Medium Post Week 2 Griffin Snyder

I was very engaged with the material this week, as I thought it touched on a lot of very interesting ideas. I was specifically intrigued by Dubois’s thoughts on how Black people live in society and the idea of a “double consciousness” that all people of color must deal with. The though of having to live in two very different worlds just to get through life as an African American is very telling about how important Race is in American society at the the turn of the century and still today. Since Black people have never been truly accepted into American society because of the White supremacy inherent in the nation, They must always put on a face that is acceptable to white society in order t be allowed to engage with it, no matter how minimally. On a similar note, I was intrigued by Pinn’s discussion of the development of white supremacy in America through the dehumanization of the African American people. He adeptly put into words the powerful tactics that white society used to simultaneously (and paradoxically) portray African Americans as simple and in need of masters while also a danger to society. These remnants from slavery continue to hurt the Black community to this day, as is evidenced by Annie Lebowitz’s Vogue cover in the mid 2000’s that echoed stereotypes of black men as bestial and a threat to white women. This is also reflected in the older example of D.W. Griffiths’ Birth of a Nation in 1915, which used the power of film to reinforce terrible stereotypes within American society (the film was even screened at the White House for President Woodrow Wilson, who liked it).