures, and even lower economic groups were being marginalized and misrepresented, in an effort to create conformity. The examples of "separate but equal" and a "women's place is in the home" are examples of an attempt to control a population's values. If groups are demeaned in the popular culture, films in this case, then the idea of discrimination is easier to accept.

This makes me wonder if the social change which occurred was a matter of alienation with the "powers that be" and that the change was a true democratic movement. The civil rights movement was a multiracial movement; the protests against the War in Vietnam was a multi racial movement; and the women's movement was a multiracial movement. People were able to see beyond the shadows that the mass media were promoting. The struggle of a black man was transformed into a human struggle. The mass media might marginalize African Americans and their culture, but the pictures night after night of water cannons and dogs attacking peaceful protestors changed the dynamic. People saw that whatever the predjudice between races and cultures the struggle for humanity was really a universal cause.

Did this lead us to be alienated by a culture of conformity? At least a part of the culture; youth, intellectuals and the "marginalized" began to see that the status quo was not serving their needs or their desires and "revolted." This led to a civil rights movement, an attempt at affirmative action and at least the trappings of bringing the marginalized into the discourse. Rather then a single movie, or single leader, I think this alienation aided the nation in at least attempting to fix a system which was by any account broken. The art of the marginalized assisted in promoting this change; whether a book Claude Brown's Manchild in The Promisedland or movie Van Peeble's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song; art bridged the gap and fostered some change.

I think the Hip Hop culture and the associated music and films demonstrate how this change is an ongoing process. Parts of all races, cultures and economic groups find a voice in the message of this genre. Although founded in the alienation of discrimination, many people can relate this message to their own experiences and life. My point is that it seems we are growing past a culture which maintained institutional racism for nearly four hundred years and growing together, sometimes too slowly, towards a more honest and respectful coexistence. Twenty years ago, Don Imus' comments about the Rutger's Women's basketball team might have struck many people as funny, because the mass media had been directed towards the support of institutional racism. Instead, Imus was chastized and the nation came to realize that there was no place for that conduct in the mass media. Alienation, amongst all people, was a fulcrum to change.

James Kimball
9/13/07