Michael Dennis
The New Jim Crow
Professor Young
1/25/17
Although
I liked many of the posters that I viewed from the list, there was one poster
that stood out to me. For that reason, I chose this poster for the topic of
discussion. You can see the symbolism of the ongoing, never-ending battle
between dark and lights forces or love and hate within the Ying and Yang type background
layout of the poster. You can see the symbolism of the female super hero rising
above madness in her purple and gold church like color schemed costume. The
church has always played a big role in the lives of African Americans since
slavery times. The first thing that stood out to me about this poster was the
quote by Dr. Martin Luther King. It is ironic because I posted this same quote
on my Facebook page today. To me this quotes is saying that while the struggle
may continue on, we cannot try to overcome the darkness of negative forces and
negative energy with more darkness and negativity; we must rise above the
madness, we must turn the other cheek, and we most spread peace and love even
in the face of negativity and hate. We see this ongoing battle in our world
today. As Americans we often are quick to make assumptions and categorize
people based of the actions of others who are similar or part of their race,
religion, or social group. For instance, when a police officer shoots and kills
someone in the black community you often see these communities come together in
sadness and anger and often many of these people develop a lack of trust and
disconnect from all officers because of the actions of one or a few. While
often there are peaceful protest that follow, in some cases, riots start and in
the end all that gets accomplished is the destruction of a city. In this sense
fighting darkness with darkness or hate with hate did not help them rise above
or achieve anything but rather brought them down a bit. Instead when faced with
adversary, we must think rationally and respond appropriately such as a
peaceful protest. We cannot fight violence with violence. We must love our
enemy. Dr. Martin Luther King once said that “Another reason why we must love
our enemies is that hate scars the soul and distorts the personality”.
