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Black folk: would you rather be underrepresented

Sheeshgeese

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Or completely misrepresented?

Book, film, TV... Wherever. If the bad guy was always black, would you prefer there be no representation at all?

What about the maid? The token that always gets killed first? The angry black woman?

Just some tropes. Let's discuss.
 

Stfu_Faye

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Hard to say cause both are currently happening.


But I'd take underrepresentation. I think it's less harmful than misrepresentation.
 

Binch

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It's harder to undo a negative impression than create a positive impression
 

Bellz

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I prefer no representation, because white folks NEVER get it right when it comes to representing black people. My dream is for black people to finally have complete creative control of our image so we can be in control of representing ourselves.
 

SolBadGirl124

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None. There would be no fuel for most stereotypes, plus we can make our own stuff and put positive depictions in the media
 

indievers

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Here recently, I've been playing a lot of mobile games and writing about them on my blog. I mostly talk about Blackness in video games. As usual, people have been calling out the gaming industry for a lack of representation and diversity and creators have been listening.

This at first seems to be a good thing until you get Black sprites blushing. Or when you see Black characters helping white characters with their sunscreen and insisting they don't need any. Or a huge oversight in which the backdrop is a magical prison in which almost every main character is not white but is also an inmate. This sh!t is so avoidable and far from helpful.

I'd take no representation any day because by and large, these Black characters are created without a single Black person in the room and their stories and characterizations are always off the mark. We need more positive images, not just more images. We need more Black creators at the drawing board because we have enough ignorant and harmful images.
 

LolaBridgetta

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Why can't black folk have slice-of-life dramas or high concept sci-fi?
I say this on every commercial of a movie that comes out catering to blacks. Yes we were slaves and lived through segregation/Jim Crow but can we do other stuff too damn!
 

SmoothAlpha

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I just rather we care about representation in created patents, STEM, IT, Engineering, and Science and Innovation outside of Entertainment Culture. We have proven to dominate and be the sole creators of American Entertainment Culture.
 

Stunt

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My problem is more lack of complex Black characters. It’s either a Black character is highly respectable assimilators or they are the stereotype.

Also, their still needs to be representation in different industries. So many Black kids are being pushed to Business and STEM nowadays with art and other cultural electives being cut from schools.

Every Black kid can’t be going for STEM. We still need Black people in all areas of life.
 

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I'd rather just be treated normally to be honest. :(


But in answer to your question OP.... I think I'd rather take underrepresentation as opposed to misrepresentation I suppose. There's less imagery out there that is wrong when you're underrepresented.
 

sophiasofi

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I don't want either...although being invisible sort of means that population is all the way beaten down.

..but both is not what you want.
 

Rochelle Dionna

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Or completely misrepresented?

Book, film, TV... Wherever. If the bad guy was always black, would you prefer there be no representation at all?

What about the maid? The token that always gets killed first? The angry black woman?

Just some tropes. Let's discuss.
Asian and Indian people are barely repped at all in tv, movies, or radio. I don't see them complaining and their doing waaaayyyy better than black people in most areas of life. Black people worry TOO much about things that are not important. Always trying to have a seat at the table. Us being on tv is not helping us in anyway.
 

May Flowers

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Misrepresentation is far more harmful than being underrepresented. Misrepresentation is the main cause for majority of the racism black people face around the world. A lot of people in many countries have no experience with black people, so all they have to give them knowledge is the media. If the media only represents us as gangsters, hoodlums, baby mamas, welfare queens etc, that is what people will subconsciously see us all as. I'm sure many people think Asians are all super smart and great at math. That's how they are mostly represented in the media, so that is the perception of them and perception is, in fact, reality.
 

Yoshi3329

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Underrepresented. Because being shown wrongly can have a very bad effect. I tried to tell people this when love and hip hop first started. No one listened.

Asian and Indian people are barely repped at all in tv, movies, or radio. I don't see them complaining and their doing waaaayyyy better than black people in most areas of life. Black people worry TOO much about things that are not important. Always trying to have a seat at the table. Us being on tv is not helping us in anyway.
Well that’s not entirely fair they don’t need to care because they have homelands with all the representation they could ever need. Two most are doing well when you money and a fair government you’d be surprised on how much you don’t care about little things.

And to add a bit of complexity to this issue, when they are stereotyped they do say something. Remember when six flags had that Asian man speaking broken English in their ads? Or when Abercrombie and Fitch has that ‘Two Wongs make a white’ t-shirt? Asians didn’t take that laying down. It’s a bit of a misconception that they do.
 

All_star23

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Lol the black delegation says this is stupid because both happen to us simultaneously & if we’re broken down by gender even more so
 

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Asian and Indian people are barely repped at all in tv, movies, or radio. I don't see them complaining and their doing waaaayyyy better than black people in most areas of life. Black people worry TOO much about things that are not important. Always trying to have a seat at the table. Us being on tv is not helping us in anyway.

I agree about Asian's.
 

sosie

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I don't consider it "complaining" because of how mass media is a major agent for socialization (altho I think there is a big push to get people to focus only on that aspect).

Asians do talk, write, discuss about their representation in media. I remember watching a documentary about depiction of Asian men in Hollywood (name is slipping my mind now). They are just often ignored, but if you do a simple google search, it's easy to find


Asian and Indian people are barely repped at all in tv, movies, or radio. I don't see them complaining and their doing waaaayyyy better than black people in most areas of life. Black people worry TOO much about things that are not important. Always trying to have a seat at the table. Us being on tv is not helping us in anyway.
 

honeysugar

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Why can't black folk have slice-of-life dramas or high concept sci-fi?

A large part of the reason why is because the black community still views those things as "too white." Thankfully, that's changing (thanks to the BLERD community), but black folks definitely limit themselves sometimes.
 

Messiah St West

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Why can't black folk have slice-of-life dramas or high concept sci-fi?

Because the old white men who control everything don’t feel black people “belong” in certain stories. They don’t think it would be profitable, basically.

And then you have a lot of black people who co-sign that line of thinking.
 

hippieprincess26

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A large part of the reason why is because the black community still views those things as "too white." Thankfully, that's changing (thanks to the BLERD community), but black folks definitely limit themselves sometimes.
black people dont like black romance smh. if they do its gotta be over the top and not too white.
 

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