TUMBLR Blog Summary

For my blog I decided to focus on the African American experience in America and what has improved in the intervening decades and what has stayed the same. The TV show Black-ish (2014-2022) in many ways a typical show about a family living a successful life, and the minor inconveniences and struggles they have with the understanding and honoring their black identity while enjoying the affluence of traditionally white families. The movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) is set in a time in which interracial marriages were just becoming legal in the Supreme Court and this movie is groundbreaking in that a relationship is treated with respect and dignity while also showing the reactions such a relationship would illustrate. African archives show examples from deep history. I was surprised that the acceptance of interracial relationships has come so far in only 60 years, it related to course material in that photography, or the lens of a camera was used to manipulate the public image of black peoples for generations and now they control the image.

TUMBLR Blog #3 Social media

1.     The subject of my social media selection is a collection of black history and photography on Instagram called: African archives. This page explores the history of notable black people who suffered some form of adversity from people or the laws of the time but not only managed to get past the barriers deliberate placed in their way they thrived and showed the establishment and people not to discredited or look down on a person because of their skin color or the circumstances of their birth. This selection relates to our course readings and topics because a large portion of what the class has learned about is how the government and political forces at play impact minorities. The performance piece “Couple in the Cage” was an interactive art that explored how fetishized cultures that don’t fit the western norms are treated. For the people that were unconformable and wished to avert their eyes from that issue, just as many people choose to stare in silence or even worse celebrate by taking a picture with the people in the cage, highlighting who exactly these artists felt the piece needed to take place.

2.     My selection explores racial and ethnic identity because the subjects of theses posts are all people who share the same racial identity of an African American. Their ethnic identities are all different as they lived in different times, different sexes, and different struggles against the establishment and the people in power. This generates a conversation because while all these people had one thing that tied them together, it was something they had no control over, and they made completely different life choices and were radically different people. It raises the question that if these people in history were so different and diverse how we are able to paint large groups of people as one mass of people rather than distinct groups of people who share common factors or desires but are individuals. One issue this plays a factor in is immigration. People who flee for a variety of reasons are all treated the same, keeping this knowledge present allows for better critical thinking skills.

TUMBLR Blog #2 Movie

1.     The subject of my movie, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is a comfortably affluent white couple who find out their daughter has married an older black man. They must reconcile themselves to the fact that their daughter is happy with somebody they never expected. Matt and Christina also must confront their own racial biases and see their son-in-law for the amazing person he is. Not only are Matt and Christina Draton coming to terms with having a family member of another race, but John Prentice’s family also must struggle with that same issue. It relates to our course readings because it deals with the struggle’s minorities had with integrating into mainstream society and not being shunned. In readings the class learned about how the Harlem Renaissance was a massively successful explosion of black culture, but many of the clubs those artists played barred black patrons from entering. Those places celebrated black artists, but only if they understood their place in society and never sought anything more. Dr. John Prentice is treated as an uncomfortable partner for Draton’s daughter, but he is still a successful doctor that can provide a comfortable life her that is atypical to the education and wealth of blacks at that time showing even this film about overcoming differences and seeing more than just skin color still excludes and creates and unrealistic fantasy.

2.     My selection relates ethnic and racial identity much the class reading “the Hapa project” within that project Kip Fulbeck interviewed and photographed all different groups of people that had an amount of Hapa in the racial makeup but with radically different lives and families. They shared the same racial identity but had different ethnic ones, as to be expected of such a complex place like America. Dr. John Prentice has the racial identity of a black man but with a completely different ethnic identity. He is wealthy and well educated, something seen much more commonly in his white counterparts. A central struggle of this film is between these ideas. John Prentice does not struggle, but Mark Draton does because going of his ethnic identity, he would be the perfect son-in-law but struggles to reconcile that with his racial identity. Another thing that was happening in America in this time was the Supreme Court case Loving vs. Virginia in which interracial marriage was being decided as something that constitutional or not.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, 1967 Kramer Stanley

https://www.amazon.com/Guess-Coming-Dinner-Spencer-Tracy/dp/B008Y704R0/ref=sr_1_1?crid=ZSA49L1R4AND&keywords=guess+who%27s+coming+to+dinner+prime+video&qid=1658255407&sprefix=guess+who%27s+com%2Caps%2C98&sr=8-1

TUMBLR Blog #1 (Post)Television

1.     The subject of the TV show Black-ish is that the main character Dre struggles to keep his and his family’s black identity as a focal point in their lives while also enjoying affluence mostly seen by white families and white surroundings. They must assimilate with their white neighborhood to fit in while making sure they don’t remove themselves from a rich cultural history and understating of where they came from. In America immigrant cultures tend to group together in not particularity wealthy groups but with a large sense of community and togetherness. When one of them would gain enough capital or status they would move into a wealthily area leaving that sense of community and culture behind. In our discussions of photography, we see how black people were treated as exotic animals to gawk at, slowly becoming a more normal photograph subject. Black-ish is a modern black family living their lives not treated as animals because of their skin color which is like the Sojourner Truth photo in that the most remarkable thing about them is how normal they are.

2.  Glenn Ligon’s “Self-Portrait Exagerrating my Black Features/Self-Portrait Exagerrating my White Features" as read in our class discussion really plays into how much stereotypes and preconceived notions shape how we and other interact with the world. Dre works at an adverting company with both black and white coworkers, and he finds himself sometimes explaining black culture to coworkers and such. My selection of Black-ish generates a conversation about race, ethnicity, and cultural diversity because it shows how wealth can easily remove cultural roots from future generations. In Season 1 Episode 7, Dre who grew in a poor background forces his children to work because they don’t respect his struggles and the struggle for black people. In Season 1 Episode 20 Dre struggles to reconcile his wealth with his black identify after an outside white person forces him to question himself which is a struggle that minorities deal with their WASP counterparts (White, Aglo-Saxon, Protestant). Dre needs to be diverse to succeed in his work and family, but he cannot remove white or black culture from his life making balancing both those aspects the key aspect of the show.

Blackish, Barris Kenya. Season 1, Episode 7 https://www.hulu.com/watch/944083e6-ed56-42d9-9842-80deb6cec88c

Blackish, Barris, Kenya. Season 1, Episode 20 https://www.hulu.com/watch/304f22b7-f97c-43ef-b906-882c05be579f

3.