The History of African Americans in Comics

Comic books are a wonderful medium, but the community that surrounds them are going to have some disagreements and controversy especially in the zeitgeist that is 2017. speaking of zeitgeist There have been big ruptures in the gastric fabric that is the internet recently surrounding marvels vice president and the lakes international comic arts festival (UK). around how they handled there public relations. so with no hesitation lets hazard a go at dissecting the issue of minority representation within the comic book industry.

minority representation within the comic book industry has been a problem since its manifestation, only until recently has the issue come to the limelight. to start were going to go back to the inception of racism in modern media starting with black face Minstrel Shows.

"Minstrel show entertainment included imitating black music and dance and speaking in a "plantation" dialect. The shows featured a variety of jokes, songs, dances and skits that were based on the ugliest stereotypes of African American slaves. From 1840 to 1890, minstrel shows were the most popular form of entertainment in America."

a common argument for the gloves being implemented in cartoons i will disclose that it one of the few things not to be influenced by the minstrel show it was due to black coloured hands not showing up in the animation so to show hands and due to the limitations of the medium at the time they gave them gloves show they can emote more witht the hands. as depicted above

the music vidio story of oj by jay-z is a refrence to all of "America’s long history of racist cartoons from Fleischer Studios, Warner Bros., and Disney, among others." to alurt people and remember the dark history of cartoons.

in the book the blacker the ink (wich i recomend reading if your interested in race politics in comics) interestingly enough there stil holds a faction of popular opinion that belive cartoons and comics should keep pot of all political comintary as the medium is "light" and "should not be sullied with politics." (Gateward and Jennings, 2017) the book quotes from Naomi R. Rocklers study of black and white readers. interestingly meny African americans say , that they "rejected the posibility that a comic strip was the apropriate venue for any disscussion of race.- feeling that the form was too insignificant to do the subject of race justice."

the book goes on to disscuss the other end of the scale Truth the black captin america and how the book although showing light on the marganilsation on the black population during ww2 it ultimutly never confrounts the issue of race as captin america is inocent and ignorent of these occourences and cant confrount Isaiah as he is left in a child like sate due to the super soulder sirum. and i quote "the narative satisfyes us that none of this has been captin americas (or our) falt and that we can get back to buisness as usual, namely , marganalising the stories and voices of black charachters and, i would argue, black readers.- it ultimatly succseeds instead in demonstrating the genre's ideological limits."

https://www.facebook.com/WatchSmarterSlate/videos/871462803013123/

not just with african american minorites but women, chinise, japanise, arabic, Jewish, indian, hindu , irish,Pakistani etc area all suseptible to steriotypeing, dicrimination and racism

why do i make this point because we should establish the origins to asses there inpact on modern day culture espesially since modern cartoons, films and comics come from the same home. we sould not ignore its influence as having an open dioluge and disscussion about rasicm sexism all forms of disscrimination should not be considerd tabo

http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v1_1/rifas/print

tabo word of the day

taboo

təˈbuː/

noun

1. 1.

a social or religious custom prohibiting or restricting a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing.

"many taboos have developed around physical exposure"

synonyms:prohibition, proscription, veto, interdiction, interdict, ban, restriction, boycott, non-acceptance, anathema

"the taboo against healing on the sabbath"

Blackface! (2017). Egbert Austin Williams in Burt Williams costume. [image] Available at: http://black-face.com/Bert-Williams.htm [Accessed 20 Oct. 2017].

Walt Disney (1928). Mickey Mouse Steamboat Wille. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxf-UHuGobI [Accessed 20 Oct. 2017].

Building A Building. (1933). [film] Directed by D. Hand. Walt Disney Studios: Walt Disney.

Gateward, F., Jennings, J. Francis,C. (2017). THE BLACKER THE INK constructions of black identity in comics and sequential art. 1st ed. Rutgers: The Sate University, pp.137-139.