Ethnic Notations video

  The video Ethnic Notations--Black People in White Minds was very eye-opening for me.  It discussed all of the different "types" of black people as viewed by white people.  There are so many things to respond to: the laughing, lazy, childish "sambo"; the stupid "zip coon" that was freed from slavery and cannot pronounce anything; the fat, ugly, authoritative "mammy"; the uncivilized "brute" who goes after white women; and the dirty children called the "pickaninny" who were portrayed as alligator food.  All of these depictions showed blacks people as stupid, animalistic people who were better off as slaves. I was especially appalled when the video showed examples of media from the 1940s.   The cartoons that were supposed to be for children depicted blacks very negatively.  They were dancing around spastically to music, barely spoke, and were hit by things.  All of these ingrained racism into the youth's minds by portraying that blacks were the most stupid, uncivilized, and animalistic beings on earth.  They did not even look like humans--it's things like this that planted the seeds of racism into the youth of that time, and the children did not even realize it. The media casually used the n word, and I think that white people accepted all of these prejudices because they were present everywhere. Postcards showed black people with HUGE lips, mouths, and teeth biting into watermelon, and there were many postcards showing alligators ready to eat the "pickaninny."  These further showed that whites thought that blacks were wild and uncivilized.