Stereotypes by Falia S.

Should it be acceptable use stereotypes to prove a point? That is what cartoonist Ed Gamble did in an article published in the Florida Union Times in Jacksonville. In the image, there is black male holding a smoking gun, and he’s wearing a backwards hat, a shirt that says “don’t snitch” and a dead black male laying on his stomach with four gun shots in his back. The gunmen is looking at two black little boys wearing T-shirts that say “don’t snitch”, and they say to him, “I didn’t see nuttin”, and he says to the kids, “that a good little ho!” On the bottom of the image there’s a caption that says the new rule of law. In the background there is a billboard of a black rapper holding a gun with a model on his arm and a caption that says rap your life away. Gamble defends his image because he was tired of the belief people have in urban neighborhoods in Jacksonville which is people should not talk to the police. If someone chooses to talk to the police they would be labeled as a snitch. This message is depicted in some rap music, television, and movies. Crimes may go unsolved due to lack of evidence because of the difficulty to find witnesses. The phrase “snitches get stitches” is commonly used to spread the word throughout the neighborhood snitches will not be tolerated.  Even though I can understand Gamble’s frustration I don’t feel it is necessary to put people down in order to make a point.

 

I feel it is important for people to understand that speaking out against crime is not a negative thing. If people turn a blind eye to crime then nothing will ever change. I condone Gamble for trying to bring awareness to the situation, but I don’t agree with the way he decided to do it. The image attracted so much controversy that it failed to expose the real message. An article by Leslie T. Fenwick called, “Upending Stereotypes about Black Students”. In the article Fenwick says, “Regrettably Americans have been socialized by the scholarly and journalism communities to accept at face value negative data about blacks and been trained to be skeptical about and question any positive information about black people”. If people were able to except differences instead of fearing or criticizing people because they look different then maybe some of these recent killings of black men would not have happened. In an article titled, What Has Changed About Police Brutality In America, From Rodney King To Michael Brown by Nicole Flatow she says, “The mentality is that these lives in the ghetto are not to be valued”. I believe Flatow was saying if you look at a group of people as less than or not having any value then you would not feel the need to respect them. Look at Gambles no snitching image I can see the lack of respect of a community.

I’m not saying this issue is one sided everybody uses stereotypes, but when a certain group is being killed because of the color of their skin than that’s an issue that needs attention. When you look at a lot of their recent cases most of the time the authorities justify using extreme force by saying looked suspicious. That makes me wonder what does a suspicious person look like? If the answer to that question starts with a black male then it seems as though we have not made any progression this society.