Writing Options for Friday Black
Option One:
Develop a thesis that connects the themes in “The Finkelstein 5,” such as code switching and racial injustice, to themes in the movie Sorry to Bother You.
Option Two:
Compare the themes in “The Finkelstein 5” to the injustices rendered in the Trayvon Martin Case. You can consult the Ta-Nehisi Coates essay, “Trayvon Martin and the Irony of American Justice.”
Option Three:
Develop a thesis that compares the themes in Donald Glover’s music video “This Is America” with the themes in “The Finkelstein 5” and “Zimmer Land.”
Option Four.
Develop a thesis that compares the theme of white racist paranoia in the short stories “The Finkelstein 5” and “Zimmer Land” with the myriad news reports of white people making police complaints about innocent black people.
Option Five.
Compare the theme of racial identity in “The Finkelstein 5” with the Atlanta episode “Montague.” See Washington Post article, Slate article,
Option Six.
In the context of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ essay “The First White President” and “The Finkelstein 5” and “Zimmer Land,” support, refute, or complicate the assertion that in a country that is morally numbed and negligent to the injustices of racism, powerful, bold voices are needed to tear off the bandage and address the root of a cultural wound that continues to fester. Be sure to address those claims that the racist world depicted by Coates and Adjei-Brenyah will have critics who accuse them of exaggeration and over-the-top shock, which these critics will say is counterproductive in America’s dealing with race. Consider as a rebuttal that satire is often used to make people see an old problem in a new way.
“The Finkelstein 5”
Code Switching
The short story addresses code switching, the act of a black person “toning down his blackness” by acting and talking white in order to assuage white anxiety and find acceptance in the dominant white culture.
Essay Topic 1 Code Switching and Sorry to Bother You
Emmanuel’s code switching parallels the code switching in the satirical film Sorry to Bother You.
Self-Abnegation
Every morning Emmanuel must “make a decision about his Blackness.”
Jim Crow Laws in the Modern Age
We like to think we’ve emerged beyond the brutal racism of Jim Crow, but the story addresses the manner in which black people are brutalized by whites and how these whites face no accountability. A horrific murder has taken place, mass decapitation, and the five black children are said to have been a threat for loitering.
Essay Topic 2: Black Lives Matter
The story is addresses crises being confronted by the Black Lives Matter Movement.
Cultural Divide
The murderer George Wilson Dunn drives a Ford F-150. This iconic Ford Truck is a symbol of “middle white America,” which is associated with wanting “America to be white again,” a xenophobic swath that fears diversity.
America is often seen as a division: “coastal elites” or the diverse cities vs. “fly-over America,” the huge fruited plain where whites live.
Stand Your Ground Laws and Trayvon Martin
George Zimmerman was acquitted for the murder of Trayvon Martin in the state of Florida, a state notorious for stand your ground laws, which allows people to shoot others under the excuse of “feeling threatened,” however nebulous such a claim may be. “Feeling threatened” is often white people having racist feelings toward black people.
Essay Topic 3: Trayvon Martin
The Trayvon Martin case is explained in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Atlantic essay.
Essay Topic 4: Media Tribalism and America’s Cold Civil War
The story shows the great media divide. Liberal stations like MSNBC would mourn the murder of these innocent black children. It is also implied that Alt-Right outlets like Alex Jones would side with the white killer George Wilson Dunn and while demonizing the black children. Using dog whistles and stopping short of using racist epithets would be Fox News.
Media tribalism represents the fraying of American society and portends what many believe may be a cold Civil War.
Two books chronicle this American tribalism in the media and politics: The Loudest Voice in the Room by Gabriel Sherman and The Red and the Blue by Steve Kornacki.
Black Frustration and Despair
The black community watches in terror and despair as innocent black lives get killed at a frequent rate. An egregious example is Stephon Clark, who was shot while holding a phone in his grandmother’s backyard. The police claim they thought Stephon was holding a gun.
Emmanuel, his family, and friends suffer a similar reaction upon seeing George Wilson Dunn get away with the murder of the Finkelstein 5.
Image, Code Switching, and Success in America
Emmanuel must transition from the innocent verdict to a job interview at a vintage clothing store and worry about his image. His outfit of Space Jams and black hoodie raises his Blackness to 7.6. He needs to get it down to a 4.2 for the interview.
There is an episode in Atlanta in which the character Tracy (played by Khris Davis) fails to code switch and in a job interview. Here is a short scene from the episode.
Code switching goes too far in an Atlantic parody in which a black man “turns white.”
Code switching is not just about success; it’s about not getting shot; it’s about survival.
Gaslighting
On page 5, George Wilson Dunn’s attorney spews a bunch of chaotic smoke, falsity, and confusion into the faces of his audience. This is called gaslighting, bullying and confusing your audience with chicanery and BS. This is what white America has been using to defend slavery, Jim Crow, and racism since the beginning of America. White Confederacy defenders, members of America’s “Lost Cause” cult, still use gaslighting to this day. Classic examples are when these white cultist deny that the Civil War was over slavery. To this day, they will say that the Civil War was the result of “Northern aggression” and “state rights.” But in truth, only one right mattered: the “right” to slavery.
The attorney says that Dunn is not a murderer. He is a white man who has the right to protect his family. He believed he was in danger. The attorney deflects from the actual facts under a smokescreen of hack rhetoric.
On page 14 and page 16, we see Dunn’s “defense”: it’s white rhetoric of gaslighting. The underlying message is this: Whites can never feel to safe around black people, and whites are entitled to use whatever means necessary to feel safe, even kill innocent black people.
This type of rhetoric, full of white virtue signalling, gives whites a sense of license to abuse the black community like this viral video of a cop tackling a teen girl at a pool party.
Cycle of Violence
After Dunn is acquitted of the killings, a cycle of violence ensues, which of course will be grist for the white racist media mill.
Vigilantism will breed more and more vigilantism.
“Zimmer Land”
Feed Racist Fantasies
An amusement park enacts racist fears and fantasies for white patrons. White patrons want to defend their “safe space.” This satire connects to a lot of stories in the news in which white women are calling the police to arrest black adults and children for trivial reasons like the woman who falsely claimed a black child “molested” her, as we see in the NYT.
We see another Vox article, “Babysitting While Black.”
There is an epidemic of 9/11 calls complaining against innocent black people, as we see reported in CNN.
Rolling Stone has an article: “Why White Women Keep Calling the Cops on Black People.”
The NYT has article: “When White People Call the Police on Black People.”
Here’s a CNN report of the “crime” of not waving.
Here’s a YouTube video of white man calling police on black woman at swimming pool.
Here’s YouTube video of black father at soccer game being unfairly harassed.
Here is a 10-minute PBS video of white people making these racist calls.
White Patrons Hit Black Actors in Amusement Park: Violence Merges with Entertainment
There is a history of black people being hit for white people’s amusement. There were carnivals in the Jim Crow south where a sick game called “The African Dodger” was played. This is part of a long tradition of minstrel shows in America.
Comparing the themes in Black Friday to Donald Glover’s “This Is America.”
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