What do the Movie No Good Deed, Adrian Petersen and Ray Rice have in common? All of these incidents are all part of a media campaign to perpetuate the Brute stereotype about Black men in AmeriKKKan media.
When one uses critical thinking skills and connects the dots with these events they see a theme: a perpetuation of an image of violent, savage Black men. Black men society needs to protect itself from. By any means necessary.
This propaganda campaign is designed to make Black men look like public enemy #1. We have White Feminists coming out against Ray Rice. We have White Feminists and child psychologists calling Adrien Petersen a violent man with issues and saying he abuses children.
And with the success of No Good Deed at the Box office, it looks like the propaganda campaign to make Black men into public enemy #1 is working.
What most Black people don’t understand is that White Supremacists in AmeriKKKa don’t want Black men to be seen as human beings. The images of Ray Rice as a hardworking husband and Adrien Petersen as a responsible father are not something they want to promoted in the media.
So White Supremacist media works hard to color the image of these Black men through a stereotype filter. Turning Ray Rice into a woman beater, and Adrian Petersen into a child abuser.
All while promoting Idris Elba’s portrayal of violent, murderous, and psychopathic Colin into a mainstream image of Black men on over 2,500 screens across the country.
Savage Violent morally depraved Brutes. Enemies of the state. A clear and present danger. People who make White Supremacists and racists feel validated in their fears about Black men.
What’s dangerous about the Brute caricature and stereotype is that it dehumanizes black men. When people start seeing real Black men like Adrien Petersen and Ray Rice as Brutes, they stop seeing them as people they can relate to and instead start seeing them as inhuman creatures that are a threat to their safety. Creatures that White and nonblack people can justify killing the same way George Zimmerman felt justified in killing Trayvon Martin.
During Reconstruction and Jim Crow, the Brute caricature was used as propaganda by White Supremacists to justify the lynching of Negro men. To White supremacists back then, killing a Negro man was as justified as killing a wild bear, raccoon or a rabid dog. Negroes were believed to be a clear and present danger to most. And because All Americans didn’t see Negroes as human beings, lynching became entertainment and sport.
So it was okay to kill them and leave them in the street for hours like Michael Brown.
Black folks have to understand that the media we imbibe isn’t just news and it’s not just entertainment. The images we watch and the news we hear is often used as part of a social engineering campaign by White Supremacy to affect the way people think. If the media presents negative images and news over a period of time about Black men, people start believing the images and news as the truth. Over time people start believing Black men are Brutes, violent, savage Black creatures that are a threat that society needs to protect itself from.
Long-term that can lead to people’s perceptions changing about Black men. Men like Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
All of this media can have a tremendous impact on their cases. Instead of potential jurors seeing them as victims of police brutality, they start seeing them as savages who deserved death by white folks afraid for their lives. That perception can lead to the acquittal of the officers who murdered these men.
And it can lead to the murders of more innocent Black men. Murders that will be justified because society won’t see Black men as human beings.
What’s being done to Adrien Petersen and Ray Rice has a direct impact on Black men on the street like Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin. The efforts of White Supremacists to dehumanize these men will eventually trickle down to the brother on the street making life that much harder for him. This is why every Black man must make every effort to call out the media smear campaign in the news and in movies Like No Good Deed. Responsible Black men must make every effort must be made to counter the image of the Black Brute, because if it’s not stopped here and now it can lead to the death of your husband, father, son, nephew or grandson later.