When
I went down to New Orleans this past winter break I noticed these billboards
that were out of the ordinary. They didn’t advertise for anywhere or anything,
but were there to simply make you think. The one I remember seeing said "Don't
follow the script," which was in reference to black men and the high
number of black men who were ending up in jail in New Orleans. I had not
thought about the billboards since that day until now. Kate Stuckslager's post
"Criminal Rights and the Criminal Justice System," which talks about
the higher percentage of black arrests in comparison to whites, and the racism
that fueled those arrests, jogged my memory concerning the bill board so I
looked up its message and found an article about the campaign from Nola.com. The
Mayor of New Orleans hired the famous filmmaker, Spike Lee, to design and
produce the campaign.
To
me, what the campaign really points out is that within the narrative of the
cool, deadly gangster is the more powerful idea that violence affects everyone
in the community old, young, white, or black. Mayor Landrieu used one of the
motivations for creating the campaign as an example when he talks about the
five year old girl, who was hit by a stray bullet aimed at an in related young man. I
remember seeing the newspaper one day and it had a front page dedicated to the
children who had died as a result of stray bullets.
Furthermore,
the campaign shows that even for the life of the gangster, there still lies
personal choice and the ability to change oneself. Within the life of a
convict, the possibility exists to turn your life around, or ‘flip the
script.’ Flip the script before anything bad even happens is the ideal situation of course. One billboard says, “BLACK MAN RETURNS WITH GUN AND TAKES VICTIM’S
LIFE AROUND 2:45,” but with certain letters in bold to create an inner message,
“BLACK MAN TURNS LIFE AROUND.” It is a message to black men that violence is not something to be proud of, and that it should be avoided.
Spike
Lee states that when it comes down to it, “We are killing each other at an
alarming rate. You can spin that however you want to. But the fact remains: we
are killing ourselves.” So the bottom line for me is that the billboards deliver a warning of what can happen, a message of hope that there exists a better alternative.
The campaign idea is an interesting one, and I have negative and positive feelings about it. While on the one hand, the idea behind it is meant to be positive and help empower Black men to break the cycle of violence and rise above the stereotypes that are projected on them. At the same time though, these the are public billboards. The images are up for all of the residents of New Orleans, and its many visitors, to see. While these may be realities for some Black men in New Orleans, publicly calling attention to them may not be the best way to solve the issue. Even if it does help the problem, it also perpetuates negative stereotypes that will stick around a lot longer than the billboards.
ReplyDeleteThe creation of these billboards is very interesting and while it infuriates me that this is a reality for Black men, I think that these billboards are necessary. Billboards and other advertisements send us messages whether they be subconscious or not. The fact that Black men are warehoused in prisons intentionally (prison-industrial complex) is an harsh reality that all Americans should grapple with. While many rot away in prisons, others go on to live their lives without even the slightest concern for these human lives. That being said, it is not a bad thing that this fact is related publicly is actually a tiny step towards progress.
ReplyDelete