Lakeith Stanfield’s Instagram Pic as Propaganda & How to Rewrite the Narrative even if it kills us.

In my 40 years on planet, I never understand the narrative surrounding Hollywood’s obsession with putting dresses on black men as this sort of cultural joke for ha ha’s and giggles.

It’s almost like “what would a black man do for a Klondike Bar”? Although, we understand power, influence, and money as motivations in these instances, a deeper analysis is needed to get to the root of the cause.

If you go onto Google or even Youtube and type in “lakeith stanfield in a dress” you will hear and read of all the backlash and commentary coming his way. Again, I am not here to add to pot of criticism but to add my cultural critique of the situation.

Do I believe that something bigger is at play absolutely? And do I feel that Black men as writers, and creators of the narrative can change those images that are going out over the airwaves yes.

Comedy Hype gives their opinion on the situation. (Take a Look)

If you are going to dive deep into the discussion on how we as black men can fight Against the media; think about the idea of “Propaganda”. According to dictionary.com Propaganda, is defined as “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view”.

In my opinion, it’s the White men who fetishize over Black Men in dresses. It’s a super sick and disgusting narrative that must die at once. In terms of Propaganda, we must understand how corporate media business minds think when it comes to crossing over and appealing to a wider audience. I am not sure if someone put a gun to Lakeith’s head and made him wear those articles of clothing but there was a choice in the matter than was made.

What Hollywood thinks makes good business sense is often degrading and dehumanizing to the black community as a whole. It’s all about the media’s attempt to make Black Men as unappealing to black women as possible. That may seem like an impossible task, but it has worked well since the welfare system of the 60’s, granted black women incentives for not having the black man part of the household.

In May of 2014 Ann Cammett from the SUNY school of Law wrote an article that Depicts this narrative titled “Deadbeat Dads & Welfare Queens: How Metaphor shapes Poverty Law”. (Deadbeat Dads & Welfare Queens: How Metaphor Shapes Poverty Law (cuny.edu)). It’s a lengthy read but worth the time. Nevertheless, it’s about rewriting the narrative one article, degree, movie, documentary, book, video, short, or podcast episode at a time.

In the end never look at what the media is trying to feed you. Take a hard pause and see how people react because that is what Hollywood is doing. They understand that black people are emotional and do things to trigger our senses and garner responses out of our community.

It’s all a big game that is being played and in order to read between the lines you must use logic and separate out the emotions of the moment. Its time to take back control of our narrative and that will never include waiting for Hollywood to put dresses on black men and then responding in a super emotional way without any change to the narrative.

Find your voice and stereotypes and unconscious biases that are being perpetuated against your brotherhood.

Follow me on Instagram: @blkpostr

Follow me on Twitter: @blkpostr