Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
These are screenshots of the photos that were displayed after I searched “criminal white man” and “criminal black man” on Google images. In the “criminal white man” results, there are only two real criminals: one who wore blackface to disguise himself as a “black robber,” and the other, an older politician who was involved in the Gaza bombings. The remaining images, as you can see, are album covers, men in “criminal” costumes, a staged photo of a hand-cuffed man hugging a woman, Rush Hour 2, a broken plate, pictures of “average-looking” white men, etc. I was not surprised when I found completely different images in the “criminal black man” results. There are mug shots, photos depicting white hate crimes against black men, digitized photos of a black man exercising in a white woman’s presence that are entitled “Fill Your Prisons with Lust for the Criminal Black Man,” photos portraying black males as violent, a photo of an inmate, a news report about Troy Davis, and photos that are referencing the “criminal black male” stereotype.
The images portrayed in the “criminal black man” search are examples of how the media has created a “myth of the criminalblackman,” a term coined by sociology professor Kathryn Russell-Brown. In her book, The Color of Crime, Russell-Brown discusses how the media has shaped society’s perception of black men as criminals, resulting in society’s preservation of this racialized stigma: “the onslaught of criminal images of Black men, causes many of us to incorrectly conclude that most Black men are criminals” (3). As a result, “the person most people fear is a young, Black man” (3). When thinking about this stereotype, fear, for many people, causes them to overlook the implications it has for black men. To make people aware of these effects, Russell-Brown interviews young black men from the University of Maryland. When she asks, “How do whites respond to you in public?” (8), they explain how whites are afraid of them, and because of this, they have “difficulty getting directions from a stranger, hearing the click of automatic car locks as you walk or drive by, being stopped by the police, being followed in a store, and being asked about crime” (8). Because these persistent images have been so overpowering in the media, they have become “normalized,” and the effects of these images imply that black men are confronted with these “images” daily, which, for them, have become “normalized” encounters.
In their article, “Racism and Popular Culture,” Dirks and Mueller explain that the problem with the media’s ability to make people believe they “know” people of color, is that, “for people who have very little real, interpersonal experience with individuals from these groups, they can believe in an assentialist vision composed of every stereotype and myth promoted” (127). In other words, this fear has not evolved from personal interactions with people of color, it has resulted from the media’s promotion of stereotypes and myths, which, as exemplified in this Google image search, have been “normalized” and inscribed in our minds . As you can see, this myth of the criminalblackman has made it so we can hardly find an image associating a white man with criminality.
This Google image search clearly shows what images we directly associate with a “white criminal” and a “black criminal”. Before looking at the photos, I noticed that there were significantly more images of “criminal black men” (43,600,000) than there were “criminal white men” (43,100,000)—these numbers reveal how it is “easier” to associate an image with a black criminal than a white criminal. The images of “criminal white men,” or lack thereof, prove how it is difficult for society to imagine a white man as a criminal. The one image presented of the “criminal white man” was a photo of him wearing blackface—a disguise reflecting even white criminals’ beliefs in linking black men to criminality. This reminds me of a quote from Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, where she explains the implications of discussing whites as criminals:
Say the following to nearly anyone and watch the reaction: “we really need to do something about the problem of white crime.” Laughter is likely a response…Because the term white crime lacks social meaning, the term white criminal is also perplexing. In that formulation, white seems to qualify the term criminal—as if to say, “he’s a criminal but not that kind of criminal.” Or, he’s not a real criminal—i.e., not what we mean by criminal today…Whiteness mitigates the crime, whereas blackness defines the criminal (193).
This example reiterates society’s racialization of the word “criminal.” In my search of the “criminal black man,” obvious racialized images were portrayed: mug shots defining black men as criminals; white hate crimes depicting evident racism and dominance over blacks; black men simultaneously being hypersexualized and criminalized; black men with knives and guns to label them as violent; and images regarding the stereotype of the “criminalblackman” showing the recognition and acceptance of this label. The differences in the results show how much the media really has influenced society’s ideas about criminals. Although the media doesn’t explicitly present racist images, I am wondering how the image of the “criminalblackman” today is any different than the image of the “animalistic brute” presented in the early 1900’s? Aren’t these repeated images enough to suggest the media’s implicit racial bias? Many believe that we have “overcome” racism with President Obama’s election, without realizing how prevalent, although hidden, racism is in our society today. That is the main problem – how do we get those who don’t have the privilege to critically analyze racism, like we are doing in this class, to recognize that the media is racialized and that it should not be “normal” for black men to frequently undergo the effects of these images?