{"id":21422,"date":"2020-07-22T18:41:26","date_gmt":"2020-07-22T18:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=21422"},"modified":"2020-07-24T13:43:36","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T13:43:36","slug":"how-popular-culture-hobbles-protest-movements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-popular-culture-hobbles-protest-movements\/","title":{"rendered":"How popular culture hobbles protest movements"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chauncey Maher<\/a>, Dickinson College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

In response to the anti-racism protests that have erupted across the U.S., many Americans are saying they agree with the goals<\/a> of the demonstrators, but not their methods<\/a>. In a recent Pew survey, 67% of Americans say they support the Black Lives Matter movement, but only 19% think protests and rallies \u2013 with their demands to defund the police and exact justice for George Floyd\u2019s death \u2013 are an effective way to bring about change.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen this refrain before. In fact, it\u2019s inspired me to write a book<\/a> that explores the attitudes white people hold towards racial and economic justice. Often, when Americans express support for a particular issue \u2013 whether it\u2019s about ending slavery or protecting civil rights \u2013 they\u2019ll couch their advocacy with the caveat that the change must be gradual. Big, immediate changes are thought to be dangerous or otherwise impractical.<\/p>\n

In learning more about why these attitudes are so resilient, I found that popular entertainment has played a role. For decades, books, movies and records that seem to challenge racism also subtly advance the idea that while progress is a worthy goal, it shouldn\u2019t happen too quickly. There are many examples of this, but let me offer you three that illustrate some main themes.<\/p>\n

Is patience really a virtue?<\/h2>\n

While \u201cUncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/a>\u201d famously opened many Americans\u2019 eyes to the horrors of slavery, Harriet Beecher Stowe\u2019s novel also encourages Black people to tolerate these horrors, wait for change and eventually forgive their oppressors.<\/p>\n

Published in 1852, \u201cUncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/a>\u201d opens with Mr. Shelby planning to sell his slaves to a slave trader. Some run away, but not Tom. He\u2019s sold to Augustine St. Clare and then again to Simon Legree. Told to whip another slave, Tom refuses. Legree tells two other slaves, Sambo and Quimbo, to beat Tom. They do, but Tom forgives them, quoting the Bible: \u201cForgive them, for they know not what they do.\u201d When some slaves escape, Legree asks Tom where they are, but Tom won\u2019t tell. Legree beats him and orders Sambo and Quimbo to kill him. As Tom lays dying, he says again that he forgives them.<\/p>\n

\"\"
An illustration from the 1897 edition of \u2018Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin.\u2019<\/span>
\nDigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stowe wanted her novel to advance the abolitionist cause<\/a>, and it sold 300,000 copies in its first year. But by making Tom a martyr, she inadvertently valorized patience as a response to slavery.<\/p>\n

In 1949, novelist James Baldwin criticized the character Uncle Tom, writing that he is \u201cphenomenally forbearing<\/a>.\u201d The result is someone who dies enslaved.<\/p>\n

According to Baldwin, books like \u201cUncle Tom\u2019s Cabin\u201d gave \u201cliberal\u201d Americans the impression that \u201ceverything will be all right\u201d \u2013 as if simply opposing injustice were enough to end it.<\/p>\n

Does time always heal?<\/h2>\n

A similar theme can be heard in popular music.<\/p>\n

Released in 1964, Sam Cooke\u2019s \u201cA Change is Gonna Come\u201d is widely regarded as his best<\/a> song, one of the greatest of the 1960s<\/a> and an anthem of the civil rights movement<\/a>. In the refrain, Cooke sings, \u201cIt\u2019s been a long, a long time coming, but I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Deep knowledge, daily.<\/em> Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s newsletter<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been waiting for needed change for a very long time, but it hasn\u2019t come, you\u2019d be disappointed, tired and angry. For this reason, Cooke\u2019s refusal to give up has been a source of strength to many people.<\/p>\n

But many others hear<\/a> Cooke saying that change \u2013 or progress \u2013 will inevitably come. Martin Luther King Jr. called this a \u201cmythical concept of time<\/a>,\u201d according to which \u201cthere is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills.\u201d Heard that way, Cooke\u2019s song cultivates the idea that change doesn\u2019t necessarily require substantial effort; the passage of time will suffice.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not struggling with oppression, Cooke\u2019s song can instead soothe a guilty conscience.<\/p>\n

One big happy family<\/h2>\n

Movies have also served to temper radical change.<\/p>\n

Released in 1989 and adored<\/a> by critics<\/a> and audiences, the film \u201cGlory<\/a>\u201d tells the story of the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts<\/a>, one of the first all-Black regiments of the Union Army during the Civil War.<\/p>\n

One of the main characters is Trip, played by Denzel Washington, who won an Oscar for his performance.<\/p>\n

In the first two-thirds of the film, Trip seems mean, tough and angry. He insults his tentmates. He stoically endures a whipping in front of his regiment for going absent without leave. He leads the charge among his comrades to protest unequal pay. He heckles white Union soldiers, and, when his white colonel offers him the privilege of carrying the regiment\u2019s flag, he says he\u2019s not fighting this war for the colonel.<\/p>\n

But then viewers start to see a change in Trip. During the regiment\u2019s ill-fated charge on Fort Wagner, a white regiment looks on. Trip catches the eye of a white soldier he had previously scuffled with. Trip looks away, and the white solider shouts, \u201cGive \u2018em hell 54th!\u201d Trip grins, and all the white soldiers cheer on the 54th. In the final sequence of the film, with the regiment hunkered down at the parapet, the white colonel decides to lead them onward and is shot down immediately. First to rise, hoisting the regimental flag, Trip shouts to his comrades, \u201cCome on!\u201d He, too, is shot down. \u201cGlory\u201d ends with the colonel\u2019s and Trip\u2019s bodies being tossed into a trench grave, side-by-side.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the significance of these changes in Trip?<\/p>\n

For many viewers of the film, they can serve as a form of reassurance.<\/p>\n

Trip\u2019s grin signals he embraces the bigoted white soldier\u2019s apparent change of heart. Hoisting the flag shows he now believes the white colonel shares his cause. And for audiences who worry Black people hate them or that Black people don\u2019t realize they\u2019re good people, these actions signal that all can be forgiven.<\/p>\n

Black characters like Trip are an archetype in TV and film.<\/p>\n

In a 1967 profile of Black actor Sidney Poitier<\/a> for Look magazine, Baldwin drew attention to it. In the article, he noted that Poitier\u2019s roles \u201care designed not to trouble, but to reassure; they do not reflect reality, they merely rearrange its elements into something we can bear. They also weaken our ability to deal with the world as it is, ourselves as we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Change isn\u2019t comfortable<\/h2>\n

Popular culture \u2013 even that which advances worthy ideas \u2013 can foster a complacency that has frustrated generations of Black activists.<\/p>\n

In June, CNN commentator Van Jones said that Black Americans should worry less about the Ku Klux Klan and more about \u201cthe white, liberal Hillary Clinton supporter<\/a>.\u201d Jones was echoing Martin Luther King Jr.\u2018s \u201cLetter From a Birmingham Jail<\/a>,\u201d in which King wrote that \u201cthe Negro\u2019s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen\u2019s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order\u2019 than to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, when push comes to shove, many people don\u2019t want to sacrifice anything or experience discomfort.<\/p>\n

Popular culture might serve as a salve for the conscience of many viewers, readers and listeners, but real progress only happens when people push for it<\/a>, whether it was the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, that ended segregation on the city\u2019s buses or the recent protests to curb police brutality.\"The<\/p>\n

Chauncey Maher<\/a>, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dickinson College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chauncey Maher, Dickinson College In response to the anti-racism protests that have erupted across the U.S., many Americans are saying they agree with the goals of the demonstrators, but not their methods. In a recent Pew survey, 67% of Americans say they support the Black Lives Matter movement, but only 19% think protests and rallies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":21423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[837,15,335,1740,2367,3871,53,498,8380,8379],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21422"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21449,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21422\/revisions\/21449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}