Image + Film – Page 3 – The Black 90s

love jones: Showcasing Black Love

While the early 1990s offered iconic hood films such as Boyz n the Hood (1991) and Menace II Society (1993), love jones (1997) offered something rarely seen in mainstream film—black love. The film is not a comedy. Not infused with hip hop. Love is examined, revered, and resented—but it is not minimalized. Furthermore, it offers unapologetic black sexuality shown with beauty and whit.

Roger Ebert’s opening to his film review highlights the unfortunate rarity of a film showcasing educated, middle class blacks. He explains, the film is “a love story set in the world of Chicago’s middle-class black artists and professionals–which is to say, it shows a world more unfamiliar to moviegoers than the far side of the moon.”[i] Although American television watchers received a glimpse of the black middle class with The Cosby Show (1984-1992), it was a comedy.

Furthermore, Cosby could offer the loving image of the Huxtable marriage, but the limits of the medium of television and family sitcom model prevent it from exploring black sexuality. There are limits to a love story that cannot show sex. Sex is a natural part of love. The film offers tasteful love scenes. It presents images of black sexuality that not only appear normal—but beautiful.

While most hood films centered on stark realism and nihilism, love jones offered symbolism and romance. Writer and director Theodore Witcher did this purposefully. He wanted to give the feel of “a modern Chicago version of the Harlem Renaissance.”[ii] He even distributed books about Renaissance artists such as Romare Bearden to the cast and crew.[iii]

It’s not difficult to see the influence of romanticized visions of 1920s salons with writers and artists debating esoteric topics. But how else do you create a platform to simply discuss love? Throughout the film, characters talk about the meaning of love. It is how we are introduced to Tate’s character Darius as he sits around with his friends in the Sanctuary (a spoken word venue) debating the meaning of love; Darius paints a metaphor of hope and possibility. Soon after he offers a sensual version of love in the spoken word piece “A Blues for Nina.” We also watch Darius and his only married friend Savon discuss the struggle to stay in love.

Ironically both Nia Long and Larenz Tate had major roles in the two iconic hood films mentioned earlier. Nia Long played Brandi, the love interest of the main character in Boyz n the Hood. Moreover, Tate played the infamous killer O-Dog in Menace II Society. Tate’s performance was so convincing that Witcher had to meet Tate in person to see the difference between the gangsta character and the actor.

And love jones continues to have an impact. Tate explains, “‘I get stopped at the airport by young folks telling me how much they love the movie and the actors and the music…It’s a one-of-a-kind film. And it’s still relevant. It’s about falling in love, and we’ve all done that…It’s not about people getting killed, just about people. Love is a universal story, Black or White.”[iv] —Ebony Gibson

[i] Ebert, Roger. “Love Jones.” Rogerebert.com. March 14 1997.

[ii] Ebert

[iii] Poulson-Bryant, Scott. “Jonesing for Love Jones.” Ebony (October 2010): 100.

[iv] Poulson-Bryant, page 99.

The Black Imagination and Possibility: Afrofuturist Aesthetics in the 90s and Beyond

What better cultural and theoretical aesthetic to interrogate the interplay of black cultural life in the 90s, the present, and beyond than Afrofuturism? The term refers to a broad aesthetic form that employs technology and various artistic forms (it combines elements of science fiction, fantasy, history, magical realism, and Afrocentrism) to link a historical African past with an imagined black diasporic future.

Attempts by black artists to explore diasporic identity, to reconcile the past with the present, and subsequently envision a future where black is situated as subject, are not new. However, this phenomenon was dubbed “Afrofuturism” in 1994 when Mark Dery, a cultural critic and early writer on techno culture, examined recurring features and themes in African American science fiction, music, and art. In his essay “Black to the Future,” as part of an anthology called Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture, Dery interviews writers, such as Samuel R. Delany, Greg Tate, and Tricia Rose, in an attempt to explore concerns raised by African Americans writers in the science fiction genre. In the essay, he writes:

Speculative fiction that treats African American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of the twentieth-century counterculture–and, more generally, African-American signification that appropriates images of technology and a prosthetically enhanced future–might, for want of a better term, be called ‘Afrofuturism.’

His coinage and definition of Afrofuturism directly relates to science fiction tropes. However, scholars, like Alondra Nelson, Greg Tate, and Tricia Rose (among many others), note that the term encompasses varied art forms and genres, as they relate to black culture and its African retentions.

Important to note is that Dery merely assigned a name to this aesthetic; the form itself has been practiced in black diasporic art for years. There is general sense that the features that comprise an Afrofuturist aesthetic are embedded in black cultural DNA; for they hark in every way to a diasporic identity. In an interview, Alondra Nelson, a social scientist who writes on intersectionality of science, technology, medicine, and inequality, says of the term that it “captured what we’d always known about black culture, but it gave us something to call it, to name it…It gives us a tradition and a legacy, where all the pieces sort of fit together.”

Meteor_Man

Dery’s article is comprised of commentary from Delany, Tate, and Rose, and these three construct the framework of what we know to be Afrofuturism today. Earlier than that, however, Mark Sinker and Greg Tate were generating conversations about black science fiction and its connection to techno culture and music, among others. In 1992, Sinker published an essay, “Loving the Alien” in The New Inquiry, in which he equates historical slavery with alien abduction as represented in literature. Tate wrote a review of David Toop’s Rap Attack called “Yo! Hermeneutics!”, which highlights a science fiction sensibility in black music. According to Nelson, Afrofuturist art, no matter the medium, is imbued with futuristic themes and capitalizes off technological innovation. In the fall of 1998, then a graduate student at NYU, Alondra Nelson and artist Paul D. Miller established an on-line Afrofuturism listserv, and launched Afrofuturism.net in 2000. Both sites were dedicated to science fictions and discussed how the genre addresses a “past of abduction, displacement and alien-nation” and inspires “technical and creative innovations.” Also, in September of 1999, Nelson organized an Afrofuturism forum at NYU, which dedicated conversation to the “future of black production.”

There is no singular definition of Afrofuturism; the aesthetic is as varied and fluid as the cultural identities it explores. To this day, the aesthetic comprises an array of media forms, including, but not limited to, textual, visual, and aural arts. However, at the heart of this aesthetic form lie some artistic and cultural product that 1. examines the past, 2. critiques the present, and 3. “imagines possible futures.” Many works by Afrofuturist artists, in some way, blend elements of the past with the future to assert opinions on sociopolitical and cultural issues concerning black people. With regards to literature, these opinions usually manifest in the dystopian genre. For example, Octavia Butler’s “The Parable Series” (1993-1998), interrogates notions of racial and gender identity in the 2020s. Her depiction of a futuristic society, depraved and plagued by an exacting, ever-widening gap between the rich and poor easily resembles a not-so-far-distant past, and perhaps even the present. Butler, among other black sci-fi writers, also often re articulated traditional African religion and customs in the futuristic contexts of her novels.

Undoubtedly, an Afrofuturistic aesthetic pervades black culture in the 90s. Primarily the music is informed by futuristic sensibilities. Scholars, like Tricia Rose, pointed out how this manifested in the form of technology and sound reproduction. In an interview with Mark Dery, she says, “Digital music technology—samplers, sequencers, drum machines— are themselves cultural objects, and as such the carry cultural ideas.” Musicians, while utilizing aural mechanisms to revamp sound, also incorporated Afrofuturist themes in a visual and lyrical context. Outkast, for example, definitely falls within this extensive lineage of Afrofuturist artists with the albums ATLiens (1996) and Aquemini (1998). Both albums pushed the bounds of production with extraterrestrial sounds and existential, imaginative lyrics.

Afrofuturist elements can even be found in Erykah Badu’s video for “Didn’t Cha Know” as it alludes to a liminal space where the subject wanders, simultaneously reaching into the past (allusions to Africa, Kimetics, and Egyptology) and looking towards an uncertain, yet hopeful future. This musical lineage extends even further back, however, to artists, such as George Clinton and Sun Ra, and groups like PFunk, who melded their historically informed visions of the future with jazz and funk sounds. More discussion on the emergence of Afrofuturist aesthetics in science fiction and popular music pre-1990s and 21st-century can be found in John Akomfrah’s 1996 documentary “Last Angel of History.”

Undoubtedly, Afrofuturist themes pervade most areas of black culture today, perhaps more so than it ever has. Its prevalence is evident from the music of Janelle Monae and Flying Lotus, to the novels of Nnedi Okorafo and Tananarive Due, to the visual and performing arts of Adejoke Tugbiyele and OluShola A. Cole. That its popularity is growing makes sense, since we are still ironing out methods of reclaiming culture, reinventing tradition, and redefining notions of blackness. The questions posed and pondered, even before the advent of Afrofuturism as a theoretical perspective, still remain: How do black people imagine a better future for black people? What does that future look like? And, how do we get there? —Keith Freeman

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Works Cited

Dery, Mark. “Black to the Future: Interviews with Samuel R. Delany, Greg Tate, And Tricia Rose.” Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture . Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994. 179-222. Print.

Nelson, Alondra. “Introduction: Future Texts.” Social Text. 20.2 (2002): 1-15. Web. 10 November 2015.

Soho Rep. “Afrofuturism.” Online video clip. YouTube. Youtube, 22 Apr. 2006. Web. 05 November 2015.

Representations of Black Gay Men in “Paris is Burning” & “Tongues Untied”

Both “Paris is Burning” (1990), a documentary film by Jennie Livingston, and “Tongues Untied” (1989), a semi-autobiographical docufilm by Marlon Riggs explore the communities of transgender and gay people of color and its members’ efforts to reconcile racial and sexual identities.

Both films are groundbreaking in their portrayal of the difficulty of exploring various identities while living under the scrutiny of white, patriarchal society. Via the pageantry and pomp of the drag and ballroom scene in New York in the 80s and 90s, “Paris is Burning” explores gay Black, Latino, and transgender communities, as its members confront issues of race, gender, and sexuality. In interviews, often melancholic, the documentary participants (i.e. Pepper Labeija, Dorian Corey, & Angie Xtravaganza) often profoundly muse on lives plagued by familial, romantic, and societal rejection based on their sexuality.

Each speaks candidly about homelessness and ostracization, and how ballroom scenes offered places of refuge, kinship, and security. They too admit how
such arenas allowed them to escape realities and act out desires to attain a more affluent, Eurocentric standard of living. “Paris is Burning” has been legitimately critiqued for being more exploitative than politically challenging. Albeit a valid point, the film retains some cultural value.

“Tongues Untied” melds Tongues-untied narrative accounts via its director, Marlon Riggs, with fictional vignettes and interpretive poetry that represent a collective yet varied and mutable black, gay identity. The docufilm focuses primarily on gay black men (e.g. Essex Hemphill, Joseph Beam, Craig Harris and Riggs himself) , who also openly and unapologetically confront the ugly heads of racism and homophobia. Scenes of clips from homophobic stand up routines (e.g. by Eddie Murphy) and of the Civil Rights Movements serve to combat negative stereotypes and link the struggles of black, gay men with an historical legacy of resistance. Undoubtedly, “Tongues Untied” is focused and political in its thrust, arguably more so than “Paris is Burning.” Unlike Livingston, Riggs chooses not only to depict men stymied under the weight of white supremacy, but also takes the system to task, illustrating instances of fierce opposition. One such oppositional method is the refutation of silence preluded by the film’s title. Riggs directly challenges this inclination towards silence, not in a way that begets shame (he focuses his critique on a society that promotes and demands speechlessness), but rather one that privileges the power of black, gay men’s voices. Undoubtedly, herein lies the revolutionary mark of “Tongues Untied.”

Many comparisons have and continue to be drawn between the two films, with respect to representation of gay and transgender communities. bell hooks’ commentaries on the “gaze” and “subjectivity” are good entry points to discuss this issue. Interestingly, hooks discusses “Paris is Burning” in her book Black Looks: Race and Representation. She writes,

“(…) Jennie Livingston approaches her subject matter as an outsider looking in. Since her presence as a white/lesbian filmmaker is “absent” from Paris Is Burning, it is easy for viewers to imagine that they are watching an ethnographic film documenting the life of black gay “natives” and not recognize that they are watching a work shaped and formed by a standpoint and perspective specific to Livingston.”

Livingston, albeit a lesbian woman, operates from a place of privilege as a white woman. And, her racial and social status, though it should not discredit her or deem her incapable of exploring a culture outside her own, should call into question intent and the adequacy of her representation. Yes, Livingston sought to give voice to a particular community. However, her method becomes problematic considering it does not allow “subjects” to negotiate the terms of their own representation. They speak on their experiences and struggles, joys and pains, yes. However, they relinquish substantial ownership over the telling of their stories. Thus, they do not even retain any centrality in the work as it were. That these men and trans women fell back into relative obscurity post-film further elucidates the reality of their marginalization.

On the other hand, Riggs intentionally positions black, gay men centrally in “Tongues Untied.” Worthy of consideration is the holistic picture presented by Riggs and his cohort. Inherent in the film is a clear beginning, a journey that ebbs-and-flows, and an ending that is not altogether complete, but unmistakably hopeful. In the end, Riggs, having reflected on intense pain and internal conflict, remarks, “Whatever awaits me, this much I know: I was blind to my brother’s beauty, and now I see my own.” Unlike “Tongues Untied”, “Paris is Burning” is more fragmented, and the totality of experiences of gay men of color goes unaddressed. That TU is both created for and composed by black men undergirds and reaffirms its closing remark, “Black men loving black men is the revolutionary act.” —Keith Freeman

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Works Cited

hooks, bell. “Is Paris Burning?” Black Looks: Race and Representation. New York, NY: South End Press, 1992. 145-156. Print.

Paris is Burning. Dir. Jennie Livingston, 1990. Film.

Tongues Untied. Dir. Marlon Riggs, 1989. Film.

Niggas, Bitches, and Hoes: The Linguistics of a Decade

Nigga…bitch…hoe…Offensive language or terms of endearment? Boyz N the Hood, NWA, Terry McMillan, and other prominent black artists, directors, and authors in the 90s often used these terms interchangeably to refer to women and men. The use of these terms bring up one debate that continues to persist today: The words “nigga,” drop the –er and replace with an –a, “bitch/hoe” are not as offensive as they used to be. They are now words that black people can use to show camaraderie.

“Nigger” has a complex and touchy history in the United States. “Negro” evolved into “nigger” and became a racial slur white people used to refer to blacks. White people who used this word did not mean to express love for blacks, rather it was meant to degrade and dehumanize. However black people have retained the word, even altering its spelling in order to express brotherhood, which was commonly seen in hip-hop culture. The film Boyz in the Hood perfectly illustrates how the word was used. Main characters Tre, Doughboy, and Ricky do not hesitate to call each other or others “niggas” and no one is shocked, offended, or outraged by its use.

But does the glamorized use of the word diminish the emergence of black consciousness? Bruce Jacobs says in his book Black Manners: Navigating the Minefield between Black and White Americans that the use of “nigga” is an act of defiance, a way to destroy yourself before white people could. He goes on to say, “The 1980s and early 90s defiant use of nigga as self-reference by young black people captured, more than any other act, the desperate dilemma of black identity: self-hatred coupled with a stubborn resolve for self-determination. To proclaim oneself a nigga was to declare to the disapproving mainstream, ‘You can’t fire me. I quit’” (12).[i] One could surmise that a new consciousness is born out of the word’s harsh history. Reshaping the abusive term “nigger” to “nigga” serves as a way to reconcile the past and a way to create a new identity, one we’ve created instead of one that has been force fed to an entire population.

“Bitch, you crazy.” “That bitch is fine.” “That hoe didn’t call me back.” Although they are slightly less controversial than “nigga”, “bitch” and “hoe” are terms that were widely used in the 90s and today. The terms mean different things depending on how they are used. For instance, in Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale, the main (female) characters refer to each other as “bitch” or “hoe” in jovial ways. On the other hand, when someone wants to disrespect another woman or even a man, both terms are used.

“Bitch” and “hoe” do not carry the same history as “nigga,” but all three serve as an example of the evolution of language. As a child my father often told me to never let anyone call me outside of my name (i.e. calling me a “bitch”) and I did not. Yet as time goes on, all three words roll off the tongue a little easier. The article “The Evolution of the Word “Bitch”: Sexist Slight or Empowering Expression?” states: The early 1990s, third wave feminism was born out of a need to address movements and activism of second wave feminism. Third wave feminism is known for its agenda including reproductive rights, social class, race, sexuality, “girl power,” “the glass ceiling” and the reclaiming of derogatory words. Words that they aimed to reclaim, that is “take back” and give new meaning to, included bitch, cunt, whore and spinster. The 90’s are looked back upon in history as a time of “girl power.” (Sassy Notations) [ii]

Whether for women, blacks, or both, taking back and renaming are common themes in the 90s. The basic premise on the use of “nigga,” “bitch,” and “hoe” were embraced to create new meanings and new consciousness.

It is safe to say that not everyone is using “nigga,” “bitch,” or “hoe” in the 90s were trying to create a new identity, and the reclaiming of these terms do not erase the sting that many people still feel when they hear them. Yet reclaiming and renaming provides some context for the emergence of the terms’ popularity. They were meant to add to black consciousness, not diminish it. However, I can’t help but wonder: does the continued use of “nigga,” “bitch,” and “hoe” today carry on the black consciousness of the 90s or do the reasons no longer add up?

The debate continues. —B. Stewart

[i] Jacobs, Bruce A. Race Manners: Navigating the Minefield between Black and White Americans. New York: Arcade Pub., 1999. Print.

[ii] Murphy, Kristi. “The Evolution of the Word.” Sassy Notions. WordPress.com, 01 Nov. 2009. Web. 21 Nov. 2015.

Do your pants hang low?

So it is my first day of 7th grade (1997) and I am trying to figure out the best “fit” to wear. In the hopes of being cool, I decided that my “code” (dress code) needed to be different than it was the previous year. This year, I have decided to sagg like the rest of my male counterparts. I look through my closet and ensure that the jeans that I pick, will be just as big and as baggy in order to ensure they sagg just right. I accompany my jeans with my polo shirt, and timbs (timberlands), and proceeded out the door. Right before my foot hit the pavement, my grandmother yells “bring yo red ass back into dis house and pull up dem damn pants. No Grandson of mine is going to be owt there in da streets lookin like a fool wit does damn paints down under their ass”. Just to appease her, I rushed back into my room and temporarily pull up and restrain my paints with a belt. With my freedom being obtained through compliance, I escape her grasp and make my way to the bus stop. Before I hit the corner, I quickly adjust my “altered” appearance to its original stance and proceeded on my way. Things were going good and I finally felt “accepted” by my male counterparts and then…..it happened…someone ruined my moment by coming behind me and pulling my pants down to the ground and thus exposed my boxers. When I turned around to “check” whom had did it, I discovered that it was indeed my mother, cussing me out for having my pants so low. “If you wanted to show yo ass, then you shouldn’t mine me pulling them down all the way so that they can see everything”. Though this was the most embarrassing day of my life, it made me not want to ever sagg again because of the fear that my mother may be close by.

When I was a little order, I learned that the phenomenon was once a unspoken signal that denotes sexual availability by inmates in prison, but has been converted into an urban fashion statement. The 90s enlisted the perception that doing it promotes a statement of “hoodness” and the more fly you sag, the “more bitches” you get supposedly. African American youth have once again adopted something else that started out so negative and ushered it into popular urban culture. Youth try so hard to emulate the famous, while the famous try to emulate their muse. In the African American Community, rappers try to emulate thugs. Thugs are housed in the jails and therefore, sagging has and will continue to thrive.

You attend an HBCU? What is that?!

Unlike any other decade, the 1990s saw an influx of African Americans in pursuit of a higher education beyond the walls of their local High School. While many African Americans found it easier to enroll at a local colleges and universities, others (either forced or desired) to attend an historic black college and university. Parents of entering freshman, took pride in sending their children to HBCUs, once established to educate African Americans in a time where other white institutions wouldn’t. Once students arrived to the HBCU, educators and staff (whom were possible alums of that or other HBCUs) instilled a since of pride and understanding to their students about their “new home”. HBCUs in the 90s were a small knit family of their own and provided a since of community in a time where racial profiling and racism was dominant within the United States. But where does this since of pride come from and why is it important?

When African Americans were freed from slavery, many desired the opportunity to obtain a degree along side their white counterparts. In an attempt to deter their educational efforts, African Americans were initially not allowed to attend public/predominately white institutions in their surrounding areas. This inspired African Americans “to find a way or make one” by establishing their own institutions in order to service their communities. Many institutions were founded and even sometimes funded by religious institutions such as churches, while others received funding from individuals against collegiate segregation. When segregation was defeated at the collegiate level, and students were finally allowed the opportunity to attend wherever they choose, many abandoned “the traditions”, in hopes of getting a more “streamlined” and “respected” education, while others kept the tradition alive.

Having the opportunity to have attended both, I now have a unique perspective. Though I am grateful for having the opportunity of attending a PWI (Public White Institution) for undergrad, I am eternal grateful and have inherited a since of pride to have attended the FIRST Graduate institution for African Americans, The Clark Atlanta University. The relationships established at CAU are like no other from a communal experience to even a Greek/fraternal experience. HBCU life forms everlasting bonds between its students, teachers and administrators which are sometimes absent at PWIs. At the University of Central Florida, I felt as if I was a number, at CAU, I feel like I am a member of a family. Not saying that all professors at PWIs are like this, but I can’t begin to count on one hand how many professors have made an impact on my academic career at CAU.

What is love?

With the 1990’s ushering in the era of “hood” films, African Americans finally received an opportunity to tell their stories the way they lived it. Many saw this as an achievement, while others saw it as a misrepresentation of the race, by exploiting our issues. One of these areas heavily depicted was “love and relationships”, with many critics suggesting the exploitation of African American women. Films such as “Boys n da Hood” and “Don’t be a Menace”, not only came from the African American male’s perspective, but exhibited women as “bitches”, “hoes” and objects of sexual desire. Beyond the Nefertiti emblems, tight jeans, cut off shirts, updos and long braids, African American women demanded that they be portrayed not only as sexy, but as strong and independent.

With the “strong black women’s” movement of the 90s heavily underway, several films attempted to earn their respect by depicting the “female perspective” of daily life in the hood. Many film critics credit the rawness of John Singleton’s film “Poetic Justice”, as being the most representative of the African America female perspective. Many women could relate to how Justice had to cope with losing her boyfriend to the violence of the streets, her battle with depression and her ability to find love again.

So what was love like for African American men and women during the 1990’s? My response, is “hard and dangerous”! Films such as “Poetic Justice” provided audiences an accurate perspective of why love was harder to obtain from a women’s perspective. At a time when African American men were dying at the hands of gang violence and street life, African American women had to become hard, emotionless and even sometimes heartless in order to protect themselves. Love and the desire of relationships was a fairy-tale and even seen overall as a weakness to African American women. Unlike the present, where the requirements have become relaxed, African American women had to safeguard their hearts and block out the emotions in order to be successful and even survive. And for the men that did have hope, they either had to combat the pain and insecurities that were inherited by previous relationships, or had to be taught how to love.

The Reign of the Black Family on T.V.

The Cosby Show premiered in 1984 on NBC and quickly became a staple in television history. The show featured comedian Bill Cosby and based a lot of its episodes on Cosby’s personal life. Although the show, a sitcom featuring the Huxtable family, a prominent black family living in Brooklyn, New York, reached its end in 1992, it influenced not only television, but also the view of the black family in the 90s. Millions of people looked up to Cliff and Clair Huxtable. This fictional family was the epitome of black success. The Huxtables had respectable professions (obstetrician and lawyer) and reared five obedient, for the most part, children. The show portrayed a view of the black family that was rarely seen on T.V., an entirely positive aesthetic.

TV Guide said the show “was TV’s biggest hit in the 1980s and almost single-handedly revived the sitcom genre.”[i] No truer words were spoken. The Cosby Show broke the mold and went on to spawn other popular black family sitcoms in the 90s such as, Family Matters and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Both sitcoms featured loveable characters like Steve Urkle and Will Smith, but they also carried on the model of The Cosby Show. The families were middle to upper-middle class professionals, and the children had their faults, yet were, for the most part, model young adults. The children made mistakes, but learned from them. Both The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Family Matters proved to be positive influences of the black family in the 90s. The era of black consciousness made its mark on more than film, music, and literature. It permeated into mainstream television, too.

The New York Times credits The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with putting rap on the map and reinforcing the themes in raps’ biggest songs of the 90s in a different way. “We will start to deal with some of the same things as N.W. A., Public Enemy, Ice Cube, and artists with a much more radical way of communicating their life style. But we’ll do it Will’s way, rather than in their language.”[ii] The show addressed issues that plagued the black community, such as racial profiling and vigilante justice. Audiences were entertained by Carlton’s naiveté, Hiliary’s spending habits, and Will’s jokes, but they were also enlightened. The world could look on and experience the era of black consciousness in an unassuming way.

The Big 3 of Black sitcoms opened the door for black families on television, and the 90s saw an explosion of representation of black families. Shows like Hanging with Mr. Cooper, Moesha, and Smart Guy featured families that weren’t technically nuclear. Hanging with Mr. Cooper and Smart Guy featured families with single parents raising children to the best of their abilities with the help of the community around them. Though the titular Mr. Cooper had no children, he acted as a father figure and friend to Nicole, the child of single mother, Georgia, and other kids in the neighborhood. Moesha and Smart Guy dealt the life after the death the family matriarch, and life after such a tragedy. These sitcoms presented different configurations of the Black family that were still positive and uplifting.

However, after The Cosby Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Family Matter in 1998, the picture of the black family in America diminished. Television has evolved. Shows like Empire, Love and Hip Hop, Basketball Ball Wives, and The Real Housewives of (insert city) are the portrayals of black family seen today. The black family is seriously misrepresented. It is broken and dysfunctional at best. Black women on TV are unmarried and can’t find a man, and the men are untrustworthy players with multiple children. People can argue that “families” such as this exist in America, yet it’s not all that exists so it’s not all that should be portrayed (or the majority of what is portrayed). So what happened to empowering black women? Black men? Black children? The black family? Where’s the sense of black consciousness that infected the 90s? The Fresh Prince was raised by a single mother and barely knew his father, but he had a support system and family in uncle Phil, aunt Vivian, and his cousins. The show exposed the bad, but showed there can be good too.

With the black family’s downfall came the demise of the view of the ultimate black patriarch, Bill Cosby. Since 2000, Bill Cosby has faced sexual assault and abuse, rape, and drug allegations from over fifty women that he encountered before and during the pinnacle of his career. These allegations have rocked the black community and torn people apart, supporters and now naysayers of Cosby. During The Cosby Show’s reign, no one would have conceived that Bill Cosby, Mr. Huxtable, loveable father and doting husband would fall from grace. Yet, he has. No matter what one chooses to believe about him, he has fallen, hard. The beginning of Cosby’s assault allegations coincides with the end of the black family on TV.

The end of an era.

Symbolic or coincidental?

Both. ––B. Stewart

[i] “The Cosby Show.” TVGuide.com. CBS Interactive, Inc., 2015. Web. 28 Nov. 2015.

[ii] Rohter, Larry. “‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ Puts Rap in Mainstream.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 16 Sept. 1990. Web. 28 Nov. 2015.

Gang Wars and Peace Truces in Early 90s Media: From NY and LA to Little Rock

“What’s crackin cuz?”

“What’s poppin blood?”

Depending on your location, situation, and ability to understand gang-related terminology, your answer to these questions could determine if you lived or died on certain streets in the 1990s. During that decade, a language that many outsiders interpreted as young urban slang came to signify real insider knowledge, especially at a time when urban youth increasingly defined themselves by street cred, street cred by street violence, and street violence by gang violence, which in turn, became mass mediated gang wars.

From Los Angeles to Little Rock, gang activity experienced a surge across the United States in the early 1990s. This is particularly true of the Southern region. According to a 2010 government History of Street Gangs in the United States, “the southern region led the nation in the number of new gang cities, a 32 percent increase” from the 1970s through the 1990s. By 1998, the South had more states reporting gang problems than any other region in the nation. In fact at the time, this made the South look like it was catching up with the West, Midwest, and Northeast in terms of gang activity.

One HBO documentary from 1994 attempted to capture this spike in southern gang activity as it was felt in Little Rock, Arkansas, of all places. Director Mark Levin’s footage of Hoover Folk, Crip, and Blood gang member initiation rituals, ceremonies, and their groups’ deadly impact on children in a small city shocked the nation. Levin tracked this impact by following Steve Nawojczyk, the Pulaski County coroner at the time (and still-active community leader for inner city youth), to portray a sad state of affairs for Little Rock, and by extension, a narrative of decline for small cities in the South that were similarly affected by gang violence.

What’s interesting about this documentary is how it leads with a largely white, racially and sexually integrated set of Chicago’s Hoover Folk, showing its teenage members sitting in public parks around Little Rock, listening and singing along to Tupac, while later “beating in” a young woman who wants to be initiated. The priorities laid out in this sequence of events are clear: young white kids are being influenced by rap music, and they’re doing violence to one of their white female peers.

This sequence follows a familiar pattern, one well-known among the American black community—a pattern where young white kids are portrayed in the media as being corrupted by the influence of black American communities where “all the trouble started.” The documentary participates in this narrative by telling the story of a slightly older black men who came up in the Crip and Blood scene of Los Angeles, but later moved to Little Rock in the 1980s, where the documentary suggests the man becomes a major kingpin of that city’s 1990s gang scene.

Gang War: Bangin’ in Little Rock is unique in its mass mediated portrayal of gang violence affecting white urban youth in a small city, but its subtle portrayal of the American black community as the root of such violence is all-too-familiar. Throughout the early 1990s, movies, television, music and documentaries engaged in a systemic pattern of portraying gang-related crime, gang violence, and gang wars in ways that made that violence look peculiar to American black communities, especially black youth in the inner cities of Los Angeles and New York City. We can see such depictions most readily in movies like Boyz in the Hood (1991) and New Jack City (1991), which show young black men struggling to survive gang violence within their predominantly black neighborhoods in Los Angeles and New York City, respectively.

Then on television and again in 1991, national and international audiences witnessed the initial filming and eventual fallout from the Rodney King beatings in the form of the LA Uprising, whose television news coverage repeated the same systemic pattern of negatively portraying black communities as hotbeds of criminal and gang-related activity. Filtered through an implicit bias about violence on the West Coast—which we also see iterated in the Little Rock documentary when Levin focuses on the city’s supposed kingpin from LA—this event took place in Los Angeles, where the violent video images of white LAPD officers viciously beating the young black King within an inch of his life were broadcast and looped on national news networks for over a year between 1991 and 1992.

Perhaps one day, we will regard this “beat-in” as the horrific act of gang violence it actually was.

But what isn’t often remembered in mainstream accounts of the LA Uprising (an event formerly called the “LA Riots”), which directly followed the acquittal of the white LAPD officers who beat Rodney King, is that it was directly preceded by the Watts Truce between Crip and Blood gangs in 1992. Gangs such as the Crips and Bloods had been around for your years before the decision to call the 1992 truce, and issues of police brutality and racism was not the only thing that led to the truce. Active and non-active gang members on both side had realized how much destruction they had caused on their own neighborhoods. For a short period of time, there seemed to be some end to the madness that was brewing between two rival gangs. Entertainers such as Snoop Dogg and football legend Jim Brown were both vocal about keeping the peace. Here, we see black entertainers (mostly rappers and activists), highlight the possibilities of representing black people in a more positive light.

And yet just days after this small armistice and positive media coverage, the LA Riots, or what many now consider the LA Uprising, began after the white police officers who beat Rodney King were acquitted of their crimes. From television news coverage of looting to beatings in the street, the Uprising had people around the nation tuned into the their TVs to see what was going on in LA. And although Watts Truce was still fresh, there was resurgence of violence between the groups because of the LA Riots. Both gangs used the time of chaos to attack each other which ultimately destroyed what many had hoped would end the violence between the two.

However, while short-lived and a little too early, the Watts Truce sent a powerful message, not only to white Americans, but also to black Americans, that change was possible if mortal enemies united against much larger common enemies, such as police brutality and racist media coverage. In Black Looks (1994), bell hooks explains why such racially biased mediations exist by calling attention to their (mostly white) American mainstream audience, which has an implicit, complicit, perverse, and voyeuristic desire to observe representations of black men’s bodies being assaulted by “white racist violence, black on black violence, the violence of overwork, and the violence of addiction and disease” (34). Indeed, it should come as little surprise that both movies and television—two forms of media that are most often made with that mainstream, mostly white audience at the time—reinforce these stereotypes.

So from New York to LA to Little Rock, the 90s were a unique period in the history of representation of black culture in the United States. Indeed, the LA gang peace treaty and the LA Uprising were critical events in that history: one that, if we listen only to 90s media, is simply a story of gang wars and occasional peace treaties that largely affected African American communities. However, if we listen more closely, particularly to the voices of those communities, we might, sometime in the future, begin to hear how to avoid repeating mistakes of the past.

One of those voices comes from West Coast rapper Kam, who might have said it best in his 1993 song “Peace Treaty.”

— Andy Reid and Joshua Ryan Jackson

Works Cited

hooks, bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. South End P, 1992.

Boyz N the Hood

“Either they don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care about what’s going on in the hood” were the words spoken by the young black-male character named “Doughboy” in the 1991 John Singleton directed movie entitled Boyz N the Hood. Although Doughboy was referring to the nonexistent news coverage of the murder of brother “Ricky”, his words spoke to an entire Los Angeles culture that filled was filled sex, drugs, gang violence, and police brutality. Director John Singleton is able to capture a very unique time in history as it relates to black 90s culture and he is also able to bring the world into the everyday life of a young black male growing up in the streets of South Central, LA. The theme of Boyz N the Hood is able to be presented through the eyes of the main character “Tre Styles” and this particular movie is able to be deemed a “hood classic” by its viewers.

The year 1991 was a very critical year as it relates to race relations in the United States. Racial tensions in 1991 rose to high levels after the brutal beating of Rodney King by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). This particular incident was able to spark serious conversations surrounding race in America. From “political” rap to “hood” films the issues of Rodney King and the LAPD were addressed. The film was able to put numerous stereotypes on display while at the same time having a message for the viewer. In a time when the world had its eye on Los Angeles, Boyz N the Hood was able to take advantage of that while the world was watching.
Throughout the film, there are a number of memorable moments that showcase black love, black families, and black violence. Each scene is able to incorporate one of these particular elements and tie it back to the overall theme of black culture in the 90s. One of the most heart wrenching scenes from the film is when the character Ricky is murder by what appears to be members of the California-created gang “The Bloods”. Being murdered on the same day his above average SAT scores came in the mail, Ricky represents the good kid that played football, but is still not exempt from the everyday struggle of the “hood”. On one hand John Singleton is able to show that even the hood cries after Ricky’s death, but he is also able to showcase the numbness of death and that retaliation is mandatory. By allowing one of the “positive” characters to die in the film, Singleton promotes the idea that bullets do not have any name on it which definitely resonates with the black lives taken throughout the 90s.

Rather it’s the individual story of Doughboy or the story of Tre Styles who had an active father and mother in his life, the viewer is able to find one major similarity between the two. This similarity is that both characters were black men living in a country that deemed their life less important. Boyz N the Hood continues to push this particular belief throughout the movie as a way of putting the “truth” in society’s face. This is what makes the film highly important because it does not “sugarcoat” the politics that were going on in America during the time. It forces the viewer to come outside of their comfort zone which much of the different forms of art did in the 90s. There have been many that have argued that films such as Boyz N the Hood have added to the destruction of black culture, but depending on who is asked, the film simply pulls back the veil that has covered the issues surrounding black communities. —Andy Reid