“For the love of money is the root of all of evil.”
– Apostle John
The white audience is the main audience. They are constantly catered to, constantly portrayed as the hero, consistently shown that they are the ideal person. Why? Because everybody wants to be reassured! But, why specifically the white audience?
Well, the short answer is racism. Dating back to colonialism and Marco Polo’s Travel’s, in which he wrote about his time traveling throughout South Asia as a merchant. He portrayed South Asian customs and people as incredibly alien and through a very European lens. As his book traveled throughout Europe, this European lens also started to take root. Non-European culture was classified as “non-European” rather than uniquely Indian or uniquely Chinese, etc. This is a turning point– there was an established grouping of the European and the non-European.
As globalism increased, the European progressed into the white man and the non-European progressed into the non-white man. During the rise of telecommunications with the radio and television, the non-white man was broken down into a few different groupings, which were decided by the white man, with the purpose of dividing the non-white population’s growing numbers. These groupings were each assigned different roles to further confine their members, and the groupings were labeled “race”.
You might be thinking, But, like… Why? That is a great question, and also the long answer to my first question!
Capitalism.
Hear me out. The infamous Black Panther Party, founder of free-lunch programs in the US as well as free health clinics, viewed racism and race as a powerful tool in the greed machine.
“Working class people of all colors must unite against the exploitative, oppressive ruling class. Let me emphasize again — we believe our fight is a class struggle, not a race struggle.”
— Bobby Seale, co-founder Black Panther Party
I honestly would say that I agree. In my opinion, colonialism was entirely greed driven– greed for money and greed for power (through God/the Church and personal power through fame). Racial and cultural inferiority was heavily used to justify European greed, not the other way around! Because, even dating back to globalization, race was simply used to further the reach of greed, I argue that with the death of capitalism will come the death of racism.
You might be thinking, So… How are we supposed to bring about the death of capitalism?
Class and racial unification. How? Critical media literacy.
Now, clearly this is an incredibly simplified version of my argument, but again, I ask you to hear me out. The white man can be oppressed- through sexuality, religion, but most impactfully, class. The Black Panther Party partnered with a racially white and incredibly impoverished group, the Young Patriots, in the Rainbow Coalition. The purpose of this coalition was to transcend racial lines to overcome the one thing that can unite almost anybody– non being rich.
Critical media literacy, according to Kellner and Share, critiques and analyzes aspects such as gender, race, sexuality, and class and their relations to the place one holds in society. Through critical media literacy, racial lines can be transcended to unite the classes, as seen in the Rainbow Coalition!
Media that depicts the realities of the proletariat, or working class, as more than just working machines are incredibly important to this! Uniting the proletariat through displaying that all races, genders, sexualities, and religions can find common ground through class exploitation is the key to breaking the capitalist machine. Media that is breaking boundaries, pushing the envelope, invading the bourgeoisie’s narrative of “climbing the corporate ladder” is essential!
You might be thinking, Like what? Well, here is a short, limited, entry-level list. Movies such as Wall-E, Sorry to Bother You, and Parasite are great films to explore! I encourage you to utilize civic media and critical media literacy to rewire, or at least question, the capitalism machine drilled into our minds.
Communicating Change 