we should stop infantalising people of color

[woolfe9998]

To illustrate the point:

How the filmmakers behind 'Till' depicted Black trauma without showing violence | CNN

Apparently violence historically inflicted on black people by white people must always be sanitized, never graphically depicted, because that is "black trauma porn" which will inflict irrevocable trauma and emotional pain on every black person who watches. Apparently, says certain people on the left, black people just can't handle the truth.

Oddly, I identify culturally as Jewish, and I was able to sit through "Schindler's List" without being traumatized for life. Why did no one ever label "Schinder's List" as "Jewish Trauma Porn?" While the content of the movie saddened me, it did not traumatize me. Indeed, I would have been angry had they elected to not depict the graphic violence as it would have done a disservice to Jews to depict a PG rated version of the Holocaust. Similarly, it does a disservice to black people to depict a PG rated version of KKK violence against black people. These people seem to be operating on the assumption that black people are emotional cripples who will end up in a loony bin at the first sight of violence depicted against black people on a TV screen.

Especially interested in hearing from black posters on this one. In a depiction of the Emmitt Till story, should they depict the violence done to Till, or not depict it? And assuming they did depict it and you watched, would you be emotionally traumatized? I don't mean you're angry and upset while you watch it, but actually traumatized?

 

[Muse]

Not pulling punches with atrocities suffered by Jews by the Nazi's is different because...

1. We are not in Germany
2. The Nazis were crushed at the end of WW II (and their country was occupied for many years).

However, blacks (other racial minorities too) are all over the USA and the cultures/people who exploited, terrorized them, sometimes tortured, raped and murdered them are still all around America. Depicting atrocities that were perpetrated against them could be seen as violence porn, absolutely, and fears that it would incite more atrocities today would seem to be well founded. Americans are sick mentally, many of them. There have been heinous violent crimes perpetrated against minorities here recently. I wonder why you aren't sensitive to these things.

Myself, I got some sense of the depth of the mistreatment of blacks in America by reading 12 Years a Slave (before seeing the movie). It does not have the avoiding-violence-porn gestalt you speak of. It is a very well written, honest auto-biographical account of what it was like to be a slave in the American south before slavery was abolished.

 

[IronWing]

Is the concern that "black people can't handle the trauma" or that some white people will fetishize the violence?

A note on Schindler's List: My wife used to be a substitute teacher. In one class, the assignment was to watch Schindler's List. During the movie, some of the students were laughing at a ghetto scene. My wife was very well versed in Holocaust literature and stopped the movie to find out what was so funny. Some of the students simply didn't believe that the depiction could possibly be accurate, too many people piled on top of each other. Even after my wife explained the reality of the ghettos and the murder of all the Jews living in them, some of the students still thought it was funny.

 

[pauldun170]

To illustrate the point:

How the filmmakers behind 'Till' depicted Black trauma without showing violence | CNN

Apparently violence historically inflicted on black people by white people must always be sanitized, never graphically depicted, because that is "black trauma porn" which will inflict irrevocable trauma and emotional pain on every black person who watches. Apparently, says certain people on the left, black people just can't handle the truth.

Oddly, I identify culturally as Jewish, and I was able to sit through "Schindler's List" without being traumatized for life. Why did no one ever label "Schinder's List" as "Jewish Trauma Porn?" While the content of the movie saddened me, it did not traumatize me. Indeed, I would have been angry had they elected to not depict the graphic violence as it would have done a disservice to Jews to depict a PG rated version of the Holocaust. Similarly, it does a disservice to black people to depict a PG rated version of KKK violence against black people. These people seem to be operating on the assumption that black people are emotional cripples who will end up in a loony bin at the first sight of violence depicted against black people on a TV screen.

Especially interested in hearing from black posters on this one. In a depiction of the Emmitt Till story, should they depict the violence done to Till, or not depict it? And assuming they did depict it and you watched, would you be emotionally traumatized? I don't mean you're angry and upset while you watch it, but actually traumatized?

Too sum up the story

2 key lines

“she wasn’t interested in depicting the moment that Emmett Till was brutally beaten to death in 1955 Mississippi. he story is about Mamie and her journey, and so it wasn’t narratively necessary to show the physical violence inflicted upon Emmett,”

"Soon after the release of the trailer, some corners of Black Twitter questioned why a movie about Emmett Till was even needed, swiftly characterizing it as the latest Hollywood project to capitalize on Black pain and tragedy. More than a few declared that they wouldn’t be watching. "

Summary: Filmmaker wanted to make story about Mamie Till-Mobley.
Harmeet Kaur, a writer who spends a lot of time mining social media and the internet wanted to do an article on some noise she read on twitter.
Woolfe9998 wants to make comment on "The Blacks™" based on Harmeets little filler article on something she heard from twats. I guess Wolf wants to us to vote on who is entitled to the biggest "Think of the childre" card?
Idunnno

 

[Greenman]

Not pulling punches with atrocities suffered by Jews by the Nazi's is different because...

1. We are not in Germany
2. The Nazis were crushed at the end of WW II (and their country was occupied for many years).

However, blacks (other racial minorities too) are all over the USA and the cultures/people who exploited, terrorized them, sometimes tortured, raped and murdered them are still all around America. Depicting atrocities that were perpetrated against them could be seen as violence porn, absolutely, and fears that it would incite more atrocities today would seem to be well founded. Americans are sick mentally, many of them. There have been heinous violent crimes perpetrated against minorities here recently. I wonder why you aren't sensitive to these things.

Myself, I got some sense of the depth of the mistreatment of blacks in America by reading 12 Years a Slave (before seeing the movie). It does not have the avoiding-violence-porn gestalt you speak of. It is a very well written, honest auto-biographical account of what it was like to be a slave in the American south before slavery was abolished.

Black like me is another good one.

 

[woolfe9998]

Not pulling punches with atrocities suffered by Jews by the Nazi's is different because...

1. We are not in Germany
2. The Nazis were crushed at the end of WW II (and their country was occupied for many years).

However, blacks (other racial minorities too) are all over the USA and the cultures/people who exploited, terrorized them, sometimes tortured, raped and murdered them are still all around America. Depicting atrocities that were perpetrated against them could be seen as violence porn, absolutely, and fears that it would incite more atrocities today would seem to be well founded. Americans are sick mentally, many of them. There have been heinous violent crimes perpetrated against minorities here recently. I wonder why you aren't sensitive to these things.

Myself, I got some sense of the depth of the mistreatment of blacks in America by reading 12 Years a Slave (before seeing the movie). It does not have the avoiding-violence-porn gestalt you speak of. It is a very well written, honest auto-biographical account of what it was like to be a slave in the American south before slavery was abolished.

Yes, I saw 12 Years a Slave, and it doesn't avoid violence. I wasn't aware that watching it traumatized black people, and I'm not sure why you raised it in your reply because it only bolsters my argument that black people can handle watching historical depictions of racist violence. How do you think black people would have reacted to it had they cut out the lynchings and beatings, and depicted slavery as kind of bad but not so bad after all?

Seeing these things graphically creates an emotional response which IMO makes people more likely to want to fight against bigotry in the real world.

 

[woolfe9998]

Is the concern that "black people can't handle the trauma" or that some white people will fetishize the violence?

A note on Schindler's List: My wife used to be a substitute teacher. In one class, the assignment was to watch Schindler's List. During the movie, some of the students were laughing at a ghetto scene. My wife was very well versed in Holocaust literature and stopped the movie to find out what was so funny. Some of the students simply didn't believe that the depiction could possibly be accurate, too many people piled on top of each other. Even after my wife explained the reality of the ghettos and the murder of all the Jews living in them, some of the students still thought it was funny.

Which illustrates precisely why it is better to frankly depict the realities which historically occurred rather than sanitize it. Those kids you describe already had a sanitized idea of what the Holocaust was. The fact that some didn't take to it after your wife explained it is because some people are either closed minded or dumb. While others may have had no idea what had actually occurred and came out of it with their eyes open.

 

[Moonbeam]

.......................................
I don't mean you're angry and upset while you watch it, but actually traumatized?

Looks to me like your intentions may have been misunderstood, at least in my opinion. What I hear in your post is concern for people who face discrimination. I see a person how knows something about the subject having an identity that puts you as a member of class that has faced enormous amounts of historical discrimination. I think this makes it possible for you to experience an empathy that others may not have had the background themselves to experience. I see you as deeply intelligent, deeply caring, and an activist determined to create a better future for all people. I see also, a will to defend, protect, and encourage anybody who is a victim of anything.

As a result, I see a mind searching for how best each person who faces discrimination can best manage it on a personal level, and that whitewashing truth regarding the depravity caused by and created by racism, while it may appear to protect people from harm also denies their chance to experience the kind of pain that is transformative.

This to me is an ancient dilemma. Empathy is loathed to allow others to suffer but where that suffering already has been experienced hiding that pain is equivalent to emotional death. This is why psychotherapy is always controversial. Down is up. It is also the theme of the Hero's Journey, the journey into the underworld to retrieve the prize.

To be frank, the way I see the dilemma that Black people face, is that because racial discrimination is so very very real in our country and unresolved even at this late date, it is easy to blame others for how we are perceived. It does not do to say to oneself as a member of a class that is discriminated against, that it is the fault of that discrimination what self hate is created, the same thing happens to everybody. It is that fact, the universality of self hate that causes it to roll down hill, to seek a scapegoat to sacrifice so that somebody belonging to some imagined superior class can feel better about themselves.

There is only one real enemy and it is within ourselves, that we have bought into a lie that this or that trait can make a person a member of a worthless class.

Racism is just a symptom of a much deeper problem, the damage done to the real self in childhood by words meant as put downs. When those are internalized we're fucked. The ego is born along with false pride as well as the hole in the soul where real self respect should be. False pride is the denial of suffering and 'did you but suffer you would not suffer' as Christ, I have heard reported, said in the Apocrypha.

 

[woolfe9998]

Not pulling punches with atrocities suffered by Jews by the Nazi's is different because...

1. We are not in Germany
2. The Nazis were crushed at the end of WW II (and their country was occupied for many years).

However, blacks (other racial minorities too) are all over the USA and the cultures/people who exploited, terrorized them, sometimes tortured, raped and murdered them are still all around America. Depicting atrocities that were perpetrated against them could be seen as violence porn, absolutely, and fears that it would incite more atrocities today would seem to be well founded. Americans are sick mentally, many of them. There have been heinous violent crimes perpetrated against minorities here recently. I wonder why you aren't sensitive to these things.

Myself, I got some sense of the depth of the mistreatment of blacks in America by reading 12 Years a Slave (before seeing the movie). It does not have the avoiding-violence-porn gestalt you speak of. It is a very well written, honest auto-biographical account of what it was like to be a slave in the American south before slavery was abolished.

Anti-semitism is hardly over for Jews just because the Nazis were defeated. You might look at anti-semitic hate crime stats in the US, then take note that it is far worse in Europe. The rise of the far right in Europe and the US is gravely concerning to Jews.

Pittsburgh synagogue shooting - Wikipedia
Poway synagogue shooting - Wikipedia
Colleyville synagogue hostage crisis - Wikipedia

These are all recent.

 

[Muse]

Yes, I saw 12 Years a Slave, and it doesn't avoid violence. I wasn't aware that watching it traumatized black people, and I'm not sure why you raised it in your reply because it only bolsters my argument that black people can handle watching historical depictions of racist violence. How do you think black people would have reacted to it had they cut out the lynchings and beatings, and depicted slavery as kind of bad but not so bad after all?

Seeing these things graphically creates an emotional response which IMO makes people more likely to want to fight against bigotry in the real world.

I mentioned 12 years not as an example of anything. The movie was based on the book and it's the book that was an iconic experience for me because, as I said in my post, it brought to life the true nature of slavery in the American south. I was not referring, inferring or thinking of black Americans' reaction to the movie, I have no concept of that. The makers of the movie had a choice once they decided to riff off the book. I have no opinion of that.

My comments addressed the general lack of depiction in the media (I'm thinking mass media like movies and TV) of the horrors of treatment of minorities because it might trigger more bad treatment against them because some people in America ARE AWFUL, have no compassion, but harbor deep anger and can be triggered. As said in a previous post here, "fetishized." It's not logical but some people are anything but logical.

How blacks themselves respond to depictions of cruelties against them is not something I addressed or was thinking of, but thinking about it now, I don't think that's the concern for not depicting bad treatment of them. Mention was made of the effect of the porn of violence. Clearly the danger is more violence against minorities than anything else.

 

[JWade]

i see the movie as what happened in the past and lets not go back to living like that. I think it did a good job getting all people to see what happened then. History can be bloody and violent, we learn from it, not hide from it

 

[igor_kavinski]

That CNN article downloaded a user-sync file automatically to my downloads folder.

https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/x2t18u

Other people also experienced that. Anyone know what is going on?

 

[Muse]

Anti-semitism is hardly over for Jews just because the Nazis were defeated. You might look at anti-semitic hate crime stats in the US, then take note that it is far worse in Europe. The rise of the far right in Europe and the US is gravely concerning to Jews.

Pittsburgh synagogue shooting - Wikipedia
Poway synagogue shooting - Wikipedia
Colleyville synagogue hostage crisis - Wikipedia

These are all recent.

The difference in showing realistic portrayals of the nature of anti-Semitism in Nazi controlled Germany and realistic portrayals of cruel treatment of minorities in the USA is that in Germany it was government sponsored and enacted policy. It is NOT government sponsored policy to mistreat minorities in the USA. Yes, there's anti-Semitism and it is getting worse in America but it is NOT government policy.

Kids laughing at depictions of piles of dead Jews in a movie is just immaturity. Kids are famously immature. Certain things in this world are not imaginable by most people.

The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man. - William Blake

 

[woolfe9998]

I mentioned 12 years not as an example of anything. The movie was based on the book and it's the book that was an iconic experience for me because, as I said in my post, it brought to life the true nature of slavery in the American south. I was not referring, inferring or thinking of black American's reaction to the movie, I have no concept of that. The makers of the movie had a choice once they decided to riff off the book. I have no opinion of that.

My comments addressed the general lack of depiction in the media of the horrors of treatment of minorities because it might trigger more bad treatment against them because some people in America ARE AWFUL, have no compassion, but harbor deep anger and can be triggered. It's not logical but some people are anything but logical.

Fair enough. I just have the opposite opinion. I think depicting the atrocities is likely to reduce violence toward the affected group, not increase it. Because I believe the vast majority of people who view such depictions react with outrage, and it makes them want to fight the bigotry that causes the violence. While the smaller number who get off on it are already racist dickheads whose propensity for violence is not likely affected by it one way or another.

My concern is best expressed by quoting something my dad said way back when, when he complained that Holocaust movies (prior to Schindler's List) showed Jews looking plump and rosey cheeked while in concentration camps and rarely depicted graphic violence. "The world needs to know what the Nazis did to the Jews or it's just going to happen again,."

How blacks themselves respond to depictions of cruelties against them is not something I addressed, but thinking about it now, I don't think that's the concern for not depicting bad treatment of them. Mention was made of the effect of the porn of violence. Clearly the danger is more violence against minorities than anything else.

Again, fair enough that those are your concerns, but my concern as expressed in the OP is motivated in part by the article I linked in it, which says this.

“Black trauma porn” – much like “disaster porn” or “poverty porn” – generally refers to graphic depictions of violence against Black people that are intended to elicit strong emotional responses. The implication is that these images can be needlessly traumatizing to Black viewers for whom violence is an inescapable fact of life.

So that may not be your concern, but it certainly concerns others, and that is why I posted it.

 

[Muse]

My concern is best expressed by quoting something my dad said way back when, when he complained that Holocaust movies (prior to Schindler's List) showed Jews looking plump and rosey cheeked while in concentration camps and rarely depicted graphic violence. "The world needs to know what the Nazis did to the Jews or it's just going to happen again,."

I have never had illusions about what the Nazi's did. I have always known it was horrific. Decades ago I made a point of reading the literature, much of it written by survivors of Nazi concentration camps. I am, in fact, in the middle of reading Viktor E. Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning." He IIRC lost his entire immediate family when they were brought to Auschwitz and he barely survived. He wrote the book shortly after his release and he certainly didn't want to hide anything.

We talk of Schindler's List, but Tarantino's treatment wasn't particularly Pollyanna IIRC.

 

[Moonbeam]

Everybody has been traumatized. The desire not to see people being traumatized is the desire not to know what happened to ourselves. The reason that nobody wants to know they were traumatized lies in the belief that we deserved it and so there is no cure. We believe we are worthless and the pain of that conscious awareness is too much to bear when the belief is also there that no exit from that condition is possible. No use thinking about it. The purpose of such thought is denial.

 

[woolfe9998]

I have never had illusions about what the Nazi's did. I have always known it was horrific. Decades ago I made a point of reading the literature, much of it written by survivors of Nazi concentration camps. I am, in fact, in the middle of reading Viktor E. Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning." He IIRC lost his entire immediate family when they were brought to Auschwitz and he barely survived. He wrote the book shortly after his release and he certainly didn't want to hide anything.

We talk of Schindler's List, but Tarantino's treatment wasn't particularly Pollyanna IIRC.

Good on you for actually reading books on the subject. I've read between 30 and 40 myself. However, most people will never read a book on that topic. But they may see a movie about it. Which is why it is important that it not be sanitized for viewers.

If you read his post above, Ironwing mentioned his wife showing SL to her high school class, and that some were snickering because they didn't believe it was as bad as depicted. People are not apt to believe in something as horrible as that unless they see it, and even then, they still may have trouble believing it.

 

[MrSquished]

My senior year in high school my AP US history teacher also taught a class that was about general socio political subjects. We read a book called How Holocausts Happen, and it's one of the most powerful books I've ever read and sticks with me 20 years later. He was also one of the most impactful teachers ever. And I posted about that book and good class on his Instagram on a relevant post, and he was really happy.

I suggest it to everyone where that part of history comes up in discussion. We are seeing it today with the Trump party.

 

[Muse]

Good on you for actually reading books on the subject. I've read between 30 and 40 myself. However, most people will never read a book on that topic. But they may see a movie about it. Which is why it is important that it not be sanitized for viewers.

If you read his post above, Ironwing mentioned his wife showing SL to her high school class, and that some were snickering because they didn't believe it was as bad as depicted. People are not apt to believe in something as horrible as that unless they see it, and even then, they still may have trouble believing it.

You are misinterpreting that, the "reason" they laughed. It wasn't necessarily because they didn't believe it, it was their premature minds' reaction to what was likely a stack of naked emaciated bodies, likely dead at that. Kids generally are not going to have a litmus test for reality. They live in their own reality. Not saying they are crazy, it's just typical that a kid going to HS or MS has their personal space, reality, their friends, parents, activities, etc. and something that requires a major stretch, particularly when it touches a nerve (nudity to an adolescent is a NERVE, particularly when they are seeing it in the company of their peers who they always see clothed!), is apt to elicit laughter, which is just an inability to process something readily. Quizzed properly a lot of these kids would not say they thought the pictures were faked, but that would be a different space than them in a setting surrounded by classmates suddenly seeing those pictures, that's a very different experience.

 

[Muse]

My senior year in high school my AP US history teacher also taught a class that was about general socio political subjects. We read a book called How Holocausts Happen, and it's one of the most powerful books I've ever read and sticks with me 20 years later. He was also one of the most impactful teachers ever. And I posted about that book and good class on his Instagram on a relevant post, and he was really happy.

I suggest it to everyone where that part of history comes up in discussion. We are seeing it today with the Trump party.

A quick Google search is not turning up that book. Can you zoom me in on it? Who wrote it, year of publication, etc.?

My local library does have this:

How could this happen : explaining the Holocaust (2014)
By McMillan, Dan

Edit: A finer Google search revealed this...

How Holocausts Happen is a book by Douglas V. Porpora that deals with the United States involvement in Central America in regards to their participation in the genocidal policies of Nicaraguan counterrevolutionary forces and the reaction of the general public to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.
Author: Douglas V. Porpora
Country: United States
- - - -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Holocausts_Happen

 

[HomerJS]

When it comes to history, I'm in favor of telling the truth. The ENTIRE truth.

This country is incapable of learning form history because we are afraid of the ENTIRE truth.

The woman who gave false testimony about Emmitt leading to his death is still walking around unprosecuted. I thought there is no statute of limitation to murder even an accessory?

Today Republicans are on a rampage to whitewash history into their favor. We have learned nothing.

Emmitt's mother having an open casket is the same reason the violence should have been shown in total. Missed opportunity

 

[purbeast0]

There was a pretty violent scene in American History X that depicts racial violence. That is probably the one that sticks with me the most.

 

[iRONic]

The curb stomp? That was fucking brutal…

 

[fskimospy]

You are misinterpreting that, the "reason" they laughed. It wasn't necessarily because they didn't believe it, it was their premature minds' reaction to what was likely a stack of naked emaciated bodies, likely dead at that. Kids generally are not going to have a litmus test for reality. They live in their own reality. Not saying they are crazy, it's just typical that a kid going to HS or MS has their personal space, reality, their friends, parents, activities, etc. and something that requires a major stretch, particularly when it touches a nerve (nudity to an adolescent is a NERVE, particularly when they are seeing it in the company of their peers who they always see clothed!), is apt to elicit laughter, which is just an inability to process something readily. Quizzed properly a lot of these kids would not say they thought the pictures were faked, but that would be a different space than them in a setting surrounded by classmates suddenly seeing those pictures, that's a very different experience.

I also wonder if these kids connected the fact that the events depicted in that movie really happened. (I know it's a dramatization but the general scope of events happened)

I agree you would likely get a very different reaction from those kids if you sat them down and emphasized those piles of bodies were real, and that lots of people their age were in those piles.

 

[purbeast0]

The curb stomp? That was fucking brutal…

Yup. I think the sound of the teeth touching the curb is the worst part.