A Pattern of Entertainment

A couple of days ago I was listening to CBC Radio in the car (as every 30 going on 75-year-old does), and was listening to an interview with American author Michael Eric Dyson, who has a new book that has just came out called "Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America". What struck me about the interview, and subsequently the book (which I immediately ordered), was that much of what Dyson was talking about applied right back to what Thomas King wrote in the third chapter of "The Truth About Stories". Dyson talked in the interview about how African Americans have been turned into a source of entertainment in the United States, and how that entertainment is based in stereotypes and other harmful, false narratives about African Americans.

I happened to catch this interview not too long after I finished my short essay, which focused on this chapter of King's book. I was struck by the similarities in the stories being told by both men of different races. It made me wonder - how many different versions of this same story exist? After hearing what Dyson was talking about in the interview, and doing a little more research into his book, I wondered if more research would find a common thread, but also asked myself: why is this happening? Does it make it easier to be racist when you can make a false narrative of entertainment for the people you are discrminating against? Does it make us feel better about what we and our ancestors have done to these people and taken away from them when we can "support" them through entertainment - however authentic it might be? Some food for thought as we look to further the cause of decolonization in our country and around the world.

For more information on Michael Eric Dyson's new book, read the review from the New York Times here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/books/review/entertaining-race-michael-eric-dyson.html

I really enjoyed reading this post. Your reflection on why this is happening and if it makes it easier to be racist when you can make a false narrative of entertainment for the people you are discrminating against really stuck out to me, and made me wonder who else might be wondering about and addressing this issue, or if anyone is trying change the narrative. Then I came across this article: "Indigenous Representation in Media" https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/34bdcbb62ba04aa2a63a2bdc1e8accab. I found the second half of the article especially intersting, as it talked about 5 Indigenous filmmakers who are trying to change the narrative (regarding Indigenous misrepresentation) by creating and telling their own stories to share with the world. Some even took old westerns and redid them (they were inspired by the old westerns). I bookmarked this article to check into these filmmakers further, because I think checking out their work might be an interesting way to hear authentic stories and representations of Indigenous experiences.