Notes & Quotes
Title
To what extent does
'Straight Outta Compton' represent black people negatively and does it
encourage violence?
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/08/ice-cube-straight-outta-compton-critics-dr-dre-nwa-movie
“Ice Cube says critics
angered at the failure of hip-hop biopic Straight Outta Compton to address past
abuse against women by key member Dr Dre should make “their own” film about
NWA.”
“CNN surprised ‘Straight Outta Compton’
didn’t cause violence, earned record money instead”
CNN host Ashleigh Banfield reported, “Some
movie theaters were worried about violence when Straight Outta Compton hit the screen. Instead, it only led to longer lines, ticket lines and
some big money.
“Alexander, who was a police officer in the
1980’s when the group’s first hit came out. ‘We really have to get away from
this whole f the police to support the police’.”
“Some movie theaters have stepped up additional
security screening after 59-year-old John Russell Houser, a white man, shot
several at a movie theater in Louisiana at a screening of the Amy Schumer film Train wreck”
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/aug/27/straight-outta-compton-review-how-hip-hop-pioneers-nwa-took-on-the-world
“The movie fails to get perspective on the
misogynistic culture of hip-hop and it incidentally allows to pass unchallenged
the statement that no one involved had any concept of what “antisemitism” is
(if you say so). It also coyly declines to show any of the main players doing
so much as a speck of cocaine, a habit that surely drove many of the paranoid
feuds, splits, outbursts and fist fights.”
“Their most famous or notorious track Fuck tha Police
became a free-speech issue and modern protest classic, resoundingly justified
at last by the Rodney King video in 1991. It twists the volume dial clockwise.”
Book- ‘Black Demons: The deception Of The African American
Male Criminal Stereotype’
“I was told that all back men were inherently aggressive
and violent”
“Many fulfill white American’s image of them
legitimately by becoming successful gangsta rappers; others fulfill this image illegitimately
by becoming ‘baaad-ass niggers’ Rappers therefore reinforce the popular belief
that as ‘baaad-ass niggers’ young blacks can achieve fame, a recognition and a
sense of being (somebody). If they lose however they face a long stay in our
jails and prisons or even bodily injury and death.”
“Studies indicate that African American teenagers
are aware that they are stigmatized as being intellectually inferior and that
they go to school bearing what psychologist Claude Steele has called a ‘burden
of suspicion’. Such a burden can affect
their attitudes and achievement.” –
-This quote
shows that as long as these stereotypes continue in society and are reinforced
black males will continue to believe that they are inferior which may decrease
their performance academically because the repetition in society has made them
believe they are below average or ‘destined
to fail’ which affects their self-confidence as youths.
“According
to Russell…Blacks are the repository for the american fear of crime. Ask anyone,
to picture a criminal, and the image will have a black face. The link between
blackness and criminality and routinized by terms such as ‘black-on-black crime’
and ‘black crime’.”
“Each year,
whites account for almost seventy percent of the total arrests, and they today
compromise about forty percent of the prison population. When the media does
connect someone white with a crime, for example serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer
it does not implicate the entire white race. It is notable that phrases such as
‘white crime’ and ‘white-on-white’ crime are not part of our public lexicon on
crime.”
“On television,
half of all murder suspects arrested by the police are African American,
suggesting unequivocally that television has a long way to go before achieving
an accurate portrayal of murder suspects.”
“Similar to
television, news coverage is yet another major source of information on crime
that influences society in defining what crime is and who is a criminal.”
“Existing
research examining news coverage of the African American community reveals disturbing
biases and patterns of blatant distortion at the hands of the nation’s largest
and most respected print
and broadcast media.”
Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black
Inferiority
“The
genesis of all these attitudes can be traced to American slavery. It was in
America, in the ‘Land
of the Free’ that Africans were chained and branded, both
physically and psychologically, as subhuman beasts.”
“The
illusion that anyone can succeed-what I call the ‘paradox of progress’-solidifies
the myth of a ‘post racial society’”
“Blacks,
who’ve been conditioned to expect less from people who look like themselves,
automatically insert these high profile black achievers into the ‘exceptional expectation’
file.”
“Regardless
of our individual social, economic, or media success, it has not affected the
black bottom line.”
“Therefore,
though black progress is more visible today than ever before, I maintain that
the unwritten, audacious promotion of white superiority and black inferiority
was (and still is) the most effective and successful marketing/propaganda campaign
in the history of the world.”
“African
Americans, no matter how savvy, educated, or finically privileged, could not
completely avoid the conditioning that resulted from the increasingly
sophisticated bombardment of subtle and not-so-subtle messages created to
reinforce how different and inherently inferior blacks are when compared to
whites.”
“Although
Jews, like blacks, suffered under a deadly campaign of propaganda and
brainwashing, the effort doesn’t seem to have hampered their long term cultural
evolution or caused stifling psychological impairment.”
Review-
“One of the
frustrations here is the very sketchy way certain subjects are treated. We never really learn why
Dr Dre worked so closely with Suge Knight (played in very intimidating fashion by R. Marcus Taylor) or what happened to Jerry Heller. The East Coast-West
Coast hip hop rivalry is alluded to but never properly explained.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/straight-outta-compton/review/
“Straight Outta
Compton makes you realise the strength of street knowledge is twofold: it gives
you an in-built advantage over the rich and powerful, then allows you to join
their ranks at the earliest possible opportunity.”
“As N.W.A. watches footage
of a black man brutally beaten by a gang of police officers in the streets, we
(in 2015) are dealing with the aftermath of events surrounding people like
Sandra Bland.”
“There’s a lot of story that
needed to be pushed out in two-and-a-half hours, but rushing through the
material leaves little opportunity to explore more emotionally charged moments
in these men’s lives. “
“Some casualties in this
regard were the death of Dre’s younger brother, a split-second moment that only
touches upon the tension between East and West coast rappers; Dre meeting his
future wife, Nicole; E’s physical deterioration; and even one lighter but
random moment where we see Cube working on the script for Friday in the background. “
“Straight Outta Compton is built
on these roles, and though the storytelling may not be fully capable of bearing
the weight of so much plot, you’ll want to break out your old N.W.A. albums and
re-watch Boyz n the Hood and Friday, especially after Jackson exclaims, “Bye,
Felicia!” “
Comment- Jackie, Critic
“They cover the part when Dre beats the hell
out of that female reporter just because he didn't like that unflattering
portrait about the group? Seems like kind of a major point considering it
happened in full view of a lot of people and showed who he was towards the end
of the group's run. I mean, if they were trying to be honest about everything.” This comment may show how the movie
attempted to discourage violence and abuse by leaving this part of the movie
out. This may be one of the main reasons why there weren’t any shootings before
and after the screening in the US.
http://www.people.com/article/dr-dre-issues-apology-straight-outta-compton
"Twenty-five years ago I was a young
man drinking too much and in over my head with no real structure in my life.
However, none of this is an excuse for what I did. I've been married for 19
years and every day I'm working to be a better man for my family, seeking
guidance along the way. I'm doing everything I can so I never resemble that man
again."
"I apologize to the women I've hurt. I deeply regret what I did and know that it has forever impacted all of our lives."
"I apologize to the women I've hurt. I deeply regret what I did and know that it has forever impacted all of our lives."
“Michel'le alleges that Dre was often
physically abusive during their relationship. Tairrie alleges that he attacked
her at a Grammys after-party in 1990 in response to a ‘diss track’ the singer
released. Barnes is the most famous of the accusers: Dre was charged with
assault and battery after he attacked her at a party in 1991.”
Deborah- Comment on the
page
“I truly hate when
journalists leave out critical aspects of a story, and twitter-finger readers
make wild statements based on misinformation and facts they never bother to
research. I do not condone domestic violence. Period. In this case, some people
are reacting with suggestions that Dr. Dre pay money to his victims, that he
donate money to shelters...etc... These suggestions come without realizing that
at least with regard to Dee Barnes, he attacked her because she shaded him
about Ice Cube leaving the group on television (which was her right as a
television personality for Fox's "Pump It Up." He was wrong, and
CONFESSED in court, pleading "no contest." Additionally, he paid
restitution to a domestic violence shelter. And, he did several hours of
community service. He also paid a fine. And, he did in fact make an
anti-domestic violence Public Service Announcement. Additionally...wait for
it...he settled a lawsuit and paid Ms. Barnes actual money. The only reason it
went to court was because, as documented, her attorneys initially told him that
all she wanted was for him to make four songs for her anonymously, which he agreed
to and SIGNED A CONTRACT.”
http://feministing.com/2015/08/17/straight-outta-compton-another-step-in-the-legacy-of-erasing-black-women/
“The portrayal and treatment
of women in the film is despicable, completely glorifying the misogyny laced in
some of NWAs lyrics without restraint or critique.”
“The male characters in the
film paraded around throngs of topless women like trophies and reflections of
their status of achievement. At points, these women were literally cast aside,
and at one point Ice Cube pushed a topless woman – named Felicia – out of the
hotel room in retaliation for her boyfriend searching for her and interrupting
the party.”
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/08/cnn-very-worried-about-violence-straight
“Correct me if I'm wrong,
but it seems to me the movie theatre shootings have been at the hands of white
people, right? So why are we worried about violence, again? Oh, maybe because
the cops dropped bugs in the ears of certain press people suggesting there
might be a higher risk of violence?”
Book- Suspicion
Nation (Trayvon Martin)
“Historian David Levering summarizes it: “Whites commit crimes but blacks are criminals.” While whites can
and do commit a great deal of minor and major crimes, the race as a whole is
never tainted by those acts. But when blacks violate the law, all members
of the race are considered suspect.”
“Remember Zimmerman’s false syllogism? A few blacks committed
burglary, Trayvon was black, therefore Trayvon was a criminal. Similar
logic is used daily in the assumptions police and citizens make about African
Americans, especially young males.”
“The archetype is so prevalent that the
majority of whites and African
Americans agreed
with the statement “blacks are aggressive or violent” in national survey.”
“In support of
these findings, other research indicates that the public generally associates
violent street crime with African Americans.”
“Other nationwide research has shown that the public
perceives that blacks are involved in a greater percentage of violent crime
than official statistics
indicate they actually are.”
“The standard assumption that criminals are black and blacks
are criminals is so prevalent that in one study, 60 percent of viewers who
viewed a crime story with no picture of the perpetrator falsely recalled seeing
one, and of those, 70 percent believed he was African American. When we think
about crime, we “see black,” even when it’s not present at all.”
“In contrast, white slavers, who should have been the real
criminals, imprisoned African Americans on their plantations, forcing them to
live short, harsh lives in extreme poverty, working without any compensation,
constantly subjecting them to regular beatings and threats of violence.”
“Gary Ridgeway, Washington
State’s Green River Killer, was convicted of killing forty-eight girls and
young women but admitted to ninety murders during the 1980s and 1990s. He
returned to the corpses he left along the river to have sexual intercourse with
them. Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, killed three and terrorized many others,
sending mail bombs with his anti-technology screeds to universities and
airports for seventeen years, until 1995. Jeffrey Dahmer, the Milwaukee
Cannibal, raped, murdered, and dismembered seventeen men and boys over thirteen
years, until 1991. Dennis Rader, known as BTK for his signature “bind, torture,
and kill” modus operandi, killed ten in Wichita, Kansas and was on the loose
for decades until his 2005 apprehension…Though each of these men was white,
striking again and again in towns and cities across the United States,
garnering intense media coverage of their crimes and captures, no fear of white
men emerged. Their murders were considered individual acts for which they alone
were responsible.”
“The judge sentencing him pronounced “the scope, callousness,
and depravity of [his] crimes are almost unfathomable.” Yet none of us looks at
white men with concern that they are mob bosses.”
“Rampage killers are often in the news. Nearly every
one who has murdered a large number of people in one horrific event has been
white. American bomber Timothy McVeigh took 168 lives at the federal
building in Oklahoma City in 1995, many of them preschoolers at day care, in
the worst incident of domestic terrorism until 9/11”
“Yet even though these shocking events generate
round-the-clock media attention for days or weeks afterwards, that level of
attention does not scare anyone away from white men…Every American presidential
assassin – the killers of presidents Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William
McKinley, and John F. Kennedy -- has been white, as was the killer of JFK’s
assassin, and the murderers of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F.
Kennedy. Ronald Reagan’s attempted assassin was white, and so were all
those who made attempts on the lives of presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin
D. Roosevelt and Gerald Ford (Ford’s two attempted killers diverged not on
racial but on gender lines, as both were white women).”
“In our nation’s history, so many of the sickest, most
appalling crimes have been committed by whites. Yet no matter how sadistic the
crime, no matter how young the victims, no matter how much fear is engendered
in a community, no matter how much media attention and public discussion the
crimes of whites engender, the race itself is never sullied. One does not look
at a white man or woman and feel concern that pale skin enhances the likelihood
that he or she is an assassin, a bomber, a murderer.”
“Nevertheless, this FBI data
shows that African Americans, who comprise 13 percent of our population, represent
38 percent of inmates in state and federal prisons. That is, blacks are locked
up at nearly three times their rate in population, a shockingly high number.
This statistic is often used in support of the black-as-criminal conclusion…But
these numbers are almost entirely useless, because they are both over- and
under-inclusive. They include a small number of people who may be
innocent as well as a very large number of inmates incarcerated for nonviolent
offenses, especially marijuana possession, which does not strike fear in the
hearts of most people. Worse, these numbers are flawed because they do
not reflect who’s committing the crime, merely who has been apprehended
and locked up. They leave out all the burglars and rapists and
killers who are still on the loose.”
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